Ban quality modules from asteroid crushers

[CyberCider]

As I understand it, you want for there to be one clear method of upcycling.

Decreasing the variety of builds seem to be the goal of the proposition,

Conveniently, I’ve already clarified that this is not the case in a previous message. So all I need to do is quote myself:

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.

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.

Quality sulfur for science? You mean quality science? Well now, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the game to accomodate every possible meme/challenge tactic players can come up with. Besides, isn’t the ridiculous difficulty the reason someone would attempt such a challenge to begin with?

Also, I disagree that quality sulfur and plastic are the same in the context that I’m describing. The method I described creates quality plastic from already high-quality coal. Meaning it uses a comparable amount of gas to simply making common plastic. While sulfur doesn’t have a solid ingredient that can inherit its quality from. Any method to generate quality sulfur would have to create large amounts of common sulfur and then process it, while making plastic from quality coal does not require that. It’s simply not comparable.

Although, now that you’ve made me think about quality sulfur for possibly the first time in my life, I think there may be another way? Vanilla sulfur doesn’t have a solid ingredient, but Space Age added biosulfur, an entirely solid-based recipe. It requires bioflux and spoilage, and spoilage can be derived form bioflux. And if you’re attempting a quality science run, you might already have something in mind for quality bioflux, as it’s required for quality lime science. Maybe look into this alternate path, if you haven’t already?

By the way, the whole grenade upcycling thing isn’t really a part of this argument. I simply saw someone say they’re having trouble finding a good metod to make quality plastic, and thought I could give them some helpful advice. I had recently pursued the same problem myself, so I had some knowledge on the topic that I thought the other user might find helpful. A suggestion is all it was, arguing about it was never my intention.

Say in the way that uranium ammo out of a turret compares to regular ammo out of a pistol.

I don’t think that’s a good analogy. Uranium ammo is stronger than yellow ammo, but it requires more advanced resources and a longer process to produce. If I had to make an ammo analogy, I would say upcycling is the regular uranium ammo recipe chain, while asteroid rerolling is an exploit that allows you to make uranium ammo from water instead of the usual process. Does this illustrate my thoughts more clearly?

[CyberCider]

You can still show it or what ?
…
That's just what i'm waiting for btw !

I told you, I cannot post it at the moment because I don’t have access to my PC. If you must know, I’m out of town. It’s not up to me, and it’s definitely not up to you either. I will post it when I’m able to, which should be in a little less than a week at this moment.

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

Are you going to say anything of substance, or just this?

[Shulmeister]

Although, now that you’ve made me think about quality sulfur for possibly the first time in my life, I think there may be another way?

You seem so unfamiliar with the thing you propose to remove that it's hard to take you seriously.

Both plastic and sulfur are similar in that your proposition removes current ways to make them in higher qualty and offer no satisfying alternatives.

By the way, the whole grenade upcycling thing isn’t really a part of this argument. I simply saw someone say they’re having trouble finding a good metod to make quality plastic, and thought I could give them some helpful advice. I had recently pursued the same problem myself, so I had some knowledge on the topic that I thought the other user might find helpful. A suggestion is all it was, arguing about it was never my intention.

I can get that, you only thought about removing stuff from the game, because you don't like them, probably haven't used them at all, and you haven't thought about how people would play the game with what's left, like how to make make sulfur or plastic, because you can't accomodate all the meme, or because you think recycling grenades for plastic is "more complex" than asteroid shuffle, or more desirable as the way to make quality plastic. I'm just going to say i'm not convinced.

[crimsonarmy]

Both plastic and sulfur are similar in that your proposition removes current ways to make them in higher qualty and offer no satisfying alternatives.

Tiny point that doesn't invalidate your argument at all LDS upcycling (with or without foundries) at high productivity can give a decent amount of plastic.

[coffee-factorio]

Say in the way that uranium ammo out of a turret compares to regular ammo out of a pistol.

