Make promethium spoil, and quickly

[CyberCider]

What?

Make promethium chunks spoil within a few minutes, to prevent them from being brought back into the star system.

Why?

Two words: Belt storage. That terrible, brainless cheese strategy still exists, and people still use it, even after the recipe rebalance that was done before release.
For those unaware, allow me to explain. Promethium science packs are crafted from promethium asteroid chunks, quantum processors and biter eggs, and are supposed to be crafted on the space platform, while it flies to/from the shattered planet. This is why promethium was made so difficult to store, and why its quantity in the science pack recipe is so high. But what did people do? They figured out that it’s easy to “store” promethium chunks using the surfaces of transport belts instead of slots of cargo bays. This allows you to ignore the challenge completely, simply haul promethium back to Nauvis, and do everything there. With free space, no danger from asteroids, and easy access to fully fresh biter eggs.
Personally, I can’t stand it, I hate that it exists. And if a simple solution can be found, then I believe it should be applied, and as quickly as possible. And since there already exists a game mechanic that prevents item storage, I seems like a trivially simple thing to implement. Please, I can’t stand to see any more colorful belt vomit on people’s space platforms!
Yes, I know that the proper method is more efficient. But people would rather do a lot of simple busywork than a little bit of clever designing. If there was an alterntive recipe to make every science pack out of 1 million iron ore, I guarantee you people would use it, no matter how inefficient it may be. And for the game’s ultimate challenge, I don’t think people should be given the option of “1 million iron ore”ing it. People that will be upset by this thing’s removal will be able to easily mod it back in, and properly mark themselves as unwilling to engage with the full extent of the gameplay, instead of their cheese designs being equally valid to proper ones.
Oh, this is such an ugly rant, I know. But this problem really gets on my nerves, even moreso when I see that seemingly no one else is bothered. Can nobody see what a travesty this is?

[MeduSalem]

The better solution would actually be if you would have to process the stupid promethium chunks into something else first (which then is the ingredient of the Promethium science packs) that can actually be stored better/more densely into the cargo bays and make the recipe take its crafting time.

Then you would still have to do something on the platform during the flight back.

And the people would not feel the need to resort to using belt-storage tricks in the first place. ^^


I mean, I am not even that far in the game yet, but I saw the recipes and some of the solutions that people came up with for the issue and I can not blame them for using such tricks.

[CyberCider]

The better solution would actually be if you would have to process the stupid promethium chunks into something else first (which then is the ingredient of the Promethium science packs) that can actually be stored better/more densely into the cargo bays and make the recipe take its crafting time.

Then you would still have to do something on the platform during the flight back.

And the people would not feel the need to resort to using belt-storage tricks in the first place. ^^


I mean, I am not even that far in the game yet, but I saw the recipes and some of the solutions that people came up with for the issue and I can not blame them for using such tricks.

The science pack recipe *is* the processing, there’s no need for a middle step.

[MeduSalem]

The science pack recipe *is* the processing, there’s no need for a middle step.

Good. The result will be that you will have to keep on watching people using belt storages instead of cargo bays. ^^

[edit]
As long as the artificial storage-density issue is present I will totally do that too once I get to it if I am even still motivated to do that kind of grind by then (I consider just launching a ship to the edge of the solar system and be done because I stated in other threads in the past already that I never much was a fan of the endless research grind).

[CyberCider]

Good. The result will be that you will have to keep on watching people using belt storages instead of cargo bays. ^^

Several people hate the spoilage mechanics already because they make science pack processing so damn inefficient with lots of waste through losing freshness that cannot be avoided that I can totally understand that they would rather ship the promethium pack to Nauvis and process the stuff there to make the most out of their efforts.

I will totally do that too once I get to it. Bad luck if Wube intended for us to do it way out there, but the spoilage stuff is just a true nuisance to processing packs efficiently and every corner you can cut on it, the better. ^^

Um, I’m not sure, but maybe there’s been a misunderstanding? You said that you haven’t reached this point in-game yet, so maybe you just don’t know, but… Promethium science packs do not spoil like lime science does. It doesn’t matter how fresh the biter eggs are when you craft the pack, only that they still exist. In that regard, it’s much more forgiving than lime science (rightfully so, because unlike it, it’s made of expensive and non-renewable resources).
No matter what, the completed science packs will always have their full value. You either successfully make the packs, or the eggs hatch and you don’t make the science packs at all (but no other ingredients are lost). You see, there’s no tangible value to bringing promethium back to Nauvis, all it does it let people get away with simpler, sloppier platform designs.

[GrumpyJoe]

So you want something changed because someone else is doing it, while you do it the "right way"? Why not keep doing it right and ignore others?

I mean, this doesn't even come across as if its about competing with cheaters, more like a genuine worry about some gameplay oversight.

But on the other side: congratulations on the worst priority I've seen in a long time.
Not because it provides a solution. It might, I've not been there yet.


But it restricts it even further into linear gameplay.
Beside the meaningless choice in which order you visit the middle planets (*), there is already not much to chose.
So why even bother, let them cheese it.


(*) I don't even hate the DLC, on the other side I've never been hyped and still pretty underwhelmed.
So many missed opportunities.
But i know im the minority that loves Gleba for example, if this had any replayabilty I'd go there first just for the fun.

