I'm afraid of reddit influence

[MeduSalem]

Well, there are some long things to reply to, so I focus only on some parts.

So you have 3 options:
1) Do not use quality if you don't like it
2) Use it normally and have long time fun tinkering with it
3) Wait until you can use a shortcut and get legendary items the fast way

Well, this is basically why this thread exists, or not? Because of the rumor that they want to kill the "shortcuts", so you would be back to either "do it normally" or "do not use quality". Not much options left then. ^^

Space Age is not for megabase players. [...] Space Age was a gift to all sphagetti-players like me, after the basegame had its focus on megabase players (at least that was my impression)

See, my impression is the other way around. One could finish the base game in a timely fashion whether it was a megabase or not. Megabasing was basically the stuff you do post-rocket launch to see how much RPM you can crank out, if that is what your goals are.

In Space Age I feel like this pattern becomes more apparaent, because if one goes with an average factory, then everything takes much more time to begin with because while you want to expand on another planet more rapidly to get things going you are limited by being thrown back into the dirt and have to prepare to ship stuff in, meaning more rocket launch stuff, more space platforming, etc, until you get ready to take on the new challenge on the planet, all while managing any other throughput and expansion projects on all the existing planets you colonized already. So you are encouraged to make the factory bigger than previously just to be able to deal with the additional overhead.

Anyway, that is unless you want the even more pure masochist mode of doing everything from scratch all over again locally without shipments.

That sums up Gleba very good, i.e. overproduction being the best way to cope with the wasting away of everything, right?

It is probably not much of a surprise that Gleba is not my favorite new planet because of how the best way to run stuff there is simply never stop production and if anything spoils... the simple answer for Gleba is: burn it all. But anyway Gleba and the spoilage mechanic is a different story and while I learned to deal with it (just like I also deal with quality) it does not mean I don't get why other people dislike it because it sure can pose a source of frustration in a game they previously played for relaxation. I wouldn't say I dislike Gleba... I did have my starting issues with it, but mastered it eventually. But it sure also is not my favorite planet. ^^

Anyway, in the worst case for spoilage there is a slider at map creation which you can set even up to 1000% if one finds it too annoying.

In reality a smartphone IS made of components of varying quality. [...]

Sure in reality products are always made with components of different quality to begin with, but even if you disassemble them they stay the same quality they were made with originally and not a single one of them will upgrade in quality because of it. After disassembling the computer chips will not calculate faster or be more energy efficient, the display will not become a better resolution or be more energy efficient, the battery will not have more capacity or last more recharges, and whatever.

But in Factorio these components would become better than they originally were if you just recycle them using quality modules. Magic. ^^

Unless you show me that it is impossible to reach outer space with a spaceship with normal components, it is optional.

Never said you cannot. I even did that myself before I started making quality stuff. However using only normal stuff some things sure are more tedious or takes more space that way. With space platforms being the prime example in that.

On one hand you say you need to waste so much material to get legendary stuff (i.e. it is so expensive) and here you say the potential 2.5x increase is so valuable to any design.

I would not say every design profits from it. But there sure are some things that work better with it.

I tried to avoid writing that I find it "too expensive" even though it may feel similar and I may lack the words to better express it. I would rather like to write I dislike it being implemented as a "wasteful" cycle by having to go through the recycler. It makes me feel negatively about it. There is a difference ^^

Let's say a hypothetical scenario... imagine the quality system would work differently. Let's say you slap legendary quality modules in there and it would make the recipe 4 times as expensive in input costs as before but you get a guaranteed legendary quality level as output, skipping the recycling process entirely. Even if it would be "expensive" I would see it still more positively than the idea of having to setup multiple loops to trash items into the recycler & re-craft items repeatedly.

Anyway that is why I won't comment on most other things because if it worked like that most other conceptual grudges I have about the resource trashing to get better quality would be solved as well.

Well, isn't that how it works in the real world as well, very desirable stuff is rare and therefore expensive? Juwels, designer clothes, top-of-the-line computers,... And isn't that exactly how game balance works? The best stuff is the hardest to get?

Also game balance can be stretched very far. If this was an online RPG, I would totally get why some things would for example be "hard to get" with weird loot tables and drop chances.

But in a sandbox were you craft a bazillion items and then have 1000 legendary machines and it only being a matter of time, the legendary tag means nothing eventually. It is just another step in the tier like is going from Assembler 1 to Assembler 2. They could even have made it like Bob's mods with additional tiers of various items, but they came up with the quality because didn't feel like cluttering the menus (understandable even if it the issue would sure also have been solvable), instead they decided to clutter the belts, the chests, all the machinery and every single other item with intermediate quality levels we don't really care about and which inevitably end up in the recycler because the endgoal is legendary because why stop before that.

So in that sense making it "hard to get" is in the perspective of Factorio kinda a... weird topic. ^^

Nope. You don't have to use recyclers. Designs letting streamlined production of top-available-quality items are available before reaching space and don't require combinators. The problem is, such designs are expansive spaghetti monsters, very UPS unfriendly and having over 80% of machinery standing still waiting for its production to be demanded. On the bright side whole system just works (slowly) stockpiling whatever you decided to.