I don’t think that’s a good analogy. Uranium ammo is stronger than yellow ammo, but it requires more advanced resources and a longer process to produce. If I had to make an ammo analogy, I would say upcycling is the regular uranium ammo recipe chain, while asteroid rerolling is an exploit that allows you to make uranium ammo from water instead of the usual process. Does this illustrate my thoughts more clearly?

The analogy is functioning as intended. I was looking for some common ground. It illustrates your thoughts perfectly, and in the case state you'd be correct.

A well designed upcycle would require more complexity to do things at a better rate.
This would be like bioflux

-> (capture rockets, yumako soil)

-> sulfur, it's worth it to work out if that's a worthwhile route.

I was playing the devil's advocate when I was asking about that. I hadn't really worked it out either (I have a pace ).
I don't see it as harmful if a player has to solve a puzzle in the way it was intended. I'll have to check to see if that solution scales, my business. There's intermediate components to check.

How do I put it... if a player is deprived of a game by settling for less.
It's as bad as if they where handled a poor game.

So if a player where handled a reroller that was as you say, and printed resources too easily.
It'd be as bad as if a player where handed a reroller that was as I say, and just looks like a solution. But doesn't stand up to other mechanics.

"Ban, because I wouldn't use it" would be a tautology because if you realize a method is poor, you don't use it. If you realize someone is stooping their back to pick something up, you tell them not to do that because they'll slowly break their spine.

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

A benchmark would create several questions of validity.

When I provided this person benchmarks and demonstrations of rates equivalent to an article he advanced as a source. He questioned their validity, mocked me and continues to say I speak gibberish.

[CyberCider]

You seem so unfamiliar with the thing you propose to remove that it's hard to take you seriously.

Both plastic and sulfur are similar in that your proposition removes current ways to make them in higher qualty and offer no satisfying alternatives.

First of all, you can’t lump plastic and sulfur together. Quality sulfur is 100% useless in normal gameplay. That’s why I’ve never thought about it, and why there doesn’t need to be an effective way to produce it. And as for plastic, I happened to describe a satisfying alternative in this very thread. What is it that you don’t like about it? It’s not the one and only one either. You can directly recycle coal for improved throughput, or upcycle LDS or blue chips for superior resource efficiency. You can check some other plastic containing recipes for their performance, maybe you will find something that particularly suits you. And as always, if you are not satisfied with the developers’ direction or balancing of the game, you are free to mod the game to your liking. Many such mods exist today and are widely used. Adjustable inserters, large chests, fluid voids, buffed bots, no spoilage, free items… Easy quality from asteroids could simply join this group, remaining accessible to all those players who find vanilla too hard.

I can get that, you only thought about removing stuff from the game, because you don't like them, probably haven't used them at all, and you haven't thought about how people would play the game with what's left

You’re contradicting yourself. How is it possible that I haven’t thought about how people would play the game without quality exploits, when I myself am already playing the game just fine without using them? You must admit that makes no sense.

you think recycling grenades for plastic is "more complex" than asteroid shuffle

Adding quotation marks to it doesn’t make it any less true.

[crimsonarmy]

you think recycling grenades for plastic is "more complex" than asteroid shuffle

Adding quotation marks to it doesn’t make it any less true.

Repeating a false statement doesn't make it any more true. How does it add more depth to the game to slap down another upcycling setup?

[CyberCider]

Repeating a false statement doesn't make it any more true. How does it add more depth to the game to slap down another upcycling setup?

Asteroid rerolling doesn’t add more depth either, but it also breaks the balance by being incredibly overpowered. That’s all there is to my whole argument, really. Asteroid rerolling has comparable performance to upcycling, but has dramatically, dramatically less design substance, and this qualifies it as broken. I don’t like to repeat myself, but there’s really no better way to describe it other than “too simple for how strong it is” and “less complex than upcycling”.

[Shulmeister]

Both plastic and sulfur are similar in that your proposition removes current ways to make them in higher qualty and offer no satisfying alternatives.

