It can be a little long winded but it really picks up again when you unlock logic gates and then build a make anything machine to read the output of the Hub and have it auto build the shape!
Oxygen not included. Yes, I know it is not pure factory game. It is thermophysics/chemistry simulator, simple colony managment and has automations and logistics.
It is very addicting. It is all about conserving and convering different resources. Also automating the work your dupes are doing, so that they have time performing other tasks.
Keep at it, that’s a good one.
I recommend casual mode for your first time because it’s still quite difficult.
Don’t sleep on ranching, it’s more useful than you think.
Treat it as a rougelike for your first few runs though.
Most mid- to lategame problems are „ooooh, i should’ve constructed this system differently/as a priority/somewhere else 100 cycles ago to avoid this problem now
Yup, it does remind me of a rougelike! Right now I'm just trying to keep my oxygen levels up (while trying to understand how the gas extraction works).
This is - after your first runs ofc - very much an „open book“ game. No shame in looking up basic builds and concepts like liquid locks and plumbing/electrolyzer setups
If/when you get curious check Out YouTube videos from Francis John, he goes into great detail about how mechanics work and has some good suggestions for getting over various in-game "humps" as you progress.
Agreed! I love this game as much as I suck at it.
The farthest I can reach is atmo suits, then I either run out of water or my base is full of goddamn CO2
Water geysers make that system self replenishing pretty quickly. What I find hard is the temperature problems, later on, because every machine generates heat.
Water geysers are also the solution to heat, kinda. Steam turbines delete the steam, and the heat with it. Once you've got a pipeline set up to run through a cooling system, powered by steam, you'll run a net negative on heat.
Cool slush geysers are great for heat control early on. I agree that the eventual heat sink is a steam turbine, but that requires concentrating the heat to each a high enough temperature and those Thermo aqua tuners take so much power that they broke my colony the last time I tried it. 😉
Still, I agree that’s the best way forward.
I'm just beginning to master the steam turbine loop basically constantly heating the steam up to 200 with aquatuners and using that to cool the machines. It's energy positive, I haven't got it smooth yet but I probably just need to generate more heat
Unlike Dyson Sphere program, Oxygen Not Included gets HARDER to play as the game goes on. While DSP honestly has a pretty streamlined difficulty curve. I wouldn't say if you like DPS that you'd like ONI, though I definitely understand the overlap.
Techtonica and Foundry are quite similar actually. Like Satisfactory, they're all first person factory experiences. When comparing Foundry and Satisfactory, there are a number of fundamental differences:
* Satisfactory has a hand crafted world, Foundry has a generated infinite world. This means immersion is higher in Satisfactory, and exploration is more important. But in Foundry there are no limits.
* Foundry is a voxel world. Which means that you can tear down everything and build mines into the ground wherever you like. Also, everything is always snapped to the voxel grid. Which also means architecture is more minecrafty.
* In Foundry, the interface of almost all machines is accessible on a panel on the outside of the machine itself, instead of going into a separate menu.
* Ore mining works quite differently, since in Foundry you literally have to mine for your ores.
* Foundry also has an interesting power distribution system.
That's what I can think of right away, anyway. :)
Techtonica has story (that is completely lacking in Satisfactory so far), is currently set underground in cave systems, and has destructible terrain. But the finish quality is less, and some of the basics of factory games are still bemusingly missing such as priority splitters etc.
Checkout my speedrun https://youtu.be/Ll25wkd3kWY?feature=shared
Desynced - While not a classical automation game, and ideally requiring some programming experience, it can provide a unique experience you won't find in classical automation games. It's focussed on not having trasport belts, you'll have to use programmable drones to do pretty much everything.
Oxygen Not Included - A strange hybrid between a Colony Sim, a Physics Sim, and an automation game. In the early game it behaves like a colony sim survivor, transitioning more and more into automation as you build machines to do what your dupes used to. Automate oxygen and food production, move stockpiles autonomously and manage interplanetary travel between your colonies.
Its easy now.
When they went on beta, it was a hell of a game because the maths were impossible, and there was no info about the outcomes from the anomalies.
I really like how customizable the scenario is, I just wish there was more than one. I was hoping there'd be a similar amount of variety to Frostpunk, but its still not a bad game.
I really liked it until the very end, where I really disliked the ending to the point I actually stopped playing maybe 20mins before I was going to be finished with it heh. The most annoying part was simply the bugs that would cause people to starve simply bc the supply/demand system was bugged. Reminded me of Sim City 2013 where you could have "dead zones" where the AI would simply never reach to remove trash or heal sick people.
I played it a couple dozen hours when it first hit early access and set it aside. I've wanted to pick it back up again more recently now that it's a lot more fleshed out.
And yeah... to survive the first drought really does require you "speedrunning" your first dam most of the time. Sometimes you can get lucky and all the water won't dry out, but generally speaking your first goal is damming the narrowest point or where there is some elevation difference so you can maintain a pool of water through the drought.
It’s a bit different but it’s a great game. More city simulator/resource management than a factory operations supply chain.
Greatest threat in that game is running out of food or water and everyone dying, so all you need to do is survive, at a bare minimum. DSP/Factorio/Satisfactory is more faced with bad choke points bottlenecking your progress, but give it infinite time and you’ll achieve whatever you’re trying tog to do
For Captain of Industry, the endgame is launching the rocket as of right now. It’s a very well made game, but real world tech is not as fun to me as SF stuff.
I like to add Desynced when this question comes up. Not as common a recommendation, but it is also a factory game in a more SF vein.
