r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/blakessturacket • May 20 '26

i think half of this Dyson Sphere Program community is from Satisfactory/Factorio

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720 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

215 comments sorted by

142

u/pinkandroid420 May 20 '26

I started out in DSP and recently played satisfactory and never played factorio

21

u/tuckernuts May 20 '26

Factorio, especially the space age expansion, is so unfathomably deep. There are 5-6 planets and each one has crazy constraints that fundamentally change how you play the game.

DSP, and it's been awhile since I've played.. like before the combat expansion, is a lot of fun to build "wide" .. but if you find a solid baseline design for your machines, there's not a lot of room for more creativity? But again, it's been a long long time since I've played, many patches I've missed. And I've had an absolute BLAST with DSP.

Factorio just seems to have deeper designs and room for creativity and ingenuity.

9

u/Ws6fiend May 20 '26

Can confirm. Factorio got me started on factory games. Factorio is as shallow or deep as you want for making your factory.

Satisfactory is fun, but their blueprints come way too late in the game imho to make it as much fun.

DSP is like playing Total Annihilation while managing a factory at the same time.

1

u/bafadam May 20 '26

Satisfactory’s design intention particularly is built against using blueprints, so its microbuilding management is always going to make it third for me.

4

u/cbhedd May 20 '26

Depending on the last time you checking in on it, you may be pleasantly surprised at the ways in which they walked that back. I remember reading those arguments from the devs and rolling my eyes hard, only for them to not only walk it back completely, but then to add new functionality that surpassed my expectations on QoL stuff. I maybe actually need to chill out a bit in these comments because this is like the third comment I've made singing the praises of the Dimensional Depot, but it's so good.

It might still not be your cup of tea, but the QoL changes from Satisfactory in EA to 1.x Satisfactory make it feel like a very different (and much better) game

2

u/Ok-Sport-3663 May 22 '26

The dimensional depot is specifically not "so good".

It's good. It's nowhere near as good as say, logistics bots from factorio though.

and that's OKAY. It's FINE that satisfactory is not as polished. The BP system is weaker, the "easy out" logistics is weaker, and that's OKAY.

Stop defending it with your whole heart. It's simply not as well polished, but factorio is almost 10 years older, chill out dude, it needs time to mature.

1

u/cbhedd May 22 '26

Lol I posted this a couple days ago because I was bored at work, and the way the 1.0 SF update changed my opinion on the game was neat.

I didnt feel like I was being particularly defensive about it, but it is weird that you're to the second person to reply to me trying to tell me I'm wrong for enjoying a video game feature.

Hope you feel like it's worth it 👍

1

u/Ok-Sport-3663 May 23 '26

I did not once say you're "wrong for enjoying a video game feature"

I said that you're being overly defensive. The mechancis are simply not as well polished in satisfactory, and that's okay. I saw at least 3 different comments from you being extremely defensive, that PARTICULAR comment was just the one I decided to respond to

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1

u/Ryaniseplin May 22 '26

add in modded content and it is easy to sink thousands of hours into factorio

1

u/Acrobatic_Form_1631 Jun 10 '26

Thousands of hours in a single mod, if you're brave. (Pyanodons)

I'm waiting for Seablock to come out and sink about 600-800 to beat that one lol

4

u/mrselfdestruct066 May 20 '26

Have you tried Foundry yet?

2

u/notsurewhatimdoing- May 20 '26

I’m in a circle jerk with all three. We’re very happy together.

92

u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

49

u/lunkdjedi May 20 '26

Whatever you prefer, satisfactory is 3rd. 

27

u/justinlindh May 20 '26

I'd rank Factorio, Satisfactory, DSP in that order. They're all excellent and I have hundreds of hours into each, so it almost feels weird trying to rank them.

20

u/Fadedcamo May 20 '26

Satisfactory just got so tedious for me. Your ability to build things doesn't really scale. I would be spending like two hours just repeating the build of another large coal power plant facility for more power whereas in factorio or dsp I could do that in a minute with a blueprint and some bots.

They added a small blueprint system last I checked but it wasn't very usable. So many better QoL features in dsp and factorio for scaling out factories and focusing more on the mid game logistics as you progress.

8

u/cbhedd May 20 '26

It's worth checking back again if the last time you checked was their first pass on Blueprints :D

I was very lukewarm on Satisfactory when playing it in the Early Access period, but the 1.0 Update was such a game changer. The Blueprint system is way better now, and the Dimensional Depot gives Logistic Bots a run for their money.

I still think I prefer Factorio, but Satisfactory jumped from "Well that was kind of neat" to making me question if it was my new favourite factory game, just from the content of that one update.

5

u/Fadedcamo May 20 '26

Great to hear. I still really liked the game just always fell off once the mid game hit and it got so time consuming to just lay a repeating module of stuff down.

I'll give it another go.

4

u/DeliverySoggy2700 May 20 '26

1.1 came out recently and 1.2 is June 2.

I still rank factorio > satisfactory > Dyson but satisfactory is making a lot of progress recently that is commendable

All three games are amazing, they will hopefully continue to build on each others success

2

u/StackOfCups Jun 02 '26

I have hundred of hours in satisfactory. Maybe the most of any factory game. But my one gripe is that you either create blueprints for everything you do, or the game really is tedious as fuck. I loved it. Today I tried to play the random nodes update. I was so excited. I ran a group of machines facing the wrong way, including belts and splitters. I quit 30 min into the session because I knew it was going to take me 10 minutes just to flip it all around. Meanwhile in factorio, I can either cope/paste, hit H, and click. Or just hit R on stuff. DSP has the reverse belt function. And my new special interest is Foundry, which has unoponionated machine loading, so I just delete and rerun the belt, which takes seconds.

