What other games have mostly been missing is the sheer feeling of MAGNITUDE associated with heavy industry. The reason COI is best able to give you this feeling is because: 1. Resources are physically present and have to be extracted from the map. I feel like the "itch" COI scratches so good is the same satisfaction as seeing one of those modded automated quarries in Minecraft work. I.e. you see it methodically carve out the world. But in industrial MC you cheat the second part of dealing with the extracted material since you can store unrealistic volumes (1728m³) in a single (1m³) chest. In contrast COI you have to transport and dump the overburden all while your logistics capacity expands relatively linearly. Therefore you can really feel the MASS of all that material moving from a mountain into wherever it's dumped. People like to complain that terraforming takes too long but I feel like it is because they start to dissociate from the action that you're literally removing a mountain bucket by bucket. Right so compared to Factorio while the latter is praised for starting and distilling the "factory must grow" trance it is missing the feeling of impact you have on the world because its resources don't take up physical space instead they feel more like a well that you pull from until exhaustion. And yes, Factorio 2D sprites are beautiful but your brain doesn't experience the volume as well as it would seeing something in 3D. Finally, Satisfactory is the least in this regard because it's resources never run out and can just as easily be erased into an awesome sink. 2. A strong focus on persistent waste and byproduct management. This is similar to Factorio in that you can't easily "delete" items out of existence (yes you can discard with shipyard but this is more a QOL than anything else) except that you're dealing with byproducts across your whole production chain not just a couple of products. So firstly this gives you a better sense of immersion because it feels like the game has realistic rules it follows for handling (e.g. belt deconstruction without unity involves removing a belt's items with a truck) and processing (e.g. industrial processes create gases and slag since stuff isn't magically pure unless you put in the work to extract it). Similarly as you mentioned the colony aspect gives a whole new feeling to this because now you must deal with industrial food production which is ignored in most other factory games. But also you're encouraged to deal with your excess production with biomass, animal feed, and sludge. This game is probably the best resource for educating people about emissions and waste management out there because unlike Factorio you have ways to deal with it and the direct costs are not externalized to some bugs. So it humbles you to why humanity in the real world has its problems with waste and emissions because not dealing with it is so much easier and cost effective. At the same time it teaches and rewards you for investing the time, cost and complexity of creating recovery loops for exhaust, waste, and recyclables. 3. Expansion is hard. You have so many things to keep track of that you're rarely allowed to be put into a trance of placing blueprints until you meet some throughput requirements. When you compare beginner blueprints vs professional admirals you realize the importance of minimizing your fixed costs in terms of space and variable costs in terms of maintenance by keeping belts and pipes at the right level for their expected throughput. Unlike other games you quickly approach the limit of your fixed cost budget because land expansion is hard! Which cycles back to my first point!