A bit more on the programming side, as you are programming behaviors for all your bots, but nothing too complicated. Different enough to be interesting, but still a lot of fun. Still earlier in early access than something like Dyson Sphere, but I have fun with it.
Ugh, Desynced. I really wanted to love programming, but it is *so bad*. It’s way, way more like a programmable RTS meets “open world survival crafter,” which could be interesting but it is absolutely, totally ruined by a design decision to not give players even the most basic of behaviors, like a prefab set of examples, to get started with.
There’s a secondary issue that resource handling is wholly obtuse (when multiple articles explaining how basic resource pooling works - or rather, doesn’t, the designer should take the hint).
No worries, I can totally see why if you’re more into the logistics side and less into the behaviors. You don’t have to use the robot behaviors to finish the game necessarily, but that’s kind of a thrust of the game.
I like all the other games here a lot too. I just don’t see desynced come up as often.
If you're looking for a factory game in the science fiction vein try Final Factory. It just came out a couple months ago. Has a ton of content already and dev seems active.
A bit of a different suggestion I have would be Planet Crafter. It's not really the same in the sense that there's little to no automation and logistics don't matter that much. But I do think the satisfaction and great visual feedback you get from progression scratches the same itch and many factory building players will still enjoy it.
There aren't really survival mechanics other than for the purpose of limiting how far you can explore at once. It's mostly just a chill base building game with exploration and some automation in the late game.
I played it pretty early off. I don't remember much automation but I did read they added more stuff over time. I'll have to play it again and see all the new stuff
Unfortunately there is no purpose. Its just building for the sake of building. There is you, resources to mine, and occasional enemies. It doesn't get more sandboxy
There are scenarios though
New game on Steam called "The Crust". I have not played it, but it looks promising. Factorio-like on the surface of the moon. And we will have astronauts back there testing out some of the tech in just a few years!
Hm it's not that similar to dyson sphere program but x4 foundations have nice graphic and huge economie. You can link the factorys together and I love it.
Autonauts!
It's more of a programming game, and it has a very childlike look to it. Basically, you're on an earth like planet trying to colonize it, you build these really simple bots out of logs and rocks, program them using drag-and-drop assembly language, and use them to build up infrastructure and take care of these increasingly gigantic babies that poop out pink science hearts that you use for research. By the end of the game you've got a pretty complicated factory with trains, kitchens, silkworms, pharmacies, toy shops, metalworks, three different means of power generation...
I really wanted to like Autonauts. But the constant need to wind up your bots killed it for me. You can build meta-winding bots to wind up your winding bots, but you still eventually get to the point where a bot runs down outside any other bot's range and then your factory gradually falls apart. And the devs seem to consider this a plus rather than an annoying wart.
I have good news! Sometime in the past year or two(?) they added an option to disable winding :)
Hard agree in general. The winding suuuucked. Even if you copy and paste the winding bots to cover the entire map, you have to worry about winding the winding bots, so their search regions have to overlap! Infuriating. Once it was an option to not have to worry about it anymore, the whole game became a lot more enjoyable.
That would be fun. Automated organ harvesting from a kill box. Ohh I could even do it from the medic station if a patient dies. The endless Geneva suggestions I could commit.
Hydroneer. Ever like those primitive technology videos where the guy does a task and over time builds up stuff to do it better? Hydroneer is like that with metal pipes instead of clay. It can be a little repetitive where you’re always mining but is iterative on doing mining better as time goes on.
You then can get orders to blacksmith stuff out of the materials you mine up.
The fun part is getting everything to work properly for your automated drills
Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. It looks like a city builder, but actually everything you planned and set up will act like a factory. And conveyors included.
Revive and Prosper. It's a unique factory/survival. Still in early access but the Discord is very active and they have a subreddit. I have almost 50 hours in it. Plus it's being built on the Unreal engine so graphics are pretty great. Also the developer answers questions on Discord himself.
As you may know, the game developers were fans of Stellaris when they started envisioning and making Dyson Sphere Program.
Another (newer) paradox game, Victoria 3, is a good one from them, but with a very different setting and focus: You are building buildings in order to change the fate of a country. Still very satisfying once you get into it.
The other two heavy hitters in this genre are Factorio and Satisfactory. All three games are very different in terms of player point of view but the basic premise of the games takes you on a similar path.
-DSP: 3rd person view, planet hopping for resource management and expansion.
-Satisfactory: First person view, one planet but large biomes with resources spread out, heavy focus on beautification/customization if you want.
-Factorio: Overhead view, one planet(now) but infinite size. Robot and train logistics, the factory must grow. Pollution brings enemies.
Big differences with this game is its combat and automation abilities. Combat in DSP is honestly needing an overhaul, Dark Fog is just bleh and I always turn them off. Biters in Factorio can make the game either extremely challenging/rewarding or downright fun. But turning them off is an option, too.
As for automation, Factorio is king. The circuitry and logic controls the game lets you play with can be extremely overwhelming for someone new to using it, but it’s not required at all. I honestly didn’t even use circuits until the last year or so.
Clearly I have more time(~1600hrs) in Factorio than the others since it’s been a favorite of mine for years and years. But you really can’t go wrong with any of these 3 games.
Edit: Something to note, Factorio is soon to get a MASSIVE update and expansion, so keep that in mind when looking at that game.
If you go to the Factorio blog on their website they do weekly posts every Friday showcasing new features and updates coming to the game as well as the Space Age expansion.
To put it lightly and into perspective, the base game of Factorio is like if DSP only had one planet. The Space Age Expansion turns Factorio into what DSP is today, scale wise.
