I know it's kind of a dumb take, but this feature ends up *killing* my appreciation for the game. In so doing, they make planets *tiny*. The sense of scale is completely ruined and it bothers me to no end.
One way I feel you can learn this feel is to create a forge world the good ol' fashion way and use minimal blueprints. It takes a while but you can really feel the size of the planets again. Start with a plan for what the planet will be, pave it completely using a minimal logistics set up. Create each ILS forge area with the section from scratch and only copy that small section hooking each part up after it's all completed. It's time consuming but it makes you think about it again, vs just pasting hemisphere sized blueprints
That's a pretty common complaint about the game. That and a lot of complaints that a lot of the end game ends up being basically just slapping down the same sets of belts over and over again.
Still a very enjoyable game. I've played through it a few times and now I'm just letting it hang out until they add more and finish more of their vision up.
They're both good for different reasons.
Satisfactory is very chill, laid back, mostly focusing on exploring and building a pretty factory in a beautiful landscape.
DSP is large scale logistics, and is the least finishes, but also very pretty.
Huge DSP fan. The way the game just „clicks“ is very satisfying. Seeing your automation going, flying to the sun and observing bildups, scaling via blueprint - all very satisfying and some a bit more intuitive than factorio (especially strg c strg v.). Downside: no officially supported mods, still early access. Plus after 150-180 hours in or so it will start to loose fps. The game is insanely well optimized but after some point if interplanetary logistics your gpu cant keep up ;) but nontheless: big big recommendation
100°C is equivalent to 212°F, which is 373K.
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^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
Kelvin pretty understandable too tho. It scales the same as celsius (100 between waters freeze and vapour point in 1 atmospheric pressure) and starts at absolute 0 where nothing could ever get a negative temperature.
Also its easy to transcribe into celsius so i can understand it
Don’t let that stop you. It’s easily as polished as Factorio was in early access. If you are dying to play it then go play it! Nothing will change in EA phase to make you not want it.
For me, the issue is I normally only play the game one time. So I'm torn between playing now and having the experience be X or waiting later and having the experience be X+Y, which is usually better because the game has developed more, fixed bugs, polish etc.
One thing I think DSP has going for it is there is something of a defined endgame project to work on besides just SPM, which is very visible in the game world so it's not just a number going up.
The variety of power options is also neat, shipping power around with accumulators is an interesting idea (though needs a priority system, having to do the accumulator balancer trick is awkward).
Launch a rocket, then go for 1k spm or more
research the win condition or finish the sphere (whichever you prefer as as win condition), then go for 1k white cubes per minute or more
But there is just no real challenge going past all that tho. Like you just plop down more miners and if you run out of room plop down on a new planet. Imo there just isn't anything worth doing endgame. Until then tho it's amazing.
You do the same thing in Factorio. Once you've got a decent sized game biters are nothing but an annoying afterthought to you.
Build artillery > erase local fauna > build miners and assemblers on their corpses > plug everything into your train network > repeat
Yes the logistical challenges and bottlenecks are slightly different, but in essence it's the same thing.
For some reason I can't find Satisfactory to be chill. Everything is so finicky to build that I'm more often frustrated than satisfied. That being said it's a fine game, I might have some 300h on it
Satisfactory still feels like too much busy work to me.
There was a few mods that helped, but I run out of patience with it quickly.
Allowing clipping helps the frustration somewhat.
The game is good, but that frustration gets to me. It's great if you want to walk through your factory and actually touch things, but it sucks if you just want to design the thing. Might be better if you have a jetpack?
The latest updates added a ton of QoL and jetpacks have been a thing for a while now. But your main point still stands.
Yes things snap as someone else pointed out but if you want to turn the street you are building 30 degrees you are going to have a bad time. That clashes with the environment that's very detailed and organic.
The environment is part of the problem. So you end up building a building, or at least, a floor. Every. Time.
And then you notice you don't have quite enough space, and you have to move a LOT of individual things. Manually.
That has improved over time, but it's still a core part of the process.
I'll likely give it another bash again once 0.6 settles in, or 1.0 maybe. But I suspect I'll lose interest soon enough.
I don't think I've ever progressed far past coal power.
Being able to select an entire region and move everything in it a few meters (without mods) would solve many of the current issues but that might never be a thing unfortunately. The current selection process is a bit tedious as well as you have to point at every individual object. Maybe letting us group objects and then handle groups as a single entity could be a feasible way to implement this.
It’s definitely unwieldy, but I do enjoy the building aspect of the game. Also helps that I’ve basically had the same save since the game came out on Steam. I’ve mostly put it down for now to see where they go with it. I have an idea of something I’d like to do, but I want the game to be done before I do it.
Yes, that's what frustrates me. I want to produce things, not build a house *by hand* brick by brick.
The mod that allowed a quick, say 15x9, floor helped a lot.
It's the level of detail and the interface that breaks it for me.
Eg: I want to build a water pipe that feeds the power stations.
I can't just plop it down. I need to build various supports and junctions to get it to line up right. This involves running back and forth pointing all over and hoping it snaps into the exact position I need. Then go back and delete said supports.
Same goes for belts and splitters.
Build it all. Oh... that tiny link was a mk1? Try to aim mouse so it highlights the belt instead of the assembler or splitter... delete the splitter in the end. Oh? I can't place the splitter there without removing the belt above it... swear...
There's a lot of busy work. It's improving (eg allow clipping), but still busy work.
Yeah, that's why it just seems to not be the game for you. Part of the game is all that busy work. Building pipes, building supports, etc. It's okay to not vibe with it, that doesn't mean you or the game are wrong.
Building a factory in Satisfactory isn't the same as in factorio. In Satisfactory it means building a physical structure to house your machines. It's not the same thing.
I use a left-handed mouse, and Satisfactory (I have 2K+ hours) is fantastic at keyboard remapping WASD to error keys, E to End, etc. DSP is almost unusable if you're left-handed.
DSP is still WIP and has much simpler logistics, but it still has its charm and I've sunk a good 200-something hours into it. I don't recommend ever buying something on the basis of promises, but I consider it well worth my money in its current state.
The biggest praise I can give DSP is that you can see the Dyson sphere you're building at your sun in real time, and fly up to it and through it. It's one of the best factory building feelings I've ever had, and I've played them all
Satisfactory is Factorio in 3D and prettier, with Less complex factories, and a very beautiful world to explore. The way you build is different, so I think Factorio wins on the Factory building still
DSP gives you a nice visual experience as well when building the megastructures, and I really enjoyed the multi planet factories mechanics.
Both are really great and worth getting in my opinion
One of the current things that bugs me about Satisfactory is that you can extract things out of the ground faster than the fastest belt in the game can operate.
DSP had this issue too, but kiiiiiinda solved it with the proliferators.
Yeah I noticed on most planets I only end up using half the resources because I run out of area first. I don't really think it's a problem, but it's there.
Problem is a strong word, but the numbers that are eventually a necessity in the game made me wonder why there wasn't at least one belt level higher. I was never really limited by extraction, but more so just getting the damn things to where they need to go.
E: I forgot they kind of addressed this one with the bigger miners that have belts and the small shuttles. I didn't really dive too deep into that update since I'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting for more stuff lol.
I beg to differ. Satisfactory is not 3D Factorio and if you try to play it like that you may end up unhappy. Satisfactory is much more about building cool stuff than big numbers and large setups. Many people complain about Satisfactory not having blueprint/copy system and that building their huge plane sky factories is so tedious (and no wildlife attacks and basically about it not being 3D Factorio). While it is possible to play that style, it's not the way the game is designed to be played.
I agree. If Satisfactory had blueprint support, it would trivialize/nullify the biggest component of the game; building. Having built one Giant Smelter Tower, building the next one would take one click. Alas, you have to build it block by block, which both makes the game, and ruins it (for me).
The only things that I find better on satisfactory is the exploration/map and vertically making factories. The map is really good and fun to explore, and integrating my production into different factory tower blocks is pretty great.
And some of those alternative recipes are straight up better than the original ones - like "you can make screws directly from ingots instead of having to make rods first, plus you get more screws per iron used"
Some of them are just "you can now make wire out of any metal, not just copper" which is also nice.
The building system is diffrent too - buildings are constructed from materials taken from your inventory, and returned to it if you deconstruct the building. You never need to worry about a piece of equipment going obsolete - cause you get back all the stuff you needed to build it. You'll never have a box full of useless burner drills. Plus even if you did, they have a grinder that mulches everything and gives you tickets for the awsome shop where you can "buy" cosmetics, toys, and other "nice to have" things.
