Ban quality modules from asteroid crushers

[evandy]

Exponentially increasing difficulty? Wow, that's the first time I've ever heard that about vanilla factorio, but I guess it depends how you measure difficulty?

The better one I think, is science costs. Purple science is something else when you realize it's asking you for 10 rails a second for a unit, and compare that to the cost of everything else that came before it. And that's combined with the individual cost of the research. Normally though, only damage upgrades follow an exponential track. Mining productivity is linear. It is beautiful game design though, because it is a manageable task.

Yeah, depends how you are calculating difficulty. I do not equate an ever increasing volume of throughput as an increase in difficulty. It just means we need to make a bigger factory. But it's not a more complicated factory - just more copies of the same thing.

[coffee-factorio]

Yeah, depends how you are calculating difficulty. I do not equate an ever increasing volume of throughput as an increase in difficulty. It just means we need to make a bigger factory. But it's not a more complicated factory - just more copies of the same thing.

Well, the thing is, you can't really rely on copy and paste till you have a robot work force. Which you need chemical science for. So that's how this works, you have the challenge of scaling a factory, but if you put the effort in you get an increase in capability. If you do, you don't just get bots to do it, it's cliff explosives and the works.

When I see big jumps in capability like that, I feel like the 300% productivity schemes are more related to that kind of balancing. Rerolling is good for some things (it's a least a start with sulfur). But if there's something else that provides that huge lever and it's being missed, it raises some questions on if it's functioning as intended.

[Shulmeister]

5 legendary prod modules add another +125%, pushing the total over the cap of +300% / x4.

This works for all recipes where you can reach the +300% prod cap and get the ingredients back by recycling.

If you are not familiar with thing, you would do well to not rush to conclusions.

What do you mean ?

Look at biter health . That's one of the two best examples.

Biter health and robot requiring chemical science are your 2 examples of exponential difficulty ?

[Shirasik]

Well, the thing is, you can't really rely on copy and paste till you have a robot work force.

Why? Manual copypaste is effort-intensive yet some players find this a relaxing meditative practice not a burden.

Plus, how worker drone techs are related to crushers and asteroid recycling? Platforms DO build everything automatically if they have instructions and materials.

[Hurkyl]

Exponentially increasing difficulty? Wow, that's the first time I've ever heard that about vanilla factorio, but I guess it depends how you measure difficulty?

The better one I think, is science costs. Purple science is something else when you realize it's asking you for 10 rails a second for a unit, and compare that to the cost of everything else that came before it. And that's combined with the individual cost of the research. Normally though, only damage upgrades follow an exponential track. Mining productivity is linear. It is beautiful game design though, because it is a manageable task.

Yeah, depends how you are calculating difficulty. I do not equate an ever increasing volume of throughput as an increase in difficulty. It just means we need to make a bigger factory. But it's not a more complicated factory - just more copies of the same thing.

Quantity has a quality all its own, as the saying goes. I do believe that increasing throughput demands require you to qualitatively upgrade your understanding and implementation of logistics multiple times as you play through the game and a fair amount of post-game. E.g. as a post-game example, upgrading from just connecting things with a rail network to designing things in a way that one that avoids congestion as you move greater and greater quantities of goods through it.

Although I imagine by the time you've researched up to 300% productivity you're probably near the end of that.

[coffee-factorio]

Quantity has a quality all its own, as the saying goes. I do believe that increasing throughput demands require you to qualitatively upgrade your understanding and implementation of logistics multiple times as you play through the game and a fair amount of post-game. E.g. as a post-game example, upgrading from just connecting things with a rail network to designing things in a way that one that avoids congestion as you move greater and greater quantities of goods through it.

Although I imagine by the time you've researched up to 300% productivity you're probably near the end of that.

If a perceived mechanical advantage was preventing players from making qualitative changes to their builds, should the source of that mechanical advantage be removed?

That might be considered to be equivalent to removing quality modules if it appears they are causing players to pursue another large space platform for rerolling instead of one that could do deep space science research and reduce their resource needs by 10% per research. A player would have to switch out rerolling for another upcycle in that case.