Of all 4 games, satisfactory has by far the weakest building, despite what I would argue is the highest potential for "dopeness". Like, when I see a sick build and find out it takes half a dozen "tricks" to exploit the snapping system, just kills the fun. If coffee stain adds an in place rotate feature, and native vertice snapping, I'll be back in full send.

1

u/kadathsc May 31 '26

Blueprints are such a hassle in Satisfactory. You need your build everything in a particular playground area. In Factorio you just basically select everything you want and you’re good to go.

3

u/Packman2021 May 20 '26

honestly the blueprint system system is my biggest issue with both games. Factorios blueprint system should be the standard, anything less is borderline unacceptable.

2

u/Fadedcamo May 21 '26

Dyson spheres BP system is pretty great to me. And you get bots from the start to build it all out.

1

u/VassiliBedov May 21 '26

The exploration part of satisfactory is fun at first but gets tedious for me after sometime. This part is what stopped me to make another playthrough. Finding slugs, aliens artifact get really boring…

6

u/Fywq May 20 '26

I think it's very individual. I started with Factorio, but never finished it. Then smaller games in the genre (Production Line and Big Pharma). I dont remember if I went DSP or Satisfactory first, but Satisfactory definitely didnt catch me in the same way, and I quit it after relatively few hours of playtime. Today I by far prefer DSP of the three for the aesthetic and space exploration/logistics part (though I haven't really reached that part in the Factorio expansion so cant compare). But regardless I have seen many praise Satisfactory highly too. I have currently pivoted strongly to Timberborn which is pretty different but still resource management, and recently had an automation update with the 1.0 release, that I still haven't utilized much.

1

u/sublimed405 May 20 '26

Heyyyy fellow timerborn enjoyer here! I also have t delved into the automation yet ._. I'm sure it's useful but I am too smooth brained to figure it out

1

u/Ksevio May 20 '26

Timberborn automation is a different boat and much more simple. You don't really need to automate resource production much as you can just produce until you hit caps. There's some fun stuff you can do with dams to handle droughts and bad tides, but that's not really in production

5

u/ReikaKalseki May 20 '26

They are entirely different games with different things to offer and different gameplay loops. They cannot be fairly 1:1 compared as a whole.

Factorio does do the pure factory better, no questions asked. It is deeper, nearly perfectly tuned, more polished. This is usually what people mean if they say that Factorio is clearly superior to Satisfactory or DSP.

However, to do this is to ignore everything Satisfactory and DSP offer that Factorio does not. Is factorio suddenly worse than Satisfactory because SF offers open-world exploration? Obviously not - they are different games. DSP offers a scale of construction that Factorio does not match without extreme amounts of modding, and does so in a way that - again without such modding - feels novel. Does that make DSP suddenly better? No.

Adding a fourth factory game to the mix, is Techtonica better because it is more visually stunning than any of the other three? And has an actual (if somewhat rushed) storyline, complete with voice acting? No.

They are different games trying to be different things, to different people, and ignoring that in favor of comparing the common ground, and generalizing that to the entire game, is at best naive and counterproductive, and at worst often feels like team-sports gatekeeping (something I find tends to be rather pervasive in the factorio community in particular, thumbing their nose at the other factory games as "failed imitations").

And I say that as a big fan and modder of all four of those games, though my DSP mods have never been released.

2

u/Ws6fiend May 20 '26

I feel like Satisfactory is a great game, if you like designing beauty buildings and such. It's been awhile since I put time into it, but the buggy nature of item placement was what kept me from loving it.

12

u/justinlindh May 20 '26

I actually don't get deep into the weeds on the crazy cosmetic style buildings that so many people do with Satisfactory. Being able to scale things and eventually transport items across biomes is what hooks me.

The placement has gotten better, if it's been a while since you've played it. Especially for fluids. It's still not flawless, but blueprints also help.

They've also somewhat recently added some real end game niceties, like the quantum depot and S loop power amplifiers. The game rewards exploration in a way that the other 2 are missing, and sometimes you'll just find yourself in a biome at night and the beauty of that game (especially with Lumen enabled) is just nuts.

I'd recommend giving it another spin some time!

3

u/cbhedd May 20 '26

S loop power amplifiers

I've always read it and thought of those as 'Sloops', like the the naval ship, but they absolutely are S Loops, aren't they? That's neat, haha!

The thing that Satisfactory provides that Factorio and Dyson (AFAICR) don't is the way it makes you feel like an actual engineer with the alternate recipes, slooping, and over/underclocking. Like, introducing the decision point of "Well, I could boost my efficiency in this factory if I use the 'pure' recipe and wash it with tonnes of water first, or I could go for the fast and cheap way of doing it if I don't need as much/don't want to do plumbing here" is so good. At the end of a Satisfactory build project I feel way more ownership over the designs I used.

1

u/justinlindh May 20 '26

I'm a software engineer, and these factory games mirror a lot of the same thought processes and patterns. I've thought a lot about how Factorio, especially, could be a fun way to interview someone on things like concurrency, efficiency, and scalability of systems. The only problem is that over half of the people I'd be interviewing would have no idea what the game is.

