Quality Gating is flawed

[mrvn]

Again you prove my point, you say "don't do quality at all" that a enormous failure from a design point of view. Again right now specially for beginner quality is punishing more than rewarding. (Don't get me wrong I LOVE quality overall I just really disagree to lock better quality tier to end game). Quality multiply by 5 items in game, it's a pain at start, but it's amazing once you have it. At least don't punish beginner and let them have the chance to hit a jackpot that will be fun, and let very good player try to design an early base that grind quality that will be fun to them. They is no reason to limit legendary and epic to aquillo cause you unlock new building that are better on gleba, vulcanus, fulgora and aquillo, so anyway if you go for megabase or very late game gameplay you will have to rebuild your factories anyway. So again, there is no reason to lock higher tier quality to aquillo and gleba.

I think you missed my point. It's even worse. Let me say it overly critical (sorry devs, it's just to make a point): Even if you win with quality there is no real gain. Unless you plan to go to the scattered planet I don't see an incentive for quality at all (with the above exception of productivity modules maybe).

[Stargateur]

I think you missed my point. It's even worse. Let me say it overly critical (sorry devs, it's just to make a point): Even if you win with quality there is no real gain. Unless you plan to go to the scattered planet I don't see an incentive for quality at all (with the above exception of productivity modules maybe).

Here I strongly disagree quality is just a way to scale vertically it's another way to scale. Also it's very effective on ship. You have two way it's good to have options. My complain is let me enjoy quality before aquillo and gleba.

[mergele]

I do also think locking quality levels (not just legendary) behind tech unlocks is not good. My argument centers around the fact that researching those higher levels instantly breaks all earlier builds one made that use quality intermediaries because those will now clog up with quality ingredients they can not process. Quality levels are the only two techs in the game that have the potential to break established builds and disinsetivise mucking around with quality until you got all unlocked.

[BlueTemplar]

It breaks your first builds, yes, but you already start to learn to design around this when dealing with occasional rare quality item on the top of the normal/uncommon ones. If you push that learning to later it will make it only so much harder when you have to deal with all 5 of them. (Same reason why basic oil processing was introduced : so the players don't have to learn pipes at the same time as dealing with multiple outputs.)

And yet again, how it being late game different from artillery / nuke bomb / spidertron pre-SA ?

You kind of prove my point, it's not impossible to get legendary if you WORK FOR IT. Even without recycler if you design a very good factory, that grind quality at every step possible, you will get good stuff overtime and you will be rewarded by quality stuff for few resources. But that my point, let reward the player for playing with quality. Right now except late game it's just gacha game and frustrating cause you can't have the luck to get legendary. And you have the feeling of washing resource cause you want the best aka legendary. Right now quality early game just feel punishing. Especially for casual to even veteran player, only the best will have the patience and the skill to grind quality early, and for what ? ok uncommun medium electric pole are better than sex, but I don't really feel grind few rare mining drill or few rare assembly machine is rewarding enough. If I go for quality I wish to be able to have legendary from start not have to wait aquillo... that really frustrating and unfun.

But that's not much different from the already existing before SA concepts of tiers, especially for modules : when you get a new tier, you can only afford to use it in the most impactful locations, and at some point you just stop using tiers that are too low.
And indeed some players don't have the patience to deal with modules and especially module tiers and just ignore that part of the game. (A few don't even bother with using higher tier machines and poles, for a long time at least.)

Also, you keep using the term 'gacha' like we're supposed to know what it is, but to me it just means «Asian gambling», so if there's some kind of special meaning/experience intended here in addition to the gambling part, then it's lost on me (and I assume most people here, that haven't gambled 'in' Asia ?)

[mrvn]

I think you missed my point. It's even worse. Let me say it overly critical (sorry devs, it's just to make a point): Even if you win with quality there is no real gain. Unless you plan to go to the scattered planet I don't see an incentive for quality at all (with the above exception of productivity modules maybe).

Here I strongly disagree quality is just a way to scale vertically it's another way to scale. Also it's very effective on ship. You have two way it's good to have options. My complain is let me enjoy quality before aquillo and gleba.

How is it effective on ship (before the scattered planet)? What entity or item is actually a game changer for you?