Tiny point that doesn't invalidate your argument at all LDS upcycling (with or without foundries) at high productivity can give a decent amount of plastic.

It seemed to me that both asteroid AND LDS shuffling are not used by OP that wants to remove them from the game.

First of all, you can’t lump plastic and sulfur together. Quality sulfur is 100% useless in normal gameplay. That’s why I’ve never thought about it, and why there doesn’t need to be an effective way to produce it.

That's not because you say it that it's true. It's just your opinion with which I disagree. I take your words as an answer though that's enough, when i asked "How do you make the sulfur?" the answer could have been straightforward, you don't and you don't care, and people shouldn't do it either, for no particular reason just you think it's useless. Players should only do plastic. There is therefore no explanations needed for sulfur. No thought was put into it beforehand, and no more after it was mentionned, it's discarded as invalid. It's not very convincing to me either, but at least it's clarified. And i see no contradiction in mentionning those btw.

And as for plastic, I happened to describe a satisfying alternative in this very thread. What is it that you don’t like about it? It’s not the one and only one either. You can directly recycle coal for improved throughput, or upcycle LDS or blue chips for superior resource efficiency. You can check some other plastic containing recipes for their performance, maybe you will find something that particularly suits you

this ?

Grenades are the only recipe that balances resource efficiency and throughput. Raw coal recycling has moderately higher throughput than grenades, but it’s very resource inefficient (which you may choose to ignore, depending on your level of mining productivity). While LDS, blue circuits, red circuits and tesla guns are more resource efficient, but they’re so horrendously slow that scaling them up would be very difficult, due to needing a lot more legendary quality modules to meet a desired throughput. I did in fact math it out using a tool, and I can tell you that grenades are definitely faster than all of these methods.

There are several things i don't like there. The obvious one is that you first said one method was best in a quite insisting manner, and then you contradicted yourself pretending "maybe not" , maybe the suggestion opens up several possibilities; I found that's fairly dishonnest to mention LDS upcyle or blue chip as viable method after you said it was horrendously slow and the scaling of them up would be very difficult.

It would not be very difficult imo, no more than grenade recycling which is just slapping another upcycler, it would force players to do that a lot, which i feel is a decrease in complexity and in variety of builds possible in the end when comparing with the asteroid shuffle.

[crimsonarmy]

Both plastic and sulfur are similar in that your proposition removes current ways to make them in higher qualty and offer no satisfying alternatives.

Tiny point that doesn't invalidate your argument at all LDS upcycling (with or without foundries) at high productivity can give a decent amount of plastic.

It seemed to me that both asteroid AND LDS shuffling are not used by OP that wants to remove them from the game.

LDS shuffle and LDS upcycle are different things. When I said LDS upcycling I was referring to doing something like blue circuit upcycling (you don't get free quality byproducts). Sorry if I wasn't clear.

[crimsonarmy]

Repeating a false statement doesn't make it any more true. How does it add more depth to the game to slap down another upcycling setup?

Asteroid rerolling doesn’t add more depth either, but it also breaks the balance by being incredibly overpowered. That’s all there is to my whole argument, really. Asteroid rerolling has comparable performance to upcycling, but has dramatically, dramatically less design substance, and this qualifies it as broken. I don’t like to repeat myself, but there’s really no better way to describe it other than “too simple for how strong it is” and “less complex than upcycling”.

It does add more depth. Maybe you would be satisfied with having idle crushers, lower asteroid numbers, etc. but that doesn't mean that everyone is. You say it is “too simple for how strong it is” and I wonder why you aren't complaining about something like fusion power. You say it is “less complex than upcycling” and I wonder if you have ever tried making one (especially in the mid game where it is significantly more powerful than alternatives).

Your claim that it is "broken" doesn't make much sense to me. It can be very strong, but when you reach that point you also would be able to do battery upcycling, blue circuit upcycling, etc. all of which are very strong.

