Satisfactory - 3D Factorio?

[0111narwhalz]

Well, I played the test release to—near as I can tell—completion.
It's a solid game. Despite the fact that my machine's CPU is rated at half the Passmark score when compared to the listed minimum specs, performance was playable. Not smooth, mind, but certainly not terrible, considering the hardware discrepancy. Not every game can be as hyper-optimized as Factorio, at least not on their first pseudopublic release.
Motion blur's a little irritating—couldn't find a place to turn it off—but for the most part it's manageable. The GUI is a little cooler-looking than Factorio's (0.16—haven't played 0.17 yet), with some neat background texture, but not nearly as precisely responsive. Item icons are too small to easily distinguish certain items, ores especially. Certain inventory macros were lacking. There's shift-clicking, which is good if fairly basic, but the interface relies on click-and-drag for pretty much everything else. I found myself trying to control-click on machines, expecting their inventory to transfer. I didn't realize how good we've got it with Factorio.
Building is a little hard to deal with, due to the scale, but climbing on top of a machine (using the helpful ladders) is usually enough to make it manageable. The bounding volumes of certain machines are kind of excessive (I'm looking at you, space elevator). Coffee Stain would do well to investigate non-cuboid bounding volumes for the most egregious examples. The building itself is very nice, though, with a neat "materialization" animation on belts and a simpler "printing" animation with a satisfying thud upon completion on machines. Building on foundations is highly recommended—don't let the temptation to sprawl deceive you. If you want to be even remotely compact. you need the grid.
Combat is kinda throwaway, though it's hardly better in Factorio. The beasties have easy-to-learn strategies (mostly involving jumping like a loon) which lead to easy victories in most cases. Pathing seems to have small issues with vehicles and obstacles. There has been no indication of enemies respawning, so I don't think we'll see massive industrial complices for the construction of munitions. The offhand punch that triggers every so often is amusing at the least. Feedback on hits with the rebar gun is sorely lacking.
Spaghetti potential is enormous. There will be no disappointment in that respect, I'm sure. The belts require a little practice, but once you get a feel for how they behave you can very quickly produce some impressively convoluted designs. The weekend test doesn't quite have the depth necessary to bring out the best in the belts, but it certainly hints at the possibilities.
As to content: It's pretty sorely limited in the weekend test. However, it hints at hidden depths. Beyond the standard iron/copper/stone/coal we know so well, I found no less than four resources—not including drops— which are completely unused in the demo. There may be substantially more—I did not explore the map very deeply.
Speaking of the map. The map is, at least in the parts I've witnessed, a thing of beauty. To put it bluntly: It is absolutely not a heightmap. There are shelves, overhangs, caves, rifts in the earth, waterfalls (with lakes and rivers), precarious land bridges. Flat spots, too, but if you wanted flat you'd still be playing Factorio. There is substantial variation in terrain character in different areas. The tractor, the one vehicle available in the demo, is surprisingly capable despite consistently feeling underpowered.
All in all, I'd probably recommend it to a friend. A friend with a somewhat more powerful PC.

[StrCmdMan]

I played the alpha for a little over 6 hours and as far as I can tell I completed the game.

My machine has a 680GTX graphics card and all parts were good about 5 years ago when the machine was new. The game ran very smoothly no hickups except for glitches for me i wonder how many issues were caused by driver issues or other issues for other users with better machines as i ran it as a host with a friend for my entire playthrough.

I have always been a big FPS/RTS player so the feeling of base building in a FPS environment very much sounded welcoming to me. Boy did i enjoy my time in the game. I personally enjoyed their art style and futuristic design.

So if i had to describe the game now after playing it i would say it functions alot like ARK survival with minecraft styles of play. The world is a joy to navigate while also being deep and varied enough to keep it interesting. Exploration is a big part of this game in a 4 player game i would argue it would be worth have 1 player devoted to it throughout the play session i played. The combat while no better than minecraft or factorio on launch is a critical and important game function that i rather enjoyed especially as you begin to explore and have to manage your health and encounter new adversaries.