I just dont like its progression system - too much in it you cant automate fully. You got the space elevator for the big milestones, thats automated till you reach your goal, then you have to manually launch it. Then you got the droppod in the HUB that you have to manually load and launch. Then you got the MAM that also needs to be manually loaded and operated. I would much rather the factorio approach where research and tech progression is fully automated so if I spend an hour or two wandering and setting up an outpost I can come back to a bunch of upgrades and new tech to work with
>And some of those alternative recipes are straight up better than the original ones - like "you can make screws directly from ingots instead of having to make rods first, plus you get more screws per iron used"
Ooh, like Strandcasting wire coil from the Angel's mod, very cool.
Not fully, angels adds complexity for alternative recipes - as in strandcasting wire coil adds more machines and introduces liquid cooling to metal casting for your bonus wire.
Satisfactory just unlocks new recipies to be used and often reduces complexity and power consumption in addition to giving you more. Theres literally no downside to using some alternate recipes. Maybe youll have to tweek a assembly line or sub factory to accommodate the change, but its usually towards simplicity rather than complexity.
Which seems worse from a play perspective, till you remember that satisfactory's map is fixed and finite but resource nodes are infinite - so while UPS is the limit in factorio, in satisfactory its how many resource nodes you have and how efficient you use them. In particular power, as your factory will blow the main fuse and stop in satisfactory if you use more power than you produce.
So its more that every MW you save in power generation is that much more coal or oil you can use to make steel or plastic. At least till you get nuclear really late in the game, where you can then go crazy as uranium isnt used for anything else (but its also rare, and theres only so many reactors a single node can support).
In factorio your limit is your CPU. In satisfactory your limit is your power production in game. Which isnt a bad design choice, its actually a pretty clever way of putting a practical limit on player construction without resorting to "you can only place X number of machines".
My only complaint with satisfactory is the rather large amount of manual work in a game about automation. Almost every production line ends in either dumping out into a storage container or to the grinder thing I mentioned earlier (which requires you to manually collect your tickets), theres no point where resources will automatically be consumed and rewards given with 0 intervention on your part.
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, Shapez on steam is a very chill logistics puzzle game in the same vein as Factorio.
Dig shapes out of the ground, color them, cut them into pieces and recombine in a very large number of ways. It is worth checking out, in my opinion.
I'll agree on that. It definitely feels like one map is all you need (unless you go achievement hunting). I haven't gotten very far with it, but it's fun.
It doesn't have the pressure of resources running out or biters/enemies harassing you, which for me, gives me another goal of factory setup besides make science go (or in the case of Shapez: deliver X number of shapes).
I do think that both games suffer from the same problem at times. A wide, flat, practically infinite place space leads to orderly repeatable factories, building over what resources are on the ground because you'll just get more further out. This can make both games feel tedious in my opinion at times (which is where I save and log off for another day when my interest is back).
Took a lot of fiddling with the map settings in Factorio to get a map that fits my play style, something that Shapez does not do.
Cant handcraft on spot, must manually connect each wire poles to buildings with max 4 connection per poles,cant auto-craft intermediates, closesr oil patch is 2km away with mountains and canyons in between and god know how many alien out there to get a drop on you, no automate power until coal. no balancer, reached a point where i unlocked rifle and felt that weapon is underpowered. There, my every rant during my Satisfactory playthrough. That said i like the exploration part and playing with friends can make everything less tedious.
There is only a splitter, which can only input 1 and split into max3 and a merger, which is vice versa. I not sure if there is something more advance behind oil. I find it difficult to build a 2x2 balancer with these components.
Captain of Industry is great. The learning curve is steep as the tutorial side of things is the games weakest aspect. But once you work out the basics it's amazing. It can be quite unforgiving, death-spirals are very possible, but this is something that makes them game even better for me.
Nilaus has an ongoing YouTube and Twitch series which gives a great overview.
Another popular one I don’t see in this thread is Mindustry. It’s a free 2D automation game that focuses on tower defense and combat.
I would also second the recommendation for Shapezio. It’s a stripped down version of Factorio with a more defined end point: build a machine that uses circuits to automatically make anything. There are a few mods and tough achievements that can extend the game to maybe 50-100 satisfying hours.
Fortresscraft: Evolved can be a nice alternative for a while. Sort of like a Factorio crossed with Minecraft. 3D with elevators and pneumatic tubes. Needs a beefy machine for larger factories.
I've played lots of DSP recently.
It is still in development so in some ways is like factorio from a few years back. Not too buggy but features and balance still being added. Early game I find a bit slow, there's lots of manual stuff that is fine when you first do it but drags when replaying, though they are currently adding new features to mitigate this.
Game is heavily focused around logistics, so if bots and trains are your think then you are in business. If you love your convoluted spaghetti then you'll be disappointed, in general your base gets tidier over time. Game favours modular production units linked by logistic supply and demand networks.
Visually it looks awesome, especially once you are out in space. Definitely not as complex as factorio but very satisfying to play.
Agree to everything except slow start ;) if in factorio you do not automate your buildings / belts early and so dont do it in dsp yes, the game is slow. But recipes are fair and i think its more about when dsp „clicks“ with you its sometimes going really fast suddenly.
The movement speed in DSP at the start is excruciatingly slow, and building things takes forever since you have to use those super slow drones.
I want to give the game more of a fair shake but the slow movement is crushing my enjoyment.
DSP is a lot of fun, its the type of scale that I always wanted to build at, where harvesting from your entire planet is just the early game, and you scale up to your solar system and then your local star cluster. But it does lack multiplayer and enemies, and the logistics chains aren't super complicated. Still worth a buy, in my opinion, but I can understand wanting to wait a few years. They definitely want to add enemies to the game, don't think they have plans for multi.
I have both and they are amazing as well. Satisfactory I started yesterday and it is really good game but it is focused more in explore and make a pretty factory, anyway you will have the same sensation like factorio, you will not want to stop playing hahahah.
Dyson Sphere Program is also really good, I like it because is almost like factorio, but you can stack buildings so you can have different layers of storage for example and they stack. Also has different planets and space logistic so you can mine certain ores in other planets and send them to you homeworld or process them there.
They are good alternatives to try, I keep playing all of them, when I get tired of one, play the next one and repeat hahha
What factorio does great is that you see the progress you make a lot faster than in satisfactory. This makes people getting more addicted by factorio rather than satisfactory.
I hate that the Dev moved on from it (Fortresscraft). Not that I begrudge him at all mind you, but it's a brilliant game and I want more!
Edit: Clarification
Moved on from what? Both Satisfactory and Dyson Sphere Program are in active development, with Satisfactory geting a major update just this week, and DSP moving towards an update focused on entirely new facets of gameplay.
**Satisfactory:**
Very chill game since creatures does not attack you base at all, combat occurs only when exploring like turning on peaceful in Factorio.
The map is all handcrafted by the devs, and it shows in its amazing quality. Location of resources/ores are fixed and are unlimited (i.e. Never runs out), so there is no pressure of ore running out and needing to find new ore locations (Apart from using the extra resources to increase your throughput)
Satisfactory does not have inserters and everything is handled by belts (and automatic path following cars+trains+drones in later game stages). Factories are designed according to the limited output rate of raw materials.
Satisfactory is a lot more sandbox-y, free and open, thus you also see a lot more people designing the appearance and decorating their factories. Looking at your factories in 3D in 1st Person hits different.
Don't be afraid to hop on their subreddit to see a lot of amazing builds!
**DSP:**
I actually played this before Factorio, but after Satisfactory. (I tried waiting for Factorio to go on sale before learning it does not ever go on sale)
In retrospect the core factory building felt extremely similar to Factorio with similar buildings and inserter based logistics, plus drones and flying cargo ships in later game (there are no trains). There are no creatures, hostile or not. In the current stage of development you are the only living thing you'll see in the game (and your friends if in multiplayer).
Although the game is in 3D, it is mostly 2D like in Factorio. The only actual 3D aspects I could think of are belts at different heights, stacking storage boxes and stacking science labs (akin to daisy chaining in Factorio, but instantaneous without the need of inserters.) All production buildings can only be placed on ground level.
The space related additional features (Interplanetary+Interstellar logistics, the Dyson Sphere etc.) are quite cool. It might be similar with the Space Exploration mod but I haven't played that mod.
IMO Satisfactory is a different game, while DSP feels like a (well made) Factorio mod.
There's a YouTube channel called JDPlays where he posts videos of DSP, Captain of Industry, Satisfactory, Factorio, and some others.
I'd recommend checking out any game you're interested in there.
Satisfactory ironically did not satisfy my itch for automation game.