For example you don't need better collectors because you drown in asteroid chunks anyway. You don't need longer range on turrets because there is plenty of time to shoot stuff. Longer range actually wastes ammo on small ships. and so on.

You might want quality for the fun of it. But it will just slow you down from winning the game I think. Which is the problem here I think. You want it so you are annoyed it's locked behind science but you don't need it till you nearly won the game.

[Stargateur]

How is it effective on ship (before the scattered planet)? What entity or item is actually a game changer for you?

For example you don't need better collectors because you drown in asteroid chunks anyway. You don't need longer range on turrets because there is plenty of time to shoot stuff. Longer range actually wastes ammo on small ships. and so on.

You might want quality for the fun of it. But it will just slow you down from winning the game I think. Which is the problem here I think. You want it so you are annoyed it's locked behind science but you don't need it till you nearly won the game.

Does something need to be game changer to be used ? you don't need combinator to finish the game, you don't need more than yellow belt to finish the game, you don't need more than tier 2 assembly machine, you don't need... Your argument is bad, it's not a question of need it's just about having option and having fun.

[mrvn]

How is it effective on ship (before the scattered planet)? What entity or item is actually a game changer for you?

For example you don't need better collectors because you drown in asteroid chunks anyway. You don't need longer range on turrets because there is plenty of time to shoot stuff. Longer range actually wastes ammo on small ships. and so on.

You might want quality for the fun of it. But it will just slow you down from winning the game I think. Which is the problem here I think. You want it so you are annoyed it's locked behind science but you don't need it till you nearly won the game.

Does something need to be game changer to be used ? you don't need combinator to finish the game, you don't need more than yellow belt to finish the game, you don't need more than tier 2 assembly machine, you don't need... Your argument is bad, it's not a question of need it's just about having option and having fun.

I didn't say it needs to be required. It should be a game changer. Be of major use towards winning the game (or the fun everyone gets). Combinators are a game changer. You can now do things that help you win the game that you couldn't do before. Like preventing deadlocks on the belts on your spaceship that depend on more than one condition. Useful for the asteroid chunk conversion recipes. You can do it with priority splitters and a mess of belts, combinators are way easier.

And you also make my point: You don't need more than tier 2 assembly machines. Assembly machine 3 is locked behind production science packs. Something you are supposed to only build after visiting other planets. There is an achievement for that. They might be a game changer when going to Aquilo because the extra speed and module slots mean you can build a significantly smaller spaceship (fewer assemblers needed, means smaller footprint, means a bit less ammo needed, means fewer chemical plants and even fewer assemblers, ...).

My point is that there are multiple ways to go towards winning the game. Lets take the AM3 as example since you brought them up. You really don't need them on planets. I still have plenty of AM2s in my game after I won. You can build a bigger spaceship with AM2s or a smaller with AM3s. Going with AM3s is big improvement on the ship as far as I see. I don't see quality having that much or really any significant impact on the way to win the game.

So let me ask again: What entity or item specifically do you want to have in quality? How does that help you win the game?

If you just want quality for fun then I think using a mod to unlock them earlier is the way to go. Convince me it is not just for fun and I'm on your side.

[EustaceCS]

But that my point, let reward the player for playing with quality. Right now except late game it's just gacha game and frustrating cause you can't have the luck to get legendary.

Implement Uranium processing gacha - and noone bats the eye.
But lock some building HP bonuses behind chance based rolls - and everyone loses their minds...
You're fighting this war in wrong direction.

Of course you'll have Very Bad Time with Quality if you have...
*checks notes from last savegame*
10 Copper, 10 Steel, 10 Iron and about 4 Recyclers inact, as I currently have.
Adding Quality modules at this scale might do some good in a VERY long run.
But noone forces you to wait!
Miners and assembly machines are cheap, Common<->Uncommon<->Rare... %roll difference is barely significant for Quality 2 modules!
So you can scale your production all the way up to 100% chance to get N resource (or even of X Quality tier per second!

Or, you can manifest some common sense and unearth this theme first: viewtopic.php?t=61026
People live with this for how many years? without resorting to... this...

Compairing Quality to a shell game... sheesh...

