The MAM in Satisfactory: Every Research Tree Explained

The MAM is the progression system that does not tell you it exists. Milestones are handed to you at the HUB; MAM research waits until you happen to pick up the right thing, and players who treat it as optional reach the mid-game measurably worse off.

What it is and where it comes from

The Molecular Analysis Machine unlocks at Tier 1, in the “Field Research” milestone. It costs 5 Reinforced Iron Plate among other early parts and occupies a 5 by 9 metre footprint.

The crucial structural difference: MAM research is divided into trees, not into tiers. Nothing gates it behind your progression. A tree opens when you first pick up the item that starts it, which is why exploration and research are the same activity.

When you collect something researchable, ADA says so. That prompt is easy to ignore, and ignoring it is how people end up at Tier 6 still using base recipes and walking everywhere.

The nine trees

Tree	Started by	What it gives you
Hard Drive	Hard drives from crash sites	Alternate recipes
Caterium	Caterium ore	Quickwire, Geothermal Generator, Zipline, the best wire recipes
Quartz	Raw Quartz	Blade Runners, Object Scanner upgrades, silica chain
Mycelia	Mycelia from foliage	Parachute, Gas Mask, Fabric, Medicinal Inhaler
Sulfur	Sulfur ore	Nobelisk Detonator, Rebar Gun, Compacted Coal, explosives
Power Slugs	Power Slugs	Overclocking, Power Shard conversion
Alien Megafauna	Remains from creatures	Alien protein chains, medical items
Alien Technology	SAM and related	Dimensional Depot, SAM chains, late-game systems
Nutrients	Foraged plants	Consumables and healing

Notice what is on that list. Overclocking is MAM research. So are Blade Runners, the Gas Mask, the Nobelisk Detonator, and every alternate recipe in the game. None of it arrives through milestones.

Only one research runs at a time

You can build multiple MAMs. It does not let you research in parallel — only one item can be researched at a time regardless of how many machines you own.

The practical consequence with hard drives, which take a fixed 10 minutes each: acquiring drives faster than one per 10 minutes builds a backlog rather than speeding anything up. Build one MAM, keep it fed, and put the materials you saved into something else.

What to research first

Ranked by how much difference each makes to the hours immediately after unlocking it:

Quartz, for Blade Runners. Running speed from 6 to 9 m/s, doubled jump height, reduced fall damage. This applies to every minute you spend on foot for the rest of the playthrough and the chain is short.

Power Slugs, for overclocking. Without this, the slugs you have been collecting do nothing at all. It also unlocks the conversion recipes between slug colours and shards.

Caterium. The single highest-leverage resource in the game for recipe quality — it holds the two best wire recipes, the best stator recipe, and feeds the best circuit board alternate. It also gives you the Zipline and the Geothermal Generator, which is free power.

Mycelia, for the Gas Mask. A large share of collectible locations sit in gas-heavy areas, and without the mask you simply cannot go there.

Sulfur, for the Nobelisk Detonator. This is the only tool that clears cracked boulders, and some resource nodes are blocked by them. Until you have it, those nodes are unusable.

Hard Drives, continuously. Every alternate recipe comes from here, and several of them halve the ore cost of things you make constantly.

The pattern worth internalising

Every one of those trees is started by something you will pick up incidentally while doing something else. Caterium ore on a hillside, mycelia from foliage you walked through, a slug on a rock.

So the habit that costs nothing and pays throughout: when ADA announces a researchable item, go and start the research. Not later. The scan runs on a timer while you play, so starting one on your way past the MAM is free.

Players who batch research into dedicated sessions spend a lot of time waiting. Players who start a scan every time they walk past always have one cooking.

Research needs the items in your inventory

Individual research is completed by having the required items in your inventory and clicking research at the machine. Some nodes want quantities you will need to go and collect deliberately.

Two consequences:

Check requirements before an expedition. If a tree wants twenty of something you find in caves, one trip that collects twenty beats four trips that collect five.

Some research consumes the items. Notably the overclocking unlock consumes slugs and a shard. Budget for that rather than being surprised.

In multiplayer everything is shared

MAM research is a property of the save. One person unlocking a tree unlocks it for everybody, and the alternate recipe chosen from a hard drive is chosen for the whole world.

Agree who is doing research before someone picks an option nobody wanted. This is the most common source of avoidable friction in a co-op game.

A realistic research order through a playthrough

Rather than a checklist, the sequence most efficient runs follow, driven by what you naturally encounter:

First few hours. Mycelia appears the moment you walk through foliage, so that tree opens early. Take the Parachute if you are exploring; the Gas Mask can wait until you have a reason.

As soon as you find Quartz. Blade Runners immediately. This is the earliest change that improves every subsequent hour.

As soon as you find Caterium. Work the tree properly rather than taking one node. The wire recipes and the Zipline both pay off quickly, and the Geothermal Generator becomes relevant the first time you pass a geyser.

Once you have slugs accumulating. Unlock overclocking before you have a use for it, so the slugs you pick up in passing are worth something.

Sulfur when you hit a blocked node. The Nobelisk Detonator is the answer to a specific problem, and you will know when you have that problem.

Alien Technology in the late game. SAM chains and the Dimensional Depot arrive with the mid-to-late progression, and there is little point rushing them.

Hard drives run alongside all of it, continuously, whenever you have one.

Common mistakes

Treating the MAM as optional. Overclocking, Blade Runners, the Gas Mask and every alternate recipe live there, none of them tier-gated.

Building a second MAM to research faster. Only one research runs at a time.

Ignoring ADA’s research prompts. That prompt is the only notification a tree has opened.

Batching research into sessions. Start scans in passing; they run while you play.

Scanning hard drives without agreeing who chooses. The unlock applies to everyone.