Allow Quality Downgrade

[HellzStormer]

First, on the realism: you can't put a lower end processor in a higher-grade computer. If my i9 goes out, I can't just get a cheaper i7 to replace it with willy-nilly. That's how quality works--you're not trying to use a shiny electronics circuit in place of a dull one, you're trying to use electronics circuit v2 in a v1 slot.

Note: We are talking about using a i9 in place of a i7. Not a i7 in place of a i9.

First, yes you can put a i7 in a i9 and vice-versa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_processors
A motherboard socket is compatible with multiple generations of processors, each of which containing i3, i5, i7, i9 processors. So you could think of a T1 as a i3 of 2 generations ago, and a T5 as an i9 of a newer generation. But you don't even need to go across generations. Just i3 vs i9 is enough (and make more sense since it's luck based).

Again, don't think of it as a "shiny plate," think of it as cast iron versus wrought iron

So you have this assembler here, and when you tweak it (put a quality module), it sometimes casts iron instead of wringing (whatever verb to make it wrought) it, and it's luck based. And it's also impossible to make an assembler that only casts instead of wring. This makes no sense. So again, it feels like the wrong way to think of this.

Both of your analogies don't work. It really is about having a higher purity iron, or a more stable voltage, or a tighter tolerance, less internal resistance, etc. In that context, most of the time, it should be ok if you use a screw that has tighter tolerances instead of the odd shaped one. Sure, sometimes in real life Q2 piece might not fit a Q1 frame, but this is a game and still make more sense that your interpretation.

From a gameplay perspective can't you just... not use quality modules if you don't want quality parts?

Ah yes, the good old if you have any concerns/comment/suggestion about a game, you could consider not playing the game and going away.

There a many challenges in the quality system. Most of them are fun.

One of the "challenge" is what happens if you produce too many T2&up mats for your current need? Maybe you have a chest to limit your Quality Module 2T2 to only 200, so that you don't spend all of your resources on that.

What happens when your are maxed in those? All of the machinery that is producing the T2 (and T1) circuits grind to a halt after a while when it tries to put a T2 circuit on a belt that is already full of T2 circuits. This means your factory is suddenly out of T1 circuits too because those machines stop working.

If you can't solve the puzzle of making quality work for you before you go to space, don't opt in to quality before you go to space...

The problem is that unless someone spoils himself by browsing online too much, you only realize this problem once you spent a while introducing quality to your whole setup, and the current solutions do not feel satisfying.
* Add more needs for T2 mats. Too bad if you were busy elsewhere, waste your time on this or your factory halts.
* Trash all of the overflow T2 you are making.
* Buffer in chests
* Manually remove the Q modules until you need them again, maybe flush some belts and inserters, etc.
* other stuff I'm sure.

None of these things are satisfying and the problem feel contrived. You already spent a lot of time only to feel things going worst and having to spend more time to make it not that much better.

But add a simple "Turn this Q2 mat into a Q1" machine and now, those overflow are just part of your infrastructure to think about that feels interesting. You spent effort / time making that Q2 piece, but you used it poorly. You will want to minimize this, but aren't being harshly penalized on the level of whole production is frozen just because you wanted to try one of the optional puzzle.

[Abnaxis]

Note: We are talking about using a i9 in place of a i7. Not a i7 in place of a i9.

First, yes you can put a i7 in a i9 and vice-versa.

You're correct, let me fix it.

If my old-ass, Pentium 1 based PC has its processor die, I can't just replace it with an i9. I might have perfectly serviceable RAM, motherboard, fan cooler, power supply, etc. etc., but I can't just swap out a single old component and replace it with a newer one. That's analogous to swapping out a single base quality iron plate for a higher tier quality one.

So you have this assembler here, and when you tweak it (put a quality module), it sometimes casts iron instead of wringing (whatever verb to make it wrought) it, and it's luck based. And it's also impossible to make an assembler that only casts instead of wring. This makes no sense. So again, it feels like the wrong way to think of this.

