So, I’ve spent over 2 hours on Steam searching for a nice game to play. But it’s all junk, as far as I’m fed with Steam recommendations. I liked ksp2 1, cities skylines 1, age of empires 2, baldurs gate 3 a lot, I just finished Divinity original sin 2. I like rpgs and management / factory games like workers and resources, satisfactory etc. I’m having a lot of fun with split fiction when I play with a friend, but I need a proper singplayer game. Anything I could get which isn’t a total ripoff due to lack of gameplay or it being a bug simulator or dlc purchase mania?
If you’re saying that you liked the (unfinished, abandoned, poorly-rated) Kerbal Space Program 2, you might play the original, which is better-regarded.
On the “factory” side, maybe some colony simulators? Someone else mentioned Rimworld. That’s got a bit of DLC, but I think that even the base game has pretty good value for money. Oxygen Not Included is another colony sim that focuses more on the building/automation/physics side; I think that you’ll get a lot of hours out of that.
Dwarf Fortress is another colony sim, has a freely-available classic version or a commercial graphical build on Steam. Steep learning curve, but lots of mechanics to explore.
I like Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead, though it has a pretty punishing learning curve. Open-world roguelike. It touches on both the RPG (well, not much by way of plot, but in terms of building a character) and the factory (build buildings, faction camps with NPCs, and vehicles) side. You aren’t going to run out of gameplay complexity to explore any time soon on that. Open source and freely-available, though there’s also a commercial build on Steam.
I have not played Elin, the successor to Elona, but it might be worth a look too if you are looking for a game with both a sandbox aspect and RPG aspect.
Wups, that was a typo. I liked ksp1, 2 was a massive disappointment and shitshow and they scammed me out of my 40 euros.