The upside is if they hit on the idea that 130% research productivity +170% em plant productivity = 300%. All the platforms wouldn't be deleted, but the resources might be reallocated into a better upcycle that fits in the same footprint, even in the existing space. I don't see a quantitative advantage for it except for getting legendary sulfur.

Actually, it's a decent question for people who use rerolling.

Do you switch away from it? Because it might be that a reasonable user can figure out if this discussion is mainly be driven by hype.

[Shulmeister]

Do you switch away from it? Because it might be that a reasonable user can figure out if this discussion is mainly be driven by hype.

Yes and no you can switch in the middle to drive the discussion with more things 24 is a good value in there and you may may i believe not so

[crimsonarmy]

Do you switch away from it? Because it might be that a reasonable user can figure out if this discussion is mainly be driven by hype.

Sort of. The way I play the casino is kind of like a foundry: I use it for a bunch of things then as I delve deeper into quality use cases dwindle.

[mmmPI]

Yes and no you can switch in the middle to drive the discussion with more things 24 is a good value in there and you may may i believe not so

sounds like you are doing word shuffling, soon you'll reach coffe's quality of argumentation, i suggest you make the random bunch of words longer x)

[Shulmeister]

sounds like you are doing word shuffling, soon you'll reach coffee's quality of argumentation, i suggest you make the random bunch of words longer x)

Are you implying that you don't understand ? Or accusing me in particular to flood the place with random non-sense ?

No matter where the gas comes from (crude oil, heavy oil ocean, even coal in the few cases where you do that), it’s an utterly tiny amount of resources compared to the coal that was upcycled. In the grand scheme of things, it’s definitely safe to ignore.

And how do you make the sulfur ?

You can't optimize your fluid consumption if you just ignore the gas !

[CyberCider]

Mining productivity is yet another thing that helps make the game easier with progression that wasn't mentionned in my previous list ! It reminded that i received no asnwer when i mentionned to you that quality could have similar mechanism, and that's why i dislike this suggestion, it removes one. If the best way to make quality plastic , as anticipated by players in discussion becomes "recycling grenades", i don't think it's a big win in term of "increasing complexity with alternate process that are more efficient to unlock when progressing in the game", unlike that point where you can start making a space platform for asteroid shuffling.

Ah, there it is again. “Increasing complexity”. That’s exactly what this is all about. Asteroid rerolling decreases complexity compared to nearly every other quality method. Really all of them except brute force recycling of ore or plate, which it is only marginally more interesting than. Less complexity = Worse performance, More complexity = Better performance, this is the rule that asteroid rerolling breaks that makes it unfit to remain in the base game.

Ha that's maybe a good illustration of a case where you can "pay more ressources" to "improve UPS", if the receipe are slow, you need more machines for same output, so maybe the "ressource inefficent receipe" would be preferable in some cases / for some players.

This was never really about UPS. Less machines means less legendary modules required to fill them, which means you can build up the needed materials for more builds more quickly. Scalability is the goal.

Heavy oil ocean is currently the worst for plastic to me because you don't get coal on Fulgora to turn it into plastic, i did a modded game with Fulgora start + ennemy and i couldn't do military research nor grenades it was tough challenge.

I'm curious to where you think it would be the "optimal" place to do the grenades recycling as it seem your favored option. considering wether or not the LDS shuffle is also dis-allowed.

It’s possible to do it on all the inner planets except for Fulgora, which is supplied by Nauvis. Gleba does it the least (efficiency modules are the least used module, so Gleba needs the smallest red circuit production), while Nauvis does it the most since it’s also covering all of Fulgora’s needs. Nauvis is also the best at it, which probably surprises absolutely no one.

No matter where the gas comes from (crude oil, heavy oil ocean, even coal in the few cases where you do that), it’s an utterly tiny amount of resources compared to the coal that was upcycled. In the grand scheme of things, it’s definitely safe to ignore.

And how do you make the sulfur ?

You can't optimize your fluid consumption if you just ignore the gas !

I’m not sure what message this post is supposed to convey. Fluid consumption? Sulfur? I’m reasonably sure the reply is indeed intended for me and not the result of a misclick, but I can’t tell what you’re actually asking me.

