The quality system needs a redesign

[Martynka]

I believe the quality system was poorly designed. Currently, all the quality tiers between basic and legendary have no practical use. Once you start obtaining legendary coal from space, there's a massive leap that allows you to upgrade all machines to legendary in one go. This makes base planning difficult from the start, especially when you're aware that in a dozen or so hours, you'll need to rebuild everything because you'll gain easy access to legendary quality. I don't think this is what the idea of the quality system was supposed to be about.

I have a suggestion that the developers probably won't implement, but maybe an experienced modder could?
I think quality should be completely removed from basic resources, and recipes allowing the creation of quality items from quality raw materials should be removed as well. The idea is that getting a legendary assembler or other machine should require significant effort, and this way, it would make sense to use every other quality tier below legendary, since legendary quality wouldn't be directly obtainable — only through scaled luck. That seems to me how it should work.

Currently, it works like this: until the first meteor filtering ship is built, there's no point in using quality items at all. First, because soon you'll have an infinite amount of legendary ones, and second, because managing tons of trash is exhausting. I'm increasingly considering just disabling the "quality" expansion in my next playthrough and trying to build a mega-base without it. But I'm somewhat discouraged by the thought that it might be impossible, as I ambitiously want to compete with the top creators reaching 2 million SPM, and that might simply not be achievable without it.

Another issue is trains, which in my opinion have lost a lot of value due to the quality system. When you can pump infinite resources from the ground and fill multiple green belts with just a few machines, they more often serve as glorified storage boxes (useful for filtering junk on fulgur) rather than actual trains. Overall, SpaceAge is an amazing expansion, but the quality system has really exhausted me and made me lose interest in continuing. What do you think?

[meganothing]

Waiting for legendary is an individual choice. I didn't and used rare stuff in my armor and also am producing epic stuff right now while I still haven't been on Vulkanus. There are players who value the journey and there are players who look only for what they call the "end-game" and everything before is mostly wasted time. That there is no single game that is ideal for both groups should be evident.


I am sure there will be lots of mods for the quality system. To streamline it legendary could be available from the start, or intermediate steps simply removed. A mod could also make it possible to only research legendary and that would make intermediate qualities not producable (adjustment of production factors would be needed for this as well).

[Martynka]

I have a problem where achieving legendary quality is trivially easy after building a ship that enriches meteors, because from that moment on, we have a continuous stream of legendary resources that we can directly convert into legendary components and then machines. At the beginning of the expansion, before I realized that this could be abused in such a legal way, I was producing various items in machines with productivity modules and enjoying the better versions of machines and using them. This flaw in the system makes it completely senseless to use machines from the basic to legendary range when you want to build and plan a megabase

[Kyralessa]

As soon as any quality above normal was available, I started using it judiciously. Higher-than-normal-quality mech armor still lets me add more equipment than normal mech armor. On Fulgora I made a rare car just for the hit points bonus, so it was less susceptible to lightning strikes while I was exploring. A rare machine gun and rocket launcher were useful for the higher range.

As meganothing says, it's an individual choice. You can let the perfect be the enemy of the good and refuse to use any higher-quality items until you have legendary if you want to, but some of us will take the intermediate gains and make good use of them. Don't take that option away from us.

But as you say, there's probably a mod that can modify the quality system to be like you want.

[Martynka]

I don’t want to take anything away from anyone. I simply pointed out that the current system for obtaining and crafting items of non-legendary quality is pointless, because we can acquire an unlimited amount of legendary materials from space, allowing us to create any item with virtually no effort. This makes legendary quality a basic necessity. I proposed scrapping this system—not removing item quality itself. At no point did I suggest that intermediate-quality items should be removed either.
The solution I’m suggesting would bring more enjoyment to the endgame while having virtually no impact on the early or mid game.

P.S.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a mod like this. Does anyone know if such a mod exists? Or maybe someone is capable of creating it? If so, I’m happy to help by explaining exactly how I envision it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any programming skills.