I know you can do it without recyclers and that is what I tried to do when SA came out first because of my aversion to use the recyclers for upcycling. But as you say yourself... it is slow... and painful logistics. That is why I wrote it is inefficient to do it the normal way, so you are basically directed to use the recycler method instead. That the normal method is also less friendly to performance is like only the cherry ontop of the cake.

[Shirasik]

I know you can do it without recyclers and that is what I tried to do when SA came out first because of my aversion to use the recyclers for upcycling. But as you say yourself... it is slow... and painful logistics. That is why I wrote it is inefficient to do it the normal way, so you are basically directed to use the recycler method instead. That the normal method is also less friendly to performance is like only the cherry ontop of the cake.

Logistics can't be painful when you have developed blueprints. The only obstacle is cliffs until you hit Vulcanus' techs. Without cliff remover you have to look around for big enough cliffless spots to place a dedicated-to-something chunk of production line. With cliff remover you can proceed to cityblock blueprints.
As for UPS friendliness, Abucnasty already produced a load of content about UPS optimizations. Streamlined designs I mentioned are UPS unfriendly while you keep its self-management done through belt saturation. With smart management 80% of machinery standing still because it being switched off so it is excluded from UPS calculations. Also you can power-off not needed production line chunks through power switches but such approach requires tedious copper wire and belt length management so better to proceed to smart cityblock designs before raising SPM above hundreds.
As for slowness, that is a matter of scale.

Anyway, however we are working around getting high-quality stuff, there is no explanation what quality is. Because of that quality system has no internal structure other than implementation dependencies.

E.g. iron plates. If quality means that common iron plate is at least 99% iron, uncommon is at least 99.9% iron, ... , legendary iron plate is at least 99.9999% iron then high-quality iron plates are better choice in chemistry and complex alloys but has absolutely no use in cases when we need iron's density only i.e. when we need to produce just heavy something. Plus, if quality of metal plates is a matter of chemical purity then using calcite (and maybe some other chemicals) as a flux must be a straightforward way to increase quality directly instead of hoping for pure enough nugget found in ore.

[NineNine]

So you have 3 options:
1) Do not use quality if you don't like it
2) Use it normally and have long time fun tinkering with it
3) Wait until you can use a shortcut and get legendary items the fast way

Well, this is basically why this thread exists, or not? Because of the rumor that they want to kill the "shortcuts", so you would be back to either "do it normally" or "do not use quality". Not much options left then. ^^

I don't know what you mean by not having options. This is a game. And it's a game that you can play any way you want to. If you don't like quality, then don't play quality. The developers designed it extraordinarily well in that quality is a 100% optional aspect of the game.

In Space Age I feel like this pattern becomes more apparaent, because if one goes with an average factory, then everything takes much more time to begin with because while you want to expand on another planet more rapidly to get things going you are limited by being thrown back into the dirt and have to prepare to ship stuff in, meaning more rocket launch stuff, more space platforming, etc, until you get ready to take on the new challenge on the planet, all while managing any other throughput and expansion projects on all the existing planets you colonized already. So you are encouraged to make the factory bigger than previously just to be able to deal with the additional overhead.


Anyway, that is unless you want the even more pure masochist mode of doing everything from scratch all over again locally without shipments.

I enjoy playing this game, so to me, it wasn't "masochist mode", but fun. I didn't even consider using quality anything until I launched some rockets, and decided that I wanted to play the game even more. Starting over is always a possibility, but I wouldn't find that to be interesting, because those problems I've already solved. Quality is a way of having a lot more Factorio to play, because you have to 1. scale up to get to Legendary stuff and 2. figure out how to make Legendary stuff.

[eugenekay]

Anyway, however we are working around getting high-quality stuff, there is no explanation what quality is. Because of that quality system has no internal structure other than implementation dependencies.

E.g. iron plates. If quality means that common iron plate is at least 99% iron, uncommon is at least 99.9% iron, ... , legendary iron plate is at least 99.9999% iron then high-quality iron plates are better choice in chemistry and complex alloys but has absolutely no use in cases when we need iron's density only i.e. when we need to produce just heavy something. Plus, if quality of metal plates is a matter of chemical purity then using calcite (and maybe some other chemicals) as a flux must be a straightforward way to increase quality directly instead of hoping for pure enough nugget found in ore.

What?

There are many ways to Play the Game, but it is definitely not an Elemental Chemistry Simulator. Quality is just a Property; don’t think about it too hard.

[Stargateur]

since the thread go full off topic: I don't like much intermediate product having quality. I would prefer just random chance to get quality thing. My main reason is I really don't like quality mixing with normal production, you got *5 of everything, it's look ugly. I can work with final building or tool having quality, but a stone having quality ? meh. If quality is gamble let's go full gamble and remove quality ingredient. I would love we have a way to mod quality to activate/disable it on specifics item.

Specially, recycler increasing quality feel so bad.

Also, I really like https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Inverted-Quality, I wish we could have a way to have negative quality AND positive quality. This would be a lot similar to real world where a lot of thing are trash, specially for CPU, you got defective product, expected perf product, and exceptional one.

So quality for me would be full gamble, no quality ingredient and negative quality. And maybe, all machine from scratch could produce broken or perfect item without need quality module.