[coffee-factorio]

Less complexity = Worse performance, More complexity = Better performance, this is the rule that asteroid rerolling breaks that makes it unfit to remain in the base game.

I've got two questions for you.

Is an asteroid reroller simple enough that you would not look at other methods of getting legendary materials?
And if it was, would that be enough to justify banning it?

Regardless of what examples of rates I could produce, you could argue that if it looks easy enough but it keeps players from looking for better upcycles it hurts as much as if it is easy enough and everything else is worse.

[mmmPI]

Are you implying that you don't understand ? Or accusing me in particular to flood the place with random non-sense ?

I would consider the thought of the idea well enough to be classic, without obstruction sorry.

No matter where the gas comes from (crude oil, heavy oil ocean, even coal in the few cases where you do that), it’s an utterly tiny amount of resources compared to the coal that was upcycled. In the grand scheme of things, it’s definitely safe to ignore.

And how do you make the sulfur ?

You can't optimize your fluid consumption if you just ignore the gas !

I think no-one caress about optimizing fluid consumption, it's just some non-sense flooded on this thread, to disctract from the fact that the proposition is bad, because it decreases the various build possible ^^. It's the "i don't use this because i don't like it but it's not enough i also want it removed from the game for the others too" kind of proposition.

Everyone knows most everything in the game becomes easier as progression goes, logisitic with robots, mining with research, the armor progression, the defense, the offense, the scaling, everything ! that's the meaning of progression, so arguing on the principle is just a waste of time. Quality can be the same it's fine x)

It seem like recycling grenades would the best way to make legedary plastic if the proposition is taken like that , that's just lame, it contradicts the whole argument that is proposed that with progression you unlock alternate process that are more complex and more efficient, because its not super effcient, it's also less complex than asteroid platform , and it's not something that becomes available with progression it's right there at the start. Yet OP is adament at both defending the erronerous claim that things should get "more complex with progression", AND a proposition that removes complexity, to propose a single "this is the best way to make plastic with my proposition" which is a thing that's already there, "recycling grenades" so more of the same....

It’s possible to do it on all the inner planets except for Fulgora, which is supplied by Nauvis.

That's just a generic answer which is wrong as you can use space platform orbiting over fulgora to get the coal, no need supply from Nauvis. I was asking for where YOU would make the grenades in your reasonning that explained it was the best way to make legendary plastic with your proposition. You mentionned that you did some calculations, i was wondering which planet you reasonned with, while also suspecting it was not serious. ( this : )

The calculation was on my PC (forman2 doesn’t work on mobile), which I won’t have access to until later next week. If you would like, I could post the exact gas requirements when I’m able to.

That's just what i'm waiting for btw !

[CyberCider]

Everyone knows most everything in the game becomes easier as progression goes, logisitic with robots, mining with research, the armor progression, the defense, the offense, the scaling, everything ! that's the meaning of progression, so arguing on the principle is just a waste of time. Quality can be the same it's fine x)

None of the things you mention (except for logistics) are comparable to the topic at hand. Offense, defense, armor, mining? You’re comparing these to actual crafting chains? Logistics specifically are within the same realm, but you use bots as your example. But everyone knows that bots are inferior to belts and trains, so this only proves my point. Bots are simpler, but they have lower performance. Just as things should be.

It seem like recycling grenades would the best way to make legedary plastic if the proposition is taken like that , that's just lame, it contradicts the whole argument that is proposed that with progression you unlock alternate process that are more complex and more efficient, because its not super effcient, it's also less complex than asteroid platform , and it's not something that becomes available with progression it's right there at the start. Yet OP is adament at both defending the erronerous claim that things should get "more complex with progression", AND a proposition that removes complexity, to propose a single "this is the best way to make plastic with my proposition" which is a thing that's already there, "recycling grenades" so more of the same....

