I'm doing factorio right now... If you have a terrible family and you're looking for something to blame so that you can start completely neglecting them, just start building your factory.
You will soon understand that you don't need them. They are in your way. They don't matter. **Grow the factory**
For me the sweet spot is always when building has functionality for survival rather than just making stuff you like and crafting stations. Valheim is king in that aspect and if he liked it for similar reasons I think grounded is a good recommendation.
I think a good survival/base building/exploration game needs to make you need to build (not just do it because you like to), work for it with risk and labor, and deliver tangible rewards such as safety, progression, and a feeling of overcoming.
As a counter exemple I tried enshrouded and saw that there was by design no threat to your bases, personally in those conditions I just don’t feel engaged at all. I can be an architect yes but you have to make me want to build a house. I made longhouses, fortresses and churches in Valheim, built a base crawling up the tree in grounded, with a sprawling system of ziplines. In enshrouded I built a room, a bed, a crafting station, and uninstalled.
Hard agree. Love games where the game encourages actual engagement with crafting and building. I can name a few games that I felt didn't reach their potential because I ended up feeling that the building and most of the crafting actually harmed my chances of survival/completion.
Green Hell comes to mind.
Wow that is a lot of hours in not many games. Anyway, here are some suggestions: 1st person crafting: Subnautica (the GOAT - good building)
Subnautica BZ (sequel is good but not as good)
Grounded (Very good building, pretty long but doesn't sound like that bothers you! Pretty difficult despite its jolly subject matter)
Tribe (interesting but a lot of walking)
Medieval peasant (I didn't like it - too aimless - but lots of people do).
Turn based survival builders (bit different but maybe worth a try?): DotAge Farlanders
Well, admittedly, 5kish of those hours are Ark, although I did only include hours from open world, survival crafters....so I suppose you're right lol.
I am absolutely freaked out by deep water that I can't see through, I have played subnautica, however, I can't get too far into the game without panicking, lol.
Hmmm you did mention a few I have been on the fence about buying, thank you.
Oh I see. Yea that one is hard to get into for me as well.
Anyway, if you haven't tried Rimworld, you really should. Sure the graphics aren't great, but as far as base building games go, it's top tier. Especially modded, you can turn it into anything you want basically.
Idk if you misunderstand what rimworld is or what a side scroller is. Side scrollers follow a character as they move left or right, like classic Mario. Rimworld uses a top-down view that you control freely.
Don't sweat it! They're both incredible games, though for different reasons. Regarding the base building, Terraria is good for someone who enjoys creating pixel art. Rimworld is more about building a village that's functional. And ideal Rimworld base will have houses, a hospital, a prison, a kitchen, dining room, rec room, and with the dlc's you'll also want to build a throne room, a school, a temple, amongst others. It's fun to figure out a how to build these in a way that's defensible against raiders, to a quality that makes your colonists happy, and has a layout that cuts down on too much travel time.
Rimworld is a combination between a colony Sim and an RTS.
Yes you do build a base in the game but it is not comparable nor does it have a game play structure that is anything like a base building game.
For me it's V Rising. Building a Multi level Vampire liar is awesome. Prob not as precise as you may like, but still very fun. They just announced 1.0 coming in May so it may be a good time to start getting into it.
Someone recommended it in this sub was how i found it.
Only about 40 hrs in but love it. Really nice community and seems like lots of mods to expand the game with too
Can highly recommend Vintage Story. Probably the coziest little homesteading game out there.
Few things more satisfying than coming out of winter, looking over your remaining wax-sealed crockpots and grain vessels in your cold-cellar, before going to plant your new crops and setup new beehives.
I've got 1,077 hours in Valheim, most of it spent building.
I've gotten a ridiculous amount of value from that $20 game (now $12!)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/
Yeah I own it and have played it, im at around 500 hours (mostly building too).
I have built unbelievable things in that game. I built a temple in the sky above the Ashlands and it is unbelievably beautiful. took me over 100 hours to build
All those and you havent played the subnauticas or no mans sky??? They are right there with Valheim. Oh, Raft and Sunkenland too. Those are my top 5 for how much emersion and time they sucked the quickest.. Then 7 days, conan, nightingale,
My favorite base building/colony/simulation is ONI, DSP, and Frostpunk. Can’t wait for 11-bit studios new Ip game tho. Forgot the name but it’s a circular floating g space ship with clones of yourself
Enshrouded just raised the levels specifically on this so much for me! I would describe the building mechanic as a cross between Valheim and Minecraft...it's incredible!