[mmmPI]

I believe the quality system was poorly designed. Currently, all the quality tiers between basic and legendary have no practical use. Once you start obtaining legendary coal from space, there's a massive leap that allows you to upgrade all machines to legendary in one go.

What do you think?

I believe once you start obtaining legendary coal from space there's nowhere to leap to as you are already at the latest stage of the game and if you didn't found a use for all the quality tiers that came before that may be because you have missed some opportunities to upgrade earlier when it's worth doing it, find the right build for the right item in the right quantity to make it a boost throughtout the game without becoming more costly in time invested as in "doing quality for the sake of it".

[Amarula]

I'm increasingly considering just disabling the "quality" expansion in my next playthrough

Side note: the recycler is part of the quality mod, so the Space Age mod requires it (in order to deal with Fulgora). Playing without quality means remembering not to research the very first quality technology. Which also means that when you get to the end game and decide you need legendary quality, you go ahead and research the five quality techs that are now available and you are good to go.

[Tertius]

My problem with quality is that I simply don't know how to approach it. It's too open. It seems a huge waste of effort and resources if not done correctly. But is it really? What is "correctly"? I still don't know, so I still never tried to construct a single quality item in my Space Age map since release. I tried something in map editor, but I still don't know if I found something the devs envisioned or if I'm on the wrong track and just wasting resources and my time.

For example, the idea is to build quality modules in every production machine instead of production modules and filter any items with higher quality, then do something with these. However, this means huge losses in productivity and much larger factories, power demand, more and faster depleted mines. Are the results worth it? I don't know, I doubt, so I didn't to it. I tried to calculate how many resources I need to create more than single better quality items: millions. Is this possible? Too great the danger I build my whole factory like this, and then some mainstream solution pops up that completely invalidates all my efforts. So I concentrated my efforts on everything else but not on quality.

Unfortunately, I never found descriptions how to actually go from zero to "everything legendary" in an efficient way. The process as a whole including all intermediate steps. Yes, people show their full legendary factory blueprints, but in the start you don't have a single quality production building, and you cannot just create enough of them out of thin air, just in map editor.

Really helpful would be some kind of blog post or story that describes their way to quality with unmodded vanilla Space Age from map creation to a factory completely made of legendary production buildings including hundreds of legendary tier 3 modules. I don't need blueprints - I'd like to see a general "howto".

[mmmPI]

Playing without quality means remembering not to research the very first quality technology.

I couldn't be trusted to do that for a full game, but i wouldn't place quality modules in machines by accident, i'm saying this because it has happened to me to "accidentaly" research "epic" quality, when at a point of a game i had no more science to queue and mindlessly added it, only to realize later that most of my builds were not setup for it as i only planned to "reach the end" but got sidetracked along the way

[mmmPI]

Really helpful would be some kind of blog post or story that describes their way to quality with unmodded vanilla Space Age from map creation to a factory completely made of legendary production buildings including hundreds of legendary tier 3 modules. I don't need blueprints - I'd like to see a general "howto".

I would be curious to see that too, because it seem to me that trying to have all legendary biochambers on gleba and legendary biolabs can take many forms and i don't know if there is "one" that is much better than the others, i often read players discussing how to achieve a certain goal with quality but rarely "get everything", why would you do that on belts in planet with no ennemy nor risk for their hitpoint ? For the sake of it ? is it what "devs envisionned" ? they may have thought players could and would do that, but that may not be the "intended" way as in " we want player to go to this extreme" , more like " this is there for those who wants. There are a few achievements related to quality that seem to be an incentive to search for it for completion and i believe it's more likely to find stories and discussion about those rather than the whole "completely legendary" which sounds to me like a challenge on its own but a bit "for the sake of it". I believe this is one of the situation where the "journey" is the important and not the "destination".

[Tertius]

... why would you do that on belts in planet with no ennemy nor risk for their hitpoint ? For the sake of it ? is it what "devs envisionned" ? they may have thought players could and would do that, but that may not be the "intended" way as in " we want player to go to this extreme" , more like " this is there for those who wants.

