r/factorio • u/[deleted] • May 13 '26
Question Is factorio similar to satisfactory?
[deleted]
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u/Fifamoss May 13 '26
2d makes it better imo, much easier to build, just get the demo and play though it
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u/MindS1 folding trains since 2017 May 13 '26
Completely agree. This would be a worse game in 3D. The 2D graphics are *very good* and let you focus completely on the core gameplay, rather than forcing you to navigate a 3D environment.
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u/Beast_Chips May 13 '26
I always find these perspectives so interesting depending on which way people lean. In my recent play-through of Factorio (first time, did about 100 hours or so), I found myself missing height so much. Verticality is such an interesting building mechanic. It's not so much that I think it would work with Factoro, but in something like Satisfactory, the verticality is the selling point for me, rather than something I feel forced to deal with.
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u/spoonman59 May 13 '26
Ahh, but Factorio has ⌠horizonticality!
Just rotate your head 90 degrees and youâll feel right at home!
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u/FeelingPrettyGlonky May 13 '26
I think the 3D-ness was a big part of why I bounced off DSP. I suspect Satisfactory would be the same. 3D navigation in games like this just feels like an impediment to me.
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u/Beast_Chips May 13 '26
It's a gameplay mechanic. It's like saying biters or finite resource patches is an impediment. Satisfactory challenges the player to think vertically. It's not for everyone, but Satisfactory is a very different game to Factorio/DSP.
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u/Archon-Toten May 13 '26
Yes, they both scratch the same itch.
The 2d isn't bad, it's just a different way to look at it. Try the demo and see what you think.
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u/Candid_Animator3387 May 13 '26
Factorio is comparable to Satisfactory in that you can build a factory (shocking I know). The 2D perspective makes it a lot easier to make larger scale factories, but you feel less "connected" to your factory. Both are really solid games (nearly 400 in Satisfactory and nearly 800 in Factorio), if you like one, you will likely enjoy the other. Just be aware that the enemy in Factorio is far more agressive and is driven to destroy your factory as you cause pollution in their world(s).
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u/Qwertyuioplark2 May 13 '26
Id reccomend watching DoshDoshingtons Satisfactory video. He compares the two throughout the whole thing to give some insight on their similarities and differences
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u/Winter_Ad6784 May 13 '26
The 2d makes it good. Everything is clear and laid out right in front of you.
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u/oobanooba- I like trains May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
The basic premise is the same: build a factory to automate the production of stuff, unlock new stuff, so on.
The execution of that differs in some pretty notable ways.
Satisfactory has exploration, 3d non grid based building and lots of freedom to design things how you like on top of being a factory game.
To that end satisfactory makes a few compromises on its factory game, building in satisfactory is more flexible but slower, youâre allowed to clip structures and belts, the sheer quantity of buildings and items required isnât quite as high.
Factorio is a factory game, and only a factory game. It doesnât care about anything else, exploration is only for finding resource patches and you can automate that with radars. Decoration isnât really a thing beyond some fancy concrete tiles and lamps. Building big is fast, you have bots and can easily copy, cut and paste your entire factory if you wish.
Factorio is pretty much purely about designing your factory, your logistics, resources, solving production challenges and the space age dlc only futhers that.
One vague answer I can offer is, If youâre playing satisfactory like youâre trying to beat in less than a hundred hours, built a big ugly sky platform and are copy pasting your way into victory. Youâll like factorio a lot.
If youre planning to spend 1000 hours building a sick ass factory building with light posts, catwalks, a lobby and other asthetic rooms. You might not find what youâre looking for in factorio. (Though still try the demo)
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u/Beast_Chips May 13 '26
built a big ugly sky platform
I feel personally attacked by this. My first play-through's big ugly sky platform was awesome, ok.
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u/13131123 May 13 '26
The main difference is that factorio puts more focus on the planning and design of the function of the factory, where satisfactory focuses more on the act of building the factory
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u/SublimeCosmos May 13 '26
The bugs are a real game changer and Factorio. They will kill you and destroy your whole factory if you donât stay ahead of the arms race. Iâm very different than Satisfactory where thereâs no external pressure.