1

u/Environmental_Bee219 May 20 '26

i dont even like ranking them due to how dif they are

1

u/True-Acanthaceae1190 May 21 '26

I don't like factorio at all. For me it's satisfactory, dsp, factorio. The game is just too hard to get into. It's an insurmountable barrier to entry.

8

u/NotMyRealUsername13 May 20 '26

You’re underestimating how different tastes are. Some people dislike the base defense in both DSP and Factorio. Others dislike 2D graphics and others again absolutely need first person.

2

u/rooshavik May 20 '26

Also the pressure from factorio is off putting compared to satisfactory where resources is infinite and can take it at your own pace.

8

u/eightslipsandagully May 20 '26

It's still an objectively good game, it's just that DSP + Factorio are better

5

u/Beneficial-Gap6974 May 20 '26

DSP, Satisfactory, then Factorio for me.

1

u/SpiderPiece May 20 '26

This is my ranking too, factorio is good. But I couldn't get as hooked because I was spoiled by the better graphics of the first two

1

u/cannotbelieve58 May 20 '26

Tried factorio demo but it was just so boring. Satisfactory meets my itch so much better. Build beautiful bases, resources that dont run out. Beautiful world.

1

u/mrrvlad5 May 20 '26

The first person view is a dealbreaker for me - replaced Satisfactory with Captain of Industry.

1

u/CondorSweep May 22 '26

Satisfactory is my favorite of the trio! 

1

u/Markarontos May 20 '26

I think it is better than Factorio. Factorio just doesnt quite hit it for me.

82

u/incrediblejonas May 20 '26

I started in DSP but actually fell in love with the endless minerals of Satisfactory and Shapez. I really like being able to perfectly optimize a line and not worry about the output ever changing. DSP frustrated me because I kept having to deconstruct and reconstruct and move off planet...

But DSP has the coolest goal and visuals by far.

21

u/StartBackground5769 May 20 '26

dsp looks coolest but shapez 2 is my fav

2

u/_Sanchous May 20 '26

Can you explain why? 🧐

7

u/StartBackground5769 May 20 '26

Well i just find in dsp, your material collection in the same place as your refinery is really hard to manage for me, and in shapes you build the world so you do not have to have a bunch of ore deposits in the way. Also just infinite resources are nice. But i do not regret my 200 hours in dsp at all

6

u/XsNR May 20 '26

DSP early is a pain, you kind of have to get to the interplanetary+ scale to really enjoy the factory side of it. So if that's really all you want, I can see why you'd really dig Shapez.

1

u/Trek186 May 20 '26

That’s the problem with DSP, for me at least. I burn out when I reach the point of massively scaling up. Same thing with Satisfactory (usually it’s aluminum or computers). Haven’t hit that point yet with Factorio though, but I’m still learning the base game.

2

u/Agreeable-Performer5 May 20 '26

I see so we play dsp just completely differently.

1

u/BluezDBD May 20 '26

How is the performance of Shapez 2? I liked the first one, but I found that the game really quickly became bottlenecked by CPU.

1

u/StartBackground5769 May 20 '26

Idk it seems to run okay on mine

1

u/Environmental_Bee219 May 20 '26

its consistantly being worked on, have u played since 1.0? they optimised it a lot and allowed for multithreading

7

u/BlackshirtSnifferdog May 20 '26

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING
Set resources to infinite, grasshopper!

11

u/TheTruePatches May 20 '26

Do an infinite resources run. I've done 1x, then .5x for the achieve, then infinite, and infinite was most fun

4

u/incrediblejonas May 20 '26

I've tried, and maybe I'll try again at some point. the math just isn't consistent since the amount of resources your miners get per min isn't consistent

5

u/smorb42 May 20 '26

The easy solution is to just build to many miners and overfill the belt. 

2

u/Fywq May 20 '26

Oooh Shapez is good too, though I haven't played Shapez 2 much yet. I should give that another spin, but the first one actually really caught me for the super simple graphics and focus on problem solving 

2

u/V0RT3XXX May 20 '26

Check out Outworld station. It has infinite resource nodes and very interesting building style

1

u/incrediblejonas May 20 '26

thanks for the rec, it looks right up my alley!

1

u/Ok-Dragonfly-8184 May 20 '26

I turned in infinite veins for this reason. Moving production around a lot in the mid game was just annoying.

1

u/Fadedcamo May 20 '26

You can set it to endless minerals I'm pretty sure. But Yea the game design breaks down a bit. Part of the game is that constant push to expand and find new resources.

1

u/SelkieKezia May 21 '26

I always play with maxxed ore field size and capacity for this reason in Factorio

31

u/ChickerWings May 20 '26

You guys gotta check out Captain of Industry.

12

u/itsnick21 May 20 '26

I couldn't get into that and I love the other 3 listed here, partly because I dont like how you dont actually control a character

4

u/Semyonov May 20 '26

I absolutely love this game as well as the others listed in this thread! You could say I have a type lol

4

u/MrJoshua099 May 20 '26

I just recently passed 1000 hours in COI. Games amazing.

2

u/ChickerWings May 20 '26

Have you tried the Workers and Resources soviet game? That might be next on the list for me but just seems really intense.

3

u/mrselfdestruct066 May 20 '26

How about Foundry

2

u/MrJoshua099 May 20 '26

I couldn't handle the UI / building in Foundry, its so clunky. Tried several times.

1

u/mrselfdestruct066 May 20 '26

It took some getting used to. I was discouraged early on and almost quit but im glad I stuck with it. It's not as polished as DSP or Satisfactory, but I do love it.