[Fharkas]

There is a lot of discussion going on about this.
I somewhat agree that Epic and Legendary techs are being quite late into the game and only become usable with endgame setups of endless recycling.
That point you only use legendary to maximize your factory, which is not everyone's cup of tea. I can also see how Legendary Quality may be intended as truly Endgame content and not for the main game progression.

In a previous post, I suggested that Epic shouldn't be Gleba specific, but any one planet should allow its research and Legendary should be 2 more of the inner planets.
I enjoy the gradual build up of quality items compared to the constant, vast amount of recycling. I will probably setup a proper way for that too, but it would be nice if the first one allows for higher rewards (higher quality).

Right now, my game looks like this. Putting quality modules in everything I can as early as I can.
Early game - stockpiling a trickle of uncommon, very very "rare" items for strategic manufacturing to boost where it is needed.
First planet (Vulcanus) - With higher production, uncommon becomes common, allowing me to manufacture substations, beacons, space platform parts in that quality level without an issue, can even make the most necessary items in rare quality from what I stockpiled (power armor).
Second planet (Fulgura) - By the time I finish it, I have more than enough rare for anything, no strategic thinking, no hard choices what should I make at that level... and no giddy anticipation when making rare items with quality modules in, because there is no point for the quality modules as I CAN'T get Epic.
Third planet - Gleba - I have to "finish" the planet, to have the science to unlock Epic... now there is Epic quality ingredients building up, but too little to take proper advantage of it... also starting to recycle uncommon, but at this point it is just a hassle and no real reason to invest in it, since I'm going to Aquillo and unlock legendary, so why settle for epic quality... why make a setup for Epic, when I won't benefit in a new planet conquering? I will go for Legendary for endgame and be done with it.

In short, the current Quality Gating made Epic quite meaningless (if I'm leaving Gleba for last) and Legendary fun for only those going for endgame super factories.
This is not BAD per se, but I hope it could be better, allowing for different approaches for Quality.
Overall, I love Quality and it has so much potential, I hope it will be polished further in the future, just like the whole Space Age, as it is the best game I played in years!

[mrvn]

Right now, my game looks like this. Putting quality modules in everything I can as early as I can.
Early game - stockpiling a trickle of uncommon, very very "rare" items for strategic manufacturing to boost where it is needed.

That's what I did too. Maybe not as early as possible but Nauvis uses Q modules to stockpile quality items. And Fulgora recycles with Q modules and builds some stuff with Q modules. My circuit controlled assembler to build anything has Q modules so occasionally it outputs a quality entity, of which I used 2 long distance power poles because the normal quality ones woudn't reach. Similar with the lightning rods. A few places a quality rod did close a hole between islands. Nothing that required legendary, just uncommon or rare.

All it did for me overall was stop the factory because the chest with the stockpiles run full and then a backlog of quality items stopped the factory. I have the resources to build quality entities. But where is the need for them? As mentioned I placed all the quality accumulators on Fulgora because space on the little islands is at a premium there. That's the only thing so far I used in quantity with quality.

So please do tell where you need quality? What specifically do you boost? What am I missing that would make my life better?

[Fharkas]

So please do tell where you need quality? What specifically do you boost? What am I missing that would make my life better?

You are kinda right. You don't NEED it. By that account you don't NEED Quality to finish the game. It is optional. No idea what would make your life better.

But higher Quality makes your builds smaller, tighter, more efficient. More "final", as for example if I build in a subway station square's, the buildable space is related to what kind of quality substations I can use.
Also, starting out on Aquilo, each Quality upgrade can give a huge boost, as it let you start out and expand faster. Your starting out phase can be quicker, while you produce only a few items. You can shore up production by replacing lagging manufacturing buildings with higher Quality, beacons, modules, etc.
Faster, more compact space platforms, ...

It all comes down to playstyle and preferences. I would like to have a chance to have a few Legendary Quality stuff by stockpiling and investing in Quality from the start of the game, and then agonize over what Legendary Quality item best serves me going forward, created by those very limited resources. Instead of just massively recycling everything, or setting up huge asteroid catchers to recycle those (which seems fun and will do them as early as possible in my next playthrough).