[CyberCider]

That's not because you say it that it's true. It's just your opinion with which I disagree. I take your words as an answer though that's enough, when i asked "How do you make the sulfur?" the answer could have been straightforward, you don't and you don't care, and people shouldn't do it either, for no particular reason just you think it's useless. Players should only do plastic. There is therefore no explanations needed for sulfur. No thought was put into it beforehand, and no more after it was mentionned, it's discarded as invalid. It's not very convincing to me either, but at least it's clarified. And i see no contradiction in mentionning those btw.

I mean, I’m open. What uses have you found for quality sulfur, besides your quality science run? After all I did specify “normal gameplay”. The remaining recipes that use sulfur are explosives (consumable, also upgraded by tech) and coal synthesis (would need a very good source of quality carbon to work). If there is any way you made either of these two work, I would like to hear it. Maybe there are simply things that I still haven’t found out about.

There are several things i don't like there. The obvious one is that you first said one method was best in a quite insisting manner, and then you contradicted yourself pretending "maybe not" , maybe the suggestion opens up several possibilities; I found that's fairly dishonnest to mention LDS upcyle or blue chip as viable method after you said it was horrendously slow and the scaling of them up would be very difficult.

Hey, all I did was say which one I prefer personally, and for what reason. I prefer it based on what I value, but different people value different things. I never meant to assert it as the best. I know some people who value resource efficiency far above anything else, who would prefer the methods that I consider terrible. Perhaps my wording in the older post should have been more neutral.

[mmmPI]

Asteroid rerolling is less complex than grenade upcycling

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

Are you going to say anything of substance, or just this?

grenade upcycling is not more complex than asteroid recycling, that seem fairly obvious, if you copy paste many upcycler for many different item that doesn't increase complexity

[mmmPI]

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

A benchmark would create several questions of validity.

And the operation control resort to unecessary boolean complexity, briliant mind think fairwell forward to the next step !

[CyberCider]

grenade upcycling is not more complex than asteroid recycling, that seem fairly obvious, if you copy paste many upcycler for many different item that doesn't increase complexity

Copy pasting has nothing to do with it. In a real game both would be copy pasted many times, so it’s not relevant at all. This is about a single upcycler vs a single cell of asteroid rerolling. Let’s say that’s 15 crushers, one for each recipe, or less if they’re circuit controlled. Compare that to literally any good upcycler blueprint, and you will see how much more stuff the upcycler contains.

Also, different items? You know this is one of the arguments I used against asteroid rerolling, right? Asteroids produce iron, coal, copper (via LDS) and stone (via calcite). One build produces all of that. Let me say it again: One build. While pursuing these resources via upcycling would require many different builds, especially since you would no longer be pursuing strictly basic resources. Blue underground belts, underground pipe casting, cryoplant batteries, big power poles, substations, LDS, blue circuits, grenades, coal recycling, foundry concrete… And there are surely more, these are only my favorites. On top of having baseline more depth than asteroid rerolling, many of these have their unique quirks too. They’re performed in different machines, involve fluids, have multiple steps that throw off the ratio, produce byproducts, rely on each other (for example, blue circuit upcycling has very low throughput for red circuits if it isn’t also supplemented with a source of quality plastic)… You know, one could even make an argument that asteroid rerolling reduces the diversity of builds if it replaces all of these upcyclers with only one build.

[Shulmeister]

LDS shuffle and LDS upcycle are different things. When I said LDS upcycling I was referring to doing something like blue circuit upcycling (you don't get free quality byproducts). Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I see what you mean, it will be possible to recycle LDS like blue circuits, but feel that will be of limited use for plastic, unless you are willing to dump or have a use for the excess the copper and the steel too. It's probably better use for LDS upcycling only. So more of the same , that was my point.

For coal it's easy enough to just upcycle at the ore patch with high mining productivity, someone said no-one cares about ressource efficency anyway right ?

