Factorio Forums

The idea is pretty simple, different tiers of quality modules could have different crafting speed modifiers. Quality 1 modules get a -2.5% speed modifier, Quality 2 stays the same, quality 3 gets -7.5%.
The motivation for this is that currently quality 1 modules are absolutely pointless, the time between researching them and quality 2 modules leaves no time to use them and beyond that they're strictly worse in all stats, even when comparing epic quality 1 modules to common quality 2. Nobody uses those things other than to produce higher quality modules. Speed and productivity 1 modules don't have the problem of being utterly useless.
With this change, high quality quality 1 modules would be an interesting choice for a few use cases, like mining drills and recyclers, where speed is still important but you don't need the highest quality you can get. Basically where people would consider throwing in a speed module or even beacon for higher production rates.
Quality 2 modules would become the best modules for a compromise between speed and quality, while quality 3 would be the best for extracting the maximum quality from each item, conserving resources, but requiring more machines and modules to do it at the same rate as quality 2s would.
It would break up the boring choice of just throwing in whatever has the highest quality buff you can afford, without disrupting current setups too much. The most used quality module during a playthrough is probably the tier 2 module, and that stays unchanged. Quality 3 modules see usage towards the end of the game, when people can afford to mass produce high quality holmium and circuits, so it shouldn't affect game balancing up to the solar system edge.

My balance mod change value of module as follow:

- Nerf the speed and electric cost as much as productivity module
- Remove the quality penalty of speed module cause... beaconed quality setup is fun and very factorio like. Discouraged to use beacon for quality is a mistake.

Stargateur wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:43 pm Discouraged to use beacon for quality is a mistake.

I think the reason why it has to be that way, and why quality is such an amazing idea, is because it is an inherently different process from regular item crafting.
Quality is generated by quality modules occupying slots in an assembler that is crafting items. It's on a meta level above the regular crafting process. The cost of producing quality is dealing with byproducts and directly reducing the output of the machines used for it, requiring the player to build more regular factory to support it.
Productivity + speed modules for the regular factory are fun and make sense because without speed modules, productivity modules are useless. You're not limited by resources after the early game, you're limited by your ability to process them. The point of combining both modules isn't to consume less (infinite) resources, it's to build smaller factories faster. Each step requires less input, so the factory grows faster than if you had to build each crafting step a lot bigger. This comes at the cost of requiring more power generation, which cannot be affected by modules. Incidentally this is where the game becomes unbalanced, as Nauvis has the pollution free nuclear power unlocked early in the game, while Vulcanus has easy infinite power and no pollution. Only Gleba and Fulgora are somewhat limited in this regard, both in their own way. But I digress.
Quality + speed modules would directly undermine the limitation of quality, in that each module in each machine can only generate so much quality. Crafting speed * quality = total quality output per (expensive) module, thus removing the quality debuff on speed modules means you can substitute cheap speed modules for expensive quality modules and quality machines. Quality debuffs on speed modules and speed debuffs on quality modules are the only two things that limit your quality production capacity. There's two ways to overcome this production capacity limitation: More machines with more modules and/or higher quality machines with higher quality modules. More machinery requires more item input, requiring more common factory. Higher quality machinery requires more quality production capacity, so the player is left to balance both to grow at the fastest speed he can manage.

TLDR:
The common factory is to your quality factory what your power plant is to your common factory. Quality production is fueled by items, just as item production is fueled by power. Quality debuffs on speed modules are the same as power debuffs on productivity/speed modules.

Stargateur wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 12:43 pm My balance mod change value of module as follow:

- Nerf the speed and electric cost as much as productivity module
- Remove the quality penalty of speed module cause... beaconed quality setup is fun and very factorio like. Discouraged to use beacon for quality is a mistake.

FWIW, I have the impression that they were deliberately creating a setting for non-beaconed builds, since the constraints of fitting in beacons is very limiting on designs. Sort of like how space platforms don't let you make a bot base or put inserters on cargo bays to skip the belt puzzle.