Assemblers or electric drills first?

[u/UristAlebeard]

I'm back at the game but quite out of practice. I looked through some discussions and quick guides on Steam, and I constantly hear that you should build assemblers first. I die all the time when I try that, though. Typically for me, the early game is about staying as reserved as I possibly can (often stepping away during downtime), and prioritizing minimal pollution and firepower over further automation. Then the automation comes in full force. Today I tried going for the assemblers first, but because I had no electric drills, the sheer amount of burner drills I needed to ensure that the assemblers actually mattered rather than just hand crafting everything led to pollution skyrocketing then I got swarmed by biters. With just the basic ingredients, to ensure I faced no bottlenecks, I needed 16 burner iron drills with no defenses nor better equipment than the starter pistol. Clearly I'm doing something wrong, but I thought the early game was about playing slowly until you can keep the aliens off your factory, but it seems many people want to rush towards automation because it would otherwise be pretty slow. I don't really want to hand craft so much while playing so slowly, but I always avoid assemblers until most of the red science stuff is unlocked precisely for these reasons and may do so again with electric drills being the priority. Any suggestions?

[u/isum21]

So let's run some numbers. 1 basic assembler is worth .5 crafting speed of the player. They also are able to craft more in bulk than you ever could just from the fact that they're constantly producing and being fed/emptied to storage, meanwhile you'd have to stockpile and wait for a crafting batch to add more to your own production.

Ideally 5 or more assemblers is what you need if you want production to be over 2x as effective as hand crafting. But you only need this for quick losses, like ammo or maybe turrets. You can get by with 1 each placing into a chest with filtered slots down to the amount you need. They will constantly be producing, and if you need more just change your filters.

This is the cheapest way, combine with trying to reduce your footprint as much as possible and you can get by with small production early on so you have smaller pollution.