For fans of Factorio I highly recommend Dyson Sphere Program. It’s a beautiful factory building game. It’s been in early access for a while now but can already be played like a finished game. There is a combat system coming but that will be totally optional. The only downside is that it’s far more demanding than Factorio when it comes to CPU, especially in the late stages of the game as your factory grows.
If someone else didn't say it I was gonna recommend DSP. It's galactic scale Factorio in space and 3D. If Factorio automation and interstellar logistics sound fun then get this game.
For late game do e of the hardcore players take ticks per second and such into consideration so there is a sort of meta think to the game with that regard. You can still just slap automation chains together and get the job done tho. I was getting 15 fps at end game with a RTX 3060 lol.
It is demanding but the devs seem very dedicated to optimization. I have never read a dev blog post entirely about CPU optimization that sounded so excited about it. For an early access game, it really is super polished.
I haven't tried scaling to super late game production levels, but you can easily finish the non-repeatable techs before noticing any performance hitches.
Factorio is one of those few games (rim world too) that I can sit down and not realize that HOURS are flying by.
For that alone, Factorio is a must have for anyone who enjoys base building aspects in other games. Also, there is multiplayer on PC. At least with mods it's possible.
Honestly if you don’t know where to start just play the bog standard free play with default settings. Maybe increase mineral deposit richness a bit if you’re just starting out.
If you want to make your life a little easier look for a starting map with lots of trees and deposits close together but not overlapping.
My time available for gaming is severely limited, so I'd timebox some time to play, set up a timer and build AFK factories. I noticed that I'd start to find excuses to go to the desk to check an email or pay a bill and would "just check in on my factory" which would turn into "just a quick replenish of my turrets" or to fix an idle driller, then an hour later I'd realize I was 'ate to an appointment.
Later, I set up a private multiplayer server that wouldn't pause on disconnect so that the game wasn't even running on my primary computer.
It's been a while... I should go check on my factory... BRB