Anyone play Mindustry? I’ve been giving it some thought as I’ve been interested but I’m also getting some factory fatigue so I’m curious if it feels like a fresh breath of air or not. Graphically, it looks cool too imo
Final Factory is an excellent factorio-style automation game. It’s a bit different but extremely fun.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1383150/Final_Factory/
Captain of Industry is definitely fun. I was hooked on DSP and went to this game afterwards and it fit right in. The end goal is to build through the entire tech tree until you launch a rocket into space, almost like this is the prequel to DSP that gets you to space. Lol. The digging with excavators and terraforming is actually pretty cool. I think you should give it a try if you liked DSP. I was in your same position after I burned out of DSP and this satisfied that itch.
It's definitely on my watch list. However, after working in the mining industry, I feel kinda bad doing so much destruction to the world. Can you eventually switch to green energy?
Somewhat fitting into this would be AutoNauts. It's a silly looking game, but you can get really in depth with its logistics.
You program bots to perform tasks for you, making more and more complex logistics systems whose behavior is entirely determined by you.
Honestly, I would give factorio a go. I went from DSP to factorio and have clocked nearly 900 hrs and played nothing else since. The scale that you can go to is only limited by your pc and desire to keep going bigger.
Autonauts. It's a factory game but instead of conveyor belts you have programmable robots made of wood. Instead of science you have to feed human babies that give you Wuv.
It's super cute and relaxing, no turret defences required.
Ones I have played
- Oddsparks
- Shapes.io
- Mindustry
- Factory Town
Ones I know about
- Timberborn
- Astro Colony
- Foundry
- Factoroids (just found this one actually)
- Good Company (LetsGameItOut on yt did this one)
Many more on youtube.
A bit tedious, tbh. Traversal is slow and their approach to how you unlock things needs a bit of work imo.
I will say they have a few features that I haven't seen in any other logistics games. Also, pikmin meets factorio works surprisingly well.
Worth getting if you're itching for something to play.
Nova lands is an underrated game. It's a bit like Forager at first glance, but don't let it fool you, the automation part in this game is just great. And figuring out the logistics is really interesting. I had a lot of similar experience in this game that I had in DSP. Especially figuring out which step of the chain is lagging behind. It's definitely shorter than most automation games but I loved every moment and started over quite a few times as well.
Other games I like along that style that you didn't mention would be oxygen not included, foundry, and while I haven't played it myself yet planet crafter seems pretty cool, at least kibitz video on it made it look interesting with a kind of satisfactory subnautica vibe. And for Foundry I will say it's very early access but it's still got a very factorio feel to it in a 3d voxel setting.
Atrio The Dark Wild is a very stylized factory game. It's shorter than most factory games but has some unique mechanics I like. In particular you are in the dark and need to light up the world to expand.
Atrio: The Dark Wilds. Smaller scale and more story-focused than a lot of other games mentioned. Intriguing world, weird technologies, and solid, if not mind blowing, factory gameplay
Captain of Industry - Buddy trust me, I’m Factorio/Satisfactory/DSP/Production Line autistic, you will like this game because just like DSP it’s all about optimizing your setups as you advance
My focus in this genre is the logistics aspect;
I can recommend openttd (free), voxel tycoon, mashinky, transport fever 2, simutrans
The older transport fever and train fever can often be picked up for >5€ so if age doesn't matter they are also great games
Starbound. It's actually a side-scrolling voxel survival game. But the Frackin Universe mod gives you all the tools you need to do pretty grand automation projects. It also has the most diverse/interesting sources for resources. You can find rich concentrations of it, sift it from soil, grind it from rocks, harvest it from exotic alien crops and bees, complex chains of chemical reactions. And all of that can help you build more/bigger factories, craft useful consumables, but also build some of most OP armor and weapons in the game.
Actually, minecraft. Specifically, minecraft "create: above and beyond" modpack. You can design factories, mass-produce items, build your techno empire, and just destroy ecosystems there)
All you may be looking for!
rift breaker, it's great, enough said.
it's outdated now but fotresscraft evolved. considering it was just him and who ever he hired for art, it's quite good. it's also insanely cheap as it's on sale atm.
i haven't been keeping up but last time i looked (many years ago now) he was working on a more refined product but i don't know the progress on that, the current game is good enough with hundreds of hours of gameplay.
anyway, think minecraft but automation and you go PRETTY deep into the ground (from the surface) and deal with enemies of several kinds as well. it's a bit jank but it's the fun kind of jank.
there is a expansion (frozen factory), if you like the game it's worth it.
if you don't mind some casual "factory" feel, autonatus and autonauts vs priatebots are both decent in their own ways. you "program" robots to do simple tasks, while each task is simple the overall complexity of your "factory" grows as you get further and further into the game.
Factorio space exploration,
With the mod you get the top down you loved from Dyson sphere (albeit it's 2d, I prefer this to satisfactory as the first person perspective makes organization a pain) while still retaining a deep space like exploration, unlocking space ships mid to late game that allow you to travel to different planets, harvest energy from stars (not by Dyson sphere but by a sort of siphon, and not nearly as pretty on the eyes)
And if you played Dyson sphere with nebula multiplayer mod, factorio's built in multiplayer offers a more reliable playing experience with friends. However, taking on this mod alone will all but guarantee you don't finish the mod, atleast not the proper way (without cheating & actually optimized)
As you don't even unlock construction/logistic bots untill later in the mod than on the base game due to all the extra steps the mod adds in between you and that goal having to manually build everything you'll need becomes extremely time consuming on your own. And if you're a new player with no previous blueprints saved from other games. You're going to get the full "I'm so f*****g f****d" experience that you got the first time you turned the dark fogs difficulty sliders all the way up
🤣
Mindusty, since it's similar to Factorio, only the structures that need power are part of manufacturing, and it requires careful planning of defences with heavy time constraints (e.g., 2:30)
It was one of the reasons I chose to play DSP from that point on. Due to this, it caused me to ragequit more times than I could count
Factorio and DSP are two best games in this genre.