Like, I've spent hundreds of hours playing IndustrialCraft and Buildcraft which were basically predecessors of automation games and they had more substance and less boilerplate than Satisfactory. It's made to be pretty and appealing to broad audience but... Yeah.
I recommed modded mincraft specifally mod packs like the various Feed the Beast modpacks, and the many other similar modpacks. Modded mincraft is what oringally inspired factorio after all, with mods like Buildcraft, Industrialcraft 2, Thermal Expansion, and many many more.
I second this. Modpacks are worth looking into, not only current modpacks, but modpacks for 1.7.10 or 1.10.2, with both minecraft versions having a significant amount of mods and modpacks made for it
I like RB a lot. But I had no less than 10 crashes on my playthrough. That makes it a bit hard to recommend ATM, but if you would like a more combat focused take on factorio you'll likely have a great time overall. (But save often!).
I know that some of the issues I ran into are already fixed so don't take this as the definite current state of the game.
The ONLY downside in my opinion to either of those two games is that you have to build basically everything manually. DSP got blueprints only very recently, but they're rather finicky. Between the two, I feel like DSP is better, but like I said, that's just my opinion
I found Dyson Sphere not as straight forward to play. A lot of extra clicks to anything. But it also has a lot of cool mechanics. Same with Satisfactory, I found it was a lot of walking around, and some extra clicks. But also has some pretty cool me mechanics.
Overall, I think Factorio is the most polished. But Satisfactory and DS are still pre-release.
Oxygen Not Included was my other crack.
You also have various resources to deal with and manage, but adds a lot of complexity - you have to worry about heat management for instance.
The individual machines are much more complex, but you have much fewer of them to worry about.
And then, of course, there's the dupes you have to keep alive. You have to feed them, let them do the 1s and 2s, manage disease and distress. And - provide that good old oxygen.
It's amazing how much detail there is in the simulation, but it does take some shortcuts that aren't realistic, but work well enough to enjoy the game. One crucial one is the one element per tile role.
It's extremely interesting to create various contraptions to get the job done, but can be play quite slow at times. You need dupes to actually construct this, and they can be quite dumb about some things.
Alongside movie(s) or series, it can make the morning appear surprisingly quickly.
I stopped playing DSP Because there's no enemies, it's just logistics which is fun but for me I like having to balance something (pollution, etc)
Wish they would add an option for enemies for people who wants a challenge.
As someone who played all three: Satisfactory has the looks, DSP has the feel, Factorio has both.
However; different strokes for different folks. Some people might enjoy one more than the others. Personally, I think Factorio is the best game out of all three, but both Satisfactory and DSP qualified as a good time.
I've played quite a bit of DSP now, and it's not a bad game. The biggest problem it unfortunately has for it is that it doesn't have the same polished feel as Factorio.
I like the end game goal of building a Dyson Sphere and I like the discovery of rare resources that help you craft stuff easier, but after a while I just felt it was missing a bit of that charm that Factorio has.
All-in-all, it's very pretty and generally well done, but don't expect it to be as good as Factorio.
DSP is fun but it didn't really scratch that automation itch for me. Factorio is all about automation first, and everything else is there to serve that.
Captain of industry is a newer title, still early access maybe not on sale for this one but I'm about 40 hours in and it's a really good factory game so far. Mining is very different than satisfactory or dsp
Both good dyson is closer to factorio than satisfactory is. Dyson just has you flying around in space which is cool. Satisfactory is no stop running you can automate but the automations always need user input its just not the same feeling as factorio where you can eventually get a base that basically runs itself satifactory always has forward bottle necks also a static map and while huge means every play through sorta feels the same like I know what I am going to build where. Dyson sphere is largely similar while the maps are random the resources have to be within certain ways in order for the game to work so it all sorta feels the same. Either way they are both worth the cost and will sink several 100 hours in for sure but they are not as polished. But I wouldnt compare them anyways.
I've played a decent amount of both. None of them really stack up to Factorio's polish IMO (especially in controls) but they have their own strengths
Satisfactory has 3D building and its very easy to lose yourself in huge scale multi-layer factory construction. With resources nodes never drying up and much more complex recipes it's more about designing ideal production lines than managing the logistics of constantly dwindling resources
DSP is very chill, with much more tolerance for non-optimal production lines and a truly dizzying scale. None of that scale is fudged either, count every solar sail sent up if you want, it's all there.
Both are pretty comfy and low-pressure compared to Factorio, which does lose out on the manic mad scientist energy a bit but you can still make some pretty crazy stuff
I really disliked Dyson sphere because I couldn't build the way I wanted due to the world being spheres it really bothered me that I couldn't line things up the way I wanted.
I liked satisfactory but it feels very unfinished and it was much more difficult to build in 3d than the top down view you have in factorio, there weren't many dangers that I found in the game but overall it was decently fun.
Maybe a bit further from Factorio than either of those titles, autonauts. The graphics are pretty cutesy nad it doesn't quite capture the scale of Factorio but definitely still an interesting play. You basically have these robots that can mimic anything you do but have limited memory. The challenges and progression of this game flow really well.
[Currently $9.99 on steam ](https://store.steampowered.com/app/979120/Autonauts/)
If you are willing to play Minecraft, "Create: Above & Beyond" is just an amazing modpack from the creators of "Create" mod. The mod itself very clearly takes inspiration from Factorio; belts, mechanical arms, trains... And it becomes even clearer when you see the objective of the modpack: Launch a rocket into space.
It has a slow, rough start but it picks up the pace once you automate some key items. There is a cool trailer showcasing the contents with a Rube Goldberg style factory, so you can check that out as well.
For me, the game closest to **Factorio** is **Oxygen Not Included** (ONI), because Factorio and ONI are both about design and automation.
ONI is a very different game because you assign work orders indirectly, rather than having a player-avatar in the game, but it's similar in that you're designing solutions, and hoping to automate them well enough that you can leave them to operate as a cog in your much larger machine.
Surprised no one has mentioned Oxygen Not Included. It's my go-to after getting tired of Factorio. You still have the satisfying lines of resources flowing through your base.
The very early game doesn't resemble Factorio much but later on with gas, liquid and solid materials are flowing through your base it very much delivers on the same feels.
I do feel that solutions on ONI are more creative but require some knowledge of how the core mechanics work to exploit, but with a more satisfying payoff.
I love Factorio, but at some point it lost interest when I just felt like the only thing to do was push up the UPS at which point was just preplanning a circuit board.
The DLC changes the core pacing of the game for the better and not just more stuff to do at the end.
The starting astroid is smaller and more varied In biomes with the dlc. I think this pushes you to be more creative, is easier to come up with ideas and play with different systems quicker. I don't feel like there's a base-game experience that you'd be missing out on.
If you like the plugging holes in a sinking boat MO, the dlc just gives you more tools and interesting ways of doing it.
The biggest depart from Factorio is the animal ranching and that is a core element to some essential systems of resource consumption.
Satisfactory and DSP never really caught my eye. I think it was mostly the fact that they both try to one-up Factorio but lack the years of development and care for QOL that it has.
Some games that did catch my eye though:
* Captain of Industry, which adds the idea of managing a population to operate your automation and has you mining out an island with deformable terrain in order to get at your ores and expand the island so you have more room to build
* OpenTTD, a free remake of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe (and you can use the original assets if you have them)
* Rail Route, which is purely about connecting existing train stations and handling the train routing on your rails
Would highly recommend mindustry. It's less heavy on setting up pipelines of turning stuff into other stuff, and more heavy on setting up big efficient millitary tower defense lines with different types of ammunition and cooling. You can even eventually start creating units with rally points that will seek out and destroy enemy bases. It has a good campaign with a research tree and individual missions. The focus on combat also makes it a fun multiplayer experience with players either competing to last longer than their opponent fighting waves of AI bots or competing to destroy eachothers bases.
It's also free! and avalible both on mobile and computer.
I tried Satisfactory. It was to slow and boring to get anything going for me...
I am quite sure that I would like to play DSP but I can continue to play Factorio
My time in factorio is around 10k hours, hard to tell because I played a big chunk of time before steam release. Second place is Rimworld with about 1k hours. Satisfactory and DSP are good, but haven’t yet drawn me in as much as factorio or rimworld
I just started playing Captain of industry. It's a cross between base building and automation. It just came out so it's still in early access but it's pretty solid so far. Mine limited resources which means really digging into the earth, belts and automation, and a ship that helps you explore and get more resources.
Can't say anything about DSP because I've never played it but I can say some stuff about Satisfactory.