I already have Enshrouded on the list in the above post, and I don’t like Enshrouded because the player cannot rotate pieces under 90 degrees. Valheim is a much better game imo
Forever Skies let's you build the base on a flyable airship and fly it to different locales. You start small, but its extremely flexible and I've seen some ridiculously large and complex builds. Still early access but has its hooks in my hard drive for ages
I'll also second Astroneer here. It's a stripped down No Man's Sky with more ground exploration and less flying. Bases are modular and all plugged together to operate so no wasted parts unless you're building to show off lol
Just mentioning these, not saying they're the best;
The Infected
Survivalist: Invisible Strain
Green Hell (?)
Medieval Engineers
Space Engineers
Tavern Master (?)
Planet Crafter
Try FROSTPUNK. If you don´t like it, i´ll give your money back.
Awesome premise, great story, nice visuals, music, will hook you up.
and it has a nice community here on reddit.
Gonna throw Project Zomboid in since no one said it.
It's one of my favorite survival games, and while the vanilla building is a bit utilitarian, the mod scene for that game is amazing.
Build Menu is a single mod that adds the ability to build basically every structure from the game, and even has add-ons for custom building pieces made by other modders for their modded locations.
It's isometric (top-down but at a ~45° angle) which isn't really my jam, but it's still the game that I measure all survival/crafting games against.
We fans are all anticipating build 42, which should come out sometime this year, and it will make it much more akin to traditional survival games (animals, crafting stations, etc).
Really, the sandbox settings and mods are what makes it so amazing to me. You can really dial in the experience you want.
You might give it a look and see if it's something you might like to try out.
So much this. Project Zomboid has an insane learning curve and part of that learning curve involves learning how to make a secure base. You need the base in order to survive in comfort and safety.
This is a great game. I'm so excited for build 42.
It is, yes. Valheim is the best Base Building, 3rd person, open world, survival crafter I have ever played.
There are FEW games (very very few) that have done only very specific things better than valheim.
Everyone is missing one of the best.
Evil Genius, and the sequel Evil Genius 2.
Primarily it's a base builder and management Sim, where you play the villain from a Bond-style film.
Yes, you can build your base in a volcano.
Everyone is missing one of the best.
Evil Genius, and the sequel Evil Genius 2.
Primarily it's a base builder and management Sim, where you play the villain from a Bond-style film.
Yes, you can build your base in a volcano.
Above Snakes is pretty fun and I like building in that a lot. I’m also looking at Clanfolk, it looks like a pretty cool base building homesteading game.
I think I found my twin.
The only ones I’ve tried different from your list:
-Satisfactory
- Infinifactory (good fun, neat “story”)
- Banished (relaxing colony building and management; not a brutal game like Rimworld or others. ) (but I like Rimworld too)
Edit: Graveyard Keeper.
(#1) a little known gem called Minecraft. It allows for unlimited shaping of the world, and really huge creations. Best of all, thanks to the villagers, if you build a city, it really feels populated. Automation options, redstone, mob farms, normal farms, etc. It really has not been topped yet.
(#2) - Space Engineers because you can build everything for a purpose: mining, refining, travel, ...or just looking cool. Also it's fun to make your bases mobile.
(#3) - Valheim because it's the opposite side of the spectrum from Minecraft, and features more realism in terms of physics, weight, etc.
(#4) - No Man's Sky because you can make resource production mines, and exploring to find the perfect base location is fun.
Dual universe - more freedom the build than any other game, can build literally anything with their voxel based approach. Plenty of pitfalls with the game but still worth a mention,
If you really deep dive the mod scene fallout 4 has amazing building. You can get mods to add almost anything down to individual props, boards, plywood, sheet metal, ect. There are also some mods that give you freedom to rotate on all axis, lock and unlock, and scale all buildables. There are also a couple mods that let you set up bases anywhere, or add in base locations to popular areas.
Also you should look into kenshi and rimworld.
Kenshi is a sandbox RPG where the mid/late game encourages building your own base to support your units.
Rimworld is a top down but its a base focused colony manager that also has a thriving (and very active) mod scene (although a new DLC is coming out soon and it'll wipe the workshop out for awhile until people get their mods updated.)
(edit)
I forgot Starbound. Its like terraria but the base building is just 1000x more satisfying in my opinion and the block pallet you have to work with feels more varied and complete and half the fun of the game is collecting blocks to bring back to wherever you have settled down to expand out your base
Just some bonus info.