That's not because you say it that it's true. It's just your opinion with which I disagree. I take your words as an answer though that's enough, when i asked "How do you make the sulfur?" the answer could have been straightforward, you don't and you don't care, and people shouldn't do it either, for no particular reason just you think it's useless. Players should only do plastic. There is therefore no explanations needed for sulfur. No thought was put into it beforehand, and no more after it was mentionned, it's discarded as invalid. It's not very convincing to me either, but at least it's clarified. And i see no contradiction in mentionning those btw.

I mean, I’m open. What uses have you found for quality sulfur, besides your quality science run? After all I did specify “normal gameplay”. The remaining recipes that use sulfur are explosives (consumable, also upgraded by tech) and coal synthesis (would need a very good source of quality carbon to work). If there is any way you made either of these two work, I would like to hear it. Maybe there are simply things that I still haven’t found out about.

There's probably a lot of things you haven't found out and it doesn't seem you are very "open" but you are correct saying that explosive are something desirable at higher level of quality for which quality sulfur can be used. And i'm adding, interesting to make on space platform, and more of a challenge than adding yet another upcycler for a single item, or finding a recipe with a "good yield".

Hey, all I did was say which one I prefer personally, and for what reason. I prefer it based on what I value, but different people value different things. I never meant to assert it as the best. I know some people who value resource efficiency far above anything else, who would prefer the methods that I consider terrible. Perhaps my wording in the older post should have been more neutral.

I am able to read the thread myself to know what you wrote, and even make a quotation to highlight the part i found dishonnest : you first claimed the suggestion leads to "recycling grenades" as the best way to make plastic according to some math you did a week ago but you can't show yet maybe in the future. Then proceeded to tell me that the suggestion doesn't lead to a single best solution to make plastic, that there are plenty possible and you took as example some of the methods you didn't consider worth in your first point.

That isn't very convincing when at the same time you explain ressource efficency isn't a concern for you. Then you should just upcycle the coal at the ore patch and leave the grenades alone, why bother with the iron ? I doubt you actually have done this in a game, it sound some math you do on apps when you can't play the game I feel i can recognize it.

Overall i'm not convinced by the proposition because it removes what i see as a rewarding puzzle that players can only access after a few hours, and even if it can be used for "almost all the materials", which is stong, it's also more complex than "more of the same" upcycling loop, which is mandadory for all the materials that can't be obtained in space platforms , like uranium , holmium or tungsten.

[CyberCider]

There's probably a lot of things you haven't found out and it doesn't seem you are very "open" but you are correct saying that explosive are something desirable at higher level of quality for which quality sulfur can be used. And i'm adding, interesting to make on space platform, and more of a challenge than adding yet another upcycler for a single item, or finding a recipe with a "good yield".

My intention was to say that quality ammunitions don’t seem practical whatsoever. Why make a legendary ammuntion, when you can make three common ammunitions to deal more damage at a tiny fraction of the cost? Crossing damage thresholds can be done by infinite tech, so that can’t be the key thing either. Could you point me to some guides or posts that cover this? I’ve never come across any, and a search didn’t turn up much either.

Overall i'm not convinced by the proposition because it removes what i see as a rewarding puzzle that players can only access after a few hours, and even if it can be used for "almost all the materials", which is stong, it's also more complex than "more of the same" upcycling loop, which is mandadory for all the materials that can't be obtained in space platforms , like uranium , holmium or tungsten.

In what world is an asteroid rerolling cell more complex than an upcycler? There isn’t much room for subjectivity here, I find it hard to believe people can really argue over this. Most other people who advocate for asteroid rerolling to stay in the game argue that it’s ok for quality for be simple and trivial. I completely disagree with this, but I can at least understand it as a perspective. But seriously believing that asteroid rerolling has more logistical and design substance than upcycling is something I cannot wrap my head around. I mean, are we talking about the same technique? The one that doesn’t require you to scale your factory and transport network in order to increase your quality production, because it generates all of its own resources? The one that functions like 80% identically to recycling ore?