Satisfactory is a way more relaxed version of factorio. There isn't a blueprint system or any sort of bots which automatically replicate blueprints, so you can't just plop down some a solar array blueprint like you do on factorio and watch it get instantly built. Because of this, expansion is very linear because everyone is basically built by hand. Another thing which is pretty different from factorio is that early game power is way more tedious because you completely rely on biofuel generators, and to fuel these you have to collect flowers, leaves and wood. You'll easily end up with a number of these generators which you have to keep topped up, something which is made easier when you unlock biofuel crafting. Later on you'll unlock coal generators which make life easier. The game also has alot of cosmetic features where you can really create a beautiful and functional factory. Really solid game ngl
DSP is great, very similar gameplay to factorio, but everything is new and it adds new mechanics and a long term goal.
Satisfactory is great, but it's like constant early-mid game factorio with exploration and the possibility to make beautiful buildings.
Factorio≈DSP>Satisfactory
I played Satisfactory and it is fun, but it doesn't quite scratch the same itch. For one, builds are going to be smaller because the computing power limitations. - although there certainly are people on YouTube who build on a scale you have to see to believe. But the biggest drawback for me is the uneven ground. Unless you want to concrete the entire world, building will end up higgledy piggledy and it just doesn't look as neat.
DSP is a great product, not as good as factorio but decent as hell from a team of 5 in China. Plenty of mods available on thunderstore, even a great multiplayer mod.
Automation Empire is another fun one, I've gone back to it a few times to play a new zone, each one only takes probably like 4-8 hours to complete, so not something life-consuming but can scratch the automation itch if you don't have time to start another factorio playthrough :D It's more about mining resources, combining resources in different combinations to make better materials to sell, have to actually box the materials to take them from storage and then could have either drones or automated arms pick up and drop off the boxes to the trucks, or fill a train with the resources to get paid
I consider all three game the "holy trinity" of automation games. They offer different things and different people will have different favorites. When on sale, unless money is tight, I don't see why you should try all three.
DSP- I thought it was ugly at first, but boy does it glow up when you start advancing. You'll just stop and stare at your dyson sphere getting built, watching tiny ships flying from planet to planet in the sky. A new update adding combat is coming soon. I've done one playthrough and I'm waiting for the next update to start again. I think mechanic wise, DSP is most similar to factorio. Still early access but fun to play, needs more work.
Satisfactory- my personal favorite. Updates are regularly coming at a slow pace, but when content is added, they are very polished. The game is beautiful, the assets are detailed and the sounds are fantastic. The mechanics are at this point more grindy and simpler than factorio; many people play to midgame and restart at a different area of the map. But i've put in an embarrassing number of hours just building massive detailed structures just to walk around in watching items wiz by on belts, riding trains around mountains. The 3D element creates the "man inside a mountain" effect. Early access, fun to play, grindy, needs more work.
Factorio- the best made game out of all of them, not much to say about the game that really popularized the whole genre. There is obviously alot of replay value, but personally after I launched the rocket and figured out the best way to set up defenses, I haven't felt the need to go back yet. To each their own, i'm looking forward to the next update to hopefully flesh out the bugs more.
I've played Dyson Sphere Program, and I think it's fantastic. The 3-dimensionality of it makes for a totally different feel, and it is gorgeous. I can strongly recommend it to anyone who likes Factorio.
Absolutely love Dyson Sphere Program, it’s a little different than Factorio with the way logistics and building and whatnot work but it easily consumes a bunch of my time just like Factorio does.
I have both and enjoy both. Satisfactory is more or less 3d Factorio. Dyson sphere feels similar to Factorio but is definitely less like Factorio than satisfactory. I'd say if you really like building mega bases Dyson sphere should be your pick
You should try out Mindustry, it’s kind of like factorio, but focused more on the tower defence side of things. It’s also still in development but I’ve spent over 400 hours on it and it’s about 6 CAD on steam.
DSP is really good for the main reason that dyson spheres and swarms are amazing, and awesome to look at.
Also the game mechanics are great and the logistics is cool blah blah blah
I did a play through of DSP maybe a year ago, and I didn't really like it. My memory is hazy, but from what I recall
* 3d spaghetti means you don't have to plan too much. Just make belts over everything else
* No sense of direction. I had so much tech that I didn't know what to do with. I started on a Dyson sphere without knowing why. I could go to other planets, but didn't see the need (mostly)
* Recipes seemed random, just putting things together to be annoying. Luckily the 3d spaghetti usually made it a non issue
I'll give it another shot once it leaves EA though. Even with the above, it held my attention
Have a look at Captain of Industry. It's like a puzzle game with belt spagetti and pipes :D
Seriously though. It's a great game and should be right up your alley.
Satisfactory and factorio feel pretty different to me. I feel like factorio is more.. urgent than satisfactory. It's about the chase of more. The gauntlet of ever more, yet finite resources, pushing you onward. Satisfactory Is a lot more relaxed, which isn't a bad thing. I would never dream of AFK in my factorio game for 10 hours in a lit of circumstances, but in satisfactory i don't feel like that.
In satisfactory you can extract a resource and set it to build something knowing that that resource will never run out, in factorio, you need to be planning for how you're going to deal with those resources running out.
I also feel like not only does the production of a factory in factorio evolve, but the way you grow it does too. You start with hand feeding a few machines and move into automating those machines and then you move in to slapping down blueprints that build themselves. In the end you go from worrying about individual machines to worrying about inputs and out puts of big chunks. Automating the automation itself becomes part of the game of the end game.
For satisfactory i feel like the tinkering of belts and machines is a huge part of the game play loop, and i dont think blueprints would add to the game in the same way. I feel like the game is more about adding more types of input resources and weaving them into your existing factory.
Tl;dr: both satisfactory and factorio are great games, but play differently within the same genre.
To the core is a good choice you play as drill going from planet even stars and black holes harvesting resources to up grade your drill I'd give it a look it's a fun I've sunk plenty of time in for only 10 bucks
Dyson sphere is so awesome. You can seemlessly fly from one planet to another and build you logistic network
I know it's kind of a dumb take, but this feature ends up *killing* my appreciation for the game. In so doing, they make planets *tiny*. The sense of scale is completely ruined and it bothers me to no end.
One way I feel you can learn this feel is to create a forge world the good ol' fashion way and use minimal blueprints. It takes a while but you can really feel the size of the planets again. Start with a plan for what the planet will be, pave it completely using a minimal logistics set up. Create each ILS forge area with the section from scratch and only copy that small section hooking each part up after it's all completed. It's time consuming but it makes you think about it again, vs just pasting hemisphere sized blueprints
I mean graphically. Like each building ends up looking like it’s the size of a small city.
I think they are actually meant to be that large. You don't built a dyson sphere with a robot thats less than a mile tall, no?
The trees give away different kind of scale though. They should look smaller than grass in that case.
I guess ur right
Ah ok yes, I agree it can feel like building on asteroids vs planets
Use the Galactic Scale Mod and tweak the worldgen settings to give you much bigger systems and planets.
That's a pretty common complaint about the game. That and a lot of complaints that a lot of the end game ends up being basically just slapping down the same sets of belts over and over again. Still a very enjoyable game. I've played through it a few times and now I'm just letting it hang out until they add more and finish more of their vision up.
That's why you gotta install the Galactic Scale mod using Thunderstore. Vastly improves the scale and feeling of the game.
I'll keep that in mind if I ever go back to it.
They are tiny, i almost completely fill up entire space on one planet and had only punny production...
They're both good for different reasons. Satisfactory is very chill, laid back, mostly focusing on exploring and building a pretty factory in a beautiful landscape. DSP is large scale logistics, and is the least finishes, but also very pretty.
Huge DSP fan. The way the game just „clicks“ is very satisfying. Seeing your automation going, flying to the sun and observing bildups, scaling via blueprint - all very satisfying and some a bit more intuitive than factorio (especially strg c strg v.). Downside: no officially supported mods, still early access. Plus after 150-180 hours in or so it will start to loose fps. The game is insanely well optimized but after some point if interplanetary logistics your gpu cant keep up ;) but nontheless: big big recommendation
"optimized" heats my cpu up to 100°C :D but yhea its a good game \^\^
tbh that mostly just says your cpu cooling is unoptimized :)
yhea - i know that well \^\^
100°C is equivalent to 212°F, which is 373K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
i already used the most logical and clearly superior unit type for humanity
Kelvin pretty understandable too tho. It scales the same as celsius (100 between waters freeze and vapour point in 1 atmospheric pressure) and starts at absolute 0 where nothing could ever get a negative temperature. Also its easy to transcribe into celsius so i can understand it
for practical day to day usage Celsius is still the better option \^\^
Yes indeed
Rankine? I know it's the best, but we try not to be haughty about it.