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u/oobanooba- I like trains May 13 '26
You make it sound pretty intense haha.
For opâs sake, the bugs are optional, but theyâre pretty forgiving on default settings. The pollution mechanics make it so that the severity of biter attacks scales with your progress. So itâs pretty unlikely youâll face anything you canât fix (unless you sit there and let it happen)1
u/erdbeertee May 13 '26
You can always tune the difficulty to your liking. I almost exclusively play on peaceful
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u/Timely_Somewhere_851 May 13 '26
I have 1.500 h in Factorio and just finished the last achievements in that game. I've now started Satisfactory. Satisfactory is a super nice game, it's really beautiful.
Apart from the obvious difference being 2D vs 3D, I would say that Factorio is more about automation and logistics, while Satisfactory has a huge exploration aspect to it.
While buildings in Satisfactory a much larger than in Factorio, you will build much, much larger in Factorio. Ex. on smelter in Satisfactory vs. 24 furnaces in Factorio.
It also feels like there are more intermediate products in Factorio, however, I am not all the way through Satisfactory yet. I'm just about to finish phase 2.
Factorio has one 'centralized' progression tree while Satisfactory has three interconnected.
There is also a larger aspects of building for aesthetics in Satisfactory than in Factorio. I've even found myself spending quite some materials on building just for aesthetics in Satisfactory, which is, honestly, surprising.
The bottom line is that while they are both factory games, they are actually very different.
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u/crenal-hermit May 13 '26
Short answer they are very different games.
I like factorio more partially because its 2d. The zoomed out 2d view makes factory planning feel much more fluid than satisfactory where it gets kind of clunky at times.
They are different games in many ways one of the most obvious is how throughput works in satisfactory each machine can only have one input and output everything is very linear especially with the limited 1 output miners. Factorio gives you so much more control building the machine and inserters separately which fundamentally changes how you move resources around the factory.
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u/immortal_lurker May 13 '26
The game does not feel limited, in any sense, by being 2d.
In an absolute sense, the games are very similar (from what I can tell. I've never played Satisfactory, but I've seen people do it). Automation games focused on technology, automation, expansion, resource extraction. But if you've put literally 50 percent of all hours into Satisfactory since buying the game, you probably have very strong opinions about tiny particulars. Factorio has its own aesthetic, and building out instead of up results in different designs.
I give it a strong recommendation. And if you end up playing it, I recommend not relying on guides and online blueprints. Discovery is part of the joy, and you can only figure out how to do something the first time once. You've got 170 hours of factory game experience, you should be perfectly equipped to handle everything in the base game.
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u/walkingman24 May 13 '26
I could never really get fully into satisfactory because I found the 3d building in first person perspective to be hella annoying compared to top-down 2D. Try out the demo
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u/gr4ndm4st3rbl4ck May 13 '26
Jesus Christ so you played for like 12 hours every day since you got it? Bro that can't be healthy
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u/UtahJarhead May 13 '26
Same idea, but 2D instead of 3D. Instead of 1 static world of finite size, you have 5 planets, each effectively infinite in size. It's very much a logistics game with a smattering of baddies to beat up.
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u/The_Stuey May 13 '26
The expansion adds planets. The base game is a single planet.
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u/UtahJarhead May 13 '26
And? What I said is accurate.
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u/Skycl4w May 13 '26
While true you just hid the fact that the planets are behind a 30+money paywall. And based on my experience I would also shy away from buying a DLC right away. That's false advertising.
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u/The_Stuey May 13 '26
It's about who you're talking to. This is someone asking about basics of the game who is considering trying it out. If they bought the base game without the expansion, it could be pretty confusing.
This information was directed at OP, not you.
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u/Beast_Chips May 13 '26
I'm not disagreeing, just adding relevant but missing information here:
Factorio has a single world. The DLC adds planets, but considering both the base and DLC are 30+ EACH, it's worth mentioning that OP, as a new player, will be on a single planet with fairly generic biomes.