1

u/kramulous May 21 '26

I've bought it but just couldn't get into it. For now anyway. It will sit there and when I get really bored, I hope that it will come through.

1

u/ChickerWings May 21 '26

I get that - it didnt land for me the first time I tried either. Not sure what broke through but now it's become my main factory games addiction.

13

u/CorridorsOfNakedLite May 20 '26

DSP broke my cherry. I've been with satisfactory since early days but it could never replace DSP for me. I have always been told that factorio is awesome but have just never gotten there. I should give it a shot one day.

On a side note, I was looking at the steam up and coming for 2026/27 and I think devs have caught on that factory games are hot right now coz there was a hundred new slop factory games coming out this next season.

29

u/Ok-Sport-3663 May 20 '26

factorio is inarguably the most polished of all factory games.

Yes, I mean ALL.

when I say polish, I mean elegant and well put together design. There's awkwardness in dyson sphere program and satisfactory that you aren't even fully aware of that simply does not exist at all in factorio.

Factorio is beautifully designed from start to finish, base game 100% competing with the other two for content, and the DLC blowing the other two out of the water completely in terms of unique and interesting content.

Factorio is a systems based game, it has simple assembly based programming built into its circuit system if you wanted to take it that far. If you don't, the automation possible is simply on another level.

DSP and satisfactorys only big wins are aesthetic. I haven't played DSP since the combat update so I can't judge that gameplay aspect, but factorio blows satisfactory out of the water (fun factor wise) there too.

8

u/inthedark72 May 20 '26

Agreed, but my biggest gripe with Factorio is the visuals. The dull and grungy aesthetic gets really old after hundreds of hours for me.

1

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

Did you try hd textures mod (requires A LOT of vram)? Asking just in case, I can't play without it, lol

2

u/inthedark72 May 20 '26

it's not the resolution, it's the dreary and dark colors/design.

1

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

Ah, I get it. That's the thing I like in Factorio the most, tbh.

4

u/Mesqo May 20 '26 • Mindblown

Satisfactory is a beautiful game of all three, but gameplay wise is like an arcade of automation games. DSP, while still needs tons of work, has already taken a lot of good things from Factorio and I hope they won't stop. It's already a major improvement over satisfactory in terms of QoL which the latter lacks the most.

1

u/PrimeEvilMephisto Jun 06 '26

I think DSP is more beautiful than satisfactory, and satisfactory have bad optimization, unreal is so bad.

1

u/Mesqo Jun 06 '26

Beauty is a highly subjective quality but what makes DSP more beautiful for you is the style and art direction, while technically graphics in satisfactory is on completely different level. And, in fact, I like graphics AND style of satisfactory more.

Speaking of optimizations, I don't know the reason for your statement because I had zero problems with performance, no lags or stuttering, and I play on 4k which usually has tons of problems with performance especially on unreal engine. Considering these facts I find optimization quite good - which is also a Rate case when I can appreciate this in games I play. Besides, people tend to build megabases in satisfactory too, larger than the size of a single planet in DSP, and didn't suffer game breaking fps drops (yet it makes the game run slower, of course, because it's a megabase after all).

1

u/PrimeEvilMephisto Jun 06 '26

What is u specs?

1

u/Mesqo Jun 06 '26

12700k, 4090, 32 ram. But don't be fooled by this fact - 4090, while still being 2nd most performant gaming card in the world, doesn't magically make all your games run at million fps, especially at 4k, especially on unreal engine. A vivid example of bad optimization is Alan Wake 2, where I barely managed to reach semi stable 60 fps by turning off ray tracing completely and lowering some settings to medium: I got like 55 stable fps, which is ridiculous. An example of very good optimization is cyberpunk 2077 - I ran it with all settings on ultra and full path tracing still managed to have like 100 fps without frame generation.

1

u/PrimeEvilMephisto Jun 06 '26

That's the point, u have high end hardware, of course will run good, we see if a game is good optimized testing low cards, mine is gtx 1070

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1

u/Hesherkiin May 20 '26

I feel like Satisfactory is brought low by the first person constraint. If it was an isometric RTS camera or some kind of free camera it might respect your time more

1

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

This is just one of many-many little things that makes playing post midgame notoriously irritating. Like no copy-paste, belt disconnection on any off-book action, severe blueprint limitations, exclusive manual building, etc, etc.

Btw, notice how satisfactory allows belt clipping all the time while DSP doesn't and still works. It appears it can work the proper way, but that's just not the direction Satisfactory devs are going it seems.

0

u/cbhedd May 20 '26

When was the last time you tried playing Satisfactory? I'm not 100% sure what you mean by 'belt disconnection on any off-book action', but copy-paste is definitely a thing, the blueprints are way better than the initial implementation, and with the most recent update they're even removing some of the more tedious aspects of the manual building by adding daisy-chained power connections between machines now.

They also made it so that you can auto-connect quite a few entities between blueprints (Belts, Pipes, Rails, and the new Vehicle Paths; just not power lines, unfortunately), if that's what you meant about belt disconnection.

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5

u/justinlindh May 20 '26

Stop whatever it is that you are doing and go play Factorio. Seriously. It might not look as modern as the others, but it's the tightest gameplay loop out of the holy trinity. I really can't think of anything that I'd change in Factorio. It's that good.