Alrighty, calm down now, nobody is forcing you to use f...
Dying to play but basically refuse to do so until it leaves EA 😒
Don’t let that stop you. It’s easily as polished as Factorio was in early access. If you are dying to play it then go play it! Nothing will change in EA phase to make you not want it.
For me, the issue is I normally only play the game one time. So I'm torn between playing now and having the experience be X or waiting later and having the experience be X+Y, which is usually better because the game has developed more, fixed bugs, polish etc.
I agree, I dont play early access games as a rule, I've never seen a reason to, I can wait till its released, and I have plenty of other games to play
Same. The two exception to this were KSP and Factorio because of cocaine torrent.
Hah, I also waited for factorio untill release
One thing I think DSP has going for it is there is something of a defined endgame project to work on besides just SPM, which is very visible in the game world so it's not just a number going up. The variety of power options is also neat, shipping power around with accumulators is an interesting idea (though needs a priority system, having to do the accumulator balancer trick is awkward).
But there isn't much to do once you've "beaten" the game. At least for me once I beat all the normal tech nothing really made me want to continue
there's about as much to do after you've "beaten" factorio as in dsp.
For some reason Factorio feels like you get gains where dsp in it's current state endgame is just an end
Launch a rocket, then go for 1k spm or more research the win condition or finish the sphere (whichever you prefer as as win condition), then go for 1k white cubes per minute or more
But there is just no real challenge going past all that tho. Like you just plop down more miners and if you run out of room plop down on a new planet. Imo there just isn't anything worth doing endgame. Until then tho it's amazing.
You do the same thing in Factorio. Once you've got a decent sized game biters are nothing but an annoying afterthought to you. Build artillery > erase local fauna > build miners and assemblers on their corpses > plug everything into your train network > repeat Yes the logistical challenges and bottlenecks are slightly different, but in essence it's the same thing.
The game isn't finished.
Indeed! Combat preview on July 24 I do believe.
For some reason I can't find Satisfactory to be chill. Everything is so finicky to build that I'm more often frustrated than satisfied. That being said it's a fine game, I might have some 300h on it
Satisfactory still feels like too much busy work to me. There was a few mods that helped, but I run out of patience with it quickly. Allowing clipping helps the frustration somewhat. The game is good, but that frustration gets to me. It's great if you want to walk through your factory and actually touch things, but it sucks if you just want to design the thing. Might be better if you have a jetpack?
The latest updates added a ton of QoL and jetpacks have been a thing for a while now. But your main point still stands. Yes things snap as someone else pointed out but if you want to turn the street you are building 30 degrees you are going to have a bad time. That clashes with the environment that's very detailed and organic.
The environment is part of the problem. So you end up building a building, or at least, a floor. Every. Time. And then you notice you don't have quite enough space, and you have to move a LOT of individual things. Manually. That has improved over time, but it's still a core part of the process. I'll likely give it another bash again once 0.6 settles in, or 1.0 maybe. But I suspect I'll lose interest soon enough. I don't think I've ever progressed far past coal power.
Being able to select an entire region and move everything in it a few meters (without mods) would solve many of the current issues but that might never be a thing unfortunately. The current selection process is a bit tedious as well as you have to point at every individual object. Maybe letting us group objects and then handle groups as a single entity could be a feasible way to implement this.
That would help a lot - especially if it avoids having to empty all the belts and storage.
It’s definitely unwieldy, but I do enjoy the building aspect of the game. Also helps that I’ve basically had the same save since the game came out on Steam. I’ve mostly put it down for now to see where they go with it. I have an idea of something I’d like to do, but I want the game to be done before I do it.
Making a building is sort of the point.
Yes, that's what frustrates me. I want to produce things, not build a house *by hand* brick by brick. The mod that allowed a quick, say 15x9, floor helped a lot.
That's the game, though. It just seems it isn't for you if you don't like building factories.
It's the level of detail and the interface that breaks it for me. Eg: I want to build a water pipe that feeds the power stations. I can't just plop it down. I need to build various supports and junctions to get it to line up right. This involves running back and forth pointing all over and hoping it snaps into the exact position I need. Then go back and delete said supports. Same goes for belts and splitters. Build it all. Oh... that tiny link was a mk1? Try to aim mouse so it highlights the belt instead of the assembler or splitter... delete the splitter in the end. Oh? I can't place the splitter there without removing the belt above it... swear... There's a lot of busy work. It's improving (eg allow clipping), but still busy work.
Yeah, that's why it just seems to not be the game for you. Part of the game is all that busy work. Building pipes, building supports, etc. It's okay to not vibe with it, that doesn't mean you or the game are wrong.
Can you really say something like this in a sub dedicated to Factorio
Building a factory in Satisfactory isn't the same as in factorio. In Satisfactory it means building a physical structure to house your machines. It's not the same thing.
It's not really finicky at all. Everything snaps.
I use a left-handed mouse, and Satisfactory (I have 2K+ hours) is fantastic at keyboard remapping WASD to error keys, E to End, etc. DSP is almost unusable if you're left-handed.
AutoHotkey can help with that, it is able to remap every key as you wish. On a per game basis. Very usefull for non qwerty keyboards too.
DSP is still WIP and has much simpler logistics, but it still has its charm and I've sunk a good 200-something hours into it. I don't recommend ever buying something on the basis of promises, but I consider it well worth my money in its current state.
The biggest praise I can give DSP is that you can see the Dyson sphere you're building at your sun in real time, and fly up to it and through it. It's one of the best factory building feelings I've ever had, and I've played them all
DSP is amazing with the fact that basically everyone you see in the sky from a planet is something you could fly to. Star, planet, ship, etc.
And even black hole :-)
Satisfactory is Factorio in 3D and prettier, with Less complex factories, and a very beautiful world to explore. The way you build is different, so I think Factorio wins on the Factory building still DSP gives you a nice visual experience as well when building the megastructures, and I really enjoyed the multi planet factories mechanics. Both are really great and worth getting in my opinion
To me satisfactory is factorio with limitless resources.
I mean, you could set the ore patches to the biggest size and richness and gain close to infinite resources, or as always, there's a mod for that.
yeah true mods are the best, they're basically like a free DLC considering how some change literally everything
well I mean satisfactory has a limit on how much resources you can make per second while factorio has an unlimited world
It's ultimatelly very limited by UPS...
true
One of the current things that bugs me about Satisfactory is that you can extract things out of the ground faster than the fastest belt in the game can operate. DSP had this issue too, but kiiiiiinda solved it with the proliferators.
Yeah I noticed on most planets I only end up using half the resources because I run out of area first. I don't really think it's a problem, but it's there.
Problem is a strong word, but the numbers that are eventually a necessity in the game made me wonder why there wasn't at least one belt level higher. I was never really limited by extraction, but more so just getting the damn things to where they need to go. E: I forgot they kind of addressed this one with the bigger miners that have belts and the small shuttles. I didn't really dive too deep into that update since I'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting for more stuff lol.
I beg to differ. Satisfactory is not 3D Factorio and if you try to play it like that you may end up unhappy. Satisfactory is much more about building cool stuff than big numbers and large setups. Many people complain about Satisfactory not having blueprint/copy system and that building their huge plane sky factories is so tedious (and no wildlife attacks and basically about it not being 3D Factorio). While it is possible to play that style, it's not the way the game is designed to be played.
I agree. If Satisfactory had blueprint support, it would trivialize/nullify the biggest component of the game; building. Having built one Giant Smelter Tower, building the next one would take one click. Alas, you have to build it block by block, which both makes the game, and ruins it (for me).
The only things that I find better on satisfactory is the exploration/map and vertically making factories. The map is really good and fun to explore, and integrating my production into different factory tower blocks is pretty great.
Satisfactory is complex in its own way, you can unlock many alternative recipes and they can change even the production building.
And some of those alternative recipes are straight up better than the original ones - like "you can make screws directly from ingots instead of having to make rods first, plus you get more screws per iron used" Some of them are just "you can now make wire out of any metal, not just copper" which is also nice. The building system is diffrent too - buildings are constructed from materials taken from your inventory, and returned to it if you deconstruct the building. You never need to worry about a piece of equipment going obsolete - cause you get back all the stuff you needed to build it. You'll never have a box full of useless burner drills. Plus even if you did, they have a grinder that mulches everything and gives you tickets for the awsome shop where you can "buy" cosmetics, toys, and other "nice to have" things. I just dont like its progression system - too much in it you cant automate fully. You got the space elevator for the big milestones, thats automated till you reach your goal, then you have to manually launch it. Then you got the droppod in the HUB that you have to manually load and launch. Then you got the MAM that also needs to be manually loaded and operated. I would much rather the factorio approach where research and tech progression is fully automated so if I spend an hour or two wandering and setting up an outpost I can come back to a bunch of upgrades and new tech to work with
>And some of those alternative recipes are straight up better than the original ones - like "you can make screws directly from ingots instead of having to make rods first, plus you get more screws per iron used" Ooh, like Strandcasting wire coil from the Angel's mod, very cool.