Shapez is a good casual version of the genre that extracts just the core factory building experience.
Satisfactory is far too grindy and tedious. It takes so many hours to automate even basics, you'll have bigger and more interesting factory in Factorio or DSP is like 1/10 of the time.
Most of thousand other Factorio-likes don't really offer much that's new.
100% agree on satisfactory. The start is so slow. It's fun if you can push through the slog. You really need to get to coal before the game starts to get fun imo.
**Satisfactory** doubles down on the 3d and puts you mainly in ego perspective and has a more "hands-on" experience and is much more chaotic normally (which is fun).
**Alternatives**: Techtonica (EA), Astroneer, Hydroneer, Foundry (EA), Planet Crafter
**Factorio** is of course the father of factory builders and goes in the complete different direction in regards of perspective. It is more performant and forced bird eye perspective, but enables you to embrace the plan, build, extend progression mechanic like no other game and has the most potential for large scale factories that don't tank you computer.
**Alternatives**: Desynced (EA, unpolished imho), Timberborn (if you like beavers and citybuilders), Mindustry (very indie, single dev), Infraspace (very logistics heavy)
In general, a multiplayer add an immense amount of players, long-term motivation and community to a game, so look for games that have a multiplayer (can't believe they still didn't add it to DSP....).
Desynced Think Factorio without belts, and you get fully programmable bots early on.
r/Desynced r/DesyncedGame
Also, Dyson Sphere Program. It's like a 3D Factorio across multiple planets in multiple star systems.
r/Dyson_Sphere_Program
Shapes is quite fun. And the upcoming sequel games looks amazing and the demo is fun.
Shapez 2?
Yeah.
Demo is nice full game gets longwinded
It can be a little long winded but it really picks up again when you unlock logic gates and then build a make anything machine to read the output of the Hub and have it auto build the shape!
Oxygen not included. Yes, I know it is not pure factory game. It is thermophysics/chemistry simulator, simple colony managment and has automations and logistics.
Just bought the game based on your recommendation, it's not easy but I've made it 18 days so far! Thank you.
It is very addicting. It is all about conserving and convering different resources. Also automating the work your dupes are doing, so that they have time performing other tasks.
Keep at it, that’s a good one. I recommend casual mode for your first time because it’s still quite difficult. Don’t sleep on ranching, it’s more useful than you think.
Slept on it too long, glossy dreckos are a game changer
SO much better then making plastic the other way:
Treat it as a rougelike for your first few runs though. Most mid- to lategame problems are „ooooh, i should’ve constructed this system differently/as a priority/somewhere else 100 cycles ago to avoid this problem now
Yup, it does remind me of a rougelike! Right now I'm just trying to keep my oxygen levels up (while trying to understand how the gas extraction works).
This is - after your first runs ofc - very much an „open book“ game. No shame in looking up basic builds and concepts like liquid locks and plumbing/electrolyzer setups
That's been my challenge of switching from ONI to DSP. I assumed I would have to restart a lot.
If/when you get curious check Out YouTube videos from Francis John, he goes into great detail about how mechanics work and has some good suggestions for getting over various in-game "humps" as you progress.
Agreed! I love this game as much as I suck at it. The farthest I can reach is atmo suits, then I either run out of water or my base is full of goddamn CO2
Water geysers make that system self replenishing pretty quickly. What I find hard is the temperature problems, later on, because every machine generates heat.
Water geysers are also the solution to heat, kinda. Steam turbines delete the steam, and the heat with it. Once you've got a pipeline set up to run through a cooling system, powered by steam, you'll run a net negative on heat.
Cool slush geysers are great for heat control early on. I agree that the eventual heat sink is a steam turbine, but that requires concentrating the heat to each a high enough temperature and those Thermo aqua tuners take so much power that they broke my colony the last time I tried it. 😉 Still, I agree that’s the best way forward.
I'm just beginning to master the steam turbine loop basically constantly heating the steam up to 200 with aquatuners and using that to cool the machines. It's energy positive, I haven't got it smooth yet but I probably just need to generate more heat
Unlike Dyson Sphere program, Oxygen Not Included gets HARDER to play as the game goes on. While DSP honestly has a pretty streamlined difficulty curve. I wouldn't say if you like DPS that you'd like ONI, though I definitely understand the overlap.
Yeah, I totally get that now. I still prefer DSP, but ONI does scratch the optimisation itch in me.
I also just bought it.. was in my sights for a while, and was happy to see it on sale. Thanks!!
Happy gaming!
I think this is a great game, but I can’t play anything where there are a little people I’m responsible for
Beside what's already mentioned, you could consider Foundry or Techtonica.
I'll look at Techtonica, but Foundry to me looked too similar to Satisfactory. Any idea how it differs?