Truthfully, it is not a huge issue and if they leave it as it is, that's fine as well. And I'm sure there will be mods, allowing for more personalized experiences.
Simply, Quality is cool and with some changes it would be even cooler and more enjoyable for me. Maybe for others as well, though you don't think so, but that's ok. That's what this discussion is for, right?

[sushi_eater]

My point is that there are multiple ways to go towards winning the game. Lets take the AM3 as example since you brought them up. You really don't need them on planets. I still have plenty of AM2s in my game after I won. You can build a bigger spaceship with AM2s or a smaller with AM3s. Going with AM3s is big improvement on the ship as far as I see. I don't see quality having that much or really any significant impact on the way to win the game.

Quality has a FAR bigger impact then AM3. ALL production buildings benefit with a higher crafting speed (which is multiplicative with other bonuses). That includes assemblers, chemplants and crushers. Quality beacons have a higher effectiveness (and less power consumption), also a multiplicative effect. Modules are better, again a multiplicative effect.

Quality power entities are better, so you need less of them. Quality thrusters are better, so you need less, can go faster or consume less fuel. Quality inserters are faster and consume a lot less power.

Taking power consumption into account, I can get 3-4 times the fuel or ammo production in the same footprint (utilizing the multiplicatively stacking machine speed / beacon / module improvements) going from no quality to rare quality. Each quality step is a much bigger improvement than it might appear just looking at the impact of a single item.

[mrvn]

My point is that there are multiple ways to go towards winning the game. Lets take the AM3 as example since you brought them up. You really don't need them on planets. I still have plenty of AM2s in my game after I won. You can build a bigger spaceship with AM2s or a smaller with AM3s. Going with AM3s is big improvement on the ship as far as I see. I don't see quality having that much or really any significant impact on the way to win the game.

Quality has a FAR bigger impact then AM3. ALL production buildings benefit with a higher crafting speed (which is multiplicative with other bonuses). That includes assemblers, chemplants and crushers. Quality beacons have a higher effectiveness (and less power consumption), also a multiplicative effect. Modules are better, again a multiplicative effect.

Quality power entities are better, so you need less of them. Quality thrusters are better, so you need less, can go faster or consume less fuel. Quality inserters are faster and consume a lot less power.

Taking power consumption into account, I can get 3-4 times the fuel or ammo production in the same footprint (utilizing the multiplicatively stacking machine speed / beacon / module improvements) going from no quality to rare quality. Each quality step is a much bigger improvement than it might appear just looking at the impact of a single item.

For Fulgora, Gleba and Vulkanus I have 1 thruster and 3 chemical plants (water, fuel, oxidizer). The thruster runs at a nice 30 fluid/s for a sedate 50-60 km/s speed. It's not winning any speed records but that is a good thing. Going slow means the turrets can easily keep up shooting stuff and the assembler can produce ammo fast enough. You can get away with even just one AM3 producing ammo. The 4 electrical furnaces to produce iron plates you could probably reduce with quality. I have 3 crusher, one for each recipe and they are faster than needed. The bottleneck are the furnaces and the main power consumer. Neither inserter speed nor their power consumption is really a factor for those little ships.

So before Aquilo even if I had quality stuff it would be just wasted I think. Reducing the furnaces and solar panels a bit might be possible. Flying faster and still be safe? Definetly. Was that what held me up playing? No.

How did nobody mention quality solar panels yet? That's actually a major component on space platforms that would benefit. But before Aquilo the cost (the hassle with quality) vs. the benefit (12 legendary panels instead of 30 normal) is not worth the bit of foundation you safe or the speed increase due to reduced mass. (Did I mention I don't sit around waiting for spaceships to arrive? No need for them to be faster imho.)

On Aquilo solar panels do basically nothing. In orbit they work well enough, just checked again, and I could see quality solar panels there making a big difference. You would need a lot. Enough to save a few rockets full of foundation and solar panels with quality solar panels. I went with a nuclear reactor on my spaceship for Aquilo because I saw that 1% efficiency for solar panels in atmosphere and not the 60% in space. Power wasn't a problem for me then.

