Final Factory — station build guide: stability, power, heat and ratios

Final Factory (Never Games Limited, Early Access since 9 April 2024) is a space factory game where the thing you build is not a building but a station grid: a set of structures physically joined together that shares power, heat and one shared stability budget. Almost every mistake a new player makes comes from building the factory first and discovering those three budgets afterwards.

This guide is the order to build in, the recipes with their ratios attached, and the numbers behind stability, power and heat. It is written for Final Factory 0.21.0.23 (Steam news, 9 September 2026), with the caveat that the community wiki's data tables predate the 0.21 heat rework and cargo-ship rebalance — every place that matters is flagged in the text.

What a station actually is

Three production buildings do all the crafting, and the split matters:

Three rules bind the grid together:

• Structures must be connected to share power, heat and stability. Two Mining Stations placed side by side count as two separate stations until a Connector, Strut or Armor Block joins them.
• Stability is a per-grid budget. Over it, structures stop functioning.
• Heat is per-grid too, and only some structures produce it.

Ships are emitted into the ship logistics network, not into Connectors — a Ship Assembler will not feed a belt.

Stability: the budget that decides your layout

The rule of thumb from the wiki: a structure's stability cost equals the number of tiles it occupies. A Solar Panel costs 2, a Station Core costs 9. Each grid gets 50 free stability before you need to add anything.

What fixes stability:

Struts are more potent than they read: one strut on an Assembler (4 stability) attached to another Assembler can take it to zero. The wiki's own tip goes further — good strut work "mostly render[s] Station Cores unnecessary". The trap is that they are directional, so a strut can silently be relieving a structure that is already at zero.

Two stability numbers I could not verify. The community beginner guide states that a core-less grid fails at "~35" stability and that a grid with a basic Station Core "cannot exceed 115 Station Stability". The datamined values (50 free, +91 per first core) do not reproduce that 115 figure, so treat both as unverified. Plan with the 50-plus-core numbers, and read the current stability value off a connected Station Core.

Power

Every powered structure has two draws: an idle draw that is on all the time it is connected, and a max draw when it is actually working. Insufficient power means slower production or a full stop — not a shutdown.

Consumption for the structures you will build in the first few hours:

Production:

Worked example — a first printing block. One Atomic Printer, one Assembler, six Connectors, one Logistics Bay, one Cargo Hold and one Station Core:

• idle: 2 + 2 + 6 + 1 + 1 + 4 = 16 kW
• max: 5 + 10 + 6 + 1 + 1 + 4 = 27 kW

At 7 kW per panel that is 3 panels to cover idle and 4 to cover max; at the contested 5 kW figure it is 4 and 6. Two Antimatter Power Stations (28 kW) cover the whole block, or one station with two collectors (38 kW) does it with room to grow.

The reason to care about the split: idle draw is what your power budget must permanently carry. Late game the wiki's recommended trick is a Power Receiver — move the generation off the assembly station entirely so it stops burdening that grid's stability, and beam it in from a station that has nothing else to do.

Heat

Only these structures generate heat:

Cooling:

Each Heat Exchanger accepts up to 3 Radiators, so a single exchanger covers anywhere from 1 to 16 C/s. Placement rules: the exchanger needs a 2-block-wide connection to the station and is 3 blocks long; radiators are 2×3 and attach on the exchanger's centred 2-block side. If the exchanger has more than one connection point, all of them must be attached or it will not work.

Worked example. Four Atomic Printers feeding one Assembler is 4 × 0.50 + 0.50 = 2.5 C/s. One Heat Exchanger with a single Radiator is 6.0 C/s — nearly 2.5× headroom. A bare Heat Exchanger (1.0 C/s) is not enough for that block.

The 0.21 heat rework changes how this feels. As of 0.21.0.21 (11 August 2026): stations take much longer to overheat, overheat is highlighted on the map, unstable stations no longer generate heat at all, and background cooling was slowed to 0.1 C/s — "10x slower than before (no effect on heatsinks)". Read that as: the rates in the tables above are still the wiki's pre-0.21 datamine, and the practical overheat timers are now far more forgiving than those numbers suggest. Budget the 1-to-16 C/s coverage and you are safe either way.

The production chain, with ratios

Everything traces back to three ores and two comet resources:

Components (Atomic Printer, always 2 ore per item):

Intermediates (Assembler):

Because every component is two ore, the ore cost of an intermediate is short:

One warning about the "recipe rate" column. Every wiki structure and item page quotes an Items per min that is exactly 60 ÷ its craft time — I checked the pairs (0.4/150, 0.5/120, 1/60, 2/30, 3/20, 4/15, 8/7.5) and they all divide exactly. So those rates are 100% speed rates, and the machines that run them are the 50%-speed printers and assemblers. Halve them.

