Yes, similar but different. (Played both)

I think they are, but that’s from someone that hasn’t played very much of either. 😁

Having played Factorio, Satisfactory, DSP, and Captain of Industry. I personally find Satisfactory to be the least enjoyable of the group. I have the hardest time playing it all the way through (its pacing falls apart in phase 4, I expect this to be fixed as they complete more of the game). If you love factorio for the logistics problems and factory expansion, you may find Satisfactory long term tedious and grindy. The BP system is still in its infancy (they are pretty small BPs, you need mods to use larger ones, and you can’t use mods in Multiplayer on a server if you intend to play with friends).

The first person aspect is super cool, and it’s “base building” is rivaled only by minecraft in the sense of you can build full buildings in your factory. Those only had so much shine for me before the tedium of lining up belts perfectly, running train lines without them doing weird bending and shit, and the slow process of hand building full setups without the ability to quickly place items one after another or rapidly run/readjust belts.

This is entirely a personal opinion, and I like Satisfactory as a game. I feel it has a lot of potential down the line, its just not able to keep my long term attention (nor anyone I play with) compared to the other factory games I listed. I have played through DSP and Factorio multiple times through, I’ve played Satisfactory 3 times through and have always quit in phase 4 at different points as it becomes a literal chore to me to set up these huge (at ratio) processing lines when I don’t have any form of top down building. It makes me wanna do a DSP or Factorio run instead (possibly Captain of Industry, but I have the least experience with it so far so I cant speak much on it)