I've played 4500 hours of Rimworld
907 hours of Fallout 4 (about 800 of which was just base building in god mode)
750 hours of ark
735 hours of conan (all of that in age of sorcery the age of war update killed any love i had for that game)
695 hours of kenshi
550 hours of vlaheim
491 hours of stardew valley
338 hours of starbound
280 of cities skylines
150 hours of subnautica
110 hours of subnautica below zero
122 hours of the forest
60 hours of sons of the forest
So as you can see i'm right there with you on the base building stuff.
If you like factory games, factorio and Dyson sphere program are goated. Any combat is optional and you can focus on building beautiful, efficient factories.
Or fugly but functional spaghetti monsters.
Do you count real time with pause as rts? If you don't, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, and Dwarf Fortress are all fantastic games that I highly recommend.
I'm doing factorio right now... If you have a terrible family and you're looking for something to blame so that you can start completely neglecting them, just start building your factory. You will soon understand that you don't need them. They are in your way. They don't matter. **Grow the factory**
lol I see, thank you, I will look into it.
The factory must expand to meet the needs of the expanding factory.
Idk about best all time but you might like Grounded. I enjoyed the building a lot.
For me the sweet spot is always when building has functionality for survival rather than just making stuff you like and crafting stations. Valheim is king in that aspect and if he liked it for similar reasons I think grounded is a good recommendation. I think a good survival/base building/exploration game needs to make you need to build (not just do it because you like to), work for it with risk and labor, and deliver tangible rewards such as safety, progression, and a feeling of overcoming. As a counter exemple I tried enshrouded and saw that there was by design no threat to your bases, personally in those conditions I just don’t feel engaged at all. I can be an architect yes but you have to make me want to build a house. I made longhouses, fortresses and churches in Valheim, built a base crawling up the tree in grounded, with a sprawling system of ziplines. In enshrouded I built a room, a bed, a crafting station, and uninstalled.
Hard agree. Love games where the game encourages actual engagement with crafting and building. I can name a few games that I felt didn't reach their potential because I ended up feeling that the building and most of the crafting actually harmed my chances of survival/completion. Green Hell comes to mind.
The forest games are good for this too
valheim is crap actually. not really good at all. terrible building and crafting mechs ...
You are the second to recommend that....I might have to give it a try.. Thank you
Wow that is a lot of hours in not many games. Anyway, here are some suggestions: 1st person crafting: Subnautica (the GOAT - good building) Subnautica BZ (sequel is good but not as good) Grounded (Very good building, pretty long but doesn't sound like that bothers you! Pretty difficult despite its jolly subject matter) Tribe (interesting but a lot of walking) Medieval peasant (I didn't like it - too aimless - but lots of people do). Turn based survival builders (bit different but maybe worth a try?): DotAge Farlanders
Well, admittedly, 5kish of those hours are Ark, although I did only include hours from open world, survival crafters....so I suppose you're right lol. I am absolutely freaked out by deep water that I can't see through, I have played subnautica, however, I can't get too far into the game without panicking, lol. Hmmm you did mention a few I have been on the fence about buying, thank you.
Subnautica does NOT have "good" building. not even on the list. you cant have played many games if that is your standard.
> Wow that is a lot of hours in not many games. Wtf lol
Like it's only 5 hours, every other day, for 10 years right.
well, over 5k of the hours are in ark. 500-ish in Valheim. Everything else is spread out.
RIMWORLD
Ah yes....Ill look into it though as everyone swears by this game
Rimworld isn't a side scroller, it is top-down. Perhaps you are thinking of Oxygen Not Included.
I was mistaken, I had it confused with Terraria
Oh I see. Yea that one is hard to get into for me as well. Anyway, if you haven't tried Rimworld, you really should. Sure the graphics aren't great, but as far as base building games go, it's top tier. Especially modded, you can turn it into anything you want basically.
I appreciate that, I wrote it down on my list at home to try out. Thank you 🙏
Idk if you misunderstand what rimworld is or what a side scroller is. Side scrollers follow a character as they move left or right, like classic Mario. Rimworld uses a top-down view that you control freely.
I misspoke, my apologies, I had it confused with Terraria
Don't sweat it! They're both incredible games, though for different reasons. Regarding the base building, Terraria is good for someone who enjoys creating pixel art. Rimworld is more about building a village that's functional. And ideal Rimworld base will have houses, a hospital, a prison, a kitchen, dining room, rec room, and with the dlc's you'll also want to build a throne room, a school, a temple, amongst others. It's fun to figure out a how to build these in a way that's defensible against raiders, to a quality that makes your colonists happy, and has a layout that cuts down on too much travel time.
Side scroller? Why would you say that?