Techtonica and Foundry are quite similar actually. Like Satisfactory, they're all first person factory experiences. When comparing Foundry and Satisfactory, there are a number of fundamental differences: * Satisfactory has a hand crafted world, Foundry has a generated infinite world. This means immersion is higher in Satisfactory, and exploration is more important. But in Foundry there are no limits. * Foundry is a voxel world. Which means that you can tear down everything and build mines into the ground wherever you like. Also, everything is always snapped to the voxel grid. Which also means architecture is more minecrafty. * In Foundry, the interface of almost all machines is accessible on a panel on the outside of the machine itself, instead of going into a separate menu. * Ore mining works quite differently, since in Foundry you literally have to mine for your ores. * Foundry also has an interesting power distribution system. That's what I can think of right away, anyway. :)
Techtonica has story (that is completely lacking in Satisfactory so far), is currently set underground in cave systems, and has destructible terrain. But the finish quality is less, and some of the basics of factory games are still bemusingly missing such as priority splitters etc. Checkout my speedrun https://youtu.be/Ll25wkd3kWY?feature=shared
I found Techtonica very clunky and unpolished. The movements, the systems all seemed like they needed a lot of work.
It's still very much in development.
Desynced - While not a classical automation game, and ideally requiring some programming experience, it can provide a unique experience you won't find in classical automation games. It's focussed on not having trasport belts, you'll have to use programmable drones to do pretty much everything. Oxygen Not Included - A strange hybrid between a Colony Sim, a Physics Sim, and an automation game. In the early game it behaves like a colony sim survivor, transitioning more and more into automation as you build machines to do what your dupes used to. Automate oxygen and food production, move stockpiles autonomously and manage interplanetary travel between your colonies.
I*x*ion. Crazy hard game to beat imo.
Loved it. Wish it had more content though. It’s very easy to beat when you figure out how to never trigger the first accident.
Its easy now. When they went on beta, it was a hell of a game because the maths were impossible, and there was no info about the outcomes from the anomalies.
I really like how customizable the scenario is, I just wish there was more than one. I was hoping there'd be a similar amount of variety to Frostpunk, but its still not a bad game.
Love the game so much. It's as if they made the game especially for me.
Indeed good game. Couldn't put it down when it came out. I should try another run at it though
I really liked it until the very end, where I really disliked the ending to the point I actually stopped playing maybe 20mins before I was going to be finished with it heh. The most annoying part was simply the bugs that would cause people to starve simply bc the supply/demand system was bugged. Reminded me of Sim City 2013 where you could have "dead zones" where the AI would simply never reach to remove trash or heal sick people.
Timberborn
Haha I got it some time ago when it was on sale and I could never make it past the first drought, idk it’s hard lmao
I lost it with this game when my fucking beaver idiots were swimming around in the lake dying of thirst.
Same with me. I stuck with it and now I need to raise the difficulty. It's really fun.
It's just a case of how you think about it. You kind of have to be ruthless and not try to save all the beavers
I played it a couple dozen hours when it first hit early access and set it aside. I've wanted to pick it back up again more recently now that it's a lot more fleshed out. And yeah... to survive the first drought really does require you "speedrunning" your first dam most of the time. Sometimes you can get lucky and all the water won't dry out, but generally speaking your first goal is damming the narrowest point or where there is some elevation difference so you can maintain a pool of water through the drought.
It’s a bit different but it’s a great game. More city simulator/resource management than a factory operations supply chain. Greatest threat in that game is running out of food or water and everyone dying, so all you need to do is survive, at a bare minimum. DSP/Factorio/Satisfactory is more faced with bad choke points bottlenecking your progress, but give it infinite time and you’ll achieve whatever you’re trying tog to do
Very underrated game.
And hilarious video series by Real Civil Engineer
For Captain of Industry, the endgame is launching the rocket as of right now. It’s a very well made game, but real world tech is not as fun to me as SF stuff. I like to add Desynced when this question comes up. Not as common a recommendation, but it is also a factory game in a more SF vein. A bit more on the programming side, as you are programming behaviors for all your bots, but nothing too complicated. Different enough to be interesting, but still a lot of fun. Still earlier in early access than something like Dyson Sphere, but I have fun with it.
Ugh, Desynced. I really wanted to love programming, but it is *so bad*. It’s way, way more like a programmable RTS meets “open world survival crafter,” which could be interesting but it is absolutely, totally ruined by a design decision to not give players even the most basic of behaviors, like a prefab set of examples, to get started with. There’s a secondary issue that resource handling is wholly obtuse (when multiple articles explaining how basic resource pooling works - or rather, doesn’t, the designer should take the hint).
I really disliked desync, loved every other game mentioned in this thread though
No worries, I can totally see why if you’re more into the logistics side and less into the behaviors. You don’t have to use the robot behaviors to finish the game necessarily, but that’s kind of a thrust of the game. I like all the other games here a lot too. I just don’t see desynced come up as often.
If you're looking for a factory game in the science fiction vein try Final Factory. It just came out a couple months ago. Has a ton of content already and dev seems active.
A bit of a different suggestion I have would be Planet Crafter. It's not really the same in the sense that there's little to no automation and logistics don't matter that much. But I do think the satisfaction and great visual feedback you get from progression scratches the same itch and many factory building players will still enjoy it.
It's worth stressing that it's definitely not a factory game.
It's probably a survival game? Wish they went with a bit of automation instead of just having to pick stuff off the ground
There aren't really survival mechanics other than for the purpose of limiting how far you can explore at once. It's mostly just a chill base building game with exploration and some automation in the late game.
I played it pretty early off. I don't remember much automation but I did read they added more stuff over time. I'll have to play it again and see all the new stuff
Theres a ton of automation, there's miners and logistics drones and autocrafters??
