That actually sounds like fun.

I've actually been working on an ant settlement sim in godot, but it's closer to dwarf fortress than factorio

Give Microtopia a look. It's ant colony as a factory sim and it's really quite good.

So we're just playing as the biters instead?

I doubt it. There's already several first person Factory games. Also, they don't hit like Factorio does. First person is just so fundamentally limited that, as popular as they are, because they're prettier, I don't think it works as well.

Top down, especially 2d, let's the scale be so much larger, and makes it easy to plan and interact with. You can easily copy and paste massive factories. Even the best version of this in first person let's you only copy small sections. The closest 3D one to the scale of Factorio is the space robot one (I can't recall the name), but it's a third person somewhat top-down view. There's a reason why people still say Factorio is the best factory game, despite having so many options inspired by it.

I am going to check out that Satisfactory. That sounds interesting.

Idisagree completely with your second point, fuck that I want it bigger.