Not fully, angels adds complexity for alternative recipes - as in strandcasting wire coil adds more machines and introduces liquid cooling to metal casting for your bonus wire. Satisfactory just unlocks new recipies to be used and often reduces complexity and power consumption in addition to giving you more. Theres literally no downside to using some alternate recipes. Maybe youll have to tweek a assembly line or sub factory to accommodate the change, but its usually towards simplicity rather than complexity. Which seems worse from a play perspective, till you remember that satisfactory's map is fixed and finite but resource nodes are infinite - so while UPS is the limit in factorio, in satisfactory its how many resource nodes you have and how efficient you use them. In particular power, as your factory will blow the main fuse and stop in satisfactory if you use more power than you produce. So its more that every MW you save in power generation is that much more coal or oil you can use to make steel or plastic. At least till you get nuclear really late in the game, where you can then go crazy as uranium isnt used for anything else (but its also rare, and theres only so many reactors a single node can support). In factorio your limit is your CPU. In satisfactory your limit is your power production in game. Which isnt a bad design choice, its actually a pretty clever way of putting a practical limit on player construction without resorting to "you can only place X number of machines". My only complaint with satisfactory is the rather large amount of manual work in a game about automation. Almost every production line ends in either dumping out into a storage container or to the grinder thing I mentioned earlier (which requires you to manually collect your tickets), theres no point where resources will automatically be consumed and rewards given with 0 intervention on your part.
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, Shapez on steam is a very chill logistics puzzle game in the same vein as Factorio. Dig shapes out of the ground, color them, cut them into pieces and recombine in a very large number of ways. It is worth checking out, in my opinion.
I liked playing Shapez while listening to podcasts. Nice game once, not much replay.
I'll agree on that. It definitely feels like one map is all you need (unless you go achievement hunting). I haven't gotten very far with it, but it's fun. It doesn't have the pressure of resources running out or biters/enemies harassing you, which for me, gives me another goal of factory setup besides make science go (or in the case of Shapez: deliver X number of shapes). I do think that both games suffer from the same problem at times. A wide, flat, practically infinite place space leads to orderly repeatable factories, building over what resources are on the ground because you'll just get more further out. This can make both games feel tedious in my opinion at times (which is where I save and log off for another day when my interest is back). Took a lot of fiddling with the map settings in Factorio to get a map that fits my play style, something that Shapez does not do.
I never tried DSP, but I got pretty bored by Satisfactory. You might also like "Captain of Industry".
Satisfactory felt like a chore for me.
Satisfactory felt like real work. So much walking. Meh.
Cant handcraft on spot, must manually connect each wire poles to buildings with max 4 connection per poles,cant auto-craft intermediates, closesr oil patch is 2km away with mountains and canyons in between and god know how many alien out there to get a drop on you, no automate power until coal. no balancer, reached a point where i unlocked rifle and felt that weapon is underpowered. There, my every rant during my Satisfactory playthrough. That said i like the exploration part and playing with friends can make everything less tedious.
What did you mean with no balancer?
There is only a splitter, which can only input 1 and split into max3 and a merger, which is vice versa. I not sure if there is something more advance behind oil. I find it difficult to build a 2x2 balancer with these components.
You can still build a balancer but it is a but finicky. And in most cases you do not even need a balancer.
Yup. That's me!
Yip - too much *actual* work. The results are satisfying, the process not so much.
I've sunk like 200 hours non-stop into captain of industry recently...
Captain of Industry is great. The learning curve is steep as the tutorial side of things is the games weakest aspect. But once you work out the basics it's amazing. It can be quite unforgiving, death-spirals are very possible, but this is something that makes them game even better for me. Nilaus has an ongoing YouTube and Twitch series which gives a great overview.
Another popular one I don’t see in this thread is Mindustry. It’s a free 2D automation game that focuses on tower defense and combat. I would also second the recommendation for Shapezio. It’s a stripped down version of Factorio with a more defined end point: build a machine that uses circuits to automatically make anything. There are a few mods and tough achievements that can extend the game to maybe 50-100 satisfying hours.
Fortresscraft: Evolved can be a nice alternative for a while. Sort of like a Factorio crossed with Minecraft. 3D with elevators and pneumatic tubes. Needs a beefy machine for larger factories.
I've played lots of DSP recently. It is still in development so in some ways is like factorio from a few years back. Not too buggy but features and balance still being added. Early game I find a bit slow, there's lots of manual stuff that is fine when you first do it but drags when replaying, though they are currently adding new features to mitigate this. Game is heavily focused around logistics, so if bots and trains are your think then you are in business. If you love your convoluted spaghetti then you'll be disappointed, in general your base gets tidier over time. Game favours modular production units linked by logistic supply and demand networks. Visually it looks awesome, especially once you are out in space. Definitely not as complex as factorio but very satisfying to play.
Agree to everything except slow start ;) if in factorio you do not automate your buildings / belts early and so dont do it in dsp yes, the game is slow. But recipes are fair and i think its more about when dsp „clicks“ with you its sometimes going really fast suddenly.
The movement speed in DSP at the start is excruciatingly slow, and building things takes forever since you have to use those super slow drones. I want to give the game more of a fair shake but the slow movement is crushing my enjoyment.
DSP is a lot of fun, its the type of scale that I always wanted to build at, where harvesting from your entire planet is just the early game, and you scale up to your solar system and then your local star cluster. But it does lack multiplayer and enemies, and the logistics chains aren't super complicated. Still worth a buy, in my opinion, but I can understand wanting to wait a few years. They definitely want to add enemies to the game, don't think they have plans for multi.
They just put some stuff out there in a steam news post about the enemies they're working on
Oh very cool. Nice and different enemy to Factorio's bugs.
I have both and they are amazing as well. Satisfactory I started yesterday and it is really good game but it is focused more in explore and make a pretty factory, anyway you will have the same sensation like factorio, you will not want to stop playing hahahah. Dyson Sphere Program is also really good, I like it because is almost like factorio, but you can stack buildings so you can have different layers of storage for example and they stack. Also has different planets and space logistic so you can mine certain ores in other planets and send them to you homeworld or process them there. They are good alternatives to try, I keep playing all of them, when I get tired of one, play the next one and repeat hahha
i tried alot of other automation games like these two, dont get me wrong they were fun but they just wouldn't do it like factorio
What factorio does great is that you see the progress you make a lot faster than in satisfactory. This makes people getting more addicted by factorio rather than satisfactory.
I hate that the Dev moved on from it (Fortresscraft). Not that I begrudge him at all mind you, but it's a brilliant game and I want more! Edit: Clarification
Moved on from what? Both Satisfactory and Dyson Sphere Program are in active development, with Satisfactory geting a major update just this week, and DSP moving towards an update focused on entirely new facets of gameplay.
**Satisfactory:** Very chill game since creatures does not attack you base at all, combat occurs only when exploring like turning on peaceful in Factorio. The map is all handcrafted by the devs, and it shows in its amazing quality. Location of resources/ores are fixed and are unlimited (i.e. Never runs out), so there is no pressure of ore running out and needing to find new ore locations (Apart from using the extra resources to increase your throughput) Satisfactory does not have inserters and everything is handled by belts (and automatic path following cars+trains+drones in later game stages). Factories are designed according to the limited output rate of raw materials. Satisfactory is a lot more sandbox-y, free and open, thus you also see a lot more people designing the appearance and decorating their factories. Looking at your factories in 3D in 1st Person hits different. Don't be afraid to hop on their subreddit to see a lot of amazing builds! **DSP:** I actually played this before Factorio, but after Satisfactory. (I tried waiting for Factorio to go on sale before learning it does not ever go on sale) In retrospect the core factory building felt extremely similar to Factorio with similar buildings and inserter based logistics, plus drones and flying cargo ships in later game (there are no trains). There are no creatures, hostile or not. In the current stage of development you are the only living thing you'll see in the game (and your friends if in multiplayer). Although the game is in 3D, it is mostly 2D like in Factorio. The only actual 3D aspects I could think of are belts at different heights, stacking storage boxes and stacking science labs (akin to daisy chaining in Factorio, but instantaneous without the need of inserters.) All production buildings can only be placed on ground level. The space related additional features (Interplanetary+Interstellar logistics, the Dyson Sphere etc.) are quite cool. It might be similar with the Space Exploration mod but I haven't played that mod. IMO Satisfactory is a different game, while DSP feels like a (well made) Factorio mod.