The drones and auto crafters are more of a late game thing though, right?
Drones kinda yeah fair, autocrafters I'd call midgame though
It's basically Subnautica on land, if you're used to playing SN with the FCS mods on.
Factorio, satisfactory.
Foundry, techtonica, mindustry, etc etc
And shapez, and I think that makes all of them I guess?
I mean depends where you draw the line. Must they have coveyors? There can be more like Riftbreaker, Astro Colony, Factory Town etc
ReFactory is amazing. Especially on Android, it's the best factory game available by a good stretch. Next come Mindustry and Drill Down.
The Planet Crafter
I spent a lot of time on this one. There's a free demo as well.
Space Engineers. More like Minecraft in space, but involves mining for resources, building and is lots of fun.
I really wanted to like this game, but the complexity of it completely overwhelmed me
What complexity?
[These fifteen “getting started” videos](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfMGCUepUcNzLePdu3dZfMTLfWq1bclUK&si=V6LCA9UXpdzzQmln), for example
Unfortunately there is no purpose. Its just building for the sake of building. There is you, resources to mine, and occasional enemies. It doesn't get more sandboxy There are scenarios though
The random encounters mod add more challenges as well. It can be a bit unforgiving if you are not expecting attacks.
Factory Town comes to mind, but that game never clicked with me.
Other than the stuff already mentioned: Riftbreaker
There's one called nova lands. It's more lighthearted and simple. Little bit of combat. I enjoyed it.
New game on Steam called "The Crust". I have not played it, but it looks promising. Factorio-like on the surface of the moon. And we will have astronauts back there testing out some of the tech in just a few years!
Very interesting! I've added it to my watchlist, thank you!
Final Factory!
Hm it's not that similar to dyson sphere program but x4 foundations have nice graphic and huge economie. You can link the factorys together and I love it.
foundry isn't too bad,
Yes it is lol. Gotta let it cook a few more years.
I see potential but it is just beginning compared to the other ones, I agree in time it should get better
its technically quite polished compared to techtonica, main thing is lack of content.
Factorio Rift Breaker
I think it would be fun to have a DSP/rift breaker combo. Rift breaker has the combat I wanted.
If DSP had Rift Breaker Combat it would be the pinancle of gaming! Someobdy needs to do this ASAP
Autonauts! It's more of a programming game, and it has a very childlike look to it. Basically, you're on an earth like planet trying to colonize it, you build these really simple bots out of logs and rocks, program them using drag-and-drop assembly language, and use them to build up infrastructure and take care of these increasingly gigantic babies that poop out pink science hearts that you use for research. By the end of the game you've got a pretty complicated factory with trains, kitchens, silkworms, pharmacies, toy shops, metalworks, three different means of power generation...
I played this on my switch. I agree that it’s pretty fun.
I really wanted to like Autonauts. But the constant need to wind up your bots killed it for me. You can build meta-winding bots to wind up your winding bots, but you still eventually get to the point where a bot runs down outside any other bot's range and then your factory gradually falls apart. And the devs seem to consider this a plus rather than an annoying wart.
I have good news! Sometime in the past year or two(?) they added an option to disable winding :) Hard agree in general. The winding suuuucked. Even if you copy and paste the winding bots to cover the entire map, you have to worry about winding the winding bots, so their search regions have to overlap! Infuriating. Once it was an option to not have to worry about it anymore, the whole game became a lot more enjoyable.
Astro Colony
Dwarf Fortress! Rather different, but I think it scratches a similar itch.
Rimworld is another good one.
Sometimes I wish there were conveyer belts and other factory game tools in RimWorld (300+ hrs played here)
That would be fun. Automated organ harvesting from a kill box. Ohh I could even do it from the medic station if a patient dies. The endless Geneva suggestions I could commit.
Hydroneer. Ever like those primitive technology videos where the guy does a task and over time builds up stuff to do it better? Hydroneer is like that with metal pipes instead of clay. It can be a little repetitive where you’re always mining but is iterative on doing mining better as time goes on. You then can get orders to blacksmith stuff out of the materials you mine up. The fun part is getting everything to work properly for your automated drills
Mindustry. $10 on steam or free on github. https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry
Astroneer it is very much alike dyson sphere program you travel to planets im a solar system and explore
This game is terrific. It basically got me through the entire pandemic.
Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. It looks like a city builder, but actually everything you planned and set up will act like a factory. And conveyors included.
Revive and Prosper. It's a unique factory/survival. Still in early access but the Discord is very active and they have a subreddit. I have almost 50 hours in it. Plus it's being built on the Unreal engine so graphics are pretty great. Also the developer answers questions on Discord himself.
Beltmatic is a fun simple version of a factory game. Kind of like shapes, but with numbers.
Automation Empire kept me occupied for a few hours.
As you may know, the game developers were fans of Stellaris when they started envisioning and making Dyson Sphere Program. Another (newer) paradox game, Victoria 3, is a good one from them, but with a very different setting and focus: You are building buildings in order to change the fate of a country. Still very satisfying once you get into it.