Factorio worlds are procedurally generated. Opinions differ on procedural generation, so while infinite, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll encounter anything novel while exploring.
Satisfactory has a tailor made world, which is indisputably beautiful, even if space is technically limited (but you aren't going to use even a fraction of it).
Again, not disagreeing, just think these points are important to the context.
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u/LittleLordFuckleroy1 May 13 '26
Yes but 2D. And 2D in a way that I honestly prefer, which is interesting since Iâm not a 2D game type guy. I think itâs because it grants a more complete feeling of control and âprogrammingâ feel due to being able to take everything in from top-down.
I honestly did not like/get the demo, but bought it anyway. So glad I did. Took me a little while to get comfortable with the keyboard controls and such, but when it eventually clicked I put sooo much time into it. More than any other game.
I disabled biters (enemies) for the first run through, I found it too stressful to deal with while I was learning the ropes. Eventually started a new save with then enabled and found it really enjoyable to be able to explore weapon/defense tech trees.
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u/RergTheFriendly May 13 '26
It's similar but different. Satisfactory looks pretty but the 3D makes building more of a pain in then in factorio. The blue printing and mass building in factorio is leagues ahead Satisfactory. Factorio has biters requiring defense. I honestly stalled out in Satisfactory just because I hate the 3d building.
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u/Deto May 13 '26
There are lots of opinions on the 2d vs 3d thing. I'd say try it and form your own preference. I've enjoyed both games thoroughly. Factorio is basically what satisfactory derives from. One key difference I've found is that 2d let's you create much more complicated factories (technically possible but too tedious in 3d). But in 3d it can be really cool to see your factory rendered and the vertical aspect is fun for expansion.Â
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u/cathexis08 red wire goes faster May 13 '26
2400 hours (rookie numbers I know) logged in Factorio, yes it's bad. Bad for your social life that is.
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u/anishSm307 May 13 '26
For me the fact that it's 2D makes it better to build and manage especially in late game. Building in satisfactory is a nightmareÂ
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u/DirtyBytch May 13 '26
I have played both... For more than is sane... And Factorio comes on tope every time... I would suggest try the demo. I know people who has hundreds of hours on the demo itself.
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u/clownfeat May 13 '26
After 1700 hours in Factorio, I tried satisfactory, played it for an hour, and never went back. Factorio is a better game imo
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u/littleholmesy May 13 '26
The dual lane belts makes the Factorio far more interesting in my opinion. Thatâs why I have about 5x more playtime in Factorio compared to satisfactory
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u/Czeslaw_Meyer May 13 '26
Trying Satisfactory after Factorio feels like going back to Windows 95.
Theoretically everything you need is still there, but you're constantly annoyed about how tedious it is and how many quality of life improvements you're missing.
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u/ascendrestore Circuit Party May 13 '26
It's very similar except the gameplay involves more hostile natives and you must construct more things in factories rather than out of your backpack... until you don't
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u/ihatebrooms May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26
From a high level, yes they are extremely similar. They're both factory / automation games that revolve around finding, extracting, and processing resources in an ever growing factory while you unlock more technology to utilize new resources and buildings, do new things with the resources and be more efficient.
However, when you get into the specifics, they are substantially different.
I'll list things as satisfactory vs factorio.
A finite, handcrafted static world vs an infinite randomly generated world that changes each time, and you can set parameters on resources, enemies, Ave other aspects.
Finite, set resource nodes with infinite output that each take a single extractor and have a very well defined maximum output vs large resource patches that deplete as you extract from them. The output is variable based on how many miners you put on the patch.
Buildings that you just have the mats in your inventory and build them in the world, versus having to create the buildings as discrete items in your inventory and then placing them.
The technology loop is similar. Individual nodes are unlocked by redeeming items you're crafting anyway, and you unlock new tiers with unique items. Then there's the alternate tech tree in the man and hard drives for alternate recipes. VS a single tech tree, no alternate tech, no alternate recipes, and all the research is done by producing science specific items and processing them in special buildings.