Belt arithmetic. A Connector carries 4.5 items/s = 270 items/min. Since a 2-ore recipe consumes two items per unit produced, one Connector can feed at most 135 items/min of a component recipe — under the quoted 150/min, so the printer is never the bottleneck at the ore end. Mining Stations produce roughly 1–1.5 ore/s each (community figure, approximate), so about 3 Mining Stations saturate one Connector, and that belt then caps Low Density Structure at about 45/min. Chain multiple Mining Stations into one output with Connectors to save space and saturate the belt.

Structures you will build, with their recipes

Ships (Ship Assembler):

The Bat's combat line: damage 2–3, range 130, cooldown 0.75 s, projectile speed 150, fleet capacity cost 1. The Asteroid Research Bot scans at 8 s per trip, self-destructs after gathering 10, and must be replaced continuously — its production has to be automated or research stalls. (Its speed 25 is slow; it walks to the nearest Asteroid Research Station itself.)

What each structure costs in raw ore

Each wiki page also lists the structure's total raw ore, which is what you actually mine. I recomputed all of them from the recipe chain above and 24 of 26 match exactly:

The two that do not reconcile, and which I am flagging rather than copying:

• Connector — the page lists Ice 2 in its ore column, but the Connector's recipe (4 Low Density + 1 Medium Density) contains no Ice anywhere in the chain.
• Repair Center — the page lists 32 Iron, but its recipe is 8 Medium Density Structure, which is 16 Iron. (32 is what Ship Yard's 16 Medium Density costs; the two pages also share the same Total Mass figure.)

Neither error changes how you play, but they are the reason to compute a build cost from the recipe instead of reading a single number off a table. Laser Turret and Comet Catcher include Mass Energy Converter and Singularity Field Generator in their chains; those two item pages did not load for me, so their raw-ore columns are the wiki's claim and not something I could check.

The opening: research, then automation

The tutorial hands out research points for completing its steps, and the first five technologies are cheap:

Two things to know going in:

• The tutorial's "complete step" button pays out whether or not you did the step. That is the fastest research you will ever get; take it.
• Automate the three components immediately. Low Density Structure, Medium Density Structure and AI Controller Circuit appear in nearly every structure recipe. The wiki's blunt warning: skip this and you will spend a large part of the early game hand-crafting.

Hand-crafting controls worth memorising: left click crafts one item, right click crafts five; Ctrl+click a structure to pull a stack without opening it; Shift+right click copies a structure's settings and shift+left click pastes them; Q samples a structure; R rotates; Ctrl+X/C/V cut/copy/paste a box (and save it as a blueprint); Alt+D mass-deletes a box.

The early mining loop: place Mining Stations as close to the asteroid as possible (output falls off with distance and fluctuates with how many bots are active), and keep them supplied with Miner Bots from the Ship Assembler — an unfed Mining Station does nothing. Place the Asteroid Research Station near an asteroid the same way, and automate Asteroid Research Bots so research never stops while you build.

Layout: the three-bay backbone

The community beginner guide's layout, which is the one to copy: build a production line, not a blob.

1. Build 3 Logistics Bays and feed them the backbone components — Low Density Structure, Medium Density Structure and AI Controller Circuit — from the stations where they are produced (ideally at the asteroid mining areas).
2. Build factory sections forward from the bays in a line, adding extra Logistics Bays as each section needs them. Injecting a new resource later is easy on a backbone and painful in a blob.
3. Give each finished output a Cargo Hold so you can pull structures by hand quickly.
4. Keep the factory modular. This is a stability constraint before it is a taste: strain on one huge grid forces cores, cores cost stability, and the wiki's advice is to keep each Station Grid focused on one job and link grids through the space logistics network.

Logistics rules that decide whether the layout works:

Pathing trivia that saves rebuilds: Cargo Drones fly over almost everything except Logistics Bays and other drones, so drone lanes and bays need planned lanes. Inserter Bots ignore drone paths. F5 hides drones and F3 hides the fleet when you need to build underneath them.

Research order

Research is split in two: New Research is the amount you must spend, while Asteroid / Planetary / Stellar / Black Hole Research are typed pools you must actually generate — by Asteroid Research Stations at asteroids, Planetary Research Stations at Terra Worlds, Stellar Research Stations at stars, and later from black holes. Higher-tier technologies therefore require you to have physically expanded to that kind of object.

Asteroid Research (the whole tier)

Two ordering notes from that table: Thermal Management (50 New) is the gate behind Antimatter Power, Laser Turrets and Power Distribution — it is the cheapest high-value unlock in the tier, and Power Distribution is what lets you move generation off your production grids. Cargo Logistics (80 New, 80 Asteroid) is the one technology that changes your layout rather than your capabilities.