Lets start with the negatives:

The first thing that seemed to hit me more or less right away was the immediate issues with biomass and biomass generators. They function off of plant matter and if you ever played ARK it works off the same hand collected system early game were you have to pick up bushes/leaves/grasses/wood off the ground to power your bases later on i easily managed to automate the process but the input only works by self-collection. Imagine if early game you could only burn trees in factory except your forced to burn trees and there's extra steps. You can find coal but i'm not so sure you can use it in the biogenerators. Combine this with the lack of inserters and there's a really slow gap in the early game with lots of clicking. Also while talking about inserters even after playing the game i am not completely certain how this will effect the game long term it caused me to be more creative with my builds but also simplified some things while making other much more complex and seemingly more difficult to control. Also need to mention the placement of buildings here i think this will be partially solved once the building mechanics are refined more or we learn more about them.

Positives:
- Ran very smoothly for me
- Reminiscent of Minecraft, Ark, and Factorio (brought in good aspects maybe even a little of space engineers)
- Multiplayer was more or less flawless right out of the box for me
- Incredible world with delightful inviting graphics
- Lots more to explore i stumbled over 10 different types of Ore just in my playthrough and several other objects

**SPOILER** that permanently change your base recipes in the game 1 Iron bar = 1 Iron + 1 Copper instead of 2 Iron ect.

- Verticality (Jump pads are a welcomed addition)
- Automated 3D Vehicles (Could see drone working like the tractors in the game and building blueprints that way)
- Gave me an RPG feel with improved equipment **Why doesn't the chain saw kill enemies!
- Putting the UI as a pro because its streamline but its so streamline it feels lacking some times and confusing

Vertical building! Something i didn't see anyone else touch on while the world isn't infinite you can layer the world in vertical building and build all the way to the edges of the world even over void spaces with building mechanics very similar to minecraft.

This game makes me want to play more Factorio when im done with it i think they did a really good job. Without playing the whole thing yet as we didn't have accesss in the Alpha i would say its setup to be something different enough to fill a different role in the genera while still bringing in all the goodness of automation and base building.

[Superbeef]

I started playing factorio in .15 and took a break until .17, so I wouldn't consider myself a heavy player. I just now got back into .17 and have my first oil & train station.

I found satisfactory to be quite.. satisfactory, and I'm happy to see a world where both exists. But at the end of the day I uninstalled it with the feeling that I kind of had the trajectory after 5 hours and could predict what would come next.

Pros:

The 3D world is really pretty. I like that its hand crafted. There might be mysteries to explore!
Quite simple for new users to get into

The tutorial is probably better than even .17s tutorial, which I found challenging in parts even as a "veteran" coming back to the game. But I'm sure there's plenty of feedback already in the pipeline for that.

Cons:

The personal crafting bench & workbench are needlessly complex. Something that has already been solved by factorio's years of user feedback. I spent 30 minutes probably backtracking from that first copper station to the main bench and trying to get everything resolved re: intermediate ingredients. They could solve this with a personal suit fabrication and intermediate fabrication and most of this would be resolved. It is solvable.

Melee combat against those bugs is no fun. I assume you get a gun at some point, but I didn't make it to that point, and I almost died during the tutorial multiple times.

I feel there is less of a complex system that will gradually reveal itself to me over time. Factorio I've been exploring for 20 hours and I haven't made it to uranium yet and there's still a lot more to learn. Maybe satisfactory surprises you later, I am not sure.

Final verdict:


Final result:

Factorio is a movie you hope never ends with ever increasing levels of complexity and logistics (Obviously it does end at some point and I'm still pretty novice)

Satisfactory is a good movie but you probably know how it ends (opinion after 5 hours)

[themadgunman]

Had a quick hour on the early access version today, basically felt like I was playing the lovechild of Factorio and Ark but I don't think its gonna be as scalable as Factorio in that it seems very difficult to actually plan anything on a large scale due to fact that first person just doesn't give you a nice overview of whats going on, I'm hopeful they can do something to deal with this but overall it felt like just another grindy/over complicated survival game ala Space Engineers, after the first hour i was bored enough to Alt-F4 and load up Factorio, which to me says it all. Having to go back to the crafting bench/workshop every 10 seconds to do something as simple as even crafting an iron ingot was massively dull though, having an exploration game that basically forces you to live in a 10m square area to do anything seems to be self defeating. Will still be keeping an eye on it though as they continue to progress the development.