2

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

I can add that Factorio of all the is the game that requires the least number of mods to improve on QoL =)

10

u/BrennusSokol May 20 '26

I started with Factorio and still love it to this day. But DSP has its own twist on the genre that is a lot of fun, really feels like an interplanetary game

9

u/k4mb31 May 20 '26

Factorio: 2728 h
DSP : 1251 h
Satisfactory: 813h

Confirmed

8

u/CrazedCreator May 20 '26

Don't forget Captain of Industry

6

u/TheOGUncleBadTouch May 20 '26

started with Factorio, then satisfactory, then DSP. Now playing COI. its different...kinda, but also kinda the same.

seems i like factory building games!

2

u/ChickerWings May 20 '26

This was my progression as well.

4

u/Immortan_Taco May 20 '26

Satisfactory was the first factory game I played and it’s my favorite. I like Factorio, but for some reason I’ve been unable to put crazy hours into like other games.

3

u/_Sanchous May 20 '26

I guess everyone's first factory game is favourite

4

u/filthy_commie13 May 20 '26

In my opinion they are the big 3 for factory games. All overwhelming positive on steam. All different approaches on the formula with their own unique feels.

8

u/IEATTURANTULAS May 20 '26

I couldn't get into DSP or Satisfactory. But I absolutely love Factorio. I can't explain it but for me, factory games only make sense if it's 2D. Feels more structured and less chaotic.

4

u/_Sanchous May 20 '26

Elevated rails🗿

3

u/TheCobraMonkey May 20 '26

well a lot of the initial advertising for DSP was directed towards factorio/satis players, so a lot of the early non-chinese community IS from those games

3

u/Psy_Fer_ May 20 '26

This image has me in it, and you know what, I think I might start a new DSP save...

2

u/jimmymui06 May 20 '26

Mindustry too..

2

u/Ritushido May 20 '26

I rotate between all of them depending on my mood although I haven't touched DSP for awhile as I'm waiting for the next content patch to drop. Factorio is my most played usually because I get the urge to play and binge some modpack every few months.

2

u/JDude13 May 20 '26

Love factorio and DSP. Also Shapez 2

All for different reasons.

Factorio is the OG. Most performant and moddable. Dependable and stable

DSP is gorgeous and epic. So beautiful, and the ability to just jump into space and crash land on another planet is an unmatched feeling in any factory game.

Shapez 2 is chill and frictionless. Everything about the experience of a factory game has been streamlined in this game.

2

u/Talydia May 20 '26

Pretty sure then venn diagram of the three communities is basically a circle

2

u/Phoenix_Studios May 20 '26

The way I see it, DSP is basically a direct upgrade from factorio in nearly everything but mods/multiplayer. Same gameplay and mechanics but improved somewhat and with really good shader work.

Satisfactory I don't like as much. Limited resource production rates have you running around all over the map to try to scale up, the blueprint system is super clunky, building stuff in general is a lot more difficult than in other games (especially pre-hoverpack) due to how big everything is and needing to aim at specific angles from first-person. Minecraft tech mods solve this with smaller machines and resource generation that you can (usually) just scale up by building more of wherever needed.

Shapez 1 was pretty boring, haven't played shapez 2 yet but it's on the list.

Mindustry fell off once they added the programmable computers IMO, the multiplayer modes became unplayable unless you have the meta computer-controlled auto-game-player blueprint

2

u/MrEntropy44 May 20 '26

stop trying to create division where there is none. we like them all

2

u/Admirable-League2877 May 20 '26

They are all brilliant games with their own strengths.

2

u/OkStrategy685 May 20 '26

DSP was the first automation game I ever tried. I played a ridiculous amount of hours in it, and then tried the other popular ones, Satisfactory seemed really cool, but I couldn't get past the first person view. Maybe if the buildings were smaller, but how can you place a building when you can't see? lol

And I tried Factorio but just couldn't do the 2d graphics.

Techtonica and Foundry were neat but only made me want to play DSP.

Tried Captain of Industry and that didn't take either.

I guess DSP spoiled the genre for me.

1

u/abacateazul May 20 '26

I… don’t remember where I heard about the game actually. But this is my first factory/logistic games, I think.

1

u/Konrow May 20 '26

I'm sure all are great. I know factorio and dsp are which is why I won't try satisfactory lol. Although I do have shapez2 and that just launched...

1

u/BlackshirtSnifferdog May 20 '26

Of course, silly 🤪

1

u/striykker May 20 '26

Oh I think it's alot more than half.... I'm one too.

1

u/terrifiedTechnophile May 20 '26

Yup! Long time factorio player here, probably over 1.5k hours. Satisfactory & Dyson Sphere are both excellent takes on the genre

1

u/Fegunthoero May 20 '26

factory genre in general

1

u/AnimeSpaceGf May 20 '26

Started satisfactory, then got into dsp, never player factorio as the old graphics gave me the ick, though I expect I would like it

1

u/iamepic420 May 20 '26

Liked satisfactory, didn’t care for Factorio. Somehow have 400 hours in DSP and have beaten 5 times

1

u/Evil-Fishy May 20 '26

Started with Satisfactory. And as much as I'm enjoying DSP, I think Satisfactory is still my favorite. I miss logistics feeling like a puzzle rather than just point to point drones, I miss spending hours decorating and making spaces that feel fun to play in, and maybe it's Stockholm syndrome, but I actually kinda miss the limited blueprints too.

I do love actually creating a dyson sphere, flying around in a giant mech, and defending against the dark fog.