Planetary and Stellar Research (abridged to the shape of the tier)

The last tier is a single node: Dark Clip Manufacturing, 50,000 New Research plus 5,000 Black Hole Research, requiring Singularity Navigation.

Technical research (repeatable, and worth it)

• Fleet Command raises fleet capacity. Level 1 costs 20 New Research for +20 capacity; the ladder runs 80 / 150 / 200 / 1000 / 6000 / 10000 New Research with +20 +20 +20 +20 +40 +40 +40, then an infinite tier at +5 each.
• Bat Damage is 15% per level, level 1 for 20 New Research, up to level 7 (level 7 is 2000 New Research + 10000 Asteroid Research). Note the wiki's row for level 2 has its amount fields transposed onto the level-3 row — read it as a gap, not a free level.
• Mining Productivity (5 levels then infinite) and Fleet Repair Augments also exist; the mining ladder runs 1000 → 5000 New Research over five levels, then infinite tiers from 5000 New + 1500+ Asteroid + 3000+ Planetary, adding Stellar and finally Black Hole Research.

Defense

Enemy pressure is driven by global stability — the wiki's phrasing is that higher global stability attracts tougher and more frequent attacks, and the number is visible in the statistics panel. Two 0.21 changes to know:

• Defense Platforms and Solar Panels no longer generate signal, which softens the early game threat considerably (0.21.0.21).
• Overheating and unstable stations are no longer the aggro problem they were — unstable stations stop generating heat at all.

Early: overlap Defense Platforms fitted with Bats around the perimeter. Bats have 15 HP and are cheap; they die fast by mid game. Research Laser Turrets early and prepare a defence blueprint.

The turret platform from the community guide, which is a complete recipe:

1. Station Core, with 8 Laser Turrets around one side at 1-tile spacing so a Connector can run past and fuel them.
2. Add an Exploration Center to push back the fog, and 1–2 Defense Platforms to add combat ships.
3. Add a Logistics Bay to feed turret fuel automatically, Antimatter Power Station for power (better power per structure point than solar here), and a couple of Repair Centers so the platform heals between waves.
4. Ring the outside with Armor Blocks — they cost no stability and still carry power and heat.
5. Set the Defense Platform's Attack Range below the turrets' range so its ships do not fly out and suicide, and set Alert Range 50–100 m outside your armour so neighbouring platforms join the fight. Attack range is settable 0–450 m, alert range 0–150 m; platforms within alert range of each other fight as one squad, and that is what cuts your losses.
6. Ctrl+C over the finished station and save it as a blueprint; place copies with R to rotate.

Fuel is the ongoing cost. Laser Turrets run on charge from a Capacitor (max charge 30) and burn whatever item you feed them — every item on the wiki lists a Fuel Time. The guide's advice is to rush Comet Catching and use Comet Catchers for a permanent Ice supply rather than burning finite ore.

Knights (200 New + 1000 Asteroid Research, after Singularity Generation) are worth researching before the base gets big: they are far more durable than Bats and mix well with them.

Two structural facts that catch people out:

• Ship requests are range-limited. Ships cannot be requested from a Ship Assembler 600 m or more away, so reinforcing a distant station fails. Ship Yards have infinite request range, so keep one near where you actually fly.
• Comet Catchers kill things. Comets damage anything in their path, including your own ships — decide where that is deliberately.

Ore, asteroids and comets

• Asteroids hold finite ore, starting from about 100k; further asteroids hold more, and Bauxite Asteroids alone range from under 100,000 to over 1 million ore.
• When an asteroid is nearly finished it glows, then explodes. Stage a backup asteroid before that happens or the line stops.
• Three asteroid types — Iron, Bauxite and Silica — each give 25 Asteroid Research when researched, and each feeds one base component.
• Ice is not on asteroids. Early on it comes from Comet Fragments, which is why the first exploration push is for comets; Organic Compounds come from the same place and are what you need before Greenhouse Stations.
• Terra Worlds give 75 Planetary Research and are mined for Urso Citizens (feeding Dark Matter Structures). Main Sequence Stars give 300 Stellar Research, Red Giants 350, Neutron Stars 400 — the further out, the more research per object.