[Ranakastrasz]

Had a quick hour on the early access version today, basically felt like I was playing the lovechild of Factorio and Ark but I don't think its gonna be as scalable as Factorio in that it seems very difficult to actually plan anything on a large scale due to fact that first person just doesn't give you a nice overview of whats going on, I'm hopeful they can do something to deal with this but overall it felt like just another grindy/over complicated survival game ala Space Engineers, after the first hour i was bored enough to Alt-F4 and load up Factorio, which to me says it all. Having to go back to the crafting bench/workshop every 10 seconds to do something as simple as even crafting an iron ingot was massively dull though, having an exploration game that basically forces you to live in a 10m square area to do anything seems to be self defeating. Will still be keeping an eye on it though as they continue to progress the development.

Yea, thats one of the major issues with such exploration games. Minecraft vanilla you can explore easily, since you can carry pretty much all of your infrastructure you might need in your inventory. With mods, the setups tend to be massive, expensive, and difficult to move.

You can't really out-factorio factorio, much like you can't out WOW World of warcraft. At least not easily. Plus the whole 3d thing, something that you don't really need. And FPS is a serious loss for a game like this. I guess you can do it, but between minecraft industrial mods and factorio, there is no comparison.

[themadgunman]

Well it just felt like one of the many survival games out there atm, gather resources, craft components, build items, repeat, didn't really feel like Factorio at all to me other than some of the components have similar names but then if your gonna use realistically named resources (iron,copper etc) then every game is gonna sound/feel the same anyways

[Ranakastrasz]

Well it just felt like one of the many survival games out there atm, gather resources, craft components, build items, repeat, didn't really feel like Factorio at all to me other than some of the components have similar names but then if your gonna use realistically named resources (iron,copper etc) then every game is gonna sound/feel the same anyways

Really? I have only watched videos thus far, but... Its a similar genre as Fortresscraft Evolved and Factorio. Go from manual mining and crafting to automated mining and crafting, with mines, logistics, crafters, and so on.
The only issue is that you get stuck on manual crafting a bit longer than factorio does.
I mean, did you just spend all your time at the crafting bench, or did you get far enough to build the smelters and other autoprocessers?

The only reason I don't include Minecraft modpacks in that list is because of the tiny ore density resulting in you never really being able to have a consistent income via miners or whatever.

[themadgunman]

Well i built my Central Hub thing right next to my first Iron deposit, which as luck would have it turned out to only be about 100m from the Copper deposit, I got the smelter up and connected and was just building more stuff but then it just felt like I was in a constant loop between the crafting bench, workshop and the mining nodes, Maybe it gets better further in, I'll probably have another go at it tomorrow but it just didn't seem to bring anything new or special to the table, at least so far as games like Ark/Empyrion etc already provide. It definitely has a bit of a No Man's Sky/Subnautica vibe to it as well just without the coolness of a giant explorable universe or the uniqueness of the underwater environment.

As for Minecraft, i tended to use the Buildcraft Quarry to just rip out whole chunks and then refill em with dirt/stone and spend all my time creating mad automated stuff with ComputerCraft, seems like no game since has ever been able to match the simple yet incredibly powerful features of a modded Minecraft game but who knows. Satisfactory is clearly still very Alpha so I guess we will see over time how the Dev's intend to shape it, it is very pretty though and the engine seems pretty smooth but it needs to find its own niche and slip the "3D Factorio" label if its gonna be a success imo.

[Optera]

There is one huge difference between Factorio and Satisfactory that will keep me from playing the later in the foreseeable future.
Satisfactory is available only through Epic Games. Yet another game hub/launcher grabbing my personal data selling it to who knows where.

I would buy Satisfactory on steam, since I reluctantly have that darn thing already, but I wont add another game hub spycenter just for one early access game.

Wube on the other hand offers even steam customers to get a 100% drm free version by just verifying your steam account. That is how you build trust and good will mates.

