I've been playing Satisfactory for about the entire time that it's been in Open Alpha now (and also have it preordered), and found some vaguely interesting things - from unexpected game mechanics, to really cool discoveries. Let's take a look at what we might also see in Early Access of the game!
Ground Ore Nodes have different Purity
Purity of a Node affects the speed at which something is gathered. The worst level is Inpure/Impure, which gathers 1 ore every 2 seconds. Next is Normal purity at 1 ore every 1 second, and finally Pure purity at 1 ore every 0.5 seconds. You ideally want Normal or Higher, but to start out Inpure/Impure Nodes will work fine.
Some really good nodes (Pure) are protected by groups of dangerous enemies that you should either defeat with Walls and Foundations, or with a Rebar Gun.
Miners can be built on top of Foundations
Not exactly as groundbreaking as most things, but this allows lining up things to the actual resource node better.
Just mining my Foundation.
Balance your Conveyor Lines
If you have more than a single input conveyor, such as when you're mining ore and there's two, three or even four miners required, you should consider building a balancer. Balancers help distribute the input lines evenly to all output lines, such as balancing 3 inputs to feed all three outputs equally.
3 Input, 3 Output Ore Balancer
Balancers can be built in any shape, size or configuration. I've personally only needed 3-In-3-Out balancers so far, but configurations like 2-In-6-Out, 6-In, 2-Out, 6-In-6-Out, 5-In-5-Out and so on should all be possible as the Splitters and Mergers are much more intelligent than the ones in Factorio.
Conveyor Poles can be stacked on Foundations
If you haven't reached the Stackable Poles yet, you can still stack your conveyors using normal Poles, just not as good as with the Stackable Pole. Simply aim close to the same position on the Foundation that your previous pole was in, and try to make the hologram match the original pole. Tada, you've stacked unstackable Poles.
Optimize Early, Optimize Often
It's never too early to optimize your production lines, and it only gets easier the more materials you've saved up. Build Balancers, build huge production facilities for even more inputs, just really go all out and build for 10 times what you actually need right now.