If you're making plates, you're using a furnace, not an assembler. I was heading off the argument of "how does metal have different 'versions'?"

And yes, if you tweak your furnace, it will sometimes spit out wrought iron instead of cast iron (or whatever). The difference between wrought and cast is the chemistry of the final alloy, and it's not unusual for a process to have inconsistent chemistry and/or grain structure that will "junk" a proportion of your output.

The company I used to work for had to do 100% lot testing on the alloys they bought, because about a quarter of the time what they would get would not be up to specs (it usually had too much copper or tin in it) and would result in failed components down the line. The supplier they bought it from was cheap enough the extra labor we spent doing their QC for them was worth it.

Ah yes, the good old if you have any concerns/comment/suggestion about a game, you could consider not playing the game and going away.

That is not what I'm saying. Please don't put words in my mouth.

What I'm saying, is that Factorio is a game about finding efficient ways to produce finished goods from base materials. This includes, in part, figuring out how to efficiently lay out a base such that you balance the input and output of your products, eliminating stockpiles as much as possible and building facilities to ratio so everything doesn't get backed up.

Quality introduces a challenge in that quality modules produce waste--the entire point of the mechanic is to test you to see if you can figure out an efficient way to deal with said waste.

There are many ways to do this. You can try to calculate the ratios so everything gets used up without waste, but that's going to much more logistically complex and inconsistent since quality is inconsistent. You can dump the waste into a lava pit, but that requires interstellar logistics. You can use recyclers, but that wastes materials. You can stuff unwanted materials into higher-density end-products that are efficient to sequester, like (say) science bottles. All of these things are varying degrees of wasteful, but managing that waste is the whole point.

Your complaint, to my ears, amounts to "it's annoying that quality forces me to manage waste products; can we make it not do that?" Like, that's the point of the mechanic.

[Tinyboss]

OMG y'all, stop arguing about real world CPUs as if it has anything to do with what the devs should do with Factorio gameplay.

Quality is great right now. In the very early game you can use it in a limited way (ores and plastic, three splitters and your factory is safe from lockups) for really valuable gains (armor and personal equipment).

Later in the game you can get very deep into it or not at all, and both options are viable.

[amaryllian]

+1 Tinyboss take, it's a game system before an analogy to other stuff.

[DavidEscott]

I think this is a better suggestion than the related topic "Ability to craft lower quality with higher quality". Both try to answer the question of how to re-incorporate unwanted quality items back into the normal production chain, but this suggestion avoids some problems of having the assembling machine be the thing that downgrades quality.

There is some flexibility in how to implement it. What I would like to see is an option in the assembler that says "accept (and waste) higher quality ingredients". Ideally this option could enable by a signal as well. If the option is enabled the inserters would grab the nearest ingredient of any quality greater than the quality needed, and upon insertion the item would be immediately downgraded to that quality level (so no additional tracking of those ingredients is necessary).

At each stage you would split off your highest quality to a recipe of the highest quality. The excess could then automatically flow on to a lower quality where it would still be useful but provide no benefit.

[BraveCaperCat]

Does anyone want me to make a mod which adds a machine which can turn quality items into lower quality items?

[BlueTemplar]

In addition to the mod that has already been posted here ?
I guess some might prefer a 'real' machine to a box ?

[Linsanga]

What I would like to see is an option in the assembler that says "accept (and waste) higher quality ingredients". ... At each stage you would split off your highest quality to a recipe of the highest quality. The excess could then automatically flow on to a lower quality where it would still be useful but provide no benefit.

I don't see what this offers over the ability to independently downgrade items. If you have "an excess that you want to flow on to a lower quality", you could also downgrade that excess to normal quality, and have it flow on to assemblers that only accept normal ingredients.

If your mixed quality items are going one place, e.g. you're making engines and putting all of them into blue science assemblers, either solution works fine. You could have the assemblers accept uncommons, or downgrade the engines before feeding them into the assemblers, both done easily.