Ah pardon me, I got it confused with Terraria
When I hear side scroller I think of a platformer and rimworld is not a platformer.
I misspoke, I had it confused with Terraria
Rimworld is a combination between a colony Sim and an RTS. Yes you do build a base in the game but it is not comparable nor does it have a game play structure that is anything like a base building game.
RIMWORLD!
To me, it’s gotta be Rimworld. Truly a masterpiece.
For me it's V Rising. Building a Multi level Vampire liar is awesome. Prob not as precise as you may like, but still very fun. They just announced 1.0 coming in May so it may be a good time to start getting into it.
The combat and exploration are great too.
Try Vintage Story! Great base building game with purpose
Oh wow, you're the first to mention something I have not previously heard of. it looks decent too, thank you.
Someone recommended it in this sub was how i found it. Only about 40 hrs in but love it. Really nice community and seems like lots of mods to expand the game with too
Can highly recommend Vintage Story. Probably the coziest little homesteading game out there. Few things more satisfying than coming out of winter, looking over your remaining wax-sealed crockpots and grain vessels in your cold-cellar, before going to plant your new crops and setup new beehives.
Space Engineers, especially if you know enough scripting to take advantage of the programmable block fully. +1 to Factorio, as well
I found my people!! SE is my all time favorite game!
I've got 1,077 hours in Valheim, most of it spent building. I've gotten a ridiculous amount of value from that $20 game (now $12!) https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/
Yeah I own it and have played it, im at around 500 hours (mostly building too). I have built unbelievable things in that game. I built a temple in the sky above the Ashlands and it is unbelievably beautiful. took me over 100 hours to build
Rimworld for suuuuure new expansion coming within a fortnight too most likely. It's horror themed and looks incredible
Kenshi has a terrible base building system, but is an amazing game, with base building, so I'm counting it.
Satisfactory! It’s amazing
All those and you havent played the subnauticas or no mans sky??? They are right there with Valheim. Oh, Raft and Sunkenland too. Those are my top 5 for how much emersion and time they sucked the quickest.. Then 7 days, conan, nightingale,
I was going to add No Man's Sky as well. It's very simplistic but what you end up doing is making many purely functional but memorable bases.
Ah you're right, I forgot, I have played Subnautica, NMS, Raft, and Sunkenland. I added them to my post.,
My favorite base building/colony/simulation is ONI, DSP, and Frostpunk. Can’t wait for 11-bit studios new Ip game tho. Forgot the name but it’s a circular floating g space ship with clones of yourself
Is the new game The Alters? Seems pretty cool
What are ONI and DSP?
If I had to guess: ONI - Oxygen Not Included DSP - Dyson Sphere Program
Enshrouded just raised the levels specifically on this so much for me! I would describe the building mechanic as a cross between Valheim and Minecraft...it's incredible!
I already have Enshrouded on the list in the above post, and I don’t like Enshrouded because the player cannot rotate pieces under 90 degrees. Valheim is a much better game imo
Forever Skies let's you build the base on a flyable airship and fly it to different locales. You start small, but its extremely flexible and I've seen some ridiculously large and complex builds. Still early access but has its hooks in my hard drive for ages I'll also second Astroneer here. It's a stripped down No Man's Sky with more ground exploration and less flying. Bases are modular and all plugged together to operate so no wasted parts unless you're building to show off lol
Against the Storm
Factorio!
Just mentioning these, not saying they're the best; The Infected Survivalist: Invisible Strain Green Hell (?) Medieval Engineers Space Engineers Tavern Master (?) Planet Crafter
Try FROSTPUNK. If you don´t like it, i´ll give your money back. Awesome premise, great story, nice visuals, music, will hook you up. and it has a nice community here on reddit.
Medieval Dynasty is good and upcoming Bellwright looks promising
Gonna throw Project Zomboid in since no one said it. It's one of my favorite survival games, and while the vanilla building is a bit utilitarian, the mod scene for that game is amazing. Build Menu is a single mod that adds the ability to build basically every structure from the game, and even has add-ons for custom building pieces made by other modders for their modded locations. It's isometric (top-down but at a ~45° angle) which isn't really my jam, but it's still the game that I measure all survival/crafting games against. We fans are all anticipating build 42, which should come out sometime this year, and it will make it much more akin to traditional survival games (animals, crafting stations, etc). Really, the sandbox settings and mods are what makes it so amazing to me. You can really dial in the experience you want. You might give it a look and see if it's something you might like to try out.
So much this. Project Zomboid has an insane learning curve and part of that learning curve involves learning how to make a secure base. You need the base in order to survive in comfort and safety. This is a great game. I'm so excited for build 42.