This is the crucial flaw in the quality mechanic in my opinion: there is no reason, there is no path, there is no goal, there is no reward (I don't see an achievement a reward).
At least not until you already have everything, but then it's not desirable any more to create anything except legendary, which is the point of the OP and the reason why this thread exists.
Quality is a tool you can choose to use or not, but for what use? It's so universal and so much optional and so expensive, it isn't clear what to make out of it.

[mmmPI]

... why would you do that on belts in planet with no ennemy nor risk for their hitpoint ? For the sake of it ? is it what "devs envisionned" ? they may have thought players could and would do that, but that may not be the "intended" way as in " we want player to go to this extreme" , more like " this is there for those who wants.

This is the crucial flaw in the quality mechanic in my opinion: there is no reason, there is no path, there is no goal, there is no reward (I don't see an achievement a reward).
At least not until you already have everything, but then it's not desirable any more to create anything except legendary, which is the point of the OP and the reason why this thread exists.
Quality is a tool you can choose to use or not, but for what use? It's so universal and so much optional and so expensive, it isn't clear what to make out of it.

You are misunderstanding my words, obviously quality has many reasons, i was only mentionning the case of belts !

There are several paths to it !

You could set your goal to have everything, ( even though for the case of belts it serve no purpose it sound like a trap , i can't believe devs envisionned everyplayer would try to have every belt in high quality that was my point).

You could set your goal to have the achievements, one of them is to have an armor full of equipment, that's a clear alignment between goald and reward, if you have done it, having the armor is the reward, and the achievement is just a hint guiding toward the more useful item to increase in quality ! ( you need to think about the others ^^ ).

I believe it's because you can still learn some things if you think you need to wait untill the end of the game to use quality "right". It's not necessarily expensive, it doesn't cost you anything to use quality, you are talking about using recycler loop, it's only a specific way of doing, it serve certain purposes better than other methods, like for mass production, or to gurantee a results, but you don't have to see only this.

[meganothing]

This is the crucial flaw in the quality mechanic in my opinion: there is no reason, there is no path, there is no goal, there is no reward (I don't see an achievement a reward).
At least not until you already have everything, but then it's not desirable any more to create anything except legendary, which is the point of the OP and the reason why this thread exists.
Quality is a tool you can choose to use or not, but for what use? It's so universal and so much optional and so expensive, it isn't clear what to make out of it.

Why isn't a better armor with better lasers and shields no reward?
It is optional, sure, so are flame thrower turrets, the fluid wagon, artillery turret, coal liquification, kovarex, ...

To give my "story" that isn't finished yet, I simply started on Nauvis with creating green and red circuits only and used them first to make better quality modules that were then used for better weaponry, for example a rare shotgun or better quality shields. Essentially it cost me about 2-4% of my red/green circuit production and overproduction on the few items I wanted in better quality.
While I still used productivity everywhere else. Only now, after reaching fulgora, did I multiply my efforts: I try to produce epic items in greater numbers now by putting quality modules into most machines on Fulgora, so I can get a larger range of items in higher qualities, for example to get spacehips built (almost?) completely in higher quality

[Tertius]

Why isn't a better armor with better lasers and shields no reward?

Yes, these would be nice, but the cost is simply to high for that small change they do. Doesn't feel like a reward. There is artillery. Artillery feels like a reward. And there are spidertrons. Spidertrons feel like a reward. And spidertrons with explosive rockets. All you need. And without spidertrons, you have rocket launchers with explosive rockets. And before you have artillery or spidertrons or rockets, you don't have much quality items to create quality armor. Or do you?