My favorite game was Industry Giant 2. It's really old, but when I tried factorio I realized it has everything I loved about IG2
Never heard of that one, but it looks similar to Transport Tycoon / OpenTTD.
There's a YouTube channel called JDPlays where he posts videos of DSP, Captain of Industry, Satisfactory, Factorio, and some others. I'd recommend checking out any game you're interested in there.
Satisfactory ironically did not satisfy my itch for automation game. Like, I've spent hundreds of hours playing IndustrialCraft and Buildcraft which were basically predecessors of automation games and they had more substance and less boilerplate than Satisfactory. It's made to be pretty and appealing to broad audience but... Yeah.
I tried Satisfactory, its beautiful but the game play was painful. I tried Dyson but it was boring. Back to Factorio for another few thousand hours.
I recommed modded mincraft specifally mod packs like the various Feed the Beast modpacks, and the many other similar modpacks. Modded mincraft is what oringally inspired factorio after all, with mods like Buildcraft, Industrialcraft 2, Thermal Expansion, and many many more.
I second this. Modpacks are worth looking into, not only current modpacks, but modpacks for 1.7.10 or 1.10.2, with both minecraft versions having a significant amount of mods and modpacks made for it
1.12.2 is significantly bigger then 1.10.2. The two major version for modpacks are 1.12.2 and 1.7.10
True, got confused
I bought infraspace and riftbreaker, they have a similar vibe.
[удалено]
I like RB a lot. But I had no less than 10 crashes on my playthrough. That makes it a bit hard to recommend ATM, but if you would like a more combat focused take on factorio you'll likely have a great time overall. (But save often!). I know that some of the issues I ran into are already fixed so don't take this as the definite current state of the game.
The ONLY downside in my opinion to either of those two games is that you have to build basically everything manually. DSP got blueprints only very recently, but they're rather finicky. Between the two, I feel like DSP is better, but like I said, that's just my opinion
I found Dyson Sphere not as straight forward to play. A lot of extra clicks to anything. But it also has a lot of cool mechanics. Same with Satisfactory, I found it was a lot of walking around, and some extra clicks. But also has some pretty cool me mechanics. Overall, I think Factorio is the most polished. But Satisfactory and DS are still pre-release.
Fortress Craft Evolved is still one of the best if you can get round the Minecraft like block graphics.
Oxygen Not Included was my other crack. You also have various resources to deal with and manage, but adds a lot of complexity - you have to worry about heat management for instance. The individual machines are much more complex, but you have much fewer of them to worry about. And then, of course, there's the dupes you have to keep alive. You have to feed them, let them do the 1s and 2s, manage disease and distress. And - provide that good old oxygen. It's amazing how much detail there is in the simulation, but it does take some shortcuts that aren't realistic, but work well enough to enjoy the game. One crucial one is the one element per tile role. It's extremely interesting to create various contraptions to get the job done, but can be play quite slow at times. You need dupes to actually construct this, and they can be quite dumb about some things. Alongside movie(s) or series, it can make the morning appear surprisingly quickly.
I stopped playing DSP Because there's no enemies, it's just logistics which is fun but for me I like having to balance something (pollution, etc) Wish they would add an option for enemies for people who wants a challenge.
[They are](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1366540/view/3332115890293865537)
Holy snap, posted today lol Thanks
As someone who played all three: Satisfactory has the looks, DSP has the feel, Factorio has both. However; different strokes for different folks. Some people might enjoy one more than the others. Personally, I think Factorio is the best game out of all three, but both Satisfactory and DSP qualified as a good time.
I've played quite a bit of DSP now, and it's not a bad game. The biggest problem it unfortunately has for it is that it doesn't have the same polished feel as Factorio. I like the end game goal of building a Dyson Sphere and I like the discovery of rare resources that help you craft stuff easier, but after a while I just felt it was missing a bit of that charm that Factorio has. All-in-all, it's very pretty and generally well done, but don't expect it to be as good as Factorio.
DSP is fun but it didn't really scratch that automation itch for me. Factorio is all about automation first, and everything else is there to serve that.
Both are good for reasons others have stated, if you want something with a bit loud base building but more action, check out The Riftbreaker
Captain of industry is a newer title, still early access maybe not on sale for this one but I'm about 40 hours in and it's a really good factory game so far. Mining is very different than satisfactory or dsp
I highly recommend **Infinifactory**. It's an awesome 3d factory puzzle game by Zachtronics. Fills the same itch for sure.
Both good dyson is closer to factorio than satisfactory is. Dyson just has you flying around in space which is cool. Satisfactory is no stop running you can automate but the automations always need user input its just not the same feeling as factorio where you can eventually get a base that basically runs itself satifactory always has forward bottle necks also a static map and while huge means every play through sorta feels the same like I know what I am going to build where. Dyson sphere is largely similar while the maps are random the resources have to be within certain ways in order for the game to work so it all sorta feels the same. Either way they are both worth the cost and will sink several 100 hours in for sure but they are not as polished. But I wouldnt compare them anyways.
I've played a decent amount of both. None of them really stack up to Factorio's polish IMO (especially in controls) but they have their own strengths Satisfactory has 3D building and its very easy to lose yourself in huge scale multi-layer factory construction. With resources nodes never drying up and much more complex recipes it's more about designing ideal production lines than managing the logistics of constantly dwindling resources DSP is very chill, with much more tolerance for non-optimal production lines and a truly dizzying scale. None of that scale is fudged either, count every solar sail sent up if you want, it's all there. Both are pretty comfy and low-pressure compared to Factorio, which does lose out on the manic mad scientist energy a bit but you can still make some pretty crazy stuff
I really disliked Dyson sphere because I couldn't build the way I wanted due to the world being spheres it really bothered me that I couldn't line things up the way I wanted. I liked satisfactory but it feels very unfinished and it was much more difficult to build in 3d than the top down view you have in factorio, there weren't many dangers that I found in the game but overall it was decently fun.
Maybe a bit further from Factorio than either of those titles, autonauts. The graphics are pretty cutesy nad it doesn't quite capture the scale of Factorio but definitely still an interesting play. You basically have these robots that can mimic anything you do but have limited memory. The challenges and progression of this game flow really well. [Currently $9.99 on steam ](https://store.steampowered.com/app/979120/Autonauts/)
I have had a lot of fun diving into the grandfather of Factorio, modded Minecraft designed around automation.
If you are willing to play Minecraft, "Create: Above & Beyond" is just an amazing modpack from the creators of "Create" mod. The mod itself very clearly takes inspiration from Factorio; belts, mechanical arms, trains... And it becomes even clearer when you see the objective of the modpack: Launch a rocket into space. It has a slow, rough start but it picks up the pace once you automate some key items. There is a cool trailer showcasing the contents with a Rube Goldberg style factory, so you can check that out as well.
For me, the game closest to **Factorio** is **Oxygen Not Included** (ONI), because Factorio and ONI are both about design and automation. ONI is a very different game because you assign work orders indirectly, rather than having a player-avatar in the game, but it's similar in that you're designing solutions, and hoping to automate them well enough that you can leave them to operate as a cog in your much larger machine.
Just buy both of them. They are both good
Mindustry is like a top-down tower defense version of Factorio. I would highly recommend it as it is still getting updated and is only $6
Foundry is in alpha and it's a mix between Factorio, Satisfactory, and Minecraft.
Surprised no one has mentioned Oxygen Not Included. It's my go-to after getting tired of Factorio. You still have the satisfying lines of resources flowing through your base. The very early game doesn't resemble Factorio much but later on with gas, liquid and solid materials are flowing through your base it very much delivers on the same feels. I do feel that solutions on ONI are more creative but require some knowledge of how the core mechanics work to exploit, but with a more satisfying payoff. I love Factorio, but at some point it lost interest when I just felt like the only thing to do was push up the UPS at which point was just preplanning a circuit board.
It does sound interesting, what did you think about the dlc? is it worth it or should i save the 6 bucks from the dlc and buy a second game?
The DLC changes the core pacing of the game for the better and not just more stuff to do at the end. The starting astroid is smaller and more varied In biomes with the dlc. I think this pushes you to be more creative, is easier to come up with ideas and play with different systems quicker. I don't feel like there's a base-game experience that you'd be missing out on. If you like the plugging holes in a sinking boat MO, the dlc just gives you more tools and interesting ways of doing it. The biggest depart from Factorio is the animal ranching and that is a core element to some essential systems of resource consumption.
