There are way better games in the genre. This reminds me of their Down on the Farm bundle recently. Both lack highlights.

I've only played Astro Colony (a couple weeks ago actually).

It's being made by a singledev atm, using Unreal 4, and it kinda starts as "Raft in space" (minus the story/lore thing), and shifts gradually to a Factorio/Satisfactory automation sim, and then gradually towards a colony simulator.

It has many layers, though yeah, it feels somewhat janky, but has some cool characteristics I enjoyed compared to the genre (tools don't break, which I love, and everything has a huge inventory, which makes being full rare, but leads to issues on production lines, compared to other games).

Survival layers are nearly non-existant, so it's not really a focus (just an oxygen meter, but it's really easy to manage since the beggining). Had some trouble having enough energy compared against automated production, but probably it was my mistake on a first try.

Also, has online co-op for 4 players (if hosting while playing) or no hardcapped limit (on dedicated servers) - being the only co-op/multiplayer game in this bundle - and a very complete mod support (integrated with both Steam Workshop and Curseforge - just lacks mods!). Still in early access, and the updates are somewhat frequent and sometimes surprising.

Mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1614550/workshop/
https://www.curseforge.com/astro-colony

Shameless plug longplay (PT-BR):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMPJGo4_Mp4

I remember seeing a streamer play Factory Town. It looked very decent

buggos confirmed jank, before last big update (havent played in about a year) most units were kinda useless so needed balancing the survival or challenge mode was basically broken. that said tho i still put 60 hours into it and enjoyed it.

Much appreciated!

It's somewhat safe to assume people looking into an automation bundle already own it, otherwise yeah, it'd be the safest pick ever.

Still, it's nice to play different stuff from time to time, even when worse on many accounts. Novelty is a good thing.

<3 !!