My favorite way of playing Factorio is turning off the Biters. It's much less stressful and enjoyable for me that way.

Oh, you'd lose a challenge certainly but you'd have many more remaining besides. Biters provide a nice clock for advancing your base by forcing you to progress your military industrial complex, but like all Factorio problems you solve it by automating the solution. I think the presence or absence of biters changes the game less than choosing between default worldgen and train worlds.

> that would remove a big part of the gameplay and challenge

That's subjective! Personally, having the biters enabled removes a big part of the gameplay for me as suddenly I need to focus on being able to defend myself, while for me that game is about building as effective factory as possible.

Dyson Sphere Program is similar but definitely non-violent.