How to know what the next Atlas task is

After reading through the comments in the reddit post you included it seems that the upgrades do not need to be adjacent to the base function to work. Try to group upgrades together and group with main feature for added bonuses. I'm trying to figure this all out just like everyone else but this has seemed to work for me.

The Atlas Stone are used during the Atlas Path of the game.

Atlas Stone (spoilers, proceed with caution)

After getting 10 Atlas stones and going to the next Atlas Interface you can make a new star, this will take all of your Atlas stones and say that you have created a new star. Current importance of this matter is unknown and it is unknown about what the effects of these actions are.

Additional Information

Whatever you do, DO NOT SELL. A buddy of mine made that mistake early on in the game, and sold two Atlas stones. When he made it to the final Atlas location, he was unable to proceed due to only have 8/10. Afterwards he was not able to locate any more Atlas locations to gather more stones. This may be a bug in the game, but no more information at this time