[MeduSalem]

Um, I’m not sure, but maybe there’s been a misunderstanding? You said that you haven’t reached this point in-game yet, so maybe you just don’t know, but… Promethium science packs do not spoil like lime science does. It doesn’t matter how fresh the biter eggs are when you craft the pack, only that they still exist. In that regard, it’s much more forgiving than lime science (rightfully so, because unlike it, it’s made of expensive and non-renewable resources).
No matter what, the completed science packs will always have their full value. You either successfully make the packs, or the eggs hatch and you don’t make the science packs at all (but no other ingredients are lost). You see, there’s no tangible value to bringing promethium back to Nauvis, all it does it let people get away with simpler, sloppier designs.

Yea, my bad, I did not know that, until now. I thought that like most other things crafted from the spoilables that the promethium packs spoil too since they are crafted from biter eggs that can spoil. ^^

And the way you wrote in your original post "and easy access to fully fresh biter eggs" it had confirmed in my mind what I kinda already feared; that the promethium science packs probably also have freshness/spoilage rates and that you want to process them as fast as possible to get the most out of them.

Well, if that is not the case then that is good for one part.


But then I really don't get why it even annoys you that people buffer storage the chunks on belts. Let them. It is not like you have to do it that way. It doesn't change a thing in terms of balancing anyway. It may be aesthetically ugly, but who really cares where the chunks are stored. ^^

I could just as much slap on 100 more cargo bays instead (not like weight of a platform matters either) and do the same but just less dense. Would that annoy you too, or is it just the underground belts?

[CyberCider]

But then I really don't get why it even annoys you that people buffer storage the chunks on belts. Let them. It is not like you have to do it that way. It doesn't change a thing in terms of balancing anyway. It may be aesthetically ugly, but who really cares where the chunks are stored. ^^

I could just as much slap on 100 more cargo bays instead (not like weight of a platform matters either) and do the same but just less dense. Would that annoy you too, or is it just the underground belts?

You’re completely correct, belt storage is not the core of the issue here. It’s only the currently most efficient method of performing this cheese. If belt storage was somehow selectively removed, people would only move on to the next, more inefficient method. Machines with the science pack recipe that store promethium in the ingredient slot, cargo bays, inserter hands… They would never stop.
But my suggestion, quickly spoiling promethium, would eliminate any possibility for any kind of long term storage. It would be a catch-all. Spoiling is the one thing that motivates people to do this, so if even stricter spoiling also awaited them if they tried the trick, then the intended method would become the more preferable one.

[mmmPI]

Just don't do it if you don't like it.

I think making the chunk spoils quickly would make it pointless to make trips that last more than half the span of the biter eggs toward shattered planet. And is not good.

I think you are supposed to spend time engineering a solution to keep your end game science infinite by scaling up designs or number of platforms. Using belt storage is one way to do, if you remove it , then there's 1 less way to do. It doesn't open up new possibilities that are already there for people that want to use them.

You can totally use many small ships for science in late game, it's just boring compared to trying to make bigger and faster one with or without belt storage, but if you can't carry nor the eggs, nor the chunks because both spoil, you automatically set a limit on the duration of trips.

[spacedog]

So... what happens if I disable spoilage in the game settings?

I mean, clearly the devs had a design for how they "meant" the game to be played? But how far should they go to force people to play that way?

[mmmPI]

You can't remove spoilage from the game in settings, only make it super long which is not always a good thing, because then you have science packs that are worth nothing almost and you still need to ship them around or wait for hours that they spoil because that's actually a good thing sometimes x).

There is mod though : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/no-spoilage

[Stargateur]

I don't understand how that a problem or even exploit, the game is over at this point so that only for fun, then how is this cheating ? it's only prove cargo bay are weak no ? but I don't think they are, cargo bay is 4x4, 20 slot of stack let's take an items that stack to 50, so 20 * 50 => 1000 items, a fully loaded belt is 32 items now, you can put 16 belt so 16x32 => 512 items. Now the number are wrong for thing that doesn't stack like asteroid, 20 slot mean 20 asteroid, and 16 belt mean 16*8 => 124 asteroids, so even a legendary cargo bay is much less efficient. Mean the real problem is not really belt or cargo bay but why asteroid doesn't stack more than 1... (like artillery shell again can't wait to finish my vanilla run and go mod)

TL;DR: you can put 8 asteroid in a belt but only 1 in inventory slot, they need to stop item that doesn't stack cause it's breaking balance in the whole game. They need to design them to be stackable and balanced around that. Item that stack to 1 are evil, in 1.1 minimum was 8 now in 2.0 minimum must be 32.

EDIT: fixed numbers and wording but they could still be wrong (doesn't change the general idea)

PS: or buff cargo bay like crazy.

[mmmPI]

asteroid can stack to 4 in a belt but only 1 in inventory slot,

Asteroid can only stack to 1 in a belt, since their stack size is 1, the stack inserter can only pick 1 and drop 1 at a time.

That means 8 asteroid no more on a belt, but you can have several colors of belts and underground at the same place. 4, 5 , 6 ... many possibilities.