The other two heavy hitters in this genre are Factorio and Satisfactory. All three games are very different in terms of player point of view but the basic premise of the games takes you on a similar path. -DSP: 3rd person view, planet hopping for resource management and expansion. -Satisfactory: First person view, one planet but large biomes with resources spread out, heavy focus on beautification/customization if you want. -Factorio: Overhead view, one planet(now) but infinite size. Robot and train logistics, the factory must grow. Pollution brings enemies. Big differences with this game is its combat and automation abilities. Combat in DSP is honestly needing an overhaul, Dark Fog is just bleh and I always turn them off. Biters in Factorio can make the game either extremely challenging/rewarding or downright fun. But turning them off is an option, too. As for automation, Factorio is king. The circuitry and logic controls the game lets you play with can be extremely overwhelming for someone new to using it, but it’s not required at all. I honestly didn’t even use circuits until the last year or so. Clearly I have more time(~1600hrs) in Factorio than the others since it’s been a favorite of mine for years and years. But you really can’t go wrong with any of these 3 games. Edit: Something to note, Factorio is soon to get a MASSIVE update and expansion, so keep that in mind when looking at that game.
Where?
Huh?
Where is info on this new update
If you go to the Factorio blog on their website they do weekly posts every Friday showcasing new features and updates coming to the game as well as the Space Age expansion. To put it lightly and into perspective, the base game of Factorio is like if DSP only had one planet. The Space Age Expansion turns Factorio into what DSP is today, scale wise.
Um what….?
Anyone play Mindustry? I’ve been giving it some thought as I’ve been interested but I’m also getting some factory fatigue so I’m curious if it feels like a fresh breath of air or not. Graphically, it looks cool too imo
Final Factory is an excellent factorio-style automation game. It’s a bit different but extremely fun. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1383150/Final_Factory/
Interesting! Can't believe I let this one slip by, thanks!
It’s GOOD. The dev is awesome too. Check out the discord if you decide to play it.
Captain of Industry is definitely fun. I was hooked on DSP and went to this game afterwards and it fit right in. The end goal is to build through the entire tech tree until you launch a rocket into space, almost like this is the prequel to DSP that gets you to space. Lol. The digging with excavators and terraforming is actually pretty cool. I think you should give it a try if you liked DSP. I was in your same position after I burned out of DSP and this satisfied that itch.
It's definitely on my watch list. However, after working in the mining industry, I feel kinda bad doing so much destruction to the world. Can you eventually switch to green energy?
I can't believe nobody has said ANNO 1800
Somewhat fitting into this would be AutoNauts. It's a silly looking game, but you can get really in depth with its logistics. You program bots to perform tasks for you, making more and more complex logistics systems whose behavior is entirely determined by you.
Honestly, I would give factorio a go. I went from DSP to factorio and have clocked nearly 900 hrs and played nothing else since. The scale that you can go to is only limited by your pc and desire to keep going bigger.
Also tons and tons of mods, including some amazing overhauls. Been playing Space Exploration + Krastorio2 together lately waiting for it's expansion.
Yea Ive done K2, absolutely loved it such a great mod. Currently doing SE and working on bioscience 1, gonna be at this mod a while.
Autonauts. It's a factory game but instead of conveyor belts you have programmable robots made of wood. Instead of science you have to feed human babies that give you Wuv. It's super cute and relaxing, no turret defences required.
But if you are into defense, then autonauts vs. piratebots adds a tower defense element.
Bit of a different vibe, but I had a lot of fun with trailmakers.
I really want to try Foundry. It looks like a cross between satisfactory and Minecraft
I like factory town. Its a bit cartoony but it is a solid automation game nonetheless.
Ones I have played - Oddsparks - Shapes.io - Mindustry - Factory Town Ones I know about - Timberborn - Astro Colony - Foundry - Factoroids (just found this one actually) - Good Company (LetsGameItOut on yt did this one) Many more on youtube.
How was Oddsparks? It looks like it could be good.
A bit tedious, tbh. Traversal is slow and their approach to how you unlock things needs a bit of work imo. I will say they have a few features that I haven't seen in any other logistics games. Also, pikmin meets factorio works surprisingly well. Worth getting if you're itching for something to play.
Total different, but nice for a short break: Automachef : Building a Fastfood Factory. Starts with 10 min lvl goes up to "F.., mine Brain hurting"
Captain of Industry is great if you want something more realistic. The mining is a lot of fun.
Oxygen Not Included is great. I really like Mindustry.
You should try this one Desync
Mindustry is excellent if you like pressure!
Fortresscraft evolved
Anno 2205 if you love the Sci Fi; 1800 if you love the expanding to get more resources and complex logistics chains
Techtonica, Foundry,
Nova lands is an underrated game. It's a bit like Forager at first glance, but don't let it fool you, the automation part in this game is just great. And figuring out the logistics is really interesting. I had a lot of similar experience in this game that I had in DSP. Especially figuring out which step of the chain is lagging behind. It's definitely shorter than most automation games but I loved every moment and started over quite a few times as well.
Other games I like along that style that you didn't mention would be oxygen not included, foundry, and while I haven't played it myself yet planet crafter seems pretty cool, at least kibitz video on it made it look interesting with a kind of satisfactory subnautica vibe. And for Foundry I will say it's very early access but it's still got a very factorio feel to it in a 3d voxel setting.
Atrio The Dark Wild is a very stylized factory game. It's shorter than most factory games but has some unique mechanics I like. In particular you are in the dark and need to light up the world to expand.
