Progress in Satisfactory is measured in tiers, unlocked at the 
HUB by researching milestones – schematics bought with items you deliver to the HUB terminal, no crafting time beyond a short unlock delay. There are 48 milestones from Tier 0 to Tier 9; most give you one or more new buildings or recipes, and several add +3 inventory slots or +1 equipment hand slot.
Tiers don't unlock purely from milestones: Tier 3/4 need Space Elevator phase 1, Tier 5/6 need phase 2, Tier 7/8 need phase 3 and Tier 9 needs phase 4 – see Space Elevator & Project Assembly for what each phase costs.
Roadmap by tier
| Tier | Milestones | Key unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | HUB Upgrade 1–6 | Equipment Workshop, Portable Miner, Smelter, Constructor, Space Elevator, Biomass Burner |
| 1 | Base Building, Logistics, Field Research | Foundations/walls/ramps, Conveyor Splitter & Merger, MAM, map |
| 2 | Part Assembly, Obstacle Clearing, Jump Pads, Resource Sink Bonus Program, Logistics Mk.2 | Assembler, Chainsaw, AWESOME Sink & Shop, Conveyor Belt Mk.2 |
| 3 | Coal Power, Vehicular Transport, Basic Steel Production, Enhanced Asset Security | Coal-Powered Generator, Water Extractor, Pipeline Mk.1, Foundry & Steel, Xeno-Basher |
| 4 | Advanced Steel Production, Expanded Power Infrastructure, Hypertubes, FICSIT Blueprints, Logistics Mk.3 | Miner Mk.2, Power Towers & Storage, Hypertubes, Blueprint Designer Mk.1, Conveyor Belt Mk.3 |
| 5 | Oil Processing, Fluid Packaging, Petroleum Power, Logistics Mk.4, Jetpack | Refinery, Packager, Fuel-Powered Generator, Trucks, Jetpack |
| 6 | Industrial Manufacturing, Monorail Train Technology, Pipeline Engineering Mk.2, FICSIT Blueprints Mk.2, Railway Signalling | Manufacturer, Trains & Railways, Pipeline Mk.2, Blueprint Designer Mk.2 |
| 7 | Bauxite Refinement, Logistics Mk.5, Hazmat Suit, Control System Development, Hoverpack | Aluminium chain (Refinery), Conveyor Belt Mk.5, Hazmat Suit, Blender, Hoverpack |
| 8 | Aeronautical Engineering, Nuclear Power, Advanced Aluminum Production, Leading-Edge Production, Particle Enrichment | Drones, Nuclear Power Plant, Resource Well Extractor & Pressurizer, Particle Accelerator |
| 9 | Matter Conversion, Quantum Encoding, FICSIT Blueprints Mk.3, Spatial Energy Regulation, Peak Efficiency | Converter, Quantum Encoder, Portals, Conveyor Belt Mk.6, Ficsonium |
How milestones are paid
Each milestone lists a fixed cost in basic parts (Iron Rod, Iron Plate, Wire, Concrete, Cable early on; Steel and Aluminium parts from the mid tiers) delivered once to the HUB terminal – there is no recurring upkeep. Costs scale with the tier: Tier 0's six milestones together need a few hundred basic parts, while a single Tier 9 milestone can ask for thousands of high-tier parts such as Alclad Aluminum Sheet or Radio Control Unit. Only the six Tier 0 HUB Upgrades complete instantly (0 minutes) once delivered; every milestone from Tier 1 onward has its own unlock timer, typically 2–20 minutes (Base Building 2 min, Field Research 3 min, Logistics 4 min, up to 20 min for the largest Tier 8/9 milestones).
Several recipes referenced by name above (Steel Beam, Computer, Heavy Modular Frame, and so on) also have alternate versions discovered from Hard Drives rather than tier progression – see Alternate recipes & Hard Drives. For the buildings a tier unlocks, the Buildings list can be filtered or searched by name.