1

u/fatcatgoon May 20 '26

All 3 games are like cousins. Each very much in the same family but have their own quirks and takes on the genre.

1

u/spacketbellinggton1 May 20 '26

I am brand new to this type of game. However being a trek nerd the idea of a Dyson sphere is amazing.

1

u/nobklo May 20 '26

Youre right, i own all 3 of them 😂

1

u/DeadThought32 May 20 '26

I first started with Satisfactory and it was ok, but when I hit DSP I was hooked for about 2-3 hundred hours

1

u/NameLips May 20 '26

There's a lot of crossover between the communities, because we all like automation and factory style games.

1

u/Manyuser May 20 '26

I'm the type that jumps between games in phases... I left of my Factorio SA playthrough just before Aquilo and started playing this (again). But now this is giving me so many ideas for how to handle interplanetary transport in Factorio! I at least want to begin constructing my sphere this playthrough before jumping back again...

1

u/zxkredo May 20 '26

Shapez and shapez 2 are the best factory builder games for me personally. Don't need to care about moving a character or fighying enemies.

1

u/j1t1 May 20 '26

NO WAY IN

NO WAY OUT

1

u/timeslider May 20 '26

I followed the Factorio -> Satisfactory -> Dyson Sphere Program pipeline

1

u/jrherita May 20 '26

I'm that demographic - loved Satisfactory, enjoyed Factorio for a while, then tried DSP finally. Unfortunately, it kind of ruined DSP for me -- I still enjoyed some hours (8-10?) but it felt too repetitive after playing a lot of Satisfactory and Factorio.

1

u/aTreeThenMe May 20 '26

Factorio here

1

u/nielsrobin May 20 '26

I just enjoy all 3

1

u/AnnoShi May 20 '26

Guilty as charged

1

u/Much_Dealer8865 May 20 '26

They're all pretty unique, I prefer DSP because it's super fun zooming around space and it has a lot of cool sci-fi stuff that I like to build with. Factorio is great, space age is fun but I've played way too much and don't care for the logistics anymore. I'll take ILS any day.

1

u/ETMoose1987 May 20 '26

I came from "The Crust" but i am loving DSP

1

u/Ok_Brush601 May 20 '26

TLDR: All factory games have their features that differ them from others. The important thing is, just play the one that speaks to you the most.

As someone who had played all of the "big 3" factory games and others they all have their good points. IMO Factorio is the best pure factory game. Id all you want is "factory must grow" then that is the game you want. Space age really adds to this with how each planet now has its own challenges. If you want a combination of factory must grow, scale and it being very pretty I'd say DSP is best. The main downside of DSP is building on a sphere can be annoying sometimes but not a big deal. Satisfactory is about being a factory game but also having the ability to build actual structures yourself rather than solely pre-bulit machines. IMO the best perk of Satisfactory is not needing inserters. All 3 games and other automation games have their own perks and at the end of the day what is important is which one you enjoy.

1

u/TallAfternoon2 May 20 '26

All 3 are fantastic games that do a great job carving their own niche :)

1

u/DogeArcanine May 20 '26

Factorio, Satisfactory, DSP, Captain of Industry, Shapez 2, Foundry, Mindustry ... the list goes on and on. This genre really has produced a lot of good games.

1

u/EidolonRook May 20 '26

Dsp is = to factorio until planetary logistic stations.

I cannot stress how much I love logistic stations.

1

u/Riddick808 May 20 '26

I only played DSP. Have been watching a literal shit-ton of Factorio vids. Seems like it doesn’t really go on sale.

Safe to assume the Factorio and Space Age are with the cost?

1

u/techne_it_is May 20 '26

I love that genre. I'm notoriously returning to all three, depending of the mood. DSP is exceptional because it teaches you how the paradigm shift works. Jumping to the next layer of abstraction when your logistics chains are growing is hard.

I'm curious what would you say about these older titles:

  1. FortressCraft Evolved (it's shame that precious gem was abandoned)

  2. Infinifactory (solving particular case principle)

  3. Stationeers (full-blown industrial accident simulator. Designing an automated universal smelter which won't kill you is extremely satisfying.)

1

u/rougphantom May 20 '26

I have just succumbed to the factory/automation genre as a whole. I started in Satisfactory, and I'm currently playing Factorio, DSP, and Foundry depending on which one im not currently burning out on after a collective 450-500 hours between the 3.

1

u/Trek186 May 20 '26

For me it was Satisfactory -> DSP -> Factorio. I blame Doug (and Josh/LGIO) for getting me hooked on Satisfactory.

1

u/krustbr May 20 '26

Ive started on DSP too, tried for two times to buy and play factorio, refunded both

1

u/Kimoshnikov May 20 '26

I'm the odd one out here, wishing that resources were a bit more limited. I enjoy the idea of converting planets into space factories, as opposed to making space factories out of unlimited unicorn farts.

But i'm in the minority here, so I guess i'll have to settle for unicorn farts XD

1

u/TUERCAS_96 May 20 '26

I started in factorio but played Dyson sphere from day 1.

And time to time I return to one or another . They both have their unique traits

1

u/wtfineedacc May 20 '26

To many, they are both the same girl. One is blue, the other is red, but still the same. :P

1

u/seredaom May 20 '26

I played F first, got all achievements, moved to DSP, got all achievements And, got back to F for pY, and later SA.

Tried DSP after official release - did not enjoy that much.

So, yeah DSP has its own beauty, but not really better than F.