Traps

1. Hand-crafting the three components. They are in nearly every structure recipe; the wiki says automating them is the difference between a factory and a grind.
2. Assuming adjacent structures are one station. They are not until a Connector, Strut or Armor Block connects them, and until then they do not share power, heat or stability.
3. Discovering stability when structures stop working. Watch the stability readout on a connected Station Core and add Struts (which cost stability themselves) rather than reflexively adding cores.
4. One giant grid instead of modular grids. The wiki's own advice is one job per Station Grid, linked by the space logistics network.
5. Budgeting power on max draw only. Idle draw is permanent — sixteen kilowatts of it in a single early printing block.
6. Expecting a Heat Exchanger to be enough on its own. It dissipates 1.0 C/s without Radiators; four printers and an assembler make 2.5 C/s.
7. Attaching a Junction straight to a building. It needs a Connector in between.
8. Guessing which way a Strut points. There is no visual cue, so rotate and compare the stability number.
9. Placing Mining Stations away from the rock. Output drops with distance and fluctuates with active bots; an unfed Mining Station does nothing at all.
10. Leaving a Logistics Bay half used. Two stacks of one item wastes the other slot — plan two items per bay.
11. Burning ore in Laser Turrets. Fuel time is a per-item stat; infinite Ice from Comet Catchers is the answer.
12. Expecting a distant Ship Assembler to resupply you. 600 m is the limit; Ship Yards have none.
13. Trusting one ore figure off a table. Two of the wiki's raw-ore columns do not reconcile with their own recipes (Connector's phantom Ice 2, Repair Center's 32 vs 16 Iron) — compute from the recipe.
14. Treating the wiki's numbers as current. Its data tables predate 0.21: cargo ships are now called Barges (more storage, load speed and range, slower acceleration, and a configurable range slider shared with Inserter Bots), heat works differently, and Logistics Bay inventory size was still being rebalanced at that point.

Sources

Every number above was read from these pages. Game version: 0.21.0.23, released 9 September 2026; the previous significant releases were 0.21.0.22 (24 August 2026) and 0.21.0.21 (11 August 2026, heat rework and cargo-ship rebalance).

• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Main_Page and https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Guide:Contents (community wiki, the game's main data source; Fandom has no Final Factory wiki and the wiki's own data tables are the community's datamine)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Guide:Ultimate_Final_Factory_Beginners_Guide (layout, defence-platform recipe, mining-station saturation, printer/assembler ratios)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Stability (50 free stability, cost equals tiles, Station Core bonuses, Strut behaviour)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Power (consumer idle/max table, producer outputs)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Heat (producer heat and max temperatures, dissipation values)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Resource_Points (asteroid types and ore totals, research bonuses, comets, space rocks)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Research (the full research tree and every cost quoted above)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Tips_and_Tricks (structure binding, strut behaviour, pathing, hotkeys, tutorial points, ship-request range, global-stability aggro)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Combat (fleet abilities, laser turret fuel, comet catcher hazard)
• https://finalfactory.game-vault.net/wiki/Items_and_Recipes and the individual structure and item pages: Atomic_Printer, Assembler, Ship_Assembler, Connector, Junction, Strut, Cargo_Hold, Logistics_Bay, Mass_Driver, Mining_Station, Station_Core, Ship_Yard, Repair_Center, Exploration_Center, Defense_Platform, Asteroid_Research_Station, Heat_Exchanger, Radiator, Solar_Panel, Capacitor, Antimatter_Power_Station, Comet_Catcher, Comet_Harvester, Laser_Turret, Networked_Storage_Hold, Low_Density_Structure, Medium_Density_Structure, AI_Controller_Circuit, Robotic_Parts, Fabricator, Plasma_Engine_Parts, Solid_State_Laser, Cargo_Drone, Inserter_Bot, Bat, Asteroid_Research_Bot, Iron_Ore, Bauxite_Ore, Silica_Ore, Ice, Organic_Compounds (recipes, craft times, stability, power, heat, ore columns)
• Steam news for app 1383150: https://api.steampowered.com/ISteamNews/GetNewsForApp/v2/?appid=1383150 (0.21.0.23, 0.21.0.22, 0.21.0.21 — heat rework, barge rename and rebalance, aggro rebalance, connector speed fix)
• https://store.steampowered.com/app/1383150/Final_Factory/ (Early Access since 9 April 2024, developer Never Games Limited)

Things I could not verify, and did not fill in: the reliability of the community guide's stability figures ("~35" without a core, 115 with a basic Station Core) — they do not reconcile with the datamined 50/+91; whether a Solar Panel makes 5 kW or 7 kW; whether the Ship Assembler runs at the 40 its infobox claims or the 25% its text claims; the Mass Energy Converter and Singularity Field Generator recipes (their pages would not load), so the Laser Turret and Comet Catcher raw-ore columns are the wiki's claim only; Mining Station and Ship Yard stability costs, which the pages do not state; and the exact "Items per min" a machine achieves, since those figures are 100%-speed rates against 50%-speed buildings. The wiki's per-structure numbers are a datamine of a pre-0.21 build; the 0.21 heat rework in particular means the practical overheat timings now differ from the rates tabulated above.