Satisfactory: 3D Factorio by the makers of Sanctum

Looks like the Build engine, too! ;)

New experimental build out, which you can launch as a separate item in the EGS launcher:

Patch notes include these new features:

NEW FEATURES

  • Added the Conveyor Lift (currently with placeholder visuals)
    • Rebuild or build a new factory with Mk.1 - 4 of the vertical Conveyor Belt!
  • Added the Quartz Research
    • New Parts and Recipes: Quartz Crystal, Crystal Oscillator
    • Explorer Vehicle: The vehicle currently best suited for traversal
    • Ingame Map: Enjoy revealing the game map via exploration and the Radar Tower
  • Added the Sulfur Research
    • New Parts and Recipes: Sulfur, Gunpowder, Explosives, Ammunition
    • Nobelisk Detonator: Blow up trees, bushes, rocks, creatures and friends
    • Rifle Mk.1: An automatic rifle for the purpose of Pioneer safety

Conveyor lift is the single thing needed the most in this game. going up and down takes a lot more work then it should. Then again, going up and down is where you see the most creativity currently too.

“We hate you too”
"I prefer to play Factory Town "

:P :P

I think these update videos would be better if he didn’t try to be funny. Most of it falls very flat (for me)
Good update though! Vertical conveyors was my #1 wish.

I’ve been playing the experimental branch for a few days. The lifts are super useful. The snap to splitters and mergers too which is extra nice. The explorer vehicle is also a welcome addition.

(risk of spoilers follows)

I found quartz recently. It wasn’t incredibly far from my base as the crow flies, but it was at quite the elevation and I had to drive all the way through that big cave to the north and then double back to get to it. Rather than set up another truck route I decided to conveyor it to a spot along my current oil truck route. The one problem was the couple of hundred meter cliff between the quartz site and the area near the cave entrance that I wanted to get to (this was started before conveyor lifts were available).

You can’t see it in that shot due to the fog, but it made a nice platform for my first radar tower.

Scenic shot from a distance:

Very nice!

I watched because I wanted to hear the Factory Town quip in context… it was pretty innocent, which is good. I actually think it is funny, but the presentation is horrible. With the right delivery, I think it would feel much less forced/flat. As someone you can’t tell a joke right to save his life, I can understand how hard it is. Yet my son can crack a single word and have a room in stitches. You do what you can with a small team, but they need one of those guys from the paradox game reddits that does “the real patch notes” to write/present for them.

This is $10 off at the Epic store. Is it worth it at the $20 price point?

Jace is usually very charismatic and engaging. In this video, he was deliberately flat and halting. The joke is pretty meta there, and yeah, doesn’t quite work, but I give him points for the attempt. Watch any of the other videos for something more characteristic.

I paid $30 and thought it was worth it, so yes.

I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with it so far, but I’m easy prey for systems engineering games. It’s a nice little sandbox of building and expanding systems with some exploration on the side. Even without whatever story they will wrap around it building factories is fun. I like the mix of spending time setting up a production line for something and then while it’s cranking out hopping in a vehicle and exploring the area for new resources.

It’s a nice diversion while I try to avoid playing Oxygen Not Included until 1.0 is released. And by the time I finish putting another few hundred hours into ONI hopefully this will be out or close to release.

My sprawling mostly disorganized factory.

Over in the distance on the rise toward the left I’ve now got supercomputer production going so I’m at the limit of what’s available in the current version. Though there’s always tearing it all down and rebuilding it more efficiently now that I’m familiar with the production chains. Now that lifts are available I want to build more vertically.

One of the really great things about this game is how easy it is to do this. There’s no penalty for destroying a building; you get all the resources back.

Ahhh, okay - I haven’t followed any of their other videos, so I missed the in-joke there. My bad.

Picked this up in the sale and this was exactly my experience. Seems like such a weird design decision to have this be your introduction to the game. Maybe survival crafter types expect this sort of thing and would be disappointed if it wasn’t there? But for me it was just frustrating and confusing and meant I wasted half an hour and ending up restarting the game.

It’s probably an artifact of being in early access more than a conscious design decision. I was fortunate to not have a similar issue when I started. There weren’t a lot of the aardvark things that rush at you at my starting location. For the one I did encounter jumping out of the way and swinging wildly when it charged worked to defeat it.

So is this like Factorio in that can draw the attention of critters and have to defend yourself? Or is more just the occasional wildlife that might give you problems as you explore?

The latter. Resource nodes usually have a couple of critters guarding them. Once you eliminate them it’s free and clear forever AFAIK. Jungles and caves often have some wandering and patrolling critters; I don’t think there is any respawning at all.

But it’s clearly a design decision to have those critters there at all. And I don’t really understand why (at least for the entry level resources - I can understand using them to gate content). It’s not like it’s introducing you to the idea that the world is dangerous a la Factorio. I’ve played on for several hours since then and haven’t encountered another critter. It’s just an annoying difficulty spike right at the beginning for no good reason.

Basically I think they are mini gates to resources, i.e. you encounter one typically at each Iron hub and copper hub. Incidentally I defeat these easily by just hiding behind the Iron rock that protrudes. They run into it, and you run and whack em with your bug stick.

I am hoping the creatures actually get a bit of a rework but you do keep encountering tougher versions as you move up the resource chain. The ones guarding oil for instance can be formidable.