Asteroid rerolling is less complex than grenade upcycling. Even if grenades are a two ingredient recipe made in assembling machines, out of an ore and a plate, they are still easily above asteroid rerolling, it’s just that basic and easy. And you are taking my words out of context. I didn’t say “vanilla should have a progression from simpler quality methods to more complex ones”. I said that “if vanilla were to have multiple alternative quality methods, the more efficient of them should be the more complex ones”. But that’s not what I’m asking for in my post. Currently, the only alternative quality methods that exist in vanilla are broken and overpowered exploits. I’m not asking for them to be rebalanced, but to be removed. If this were to go through, there would be only one quality cycling method (which is how the quality mechanic was designed anyway) and therefore no kind of progression through multiple methods. That is what I’m arguing for, even if only indirectly. Again, it’s not my primary goal to make quality less diverse, all I want is good game design and balance, which these exploits are in the way of. If patching them decreases the variety of quality, that’s just a side effect, one I’m personally ok with. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the devs to drastically remake the quality mechanic to include more options than upcycling. Maybe the devs will surprise me and do a lot more than just patching the exploits, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect or demand that of them at this moment. If they had any intention to do that, they probably would have before the expansion released. If you want more content, you might find it in mods.

That's just a generic answer which is wrong as you can use space platform orbiting over fulgora to get the coal, no need supply from Nauvis. I was asking for where YOU would make the grenades in your reasonning that explained it was the best way to make legendary plastic with your proposition. You mentionned that you did some calculations, i was wondering which planet you reasonned with, while also suspecting it was not serious. ( this : )

I gave you the answer you asked for. I do grenade upcycling on all of the inner planets except Fulgora, but Nauvis is the best at it. I could generate rare coal for Fulgora in space instead of on Nauvis (or maybe drop common coal to Fulgora and allow it to upcycle it on its surface?), but I found Nauvis easier to scale so I chose it. The calculation I did can be applied to both Nauvis and Vulcanus (where coal is mined with drills). I haven’t done a specific one for Gleba where coal is generated from spoilage and bioflux, but as I said Gleba performs this process at the smallest scale out of all the planets, so I didn’t put too much thought into it.

[crimsonarmy]

Everyone knows most everything in the game becomes easier as progression goes, logisitic with robots, mining with research, the armor progression, the defense, the offense, the scaling, everything ! that's the meaning of progression, so arguing on the principle is just a waste of time. Quality can be the same it's fine x)

None of the things you mention (except for logistics) are comparable to the topic at hand. Offense, defense, armor, mining? You’re comparing these to actual crafting chains? Logistics specifically are within the same realm, but you use bots as your example. But everyone knows that bots are inferior to belts and trains, so this only proves my point. Bots are simpler, but they have lower performance. Just as things should be.

Everyone knows that bots are inferior? Show me a simpler mall than one based on bots. Bots suck at transporting large qualities of items and even then only due to UPS and setup cost. Bots are great when space is tight or when you only need a little.

[CyberCider]

Everyone knows that bots are inferior? Show me a simpler mall than one based on bots. Bots suck at transporting large qualities of items and even then only due to UPS and setup cost. Bots are great when space is tight or when you only need a little.

You’re right, I got a little ahead of myself. They aren’t fully inferior, just lower throughput, that’s what I meant to say. Throighput is the deciding factor most of the time, but it still leaves them with some applications where they are worth using. And Space Age even added some cases where their use is incentivized, such as rocket silos and cargo landing pads.

[mmmPI]

The calculation I did can be applied to both Nauvis and Vulcanus (where coal is mined with drills).

I didn’t put too much thought into it.

You can still show it or what ?

Asteroid rerolling is less complex than grenade upcycling

I don't feel much thought put into this either x)

The calculation was on my PC (forman2 doesn’t work on mobile), which I won’t have access to until later next week. If you would like, I could post the exact gas requirements when I’m able to.

That's just what i'm waiting for btw !