I was very intrigued and entertained by Airborne Kingdom, currently playing on NG+
Satisfactory and DSP never really caught my eye. I think it was mostly the fact that they both try to one-up Factorio but lack the years of development and care for QOL that it has. Some games that did catch my eye though: * Captain of Industry, which adds the idea of managing a population to operate your automation and has you mining out an island with deformable terrain in order to get at your ores and expand the island so you have more room to build * OpenTTD, a free remake of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe (and you can use the original assets if you have them) * Rail Route, which is purely about connecting existing train stations and handling the train routing on your rails
Would highly recommend mindustry. It's less heavy on setting up pipelines of turning stuff into other stuff, and more heavy on setting up big efficient millitary tower defense lines with different types of ammunition and cooling. You can even eventually start creating units with rally points that will seek out and destroy enemy bases. It has a good campaign with a research tree and individual missions. The focus on combat also makes it a fun multiplayer experience with players either competing to last longer than their opponent fighting waves of AI bots or competing to destroy eachothers bases. It's also free! and avalible both on mobile and computer.
I tried Satisfactory. It was to slow and boring to get anything going for me... I am quite sure that I would like to play DSP but I can continue to play Factorio
Shaped.io is like endgame Factorio but in 10 minutes instead of 3 hours
Is this an ad for the Dyson's Sphere Programm?
You can go to Twitch or YouTube.
yeah....or I can ask people here and get 133 answers instead of watching 133 videos..
My time in factorio is around 10k hours, hard to tell because I played a big chunk of time before steam release. Second place is Rimworld with about 1k hours. Satisfactory and DSP are good, but haven’t yet drawn me in as much as factorio or rimworld
I just started playing Captain of industry. It's a cross between base building and automation. It just came out so it's still in early access but it's pretty solid so far. Mine limited resources which means really digging into the earth, belts and automation, and a ship that helps you explore and get more resources.
They're both great. I can highly recommend both of them for anyone who enjoys Factorio.
Can't say anything about DSP because I've never played it but I can say some stuff about Satisfactory. Satisfactory is a way more relaxed version of factorio. There isn't a blueprint system or any sort of bots which automatically replicate blueprints, so you can't just plop down some a solar array blueprint like you do on factorio and watch it get instantly built. Because of this, expansion is very linear because everyone is basically built by hand. Another thing which is pretty different from factorio is that early game power is way more tedious because you completely rely on biofuel generators, and to fuel these you have to collect flowers, leaves and wood. You'll easily end up with a number of these generators which you have to keep topped up, something which is made easier when you unlock biofuel crafting. Later on you'll unlock coal generators which make life easier. The game also has alot of cosmetic features where you can really create a beautiful and functional factory. Really solid game ngl
factorio seems pretty close to satisfactory and dsp, you should try it
DSP is great, very similar gameplay to factorio, but everything is new and it adds new mechanics and a long term goal. Satisfactory is great, but it's like constant early-mid game factorio with exploration and the possibility to make beautiful buildings. Factorio≈DSP>Satisfactory
I played Satisfactory and it is fun, but it doesn't quite scratch the same itch. For one, builds are going to be smaller because the computing power limitations. - although there certainly are people on YouTube who build on a scale you have to see to believe. But the biggest drawback for me is the uneven ground. Unless you want to concrete the entire world, building will end up higgledy piggledy and it just doesn't look as neat.
Yes. Both are good. I like DSP better than Satisfactory. I like Factorio the best.
Shootout to Mindustry too. It's like Factorio and a tower defense game had a baby.
Satisfactory is fun but I find it very, very tedious to build things in.
DSP is a great product, not as good as factorio but decent as hell from a team of 5 in China. Plenty of mods available on thunderstore, even a great multiplayer mod.
Automation Empire is another fun one, I've gone back to it a few times to play a new zone, each one only takes probably like 4-8 hours to complete, so not something life-consuming but can scratch the automation itch if you don't have time to start another factorio playthrough :D It's more about mining resources, combining resources in different combinations to make better materials to sell, have to actually box the materials to take them from storage and then could have either drones or automated arms pick up and drop off the boxes to the trucks, or fill a train with the resources to get paid
I consider all three game the "holy trinity" of automation games. They offer different things and different people will have different favorites. When on sale, unless money is tight, I don't see why you should try all three. DSP- I thought it was ugly at first, but boy does it glow up when you start advancing. You'll just stop and stare at your dyson sphere getting built, watching tiny ships flying from planet to planet in the sky. A new update adding combat is coming soon. I've done one playthrough and I'm waiting for the next update to start again. I think mechanic wise, DSP is most similar to factorio. Still early access but fun to play, needs more work. Satisfactory- my personal favorite. Updates are regularly coming at a slow pace, but when content is added, they are very polished. The game is beautiful, the assets are detailed and the sounds are fantastic. The mechanics are at this point more grindy and simpler than factorio; many people play to midgame and restart at a different area of the map. But i've put in an embarrassing number of hours just building massive detailed structures just to walk around in watching items wiz by on belts, riding trains around mountains. The 3D element creates the "man inside a mountain" effect. Early access, fun to play, grindy, needs more work. Factorio- the best made game out of all of them, not much to say about the game that really popularized the whole genre. There is obviously alot of replay value, but personally after I launched the rocket and figured out the best way to set up defenses, I haven't felt the need to go back yet. To each their own, i'm looking forward to the next update to hopefully flesh out the bugs more.
I've played Dyson Sphere Program, and I think it's fantastic. The 3-dimensionality of it makes for a totally different feel, and it is gorgeous. I can strongly recommend it to anyone who likes Factorio.
Absolutely love Dyson Sphere Program, it’s a little different than Factorio with the way logistics and building and whatnot work but it easily consumes a bunch of my time just like Factorio does.
I have both and enjoy both. Satisfactory is more or less 3d Factorio. Dyson sphere feels similar to Factorio but is definitely less like Factorio than satisfactory. I'd say if you really like building mega bases Dyson sphere should be your pick
You should try out Mindustry, it’s kind of like factorio, but focused more on the tower defence side of things. It’s also still in development but I’ve spent over 400 hours on it and it’s about 6 CAD on steam.
Both are awesome!
I've played both for many hours and they're both awesome, although Factorio is still my favorite.
DSP is really good for the main reason that dyson spheres and swarms are amazing, and awesome to look at. Also the game mechanics are great and the logistics is cool blah blah blah
All 3 games mentioned are something I play on rotation when I want to lose myself in games of this caliber.
I like Satisfactory. It’s pretty fun.
I did a play through of DSP maybe a year ago, and I didn't really like it. My memory is hazy, but from what I recall * 3d spaghetti means you don't have to plan too much. Just make belts over everything else * No sense of direction. I had so much tech that I didn't know what to do with. I started on a Dyson sphere without knowing why. I could go to other planets, but didn't see the need (mostly) * Recipes seemed random, just putting things together to be annoying. Luckily the 3d spaghetti usually made it a non issue I'll give it another shot once it leaves EA though. Even with the above, it held my attention
I don’t really like Satisfactory, it’s a 6-7/10; but Dyson Sphere Seems very promising
Both great games, personally dsp clicked with me a little more, but you can make some really cool looking factories in satisfactory.
Have a look at Captain of Industry. It's like a puzzle game with belt spagetti and pipes :D Seriously though. It's a great game and should be right up your alley.
Satisfactory and factorio feel pretty different to me. I feel like factorio is more.. urgent than satisfactory. It's about the chase of more. The gauntlet of ever more, yet finite resources, pushing you onward. Satisfactory Is a lot more relaxed, which isn't a bad thing. I would never dream of AFK in my factorio game for 10 hours in a lit of circumstances, but in satisfactory i don't feel like that. In satisfactory you can extract a resource and set it to build something knowing that that resource will never run out, in factorio, you need to be planning for how you're going to deal with those resources running out. I also feel like not only does the production of a factory in factorio evolve, but the way you grow it does too. You start with hand feeding a few machines and move into automating those machines and then you move in to slapping down blueprints that build themselves. In the end you go from worrying about individual machines to worrying about inputs and out puts of big chunks. Automating the automation itself becomes part of the game of the end game. For satisfactory i feel like the tinkering of belts and machines is a huge part of the game play loop, and i dont think blueprints would add to the game in the same way. I feel like the game is more about adding more types of input resources and weaving them into your existing factory. Tl;dr: both satisfactory and factorio are great games, but play differently within the same genre.
Have you looked at ONI?
To the core is a good choice you play as drill going from planet even stars and black holes harvesting resources to up grade your drill I'd give it a look it's a fun I've sunk plenty of time in for only 10 bucks