[themadgunman]

So I've been following the whole "Epic Launcher is stealing your data" saga for the last few days and a few things have become clear, firstly it seems obvious that this is just another case of lack of security due to inattention, everything the launcher does is specified in the ToS, which you have to agree to when you install it, its just that no-one ever actually reads the walls of text we are confronted with when we install this stuff so most people are blissfully unaware that they are signing away their rights to privacy. The second part is that other companies aren't taking care of your data properly, for example if Valve actually bothered to encrypt your Steam Friends data and history then Epic wouldn't be able to steal it in the first place.

Optera's point is well made though, gamers should be more aware of how their data is being handled, because companies who's major focus is to make as much money as possible certainly won't be doing it for you and you should remember that morality sadly has no place in the modern technology world and that someone somewhere will pay money to know just who you played PUBG with last Tuesday

I would also like to add that Wube making the extra effort to allow people to play their game without having to resort to a popular gaming hub marks them out as a step above most software publishers these days imo.

[Koub]

[Koub] Please let's not go off topic (despite the subforum's name ). Concern for data privacy is important, and knowing that the Epic launcher is mandatory to play Satisfactory is indeed very useful to know, but now this has been said, please let the thread be a discussion about the game itself.

[brunzenstein]

[Koub] Please let's not go off topic (despite the subforum's name ). Concern for data privacy is important, and knowing that the Epic launcher is mandatory to play Satisfactory is indeed very useful to know, but now this has been said, please let the thread be a discussion about the game itself.

With all due respect Sir!
This theme is “on topic” and must be preserved here for a good reason. Factorio is still another class by itself and therefore any would be contender could and should be compared to this gold standard.

[steinio]

Early Access launch started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvWaV4qshZQ

Fantastic video, so sad they chose the dark side.

[Dixi]

Game is very fun to play. It's similar to Factorio, in 3D. When you research some tech (coal fuel) base become able to run indefinitely until output containers are full, and game starts to behave closer to Factorio concepts.
It's possible to build rather big factory. 3D is interesting for a factory composition - you can build multi level building for mass production of some resource. 3D also allow multi level belt architecture.

All ore sources are endless (thing I miss in non-moded Factorio - I don't like resource depletion, since I was building mega base during last year in Factorio). But not big amount of those sources of ore will probably prevent construction of mega base in Satisfactory. More important, there is no goal to create one yet - since there are no endless technologies or other ways to spend resources indefinitely.

Features I'm missing - blueprints or other means to copy whole building or part, and any form of logic.
About logic. Looking unimportant at start of Factorio gameplay, it become very often used part of bigger Factorio base. And I'm missing it a lot in Satisfactory. Because the game have no technical means to balance transporter flow (except splitters), container fill %, nether way for a truck to wait for full/empty cargo.

They also don't have forums! At least I did not found them. Only stupid discord chat channels, so it's hard to discuss the game and propose any features.

And epic-fail-launcher sucks big time - so slow and freezes on load very often. So I use it only to start the game, then close it instantly.

[leadraven]

It's similar to Factorio, in 3D.

Satisfactory has a very limited scale. You can't build something truly big from a first person perspective.
Also, as I know, map is handmade.

The main difference in factory design is absence of inserters, belts are coming directly through assemblers (like in real life).

[brunzenstein]

To compare Satisfactory to Factorio is to compare a Miss America winner to Stephen William Hawking
Factorio is a class by itself - still...

[Dixi]

I do agree that Factorio is much better for big factory building. But Satisfactory is still similar game that is nice to play for a change.

[brunzenstein]

The reason why in any shareholder meeting a flip chart "2D organigram" is used is - it surpasses any distracting 3D view.
So Factorio's 2D view is far more efficient than the nice looking but distracting 3D view of Satisfactory - but that's only a side track.

The most important argument why Factorio is leading the pack by a mile (or more) is its intelligence deeb buried in its core DNA
- that true value makes all the difference.
Besides - Satisfactory is not available for the Mac platform

[BlueTemplar]

I think it's mostly because a whiteboard is a lot less effort than a 3D model...

When you can afford it, 3D is better : generals have been using battlefield + figurines models for centuries !

[steinio]

I got the game over other delivery channels and honestly it's really great.
Played several hours without break the last days and for example just get lost in building a multi floor production building.

I love how there is no treat if you don't leave the starting area and no pressure to run through science to defend.

Also the landscape is so beautiful and no crashes so far in early access.

If it would be on Steam I would insta buy.