And on planet I wasn't generally waiting for buildings to finish their recipes. Other than for solid fuel (for heating towers) and water (a lot for steam, power) I don't think I build a second building with the same recipe for anything because it was too slow. I build a few duplicates because it was easier to produce stuff in place than having pipes or belts.

Again my aim was to win the game. Not build a mega factory. The way the game is balanced there really was no need to scale anything up to the point where quality would have a big impact. A chemical plant running 50% of the time doesn't really benefit from quality. Quality could maybe have saved me half the power. But then I build a fusion reactor because "new toy" and really didn't care anymore.

Building a second fusion reactor and railguns for the winning spaceship was a bit of a drag. If I had one bottleck on Aquilo it was the quantum processors. But by the time I thought about scaling that up I was nearly done producing everything for the spaceship. Can't remember if I waited for the last railgun to finish building or the rocket to ship it up. Either way the wait wasn't long enough to scale up production. So I figure quality wouldn't have impacted much.


All of this is just my impression from having played through to win once. I might have missed a lot. I certainly haven't tried everything or every way to play.

I wonder if speed runners will use quality at all? You certainly do not need it to win, the game was designed that way. You know something is just for fun when speed runners don't use it.

[Stargateur]

I never liked speed run anyway, TAS is fun, but seeing humans do the same thing again and again and again and again hopping this time it will be different is the very definition of insanity. Balancing a game looking at the "best" element is bad. You doesn't look like to listen to other argument you just answer the same and just say "I didn't need it". That very poor argument. I didn't need it either to win the game so what ? Speed runner will never use quality and this doesn't matter at all about this debate, it's useless to take speed run into account when it's represent 0.0001% of player base, they just do the same gameplay over and over with predetermined strategy again and again. Honestly boring gameplay in my eye, ruining the fun. but everyone have its own way to have fun. My point remain, it's more fun to unlock all quality tier from start (thus I not opposite to unlock quality at fulgora for example).

There is already at least 2 mods for this https://mods.factorio.com/mod/all-quali ... -the-start https://mods.factorio.com/mod/quality_unlocked and download is already high, this is clearly a big clue there is a problem with this limitation.

[mrvn]

I never liked speed run anyway, TAS is fun, but seeing humans do the same thing again and again and again and again hopping this time it will be different is the very definition of insanity. Balancing a game looking at the "best" element is bad. You doesn't look like to listen to other argument you just answer the same and just say "I didn't need it". That very poor argument. I didn't need it either to win the game so what ? Speed runner will never use quality and this doesn't matter at all about this debate, it's useless to take speed run into account when it's represent 0.0001% of player base, they just do the same gameplay over and over with predetermined strategy again and again. Honestly boring gameplay in my eye, ruining the fun. but everyone have its own way to have fun. My point remain, it's more fun to unlock all quality tier from start (thus I not opposite to unlock quality at fulgora for example).

There is already at least 2 mods for this https://mods.factorio.com/mod/all-quali ... -the-start https://mods.factorio.com/mod/quality_unlocked and download is already high, this is clearly a big clue there is a problem with this limitation.

I'm not sure how else to counter your argument of "space ships are so much better with quality". Yes, they are better. But my point was that you basically go from overkill to more overkill.

Mods: Exactly. For fun or your personal play style just use the mod. My feeling is that quality is too much of a mixed sword for now to just enable it from the start in vanilla or too easily. At the moment it's something you have to want and work for to get and play way past winning the game to make real use of it.

[meganothing]

My point is that there are multiple ways to go towards winning the game. Lets take the AM3 as example since you brought them up. You really don't need them on planets. I still have plenty of AM2s in my game after I won. You can build a bigger spaceship with AM2s or a smaller with AM3s. Going with AM3s is big improvement on the ship as far as I see. I don't see quality having that much or really any significant impact on the way to win the game.

Quality has a FAR bigger impact then AM3. ALL production buildings benefit with a higher crafting speed (which is multiplicative with other bonuses). That includes assemblers, chemplants and crushers. Quality beacons have a higher effectiveness (and less power consumption), also a multiplicative effect. Modules are better, again a multiplicative effect.

Quality power entities are better, so you need less of them. Quality thrusters are better, so you need less, can go faster or consume less fuel. Quality inserters are faster and consume a lot less power.