[coffee-factorio]

Currently, the only alternative quality methods that exist in vanilla are broken and overpowered exploits. I’m not asking for them to be rebalanced, but to be removed. If this were to go through, there would be only one quality cycling method (which is how the quality mechanic was designed anyway) and therefore no kind of progression through multiple methods. That is what I’m arguing for, even if only indirectly. Again, it’s not my primary goal to make quality less diverse, all I want is good game design and balance, which these exploits are in the way of. If patching them decreases the variety of quality, that’s just a side effect, one I’m personally ok with. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the devs to drastically remake the quality mechanic to include more options than upcycling. Maybe the devs will surprise me and do a lot more than just patching the exploits, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect or demand that of them at this moment. If they had any intention to do that, they probably would have before the expansion released. If you want more content, you might find it in mods.

I think that it would be unhealthy to presume a player should play with the low rates of return quality usually gives and should be given a technique that is powerful. Say in the way that uranium ammo out of a turret compares to regular ammo out of a pistol. It would not be sound for a player to be given a game item that provides for a six times research bonus with a mechanic that couldn't buy things at a six times rate. And then publish that in the wiki. So I think it's meant to be a puzzle mechanic.

Thats my opinion. I can be wrong.

I think your solution with grenades deserves more credit than the current company is giving it.

As I understand it, you want for there to be one clear method of upcycling. You're at least indicating that the reroll mechanic feels like it is too simple for the rate of return it gives. Lets hear you out.

You can drive the discussion.

[Shulmeister]

No matter where the gas comes from (crude oil, heavy oil ocean, even coal in the few cases where you do that), it’s an utterly tiny amount of resources compared to the coal that was upcycled. In the grand scheme of things, it’s definitely safe to ignore.

And how do you make the sulfur ?

You can't optimize your fluid consumption if you just ignore the gas !

I’m not sure what message this post is supposed to convey. Fluid consumption? Sulfur? I’m reasonably sure the reply is indeed intended for me and not the result of a misclick, but I can’t tell what you’re actually asking me.

It is a question, it is meant to convey my interrogations, more specfically : How would you make legendary sulfur if your proposition is implemented ?

I don't think it is correct to ignore the gas input when making legendary plastic and feel the reasons becomes obvious when considering the case of quality sulfur for blue science. Particularly for those ( this ?) player who think it's important to optimize fluid consumption.

[Shulmeister]

I would consider the thought of the idea well enough to be classic, without obstruction sorry.

The deeds are not for the fairness to the interpretation of the latest attention.

I think no-one caress about optimizing fluid consumption, it's just some non-sense flooded on this thread, to disctract from the fact that the proposition is bad, because it decreases the various build possible ^^.

Decreasing the variety of builds seem to be the goal of the proposition, or at least removing those that are "too easy". I wouldn't say "it's bad", it just sound "unfinished" or "just a quick thought".
No need to be provocative towards the player that do whatever be the reason. I saw you too can reply with random words of your own instead

Everyone knows most everything in the game becomes easier as progression goes, logisitic with robots, mining with research, the armor progression, the defense, the offense, the scaling, everything ! that's the meaning of progression, so arguing on the principle is just a waste of time. Quality can be the same it's fine x)

Yes

Bots suck at transporting large qualities of items and even then only due to UPS and setup cost. Bots are great when space is tight or when you only need a little.

Yes

You’re right, I got a little ahead of myself. They aren’t fully inferior, just lower throughput, that’s what I meant to say. Throighput is the deciding factor most of the time, but it still leaves them with some applications where they are worth using. And Space Age even added some cases where their use is incentivized, such as rocket silos and cargo landing pads.

No. that's still incorrect.

It seem like recycling grenades would the best way to make legedary plastic if the proposition is taken like that , that's just lame, it contradicts the whole argument that is proposed that with progression you unlock alternate process that are more complex and more efficient, because its not super effcient, it's also less complex than asteroid platform , and it's not something that becomes available with progression it's right there at the start. Yet OP is adament at both defending the erronerous claim that things should get "more complex with progression", AND a proposition that removes complexity, to propose a single "this is the best way to make plastic with my proposition" which is a thing that's already there, "recycling grenades" so more of the same....

Probably not, my bet being : it would be better to upcycle the coal at the mining drills. But even if the grenade way is better, i think you have a point, it's not "more complex" than asteroid platforms. That would be inline with robots, it's easier with progression , what do you find wrong in there ?