But if your mixed quality items are going many places, e.g. you have a large processing unit factory on Nauvis that gets split between science, a mall, making rocket parts, and getting sent to Aquilo, now downgrading is a much better solution. You can just downgrade the output of your processing unit factory as needed, so you can send uncommons out into the world the same way as commons. All of your filter splitters, train conditions, logistic requests, space platform deliveries, and assemblers where the items are going will function correctly, by just downgrading the items at one location. If on the other hand your assemblers accept mixed quality, you now have a very complicated problem to solve. You need to update all the assemblers that your processing units end up at. You need to update all item filters on splitters and inserters between your factory and the various assemblers. You need to figure out how to do logistic requests, because "request 50 of quality <= uncommon" isn't allowed on requester chests. You need to figure out what to do with trains, because the "full cargo" condition won't work with mixed quality cargo. You'll need to change your space platforms to start requesting and delivering mixed quality processing units to Aquilo.

In summary, there's a spectrum of where the output of an assembler can go: from very simple (all output going directly to a single place) to very complex (output going to many places via many methods). Mixed assembler input works well for the simple case, but not for more complex cases. Quality downgrading works well for both cases.

[BraveCaperCat]

a proof-of-concept mod

As you can see, this is a proof-of-concept mod, not a real/working mod.

In addition to the mod that has already been posted here ?
I guess some might prefer a 'real' machine to a box ?

Also, I didn't know about that post when I posted my post.

[BlueTemplar]

If it isn't a real working mod, why are its working limitations described ??

[DavidEscott]

I don't see what this offers over the ability to independently downgrade items.

Sure one could build the same functionality to this option via a "downgrade chest/downgrade belt" neither of which currently exist in the game. I'm just suggesting that the downgrade function could be built directly into the assembler instead of being a separate distinct step.

But if your mixed quality items are going many places...

Yes agreed that the game makes any kind of quality sushi belts very difficult to do, and trying to establish rules for requestors to feed those hypothetical belts is a mess, as are train full conditions. However if those things were introduced, and assemblers were willing to waste higher quality intermediates then it would allow players to introduce quality into existing factories slowly over time instead of doing quality on the side.

Without it I think everyone will inevitably split quality off the main belt and handle it within its own loop. As a result "recycler loops" are going to be about the only way anyone is likely to work with quality. your main factory builds in bulk with normal quality, and you take from that feed to up-cycle desired products into higher quality versions of the same.

[BlueTemplar]

Or possibly another minimum quality you decided on :

Now that I'm nearing Epic and Aquilo research, I'm considering to just put upcyclers near drills (or similar) so that normal quality stays confined there and never even enters the rest of the factory (except for fluids of course).

(Will still have to deal on the mining site with rare+ separately though, and yeah, for a factory that never ever blocks, this also involves upcycling and eventually wasting the overflow from the highest quality you have unlocked.)

Upgrading your whole production chain like this desperately needs some better tools though :
Upgrade recipes with Upgrade Planner (Quality !)
Allow custom Upgrade Planners to generically upgrade Quality

[BlueTemplar]

I recently realized that the above tactic wouldn't be that simple without downgrading / any quality usage : guess which recipe can not be set to a custom quality ? Rocket part !

(I guess on Fulgora it's still easy to siphon off normal parts for it, considering the scrap mechanic, and how you almost mine rocket parts from the ground there... fitting for the «quality planet» !)

[TheRailmaker]

+1
Items had better quality at this moment is annoying. I cannot make assembling machine because i have too good steel plate. It's ridiculous.

If you would allow that, everyone would put quality in every production at the main base.
You filter out t4 +t5 items with a single inserter at the "output" and let the rest be consumed normaly.

Then you place some logistic chests, request your amor parts and thats it. Quality done.


You can do this allrdy, but at least with more work and you have to take care of the t2+t3 items or you overflow