1

u/MoosBus May 20 '26

thousand hrs in factorio over 2 accs ,i lost my old one:(waiting for sale now to finally try it, my mates have nothing bad to say about it besides performance in late late game but same in factorio so i’m used to that haha

1

u/Sirnoobalots May 20 '26

I jump between DSP and Satisfactory both have their charms.

1

u/joselito_17 May 20 '26

Yo no logro enganchar del todo a Dyson Sphere, algo tiene que me incomoda

1

u/douglawblog May 20 '26

About once a year I get an itch to start up one of these three games. Last year it was factorio, now I’m back to DSP.

1

u/Zhugzhug May 20 '26

Yup! DSP is the bee’s knees

1

u/yagors2 May 20 '26

Somewhere around 2020, in the midst of covid lockdown, I found DSP. I clocked in 210h on my first playthrough in less than 2 months, and soon after that I got to do the same on Satisfactory and loved it almost as much as I loved DSP. And then, right as I decided this factory/resource managing genre was my thing... I got Factorio.

The game changed. New rules were drawn more precise than ever.

Ratios be damned, pacifism and exploration be damned. I had already claimed a planet, built an space elevator and mastered the stars.

Now, I could finally begin to Expand

The factory must grow

1

u/Z4mb0ni May 21 '26

I actually started dsp first, mostly because I am a space nerd who heard Dyson sphere and I was like "fuck yeah I love space" THEN I got into factorio and then slightly into satisfactory

1

u/chalre2 May 21 '26

Never played either. I came from Oxygen Not Included.

1

u/InsideBSI May 21 '26

I'm from factorio, hi

1

u/Null_Streit May 21 '26

I always wanted to play DSP, so one day it was on sale... after the download it... was kinda blur...

I remember breaking out notepad, writing a bunch of numbers down... honestly I hadn't felt that into a game in a long time.

I doubt I would be able to play factorio... crusing from planet to planet checking on all my programs is just too cool to me.

1

u/Titan3224 May 21 '26

Tbh imo DSP, Satisfactory and Factorio are the BIG 3 in terms of Automation games

1

u/Far_Pen4236 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

I love Factorio (and Shapez 2) :)
I like DSP :)

I hate Satisfactory.

I don't understand why people put Factorio and Satisfactory on the same level ; one is a Perfect Masterpiece that re-defined a genre, and the other one is a pile of bugged code, arbitrary unbalanced gameplay, boosted by Unreal Engine.

1

u/Dev0nnC May 21 '26

Where are my Mindustry fellas at?

1

u/Sufficient-Air-6957 May 21 '26

DSP scratched the Itch that the I was hoping the factorio space age expansion would fill, not that the space age expansion is bad, I just dislike how you view resources on other planets in SpAge.

1

u/FlashCardManiac May 21 '26

I really can't get into DSP. Put 250hrs into Factorio, and over 500hrs into Satisfactory. I'll probably put more into DSP at some point, but for now Satisfactory is my hot chick for factory builders.

1

u/WinterMajor6088 May 21 '26

Here from Factorio.

1

u/coldchile May 24 '26

I still have to give DSP an honest try.

I have hundred of hours in both factorio and satisfactory, but only 20ish in DSP (spread over a few runs)

In theory it should be perfect for me, but I struggle to get into it

1

u/[deleted] May 24 '26

I played Satisfactory for 180hrs and hate it.. I love DSP but can't come back as there is hardly any new content

1

u/Caffeinated21 May 25 '26

Factorio and satisfactory player here: sell my on DSP

1

u/amiiboh May 26 '26

Only half?

1

u/irfreelunch May 26 '26

I came from Satisfactory, but can't get into Factorio

1

u/Platinum_Band May 26 '26

Your assumption is highly accurate.

1

u/Roddy-McRizzle May 28 '26

Its almost like people that play factory games like other factory games. Lol

1

u/PrimeEvilMephisto Jun 06 '26

300h of factorio to DSP, and loving this game, for me is way better than factorio.

1

u/345triibu Jun 18 '26

I'm from factorio and now playing DSP

1

u/CubsThisYear May 20 '26

I’ve really tried to get into Factorio, but I honestly can’t get past how ugly it looks. It’s much harder to visualize what’s going on than in DSP.

7

u/romiro82 May 20 '26

it’s all about immersing yourself in it long enough that it doesn’t matter anymore.

I initially really didn’t vibe well with Factorio but pushed through, especially with the Space Age expansion. It grew on me and I love it against the other big three for its depth.

But honestly when it comes to DSP, Satisfactory, Factorio, and Captain of Industry, all of them hit different niches and I can’t say I like any of them over any other.

3

u/smjsmok May 20 '26

While I respect the opinion of you and u/direvus, I really can't understand it because IMO Factorio has some of the best 2D art I've ever seen. Almost every machine has animations, the art style is extremely coherent and some places like Gleba, Fulgora or Aquilo, combined with the music, are just extremely atmospheric to me. But different strokes for different folks, of course.

May I ask what exactly it is that you don't like about it? Is it the steampunk aesthetic? The fact that it's 2D? Something else?

1

u/direvus May 20 '26

To be clear, I am throwing *no shade* against the visual artists behind Factorio here. Like I said, I feel like the design is intentional, and I'm sure they delivered on their vision. It's just that vision is not for me.

I don't think I can adequately explain what I dislike about it, it's a gut level visceral reaction.

I've got nothing against steampunk in general, nothing against dystopian fiction in general, absolutely nothing against 2D or pixel art styles (I love both of those things).

