I really wish this were a joke.
Also, if anyone wants to play a game similar to Factorio while you wait - https://shapez.io is like Factorio without a player character and a cleaner aesthetic. I played it first, and really enjoyed it.
Dyson Sphere Program - I love it because it has the cleaner look of Satisfactory, but in a 3rd person view. I could never get used to Satisfactory's first person view. It just doesn't work well for making a factory. DSP also has you go between multiple solar systems to fetch materials.
Captain of Industry - The only factory builder that feels like it takes place in today's time. Has the unique mechanic that mining for materials actually deforms the terrain, and that excess dirt/stone can be used to expand your island. When I last played, the tutorial was lacking, but this may have been fixed by now. Also, anyone experienced with factory builders probably won't need much tutorial anyways.
One thing I like about both of those that Factorio doesn't have (and I think desperately needs!) is the ability for belts to have more than 2 layers. At the very least, I often found myself wishing I could have longer underground belts in Factorio.
I hate to beat the modding horse in to the ground, but, yeah, I'm pretty sure there are mods for this. Try searching for "belts" on the mod portal and you'll probably find a bunch that do what you want.
In my experience, whenever I've wondered if there might be a mod for something I wanted, the answer has been "yes, there already is one, and more."
It actually takes some serious creativity to come up with an interesting idea which hasn't already been turned in to a mod in Factorio.
As annoying as the Factorio biters are, they do provide a little bit of pressure that keeps you wanting to research new things and continue building. (They also inspire a burning hatred that will drive you to research and implement ever more efficient methods of murdering them). The same goes for the limitedness of Factorio resources patches.
In Shapez the logistics that come with expansion and defense don't exist, so it winds up feeling sorta samey. I like the chill, relaxing vibe of Shapez but eventually felt like I was just doing the same things over and over with slight variations.
Also, the lack of a blueprint book in Shapez is a major drag. I ended up setting a map marker way the hell out which lets me "teleport" to an area where I copy/paste designs from, but that's pretty hacky and ruins some of the flow state that Shapez lets you cultivate.
All that said, I've been following the dev of Shapez 2 and at least visually it looks awesome, so I'll definitely be hopping into that at some point.
Shapez was fun for a handful of hours, but I really don't see myself spending hundreds, nevermind thousands of hours on it like I have on Factorio.
Mindustry has two "planets" and they play entirely differently. The newer one, Erekir, is a mix of Factorio, tower defense and RTS elements.
I actually liked it a bit more than Factorio, because it is less complex.
I didn’t really like the first planet though (Serpulo) and stopped after playing through Erekir twice.
The game is still in early access, but it is feeling pretty close to a 1.0 product. The next major update is moving the game to Unreal Engine 5.
What I really like about this game is that you can build vertically, a feature afforded by being in 3D. It allows for some truly massive and beautiful factory designs.