While I still used productivity everywhere else. Only now, after reaching fulgora, did I multiply my efforts: I try to produce epic items in greater numbers now by putting quality modules into most machines on Fulgora, so I can get specific items in higher qualities, for example to get spacehips built (almost?) completely in higher quality

Did you collect more than single of some epic item yet? Or how long will it still take until you're able to create the first and second epic asteroid collector or thruster? From what I see so far, if it comes to epic quality, "items in greater numbers" actually means "once in a while, may be 1 per day per end product such as a thruster". May be that's actually a sensible and balanced amount, and I don't see it. My problem is a chicken-egg problem: without experience with quality, I don't see a meaningful way to quality, I only see myself wasting time and effort.

[meganothing]

Yes, these would be nice, but the cost is simply to high for that small change they do. Doesn't feel like a reward. There is artillery. Artillery feels like a reward. And there are spidertrons. Spidertrons feel like a reward. And spidertrons with explosive rockets. All you need. And without spidertrons, you have rocket launchers with explosive rockets. And before you have artillery or spidertrons or rockets, you don't have much quality items to create quality armor. Or do you?

Too high? In a death world scenario sure, there you need to use the most efficient solution for everything. But I get endless iron and soon copper from multiple space stations that are more than enough to offset quality production and more. If I avoid one death run I would consider that effort has paid itself off, and considering how much I paid for a simple rare shotgun and how much more damage it makes I also think it paid off quite well. Not even in avoiding death but just more fluent effective combat. You are right, I didn't get quality armor itself, that was simply a gamble that didn't work out, but on the other hand I got at least one quality nuclear reactor by using quality modules while producing them. I used quality modules for many of my end products (where productivity doesn't work, so what did I loose?) and it payed of by having some faster furnaces, some longer range laser turrets and gun turrets, some faster assemblers. This you can get with zero overproduction.

But back to the armor: I wanted the best shields (I am a bad at combat) and personal lasers in my armor and I considered it worth the effort and overproduction. I would have loved a better combat armor as well for the additional space, but I didn't want to waste production on that (though this is definitely one thing I will produce on Fulgora shortly). But inside I have lots of stuff in quality, especially quality exoskeletons for the speed. Which helps all the time, even if it is only a small percentage faster. And those will certainly be replaced by epic exos now.

Did you collect more than single of some epic item yet? Or how long will it still take until you're able to create the first and second epic asteroid collector or thruster? From what I see so far, if it comes to epic quality, "items in greater numbers" actually means "once in a while, may be 1 per day per end product such as a thruster". May be that's actually a sensible and balanced amount, and I don't see it. My problem is a chicken-egg problem: without experience with quality, I don't see a meaningful way to quality, I only see myself wasting time and effort.

I am not that long on fulgora, I haven't even started electrolyte production, just added my first few train stations on other islands, but I already have factory parts for all qualities set up. I think it is faster to craft and recycle uncommon and rare green circuits for example on a double chance to increase their quality than to simply recycle iron and copper that is not epic. But that is something I'll just have to try out. It would be much less setup work though to just recycle anything not epic directly and given the almost endless supply of scrap that would be a perfectly good solution as well.

If I find out that the time to production is too long, I would do what any factorio-player would do, add more of the same . More recyclers, more scrap mined and recycled, until the production time is sufficient. There is no waste if the sources are nearly unlimited.

[mmmPI]

Yes, these would be nice, but the cost is simply to high for that small change they do. Doesn't feel like a reward.

To me you can start quality on Nauvis by having a single a assembler with quality modules, and you use combinators to change its receipe to whatever you would have handcrafted otherwise. Sure in this conditions getting the armor is unlikely/lucky, but the portable solar pannels, you need several already, and you may get a few in higher quality.

The same goes for gun turrets for me, most of them are going for Nauvis, but if you place quality module in a turret assembly or tasked your assembly that contain quality module to make gun turrets in its spare time, you are going to have a certain % that you can use for your ship because they have higher quality.

Can do that for solar pannels and accumulators too.

What modules would you use in the factory that makes a nuclear reactor ? I would use quality ! for the chance of an uncommon or rare reactor to put on my ship while the others are used for nauvis.

Using quality modules like this doesn't cost you any more ressources than the initial investment in the modules, which would be negligible in the long run, and it open up the possibility for a % of chance of "free bonus".