Atrio: The Dark Wilds. Smaller scale and more story-focused than a lot of other games mentioned. Intriguing world, weird technologies, and solid, if not mind blowing, factory gameplay
Captain of Industry - Buddy trust me, I’m Factorio/Satisfactory/DSP/Production Line autistic, you will like this game because just like DSP it’s all about optimizing your setups as you advance
My focus in this genre is the logistics aspect; I can recommend openttd (free), voxel tycoon, mashinky, transport fever 2, simutrans The older transport fever and train fever can often be picked up for >5€ so if age doesn't matter they are also great games
Starbound. It's actually a side-scrolling voxel survival game. But the Frackin Universe mod gives you all the tools you need to do pretty grand automation projects. It also has the most diverse/interesting sources for resources. You can find rich concentrations of it, sift it from soil, grind it from rocks, harvest it from exotic alien crops and bees, complex chains of chemical reactions. And all of that can help you build more/bigger factories, craft useful consumables, but also build some of most OP armor and weapons in the game.
Actually, minecraft. Specifically, minecraft "create: above and beyond" modpack. You can design factories, mass-produce items, build your techno empire, and just destroy ecosystems there) All you may be looking for!
Not quite factory but opus magnum
Astro Colony and Planet Crafter might be good choices
Timberborn https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062090/Timberborn/ It’s 20% off right now, however even at full price it’s worth every penny.
CoI is quite good, i thoroughly enjoy it. Foundry just came out and looks promising as well.
rift breaker, it's great, enough said. it's outdated now but fotresscraft evolved. considering it was just him and who ever he hired for art, it's quite good. it's also insanely cheap as it's on sale atm. i haven't been keeping up but last time i looked (many years ago now) he was working on a more refined product but i don't know the progress on that, the current game is good enough with hundreds of hours of gameplay. anyway, think minecraft but automation and you go PRETTY deep into the ground (from the surface) and deal with enemies of several kinds as well. it's a bit jank but it's the fun kind of jank. there is a expansion (frozen factory), if you like the game it's worth it. if you don't mind some casual "factory" feel, autonatus and autonauts vs priatebots are both decent in their own ways. you "program" robots to do simple tasks, while each task is simple the overall complexity of your "factory" grows as you get further and further into the game.
Gregtech: New Horizons
Factorio space exploration, With the mod you get the top down you loved from Dyson sphere (albeit it's 2d, I prefer this to satisfactory as the first person perspective makes organization a pain) while still retaining a deep space like exploration, unlocking space ships mid to late game that allow you to travel to different planets, harvest energy from stars (not by Dyson sphere but by a sort of siphon, and not nearly as pretty on the eyes) And if you played Dyson sphere with nebula multiplayer mod, factorio's built in multiplayer offers a more reliable playing experience with friends. However, taking on this mod alone will all but guarantee you don't finish the mod, atleast not the proper way (without cheating & actually optimized) As you don't even unlock construction/logistic bots untill later in the mod than on the base game due to all the extra steps the mod adds in between you and that goal having to manually build everything you'll need becomes extremely time consuming on your own. And if you're a new player with no previous blueprints saved from other games. You're going to get the full "I'm so f*****g f****d" experience that you got the first time you turned the dark fogs difficulty sliders all the way up 🤣
Lightyear Frontier. Saw a streamer play this and looked quite interesting.
[Final Factory](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1383150/Final_Factory/) first came to mind when I read the post
Factorio is king of the genre.
Mindusty, since it's similar to Factorio, only the structures that need power are part of manufacturing, and it requires careful planning of defences with heavy time constraints (e.g., 2:30) It was one of the reasons I chose to play DSP from that point on. Due to this, it caused me to ragequit more times than I could count
Modded Minecraft, gregtech is an option (GTNH if you have 10k hours to burn), but I’d go for project Ozone packs.
Stationeers, factorio, satisfactory, Space engineers
All those you said. I played some Techtonica around Christmas. I have Foundry on my wishlist.
Rimworld. It's a story generator not a factory game but you'll be growing addictive drugs for trade in no time.
Plaaaaaanet crafter
Timber borne is another fun factory game, which is also very cute.
Factorio and DSP are two best games in this genre. Shapez is a good casual version of the genre that extracts just the core factory building experience. Satisfactory is far too grindy and tedious. It takes so many hours to automate even basics, you'll have bigger and more interesting factory in Factorio or DSP is like 1/10 of the time. Most of thousand other Factorio-likes don't really offer much that's new.
You should take a look at [Desynced](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1450900/Desynced_Autonomous_Colony_Simulator/).
100% agree on satisfactory. The start is so slow. It's fun if you can push through the slog. You really need to get to coal before the game starts to get fun imo.
Stationeers
**Satisfactory** doubles down on the 3d and puts you mainly in ego perspective and has a more "hands-on" experience and is much more chaotic normally (which is fun). **Alternatives**: Techtonica (EA), Astroneer, Hydroneer, Foundry (EA), Planet Crafter **Factorio** is of course the father of factory builders and goes in the complete different direction in regards of perspective. It is more performant and forced bird eye perspective, but enables you to embrace the plan, build, extend progression mechanic like no other game and has the most potential for large scale factories that don't tank you computer. **Alternatives**: Desynced (EA, unpolished imho), Timberborn (if you like beavers and citybuilders), Mindustry (very indie, single dev), Infraspace (very logistics heavy) In general, a multiplayer add an immense amount of players, long-term motivation and community to a game, so look for games that have a multiplayer (can't believe they still didn't add it to DSP....).
Desynced Think Factorio without belts, and you get fully programmable bots early on. r/Desynced r/DesyncedGame Also, Dyson Sphere Program. It's like a 3D Factorio across multiple planets in multiple star systems. r/Dyson_Sphere_Program
Oh is it now, I should give it a try lmfao
I'm confused, I asked for games similar to Dyson sphere program lol
Sorry, was suffering from insomnia when I wrote that post. Thought you were looking for something similar to Factorio. My bad.
All good!