Having the right tiles means nothing if your upgrade order is wrong. For the current "UPD," follow this strict rotation:

If you deviate from this order (e.g., upgrading belts before Assembers), your factory will stall before 10 minutes of runtime.

Before placing a single tile, you must understand the three golden rules of the Leek Factory Tycoon meta:

The developer quietly added a hidden mechanic in the last patch: Adjacency Bonuses for certain machines. Most players miss this.

To use this in your "best setup": Arrange your 8 processing arms so that each arm’s Speed Booster and Value Booster face each other across the conveyor line. Then, put a Power Plant at the center touching the Quantum Dropper. This hidden synergy is why the Octopus layout dominates the leaderboards.