Thruster for the spaceship ? those don't need a dedicated assembly at the moment you unlock them to me, it can the same that also make the cargobays, and it would still not run a significant % of time, just occasionnaly, so may as well use my "only quality assembly" ( the only one that contain the modules may as well be used to make other assembly machine, and if a higher than normal quality is luckily obtained , it can used as the quality-moduled-one , to make even more out of the few quality modules.

My problem is a chicken-egg problem: without experience with quality, I don't see a meaningful way to quality, I only see myself wasting time and effort.

What i described is highly dependant on "my" game pace, but i feel it's an "easy" way to get started, even when you only have "low-quality-quality-module" tier 2, which combined only amount to small percentage. It works well with receipe switching to make sure this low chances are attempted a lot. I would typically have my first quality-quality module used to make more quality modules, in a factory that would be making other things when no additionnal modules are needed, to make the better use of those, armor ( meh) , exoskeletons ? yes ! , thrusters ? yes ! cargobays ? yes, turrets ? why not .. some items are working better than others. I found it also particularly good on beacons to search for quality, as those are super strong i found if you use 20 or 30 in your base, you may get 1 or 2 that are of "quality" to use for the spaceship !

I feel like you may be appreciating it if you try your hand at autocrafters, "optionnal" , "potentially good" , "fun to try and do for the sake of it, and 'rewarding' to use"

While I still used productivity everywhere else. Only now, after reaching fulgora, did I multiply my efforts: I try to produce epic items in greater numbers now by putting quality modules into most machines on Fulgora, so I can get a larger range of items in higher qualities, for example to get spacehips built (almost?) completely in higher quality

That feels familiar to me, reaching Fulgora and unlocking recycler is a great boost for quality production ! Using the planet for quality making even if the ressources aren't infinite like in Gleba or Vulcanus is also a thing that i find make a lot of sense, because you would have otherwise to recycle them to nothingness if you just want "more holmium" so those "non-infinite ressources" still feels like a lot of waste to process, and are candidate for quality/recycler loops. And there are plenty places where it's not possible to use productivity anyway, so may as well put quality modules sometimes i found.

[eugenekay]

The Quality system has clearly increased Engagement time with the Factory - so I think it is wildly successful as an addictive game mechanic.

There are many ways to play the game. The amount of discussion on different strategies to deal with Quality intermediates, effectiveness of Rare vs Legendary, etc serves as a perfect illustration of the Engagement. There does not seem to be a Right answer - and that’s good. It means we’re having Fun.

[h.q.droid]

Early quality stuff are still useful after legendary unlock, as packaging material for quality spoilables. I just needed rare circuits yesterday: viewtopic.php?t=128684

Besides, rare and legendary are very different games. Rare can be meaningfully done with quality mining / recycling on Fulgora and change-recipe cheesing, which allows you to go to Gleba with a rare Mech Armor. That's huge for defense purposes.

[Panzerknacker]

Agree with OP, cheesing legendary quality like that should ot be possible. Im sure this is on the devs list for 2.1.

[mmmPI]

Besides, rare and legendary are very different games. Rare can be meaningfully done with quality mining / recycling on Fulgora and change-recipe cheesing, which allows you to go to Gleba with a rare Mech Armor. That's huge for defense purposes.

What do you call recipe cheesing ? Because i don't see that word used in OP

I see op mentionned getting legendary coal from space, but that isn't going to help all that much to get electromagnetic plant, the hard part is holmium plate, which you can't get from legendary ore, and it also goes for biochambers, and foundries, all those require significant effort to upgrade in legendary for which that asteroid mining is just a tool.

I agree that going to Fulgora before Gleba to get a mech amor is huge for defense purpose, be it of quality or not, the more legs the faster you can set up the farms. And the game seem to be made in such a way that in Fulgora players neeed to manage overproduction and get rid of problematic materials, there is therefore a great incentive to use quality, even if that's way before the latest level.