Satisfactory

Satisfactory can scratch some of the same itches as Factorio. The differences:

• Factorio looks like Age of Empires 2 with a 3 pack a day habit, which you cover an already dismal looking landscape with smoky dieselpunk factories. Satisfactory is a rather pretty Unreal engine game in which you cover gorgeous landscapes with tonka truck looking factories.

• Factorio is 2D so everything sits on the ground. Satisfactory is the most 3D game ever, verticality is a major mechanic in the game. A major part of the experience is building buildings to put your factories in.

• In Factorio, you unlock new technologies in the tech tree by researching them in labs, the labs are fueled by science bottle things that you make out of production parts. In Satisfactory, you unlock new technologies by putting specific numbers of production parts into the HUB, the MAM, or through sacrificing basically anything into the AWESOME sink. This isn't really automatable.

• Factorio has a major combat/wave defense mechanic with the bugs, the bugs hate your pollution cloud and want to destroy your factory and kill you for it. In Satisfactory, your buildings are indestructable (you can remove them and be refunded the materials that went into them but if you put down a wall nothing but you can break it), there is no wave defense, there are alien organisms that are basically wild animals that will try to hurt you if you get nearby so there's some first person shooter elements.

• Factorio's world is functionally infinite, you can find an edge but it is extremely large, and procedurally generated. Satisfactory takes place on one handcrafted map, I think there is a tiny amount of procedural generation in that some minor resource rocks I think are randomly placed, like those occasional "here's 25 limestone in the middle of nowhere" rocks, I think some of those are random.

• Factorio has large patches of ore on the ground that you put lots of miners on, and you'll eventually pull them empty and have to move on to find a new patch. Satisfactory has ore nodes on which one miner is placed. They never run out of ore, but they are limited in the production rate, so as the game asks you to build bigger and more complicated things, you have to expand to get more resources per minute.

• The belt systems are different; Factorio has two-lane belts and there are nuances to how you put things onto the belts, like iron and coal on the same belt for furnaces. Satisfactory has single lane belts and the puzzle is more about how to accomodate all the belts you need in 3D space.

There are things about it that are like Factorio, but also some philosophical differences.

Most obvious difference is that it's 3D and "pretty", whereas Factorio is 2D and brown. Which is fine! But this game gives you opportunities to stand on a cliff and look out over some plains and visit some non-hostile animals. You can also build upwards to create tall stacked factories.

On the flip side, what that first person perspective costs is that it's a lot harder to manage things as a guy running around inside and amongst the buildings compared to a zoomed out, top down, view. So the scale is never the same simply because it's unmanageable.

Also, unlike Factorio, there's a pretty sharp divide between the things you can assemble and the things you make in hand. Like, IIRC you never end up with factories that build buildings in Satisfactory. You have drills that collect resources, and factories that turn those resources into components, but all of the construction you do yourself. At least that's my recollection.

I'm not saying I stayed up until 5 am playing and had to work at 8 am for the second time this week. But I know a guy that did. Also it's that guy's second play through. A different guy, not me for sure, I'm a rationale human being with healthy sleeping habits.... right?

One more thing nobody's mentioned: the map is handcrafted and finite unlike the randomly generated maps of factorio. The upside of this is that the different biomes are neat and varied the first time you see them. There are hidden caves, beautiful cliff sides and waterfalls, and snaking streams.

Downside is that it's limiting if you want to replay a bunch of times to make bigger and better factories. There are already calculations for what's the most production you can get out of the map. It's pretty large, don't get me wrong, but unfortunately there's no growing the factory after that.

It's somewhat similar. As a 3D first person game it more complicated to get things to line up and get a good view of things. You do have the ability to build up which is nice.

Early game is a pain because it takes much longer to get automated power. You constantly are running back to get more wood and fill the power generator.

Combat is terrible. It's a pain in the butt and never gets satisfying. There are no turrets. Monsters don't attack the factory though just you.

Resources come from nodes on the map that never run out. So you get x per second from a node and can latter do things to improve the number.

So you don't run into things like when green circuits stop producing because a copper patch ran out.

Belts are single row instead of double row so no option of side by side or double product. Instead of inserters you have joiners and splitters. So a iron ore belt goes into a smelter and a belt of ignots comes out. You then join the output of multiple smelters.

Personally I find the belt system super tedious. Trying to run a triple stack of belts is a long boring pain in the ass. Fps target a stackable pole and then two on top. Repeat another stack hopefully less the a max belt length. Then target from a to b 3 times to build the actual belts. Repeat for the next section.

When you get blueprints they come late and are small. Then never get very large. No just dropping in a big smelter plant. You drop in small clusters of smelters and manually connect them. Blueprints don't tile like in factorio so you have to connect them manually.

There are never any interesting builds. Its just use a, b to make c, d, e, to make f and then c, f to make g.

The most interesting thing is alternative recipes. You hunt around the map for crashed ships and collect the drives. Research them and get alternate recipe for a part. They always have an interesting trade off. Fewer or different resources in exchange for faster, slower, simpler or more complex builds.

For example reinforced plates take iron plates and bolts. Bolts take rods and ignots. Stiched reinforced plates replace bolts with copper wire and are simpler to make but use copper.

In general it feels like every upgrade comes to late and is underwhelming. Blue prints, combat, transport, etc.

Overall I think it's ok not great like Factorio. I doubt I would have finished the final end game construction if I wasn't playing with friends.

There is also the writing which is annoying and the small story goes nowhere. It's mostly just a constant reminder that the company doesn't care about you and work harder. It's supposed to be funny I think but it's the same tired joke over and over.

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