Taking power consumption into account, I can get 3-4 times the fuel or ammo production in the same footprint (utilizing the multiplicatively stacking machine speed / beacon / module improvements) going from no quality to rare quality. Each quality step is a much bigger improvement than it might appear just looking at the impact of a single item.

For Fulgora, Gleba and Vulkanus I have 1 thruster and 3 chemical plants (water, fuel, oxidizer). The thruster runs at a nice 30 fluid/s for a sedate 50-60 km/s speed. It's not winning any speed records but that is a good thing. Going slow means the turrets can easily keep up shooting stuff and the assembler can produce ammo fast enough. You can get away with even just one AM3 producing ammo. The 4 electrical furnaces to produce iron plates you could probably reduce with quality. I have 3 crusher, one for each recipe and they are faster than needed. The bottleneck are the furnaces and the main power consumer. Neither inserter speed nor their power consumption is really a factor for those little ships.

So before Aquilo even if I had quality stuff it would be just wasted I think. Reducing the furnaces and solar panels a bit might be possible. Flying faster and still be safe? Definetly. Was that what held me up playing? No.

How did nobody mention quality solar panels yet? That's actually a major component on space platforms that would benefit. But before Aquilo the cost (the hassle with quality) vs. the benefit (12 legendary panels instead of 30 normal) is not worth the bit of foundation you safe or the speed increase due to reduced mass. (Did I mention I don't sit around waiting for spaceships to arrive? No need for them to be faster imho.)

On Aquilo solar panels do basically nothing. In orbit they work well enough, just checked again, and I could see quality solar panels there making a big difference. You would need a lot. Enough to save a few rockets full of foundation and solar panels with quality solar panels. I went with a nuclear reactor on my spaceship for Aquilo because I saw that 1% efficiency for solar panels in atmosphere and not the 60% in space. Power wasn't a problem for me then.

And on planet I wasn't generally waiting for buildings to finish their recipes. Other than for solid fuel (for heating towers) and water (a lot for steam, power) I don't think I build a second building with the same recipe for anything because it was too slow. I build a few duplicates because it was easier to produce stuff in place than having pipes or belts.

Again my aim was to win the game. Not build a mega factory. The way the game is balanced there really was no need to scale anything up to the point where quality would have a big impact. A chemical plant running 50% of the time doesn't really benefit from quality. Quality could maybe have saved me half the power. But then I build a fusion reactor because "new toy" and really didn't care anymore.

Building a second fusion reactor and railguns for the winning spaceship was a bit of a drag. If I had one bottleck on Aquilo it was the quantum processors. But by the time I thought about scaling that up I was nearly done producing everything for the spaceship. Can't remember if I waited for the last railgun to finish building or the rocket to ship it up. Either way the wait wasn't long enough to scale up production. So I figure quality wouldn't have impacted much.


All of this is just my impression from having played through to win once. I might have missed a lot. I certainly haven't tried everything or every way to play.

I wonder if speed runners will use quality at all? You certainly do not need it to win, the game was designed that way. You know something is just for fun when speed runners don't use it.

There is/was a player here on the forum who uses one science building for the whole game and mostly watches TV while the game plays itself in the background. He doesn't need any military tech because there is only traces of pollution, and I think he asked why it is even in the game. His argument is similar to yours, just taken to extremes . Factorio is filled with stuff you don't need to win.

Quality is another angle to optimize for people who play the game to optimize. Do I need the power armor in epic? Not really. Do I want one? For sure.

I once tried to create a blue science "factory" in the smallest possible area, while around me I had freed kilometers of landmass that I could have used to build such factories without any regard to space usage at all. And that had nothing to do with mega factories by the way.

[sushi_eater]

For Fulgora, Gleba and Vulkanus I have 1 thruster and 3 chemical plants (water, fuel, oxidizer). The thruster runs at a nice 30 fluid/s for a sedate 50-60 km/s speed.

The thing is, my Nauvis-tech spaceship with rare quality can do 385km/h continuously. I have the the infrastructure for extremely fast loading. I'm scatter-brained all the time, forget to bring things and get side-tracked. IME, having a very fast turn-around time is extremely helpful in not getting side-tracked. At least for me, longer delivery delays exponentially increase the chance (as delivery time increases) that I will loose focus and things get massively delayed.

