Mostly, early on, I’d tap what I need and produce everything I can from it

I automate pretty much every part I can with a focus on the current objective, and leave things running indefinitely

As I go up in tiers I’ll upgrade miners and belts if it makes sense, like I could get something I need by expanding existing production and there’s room available

At higher tiers, I mostly set out to solve a specific need, like I need to make these parts and I want them produced at this rate, so I start by looking at what I already have, and the components I don’t have I’ll set up production for

I rarely set out to completely max out a node right out of the gate, unless that makes sense for what I need

By the end phase, my build schematics were surprisingly simple as a lot of it was just bringing production together and extending, overclocking, and/or slopping to feed the inputs I needed

For the four iron nodes, I probably tap one or two because that’s what I need right now and build my platforms covering the rest which I’ll maybe open up and tap later if needed

A friend of mine, however, has made these stackable blueprints with as many of each maker building as he can cram into them. He’ll then go to a set of nodes and start dropping a massive tower of these things together to set up an absolutely unholy amount of whatever it is he needs. His landscape is dotted with these monster factories reaching skyscraper height