Friday Facts #375 - Quality

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-375

[dwightkung]

Quantization nightmare

[SuperSandro2000]

Whut?!

[BlacKcuD]

That is unexpected but awesome. It adds a nice new layer to endgame production and allows you to go crazy.

[dog80]

so cool!

[mooklepticon]

I don't really like this.

I generally don't like quality in the first place because it's weird and non obvious. In a way it's kind of like assembling machine 1 then 2 then 3 etc, but more obscure. We already have tiered machines, so this seems weird and inelegant.

I don't like the randomness of getting higher quality. I like how tier 1 machines make tier 2 machines. Making things defined 2 -> 1 gets exponential costly just fine as it is. If this has to be implemented, then 2 normal - > 1 uncommon, 2 uncommon - > 1 rare, and so forth feels better to me.

[vjbone]

Now we need MagicFind mods

[Super Mikal]

Overall, I love this! But I also hate the names! I expect you will make them moddable though, right? I'd name them something like Crude/Low (and you only realize the quality wasn't even good before you unlock quality modules and see it), Normal/Nominal, High/Great, Exceptional/Superior and Pristine/Perfect.

[Radjack]

That looks awesome! One question I have since it's not explicitly stated: Is the Recycler is also gated to the Expansion since it's tied into the desire to recycle low Quality things?

[Lubricus]

I hope on good mod support for quality. Stuff like be able for different recipes get results of different quality.
Like making gears from iron -> base quality gears, from steel -> better quality gears, titanium -> even better quality.
That would make it possible to make some mods I have been thinking about.

[Kyralessa]

Instead of recycling the lower-quality items, can I take them in a muffalo caravan to sell to another tribe?

[Lubricus]

Overall, I love this! But I also hate the names! I expect you will make them moddable though, right? I'd name them something like Crude/Low (and you only realize the quality wasn't even good before you unlock quality modules and see it), Normal/Nominal, High/Great, Exceptional/Superior and Pristine/Perfect.

Yea the names don't feel Factorio. Some less silly gamy names would be appreciated.

[Kyralessa]

I don't really like this.

I generally don't like quality in the first place because it's weird and non obvious. In a way it's kind of like assembling machine 1 then 2 then 3 etc, but more obscure. We already have tiered machines, so this seems weird and inelegant.

I don't like the randomness of getting higher quality. I like how tier 1 machines make tier 2 machines. Making things defined 2 -> 1 gets exponential costly just fine as it is. If this has to be implemented, then 2 normal - > 1 uncommon, 2 uncommon - > 1 rare, and so forth feels better to me.

If I understood the post correctly, you can completely ignore this aspect of the game if you want. You get only base quality (with no UI quality indicator) unless you start putting quality modules in machines.

[DanGio]

This is interesting !
- I wonder if the quality info (the colored dots) visibility on entities will be togglable within the alt view, or if it's linked to alt view. The big green circuits setup is a bit hard to read now with so many information on screen.
- Recycling is a feature I usually don't like in mods because it often comes with a huge quantity of unwanted byproducts, useless recipes, more steps to get the same result... So I'm curious to see how recycling will fit in the whole game, apart from the quality feature showed today, as I know that you don't want to add 100 more recipes just for complexity sake.

[kwik12]

Overall, I love this! But I also hate the names! I expect you will make them moddable though, right? I'd name them something like Crude/Low (and you only realize the quality wasn't even good before you unlock quality modules and see it), Normal/Nominal, High/Great, Exceptional/Superior and Pristine/Perfect.

Yea the names don't feel Factorio. Some less silly gamy names would be appreciated.

Totally agree your names suites better

[matjojo]

Super cool stuff devs. Very excited to see what kinds of layouts will be good with the recyclers. I'm especially happy to see another shape of building in the game. If it were another 3x3 box it wouldn't be bad per se, but a new shape always creates new layout challenges.


I have two questions though, seeing the green circuit build there seem to be recipes specific for the qualities? As in Q2 wire + Q2 iron => Q2 circuit (or better).
Or is this dynamically done based on the quality of the items coming in, similar to how furnaces work now?

How will these qualities handle stacking? Especially wrt inserter hands. Will an inserter be slower, on average, if the quality levels are mixed?

[CureSafaia]

This is interesting, it adds another way to get better stuff other than just upgrading from mk1 to mk2, however different quality intermediate feels kinda wrong, instead of scaling up to produce more and focus on efficiency, we will use the recycler to destroy a lot of stuff and lose a lot of efficiency in the process and will make a fair lot of spaghetti belts.

But I can see myself just filtering and using higher quality for armor stuff and normal quality on the main bus to avoid using recyclers, and I want to try, thinking about this makes me want to play the expansion already.

In a way it is reassuring that there is something that does not feel like the base game, because it is not the base game after all.

[orbadon]

I agree, please name the quality levels something that feels Factorio and not "Generic RPG / Shooter /whatever".

[TheoMarque]

More splitters and more machines.. What is an impact for UPS?
I suggest new layer to view quality icons in game, not just ALT mode. For example - Quality Layer to show all color quality dots
Next suggestion is simple calculator or something to calculate input/output. Today, manual equations for beaconed prodctivity of refinery connected setups makes me headache. I think, now it cannot be a part of mod, just ingame feature after enter to SA. I can't play together without rate calculator.

And, not mentioned about TRAINS and fuel. There will be probably in next FFF? Maybe smarter Trains, better capacity (like Quality) od any idea to reduce belt balancer usages (there are awful, ugly UPS consuming things).

Next thing that need to some touch is mining. We strongly need mining improvement because basic electric miner is too slow for endgame, when you starts consuming about thoustands ores per second.

[tuhe]

I am very excited we finally got a recycler! I wonder if it jams up or destroys ore and trees?

I kind of had mixed feelings about the quality when I was reading it, but I am warming up to the idea. I wonder what a mall for high quality items would look like -- I guess it would first be a belt-based setup to get high quality inputs (similar to the video), and then when building e.g. a high-quality assembler, the items would be requested from a chest, inserted, and filter inserters would determine whether the item is 1) kept or 2) taken away for disassembly.

Since disassembly seem to generate random-quality items, disassembly would need to happen centralized and the products would need to be sorted in high/low quality; low-quality items would then perhaps need to be further disassembled.

TBH it seems like a really cool mechanic, but if I understand it correctly it would make mods where buildings have many inputs harder, since they would require more sorting.