[Shulmeister]

There's probably a lot of things you haven't found out and it doesn't seem you are very "open" but you are correct saying that explosive are something desirable at higher level of quality for which quality sulfur can be used. And i'm adding, interesting to make on space platform, and more of a challenge than adding yet another upcycler for a single item, or finding a recipe with a "good yield".

My intention was to say that quality ammunitions don’t seem practical whatsoever. Why make a legendary ammuntion, when you can make three common ammunitions to deal more damage at a tiny fraction of the cost? Crossing damage thresholds can be done by infinite tech, so that can’t be the key thing either. Could you point me to some guides or posts that cover this? I’ve never come across any, and a search didn’t turn up much either.

The reason you use quality ammo is the same reason you use anything of quality, yes it cost more ressource, but it's better. I can't help you to find some guide on how to make quality ammo on space platform because i didn't follow a guide, i just played the game and realized that it roughly allows you ship to go faster than without quality ammo , and ressources are infinite in space so it didn't matter to me. I imagine similarly to how you came up with the grenade upcycler for plastic solution , or did you follow a guide for this ?

It's ok if you don't use them, as you said there's plenty of stuff you probably haven't found out yet, but at this point it has nothing to do with the proposition anymore, i was just asking how you make the sulfur with your suggestion, the answer is you don't. ( And no-one should either ).

Overall i'm not convinced by the proposition because it removes what i see as a rewarding puzzle that players can only access after a few hours, and even if it can be used for "almost all the materials", which is stong, it's also more complex than "more of the same" upcycling loop, which is mandadory for all the materials that can't be obtained in space platforms , like uranium , holmium or tungsten.

In what world is an asteroid rerolling cell more complex than an upcycler?

The factorio world and the real one

[mmmPI]

Also, different items? You know this is one of the arguments I used against asteroid rerolling, right? Asteroids produce iron, coal, copper (via LDS) and stone (via calcite). One build produces all of that. Let me say it again: One build.

That's a bad example, calcite is made easily by upcycling at the ore patch, it's a terrible use of space platform imo , and you don't need LDS to produce copper via asteroid shuffling.

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.

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 ?

It says in the underlined part ! There is no more progression, it removes something you can choose to do in a late stage of the game, that is just optionnal. It's gone.

There is a difference between a design that is "simple" to make and a design more "difficult". It doesn't relate to how much you get out of them. Making a space platform asteroid shuffler is more complicated than a simple upcycler. That's comparing the thought you need to put into 1 design for it to work, the amount of understanding required.

That is very different from wether or not the design is "powerful" or "can be used for everything in the game".

I believe people argue that the design is simpler to make, which is just wrong, when in fact what they mean is that it gives outputs that exceed the reward that such amount of thought and investment put into a design should yield.

It's a problem of balance that has been mentionned, but it's incredibly poorly defended, with some bad examples, grenade upcycler ? sulfur production ? comon.

[crimsonarmy]

Overall i'm not convinced by the proposition because it removes what i see as a rewarding puzzle that players can only access after a few hours, and even if it can be used for "almost all the materials", which is stong, it's also more complex than "more of the same" upcycling loop, which is mandadory for all the materials that can't be obtained in space platforms , like uranium , holmium or tungsten.

In what world is an asteroid rerolling cell more complex than an upcycler? There isn’t much room for subjectivity here, I find it hard to believe people can really argue over this. Most other people who advocate for asteroid rerolling to stay in the game argue that it’s ok for quality for be simple and trivial. I completely disagree with this, but I can at least understand it as a perspective. But seriously believing that asteroid rerolling has more logistical and design substance than upcycling is something I cannot wrap my head around. I mean, are we talking about the same technique? The one that doesn’t require you to scale your factory and transport network in order to increase your quality production, because it generates all of its own resources? The one that functions like 80% identically to recycling ore?

With recycling ore I can have a single loop with one "recipe." With a casino I need to balance the recipes on different crushers (remember the input isn't uniformly distributed) and have multiple loops of varying sizes.