TL;DR
Quality in Factorio needs a full overhaul to remove gambling elements and make quality progression logical, modular, and player-controlled instead of random gacha-style chances.What?
The way quality is obtained was implemented lazy via the 1% chances when it should have been higher for lower tiers. Yet, having the best chance to get lower quality, only happens when you are end game, especially post game. Meaning we can't even use quality unless we intentionally waste time. In that time, we could just ignore quality and unlock Epic and Legendary plus module 3, to actually have a chance to get higher quality, questioning why in between qualities even exist since we never got to use them.Idea is that uncommon quality items should be accessible once you unlