Friday Facts #375 - Quality

[Strix]

One more commentary on people complaining about "cost of quality item".

I don't think it's designed to mass-produce legendary items from scratch. Of course if you look at the cost/efficiency of legendary inserter against base quality inserter, then it is likely that even with maxed recycling and production efficiency the legendary is more expensive. So in terms of raw material if you have unlimited space, horizontal expansion is "more efficient".

But this is where the RNG comes in. Sometimes you get uncommon part for the price of common. This is a buff.
You are not meant to use "only high quality" parts all the time. The base quality core loop still applies. How you decide to utilize the extra value from higher quality is the new challenge.

But that is what it is an extra quality. It is random by design and is not meant to be relied upon, until you can scale your production up to the degree where you can rely on statistics to carry you. (looking at U, Uranium).

And even there it is expensive. But where it shines is space. And with upcoming expansion that comes in both meanings, as space to build the factory and possibly limited space in Space... you know what I mean. Be it high-throughput parts of factory, or min-maxing limited build areas in Space platforms.

[IronCartographer]

Also, humongous cringe at the fact, that there are dev replies on reddit, but 0 dev replies on the forum.
I look forward to the next time corporate overlords/reddit mods decide to lock it down.

You could phrase this positively by wishing for more engagement on these forums and support for the independence afforded to both Wube and their customers by investing in this platform (dedicated forums outside of reddit). That would be something more people would support.

The signature box attached to your comment, however, paradoxically indicates the truth in "Good observations/ideas can come from anywhere" while attempting to contradict it. Please be more constructive.

Edit: tl;dr: Post vitriol, get vitriol back, destroy what you love.

[pointa2b]

I propose these names to be used instead of the current, as they are all centered around mechanical/engineering/manufacturing:

1) Standard
2) Refined
3) Fine-Tuned
4) Precision
5) Masterpiece

[xtmq]

Are elves also included? Instead of biters for example.

[Xenophore]

This... must be a late April Fools.

[IronCartographer]

This... must be a late April Fools.

Perhaps not, but this was an early one!

[planetfall]

Thematically I like the idea of machines producing different qualities of item but this is a silly implementation of that idea.

Hopefully there will be support in the engine for data-stage mods to dispense with the quality modules entirely and gate higher quality products behind better materials and more complex recipes instead, or instead of e.g. the system in Bob's mods where there are a bunch of gears made from different materials that are distinct items, the material used affects the quality of a generic "gear" item and you can swap high-quality gears into basic recipes but not the reverse. Or have recipes where the quality of specific ingredients doesn't matter, so you can use low-quality intermediates on less demanding or looser-tolerance applications without penalty instead of just chucking them in the trash.

NGL, it seems kind of dumb as presented but I'm trying to see how mods could hook into this system and make something interesting.

[MrGrim]

This looks fascinating. I look forward to giving it a try.

I was hoping to find a way to spin this into a need for circuit controlled splitters, but alas... Still would be cool tho!

[MrGrim]

Since the idea is to make this entirely optional, could it perhaps be used to finally give a good uranium sink by making some part of the chain dependent on it (perhaps for the T3 modules or something?). Or perhaps there's something else already in the pipe for that. Never having a need for a large uranium processing center just makes me kinda sad.

[exterathor]

Please rename the quality tiers to more technical sounding terms. Don't use generic Fantasy Action RPG item tier terms. This doesn't suit Factorio at all!

Please reconsider, thank you!

A lot of people dislike the naming rules because it sounds too much like a fantasy game but a few people notice that modules are already like gems you insert into weapons in fantasy games.

[luckymike11]

Gratulujeme tvůrcům! Jsi cool!

[CrimsonSky]

Alright, so I just made a Factorio forum account just to discuss this feature, great.

Jokes aside, I think that what has been shared here (besides maybe the recycler) goes completely against all of the principles Factorio was built upon. Granted, I am not a Factorio connoisseur and I will most likely never be, however, judging by the heavily divisive reception of quality, I'm not afraid to share my frustrations with a bad idea like this.

Now, the silver lining is that it is completely optional -- which is great for people who hate it -- but just because a bad mechanic is avoidable still doesn't mean that its problems should be completely ignored.

Scrapping the idea completely could be a solution, but it will have unfortunate consequence of the devs having to flush dozens if not hundreds of hours (or in this case maybe years judging by the history section on the FFF page) of hard work down the toilet just because they didn't have just enough foresight. Instead, I will give my own two cents as a crappy casual on how to rework the quality system:

Keep the different levels of quality and all, but the only way to increase them is by inserting quality modules into a machine. For example, one tier 1 quality module will make a level 1 machine go to level 2, three tier 1s will make it go to level 3, three tier 3s will make it go to maximum level etc. Of course, I can see how this type of system would break a lot of the game's balancing if done poorly; so I think it be best if the quality modules were restricted to late game, be very expensive to make, and also have them be complete energy hogs (even more so than both speed and productivity) to not completely invalidate the three other modules. Obviously, this will also mean that materials, poles, inserters etc. will not be affected at all by quality.

I think this way we could have the ability to upgrade production vertically without having to make assembly machines 4s or having to rely on RNG nonsense. Now, I am not a game designer nor an expert Factorio player, so if anybody has their own ideas on how to overhaul the quality system, then I'm all ears as long as it is done in a mature manner.

Also, unoriginal argument: but the names of the qualities suck.

[deepdriller]

I disagree with you on essentially everything.
For high quantity items it's a matter of perfectionism to aim for "all perfect" items,
but there are items in the game where solving with mass might not be an option.
Like armor, you can only wear one, so you'd want a higher quality there.
Maybe thrusters and other space ship related items, depending on how they implement those.
When I think about the integrity calculations in Space Exploration it would be nice to
have "perfect" quality thrusters and shields/turrets there.

Lasty, I think the process of refinement perfectly fits factorio and is very under used aside from enrichment,
many mods do essentially the same just with more intermediate products that have a chance to come out,
the holmium production in, again, Space Exploration comes to mind.

Edit: Also, RNGesus becomes irrelevant in a mass scale and is just a time thing at low scale for one offs like the armor.
And like Loewchen said below you can set the wanted quality if you provide the right quality input ingredients.
So the only enrichment you need to make are the base products like iron plates since all "perfect" iron plates produce
a "perfect" iron gear with 100% certainty. And all "perfect" iron gears produce 100% belts/inserter given that the
other products are also "perfect"

Look, I get what you're saying, I really do. There certainly are areas where spending resources to make better machines would be useful.
But RNG is not the way to go. You don't make a better electronic circuit by breaking the bad ones down and trying again. That might work when you're knitting a sweater, but not here. Instead, what you wanna do is make them out of silicone crystals that you grow in a crucible, slicing into the thinnest wafers before printing the microchip patterns onto them using photosensitive materials, masks and acid.

In the same vein, you make high quality iron by purifying if with coal into pig iron, then further in a high-temperature blast furnace and a high-oxygen atmosphere, further still using, I dunno, gravimetric spectroanalysis and molecular filters made of aerogel and metamaterials. It's the future, after all.
And those are just the ones I come up with off the top of my head! The implementation, as described in this FFF, would basically just result in a one-design-fits-all recycling loop that can just be blueprinted once and then used over and over.

[Zaflis]

The different power poles are going to kill OCD people lol

No they're not, because you have the tools to mass produce specific X quality power poles.

[yblondinca]

I love it. Even the names

Gimme that white pill.

Nom nom nom.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for the FFF!

[plepper1]

Wow...you guys are amazing!

Love it!

[Tricorius]

It's a shame they wasted development time for such a "feature" but if it's really optional then all is good.

You have like 50 more FFFs before you should make that call. I expect this is foundational to a lot of the new stuff going into the expansion.

Do you choose between a slower space platform that gathers its own fuel or do you preload it with high quality rocket fuel and let it get there faster?

There are so many optimizations that this base system might unlock.

How many times have people whined about solar panels not putting out enough power? Well, now you have five tiers of them automatically. And if that isn’t enough power you can burn tier five nuclear fuel cells in a tier five nuclear reactor.

I think they just opened up Factorio in ways we can hardly imagine.

If it will be so important in the expansion then I'll will not buy the expansion.

what part of the single word "OPTIONAL" is confusing to you? It can be used and have an impact on your game - but you have to go out of your way to use it. Or you can play like normal and absolutely nothing will change.

You people crying about this being in the game and its presence potentially impacting your choice to buy the game blow my mind. Get a grip.

I was replying to someone who claimed that it will be foundational to the expansion, so please try to understand my reply in the context. If the quality system will be so foundational as Tricorius claimed then I will not buy the expansion. Otherwise if it will be some optional late game gimmick then I'll see whether or not buy the expansion.

I didn’t mean it would be foundational in that you HAVE to use it. Just that if you choose to set aside your bigotry of the like third freaking glimpse we have gotten into the expansion and keep your eyes open to see how this interacts with the rest of the systems it might make more sense and be fun.

All the hate this is getting is highly annoying to me. It is without much context and everyone is jumping down Wube’s pants and whacking them in the tender bits. Chillax people. Give them a chance to expand in the next like 49 FFFs.

[greatstarguy]

Echoing others:
I like the idea of quality, but I dislike how it is currently implemented and designed. Inventory bloat and mixing machines of different qualities seem to be incredibly annoying to deal with, and forcing this "quality loop" system into builds to max out quality adds complication without nuance or variance. The extremely low odds of getting good-quality stuff from worse ingredients feels really bad as a player to have to deal with, because you'll have to manage every byproduct every time without getting much out of it.

My 2 cents:
Give raw materials a certain quality. Mining by hand? Lowest quality. Mine with Burner Miner? Quality 2. Mine with Electric Miner with Quality modules? Mostly highest quality. Then, through processing, give significant odds of increasing or decreasing quality. Q2 iron ore going into a stone furnace will probably (~70%) come out Q1, and 30% Q2. Q2 iron ore going into an electric furnace with quality mods will come out ~80% Q3, 20% Q2. At every intermediate step, give significant odds of quality drop if no modules are used, so people have an incentive to strive for quality, but make low-quality items useful as well, while still making consistent quality achievable.

Other ideas:
- Reduce the number of tiers. 3-4 tiers is plenty of differentiation, and every tier adds another layer of inventory management.
- Make the RNG much more controllable: I want to be able to get good equipment without feeling like I'm rerolling over and over again. Make us pay a premium, but we should be able to do better than 10%.
- Finally, really hoping that there are machines that interact with the quality system beyond "stuff quality modules into assembly machine and pray for benefits". Recycler is good, but how about precision assembling machine (pay cost in power and speed for quality)? Or precision circuit lab (pay extra complication in form of resources, like sulfuric acid or steel, for quality)?

Last words: Quality system is optional, but just because it's optional doesn't mean that it shouldn't be as fun as possible. As it is, I have seriously mixed feelings about the system, and I'm not sure the extra hassle it introduces will make gameplay more fun. But I think it can be improved and built upon to feel and play better.

[liron_aramas]

diversify the external environment of the assembly machines, to be honest, it’s just squares of different colors. The graphics of the assembly machines look bad compared to the centrifuges, chemical plants, and the new build, the recycler. Those models are ultra HD, but the assemblers are not. Add details to the builders to make the levels really different. the idea with quality is good, if you do local, circular production like moll, and produce high-quality drills, poles, assembly machines, with such good bonuses.

[Yinan]

Frankly, I absolutely hate the very idea of Quality.

You're mixing two systems together in the worst possible way that achieve basically the same goal.
Like you already have stuff like Assembling Machine 1 to 3 and such and now you're intermixing quality with each of that.
In addition to it all being a logistic nightmare as well when you pick up from a belt or something you now might fill up several stacks simultaneous because of the different qualities those things could have.

I could kinda sorta understand it if end-products (like assembling machines) could have a quality and you using quality modules in an assembling machines would directly translate to create a higher "quality" of end-product (like, put 1 quality module in, you get uncommon. put 2 quality in and you get rare etc. pp).
But you decided to add it in the most obnoxious way that I could imagine.

So this seems to be the first time that Wube has an absolute fail as a feature added to the game...
Makes me not even want to get the DLC anymore...
Well, at least it's optional, will just never unlock quality... hope there's gonna be a mod that just immediately removes quality from the research so that I can't even accidentally research it.
Yes, I dislike it that much that I don't want to ever be confronted with it.