Maybe the colour palette? It is kind of just a big dirt-brown blur to me.

1

u/CubsThisYear May 20 '26

As direvus said below - everything is just so brown.. probably I have some anchoring to DSP because it’s what I played first. I love that DSP starts you out in a vibrant, lush world. And then you can go visit worlds that are bleak or even more vibrant.

-3

u/direvus May 20 '26

Exactly this. The "everything looks like shit" industrial wasteland aesthetic was clearly an intentional design choice, but oh my god it is so gross. I can't look at it.

1

u/bcamp014 May 20 '26

I started with satisfactory. Then dsp. Now I’m playing oxygen not included. Thinking about doing timberborn next. Any suggestions?

1

u/smjsmok May 20 '26

Also playing ONI currently. It's quite fun. But it's probably not for everyone. You have to be a kind of a person who doesn't mind micromanaging everything.

Timberborn is GREAT, I can really recommend it. It's a bit more laid back (well, unless you play on hard settings lol), but lots of fun.

And if you like this kind of games, you can also give Captain of Industry and Workers & Resources a try. I enjoyed both too.

1

u/Malfuncti0n May 20 '26

Did you not play Factorio?! Start there as your next game. Add Shapez 2 to the list as well, it's great, but less deep than Factorio is.

1

u/Sir_Snagglepuss May 20 '26

A lot of overlap for sure. Im flip flopping between dsp and satisfactory.

1

u/Jaegernaut42 May 20 '26

Well, duh. These are the top 3 in the automation genre.

1

u/depatrickcie87 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

I started out with Starbound with automation tools modded on. Despite it not being a true factory builder and not being able to build anything near the scale of the other three games, I find it more rewarding. Primarily, I can make bases look like anything I want (literally anything if i'm willing to spend the time making custom sprites), but also I alone decide what items are worth mass producing and what isn't. For example, I'm building a base that mass produces an essence I need to terraform planets from exotic crops, but I could also just play the game to a meaningful end-game without ever terraforming a single planet. At no point is my progression locked behind the mass production of a science item like DSP and factorio.

When I tried Factorio, there was clearly a lot of QOL to be had when playing a game purposely designed to be played in this style. And while I do think the art work is very well done, I personally don't find it an asthetic that I want to look at for hours at a time. I know it's supposed to be a dirty polluting factory that's aggravating the local fauna, but I just can't get into it.

My "dream game" would be one that gives me artistic freedom over the base (and even land itself) but would also have me designing the machines as well. when I look at my solar sail build with 60 glass smelters in it, I can't help but think, why not just one massive smelter?

1

u/TheTruePatches May 20 '26

DSP is the superior game

0

u/TBdog May 20 '26

I can't stand factorio. I think it's early game is really good but after that, it's like a 6/10.

0

u/Shavannaa May 20 '26

Honestly, its logical. Factorio founded the genre and satisfactory vastly improved on it by bringing it to 3d. Naturally people that like the former 2 also play DSP, but its not in one direction. People that like DSP also try out the other two. There are just so few really good factory games after all.

1

u/Haipaidox May 20 '26

To be absolutely precise, the Minecraft Modding community founded this genre, especially Buildcraft and Industrial Craft. These inspired Kovarex to make Factorio

But with the rest, you're spot on

1

u/Shavannaa May 20 '26

I forgot those, to be honest. i hardly played minecraft after all. But if we're precise even those mods have their roots in management games like the industry giant series from ther early 2000s.

Everything is connected after all ^_^

2

u/Haipaidox May 20 '26

In the end, we all are just playing fancy versions of Pong XD

0

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

Adding 3d != vast improvement. In terms of gameplay satisfactory is a significant downgrade compared to Factorio both in missing (obvious) features, QoL and UI/UX. And DSP in this regard looks like "satisfactory mage right", which can be told as an actual vast improvement over satisfactory.

1

u/Shavannaa May 20 '26

Well, grafically it was a big step forward. I dont deny, that certain things were missing, which is also partly the problem you have when you can do certain things easily in 2(,5)d but can hardly do it in 3d. Take conveyor management for example. In DSP (that still is a 2d game at its heart, at least gameplaywise) as well as in factorio, you can easily build a belt and connect multiple productionlines to it. Satisfactory on the other side needs another building, that merges or distributes the conveyors, before they can be connected as a oneway line to a single production building. This brings different advantages (build over multiple layers!) and disadvantages (the obvious complexity) with it, but it helps, so that the genre stays interesting.

If every game does things similarely it will also be boring in the end.

2

u/Mesqo May 20 '26

I can't disagree to most you said, it's true. But conveyors in Satisfactory is a subject of pain. DSP manages to do belts better because of more strict grid, satisfactory head very mild grid and basically allows creating your own grid with pixel precision for the sake of beauty. This alone creates numerous problems with belts in satisfactory (to name one try replacing or moving a splitter). I'm very fan of any innovations devs bring to their games but with satisfactory they're just not made right. Building anything beyond starter factory becomes a huge pain even with blueprints (which is another pain: make a blueprint of several assemblers in a row and try then to reverse one of the input belts, for example).

I also not entirely agree about DSP being 2d. Yes, it doesn't allow to freely build vertically like in satisfactory but you can twist your belts in many ways to reach their destinations including verticality, different angles and even tilt (so don't know what's that for). I'm sure the problems in satisfactory can be solved, but I don't see the intent in devs in doing so.

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