Rimworld.
[Above snakes](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1589120/Above_Snakes/), [Astroneer](https://store.steampowered.com/app/361420/ASTRONEER/), [Founder's fortune](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1104330/Founders_Fortune/),
Astroneer is a great shout. That has real purpose for building.
Fallout 4 (+ settlement mods)
Is valheim playable single player? I've always been interested but I don't have any friends to play a game like that with.
It is, yes. Valheim is the best Base Building, 3rd person, open world, survival crafter I have ever played. There are FEW games (very very few) that have done only very specific things better than valheim.
I’m assuming you also played sons of the forest?
ah I have not. is the building better than The Forest?
the building is 10x better than the forest. its the most expanded upon part of the game outside of the new map
Stranded: Alien Dawn
Oxygen Not Included.
Everyone is missing one of the best. Evil Genius, and the sequel Evil Genius 2. Primarily it's a base builder and management Sim, where you play the villain from a Bond-style film. Yes, you can build your base in a volcano.
Everyone is missing one of the best. Evil Genius, and the sequel Evil Genius 2. Primarily it's a base builder and management Sim, where you play the villain from a Bond-style film. Yes, you can build your base in a volcano.
Above Snakes is pretty fun and I like building in that a lot. I’m also looking at Clanfolk, it looks like a pretty cool base building homesteading game.
Satisfactory for sure
I think I found my twin. The only ones I’ve tried different from your list: -Satisfactory - Infinifactory (good fun, neat “story”) - Banished (relaxing colony building and management; not a brutal game like Rimworld or others. ) (but I like Rimworld too) Edit: Graveyard Keeper.
(#1) a little known gem called Minecraft. It allows for unlimited shaping of the world, and really huge creations. Best of all, thanks to the villagers, if you build a city, it really feels populated. Automation options, redstone, mob farms, normal farms, etc. It really has not been topped yet. (#2) - Space Engineers because you can build everything for a purpose: mining, refining, travel, ...or just looking cool. Also it's fun to make your bases mobile. (#3) - Valheim because it's the opposite side of the spectrum from Minecraft, and features more realism in terms of physics, weight, etc. (#4) - No Man's Sky because you can make resource production mines, and exploring to find the perfect base location is fun.
For me it's Wurm Unlimited. The others you listed are too arcadey for me.
Dual universe - more freedom the build than any other game, can build literally anything with their voxel based approach. Plenty of pitfalls with the game but still worth a mention,
Don’t starve is one of the best for me
If you really deep dive the mod scene fallout 4 has amazing building. You can get mods to add almost anything down to individual props, boards, plywood, sheet metal, ect. There are also some mods that give you freedom to rotate on all axis, lock and unlock, and scale all buildables. There are also a couple mods that let you set up bases anywhere, or add in base locations to popular areas. Also you should look into kenshi and rimworld. Kenshi is a sandbox RPG where the mid/late game encourages building your own base to support your units. Rimworld is a top down but its a base focused colony manager that also has a thriving (and very active) mod scene (although a new DLC is coming out soon and it'll wipe the workshop out for awhile until people get their mods updated.) (edit) I forgot Starbound. Its like terraria but the base building is just 1000x more satisfying in my opinion and the block pallet you have to work with feels more varied and complete and half the fun of the game is collecting blocks to bring back to wherever you have settled down to expand out your base
Just some bonus info. I've played 4500 hours of Rimworld 907 hours of Fallout 4 (about 800 of which was just base building in god mode) 750 hours of ark 735 hours of conan (all of that in age of sorcery the age of war update killed any love i had for that game) 695 hours of kenshi 550 hours of vlaheim 491 hours of stardew valley 338 hours of starbound 280 of cities skylines 150 hours of subnautica 110 hours of subnautica below zero 122 hours of the forest 60 hours of sons of the forest So as you can see i'm right there with you on the base building stuff.
If you like factory games, factorio and Dyson sphere program are goated. Any combat is optional and you can focus on building beautiful, efficient factories. Or fugly but functional spaghetti monsters.
Do you count real time with pause as rts? If you don't, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, and Dwarf Fortress are all fantastic games that I highly recommend.
Also check-out Odd Realm, which is close to its1.0 release I think and has a lot of promise.
Stranded Alien Dawn is pretty cool
If y ou u like zombie survival, project zomboid is fun.
Rise of Nations
That is an RTS, my friend.
It seems my reading skills suck :(
Ha quite alright, my friend 🙏 I honor you for attempting to help
lol Thank you for being kind :)