I'm not claiming that I'll be able to finish the game faster with quality. But for me, it's huge QOL improvement and makes the game much more enjoyable. In terms of trying to finish the game as quickly as possible, my ship design is certainly a failure. In terms of making the game more enjoyable, it's a big success.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, ideally you eventually automate most of your ships, but I guess you'll always have a few you babysit because you want whatever they bring ASAP. So having them faster is better.

I'll note though that in my case this is often quality items that you have on one planet, but not another, so maybe if you ignore quality completely...

[spacedog]

A "normal" playthrough of the game is realistically only going to use common and uncommon qualities (if you even use quality modules at all), with maybe a few rare quality items in select places if you can be bothered to set up the production lines for it. Why? Because the probabilities for higher quality items are really, really low.

For example, let's say you are mining iron ore using big mining drills with legendary quality 3 modules -- enough of them to saturate a stacked turbo belt. That's 14,400 iron ore per minute. The optimal factory design that produces the most legendary iron plates possible from that ore will net you a whopping 72 legendary iron plates per minute. If you don't upcycle (i.e. waste) the 5,500 per minute of uncommon iron plates you'd get from that ore, then it drops to 50 legendary iron plates per minute. And that's only possible after you can already produce legendary quality 3 modules in significant quantities.

Epic and legendary quality stuff is so rare it's not a significant factor in a "normal" playthrough. So it makes sense why the devs designed it the way they did: It means a "normal" playthrough doesn't get bogged down dealing with epic and legendary quality stuff, which is being produced in such very small quantities that it's almost more annoying than beneficial.

I think the complaint here is that the current system gets in the way of "alternative" playstyles. For example ones where you want to take your time, overprepare, and build the "perfect" setups before you progress through the planets. It's a totally valid playstyle -- my own playstyle is somewhere in the middle of the two -- but it's probably not what the majority of players are doing if they're just trying to finish the game.

This seems to be a recurring theme throughout the Space Age expansion; that there's a clearly "intended" approach to doing things. I think the devs focused on what they consider a "normal" playthrough, and avoided dealing with optimizing for the large number of permutations outside of that. I'm a little disappointed about that, but to be fair they've been working on this game for over a decade. I think they've accomplished what they want to do at this point, and are ready to let mods take over from here.

[mrvn]

There is/was a player here on the forum who uses one science building for the whole game and mostly watches TV while the game plays itself in the background. He doesn't need any military tech because there is only traces of pollution, and I think he asked why it is even in the game. His argument is similar to yours, just taken to extremes . Factorio is filled with stuff you don't need to win.

Quality is another angle to optimize for people who play the game to optimize. Do I need the power armor in epic? Not really. Do I want one? For sure.

I once tried to create a blue science "factory" in the smallest possible area, while around me I had freed kilometers of landmass that I could have used to build such factories without any regard to space usage at all. And that had nothing to do with mega factories by the way.

You can play the (pre space) game with just one miner, one furnace, one assembler, one refinery and one chemical plant now that "set recipe" is a thing in vanilla. But then you trade time for parallelity. The difference is he watches the game doing nothing (or not playing the game) while for me there are so many things to do that by the time you come around looking at some planet again it's filled the buffer chests with science packs. At the moment I'm running out of research to do because the production speed is so trivial for the other planets.

Lets try saying it differently: The game is too easy that by the time you have the time to worry about quality modules you have basically won the game. I didn't even get the urge to optimize any of the planets because something was too slow and needed to be scaled up in unexpected ways.

On Nauvis you start with a little iron and copper. Then you need more iron, then more steel then more circuit boards then massively more copper for the processing units and so on. There is a progression there where you need to expand and you have choices. Build more yellow belts or upgrade to red? Use speed modules or build more assemblers? Change grey to blue to yellow assemblers? Somehow I at least didn't see need the need to scale something up in space and asked myself: Should I build twice the factory or use a high quality electromagnetic plant? With the problem being more the former, no need to scale up.

Call it a lack of incentive to use quality.