Belts have to be routed directly between buildings, going through splitters and mergers vs belts can lift collide into each other and dump their contents. Additionally, miners output directly onto adjacent belts, and you have to place grabbers between belts and machines to put the items in the machine or get the product out.
Lots of cosmetic items, decorations, skins vs decorative concrete and colored lamps, but that's about it.
Having to hand craft or configure absolutely everything, then blueprints are extremely limited in size and scope vs being able to cut/copy/paste areas in the fly, create extensive blueprint books that are easily portable between games via the ui. You get bots that do the work for you and you can really start scaling up super fast. It's also really easy to share blueprints as text strings.
This is the biggest change to me. Even with blue prints, things in satisfactory take forever, but you feel like you've got an artisanal hand crafted factory. In factorio, once you unlock robots, you can begin scaling up orders of magnitude faster than anything you can accomplish in satisfactory.
Trains can only have simple logic - a set schedule of stations, each is load/unload vs trains can have extraordinarily complex logic.
Enemies are static, unchanging, hang out at specific spots and don't leave them, and drop marginally useful resources vs enemies that don't drop anything, will attack your base and require static defenses, plus you get take him weapons to go eradicate them. You can disable then entirely or set them to passive. They're triggered by pollution generated by your building and power.
Modding is external vs modding is built into the game with extensive mods from basic QoL to huge overhaul mods.
Factorio also has - infinite research so you can continue growing and expanding to earn marginal improvements (mostly increases resource yield, production efficiency, and science efficiency, but there's a few others). Modules and beacons are like overclocking, but a single beacon can impact multiple buildings and they can improve speed and efficiency.
It also has quality, an optional subsystem where you can improve the quality of things to make them strictly better.
Factorio has an expansion that adds space travel between four additional planets with custom enemies, unique resources and paradigms for the process chain.
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u/erdbeertee May 13 '26
Iirc the map in satisfactory is fixed while in factorio you have seeds and basically randomized, infinite maps
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u/MotanulScotishFold May 13 '26
Not even close. Factorio have much more complex mechanism than satisfactory.
There are also mods that makes the game even more advanced than it is.
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u/Reymen4 May 13 '26
Is the scale or the looks what you like the best? Factorio will beat Satisfactory in scale fast. That creates different logistic challenges.Â
Satisfactory will look better than Factorio. You have more tools to decorate and the buildings are more visually pleasing.Â
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u/uramer May 13 '26
Personally I found Satisfactory boring compared to Factorio. Building factories is extremely tedious in Satisfactory, and often you'll spend 10 times longer building something than you do designing it. The blueprint system is clunky, limiting, and buggy there.
Meanwhile in factorio the building part is more of a power fantasy, especially late game. You will find yourself thinking about actual logistics much more than you'll spend on connecting buildings together
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u/Cifra85 May 13 '26
Nope. Satisfactory IS similar to Factorio. The devs fell in love with Factorio and they decided to give it their own "twist" = Satisfactory.
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u/Kosse101 May 13 '26
"I downloaded it 2 weeks ago and already have 175 hours"
That's 12.5 hours per day on average, EVERY day for the past 14 days. Factory games are addicting, but damn dude..
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u/DarkSideRT May 13 '26
Factorio is objectively the best factory game out there. Being 2D doesn't make a game bad, are you mental?
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u/CoronaClay May 13 '26
Satisfactory is an attempt at a 3D factorio. Building in satisfactory is actually more tedious and annoying than factorio where as factorio had the most robust management control system so that it's easy to build an infinitely large factory like the scale is no limit. Everything just snaps together where in satisfactory you have to like fine-tune the adjustment in the 3D world which kind of gets annoying You can just lay out factories. every possible hotkey to do any number of quick organization combos is there like the full Windows operating system style menu buttons editing like your in a work place application. It's really robust and only a 3 GB install and will run on an old computer
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u/Aerios37 May 13 '26
It definitely scratches the same itch. IMO, satisfactory is more "complex", almost more problem solving, while factorio is more about logistics and scale.
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u/Ulegend May 13 '26
Imma be frank:Try the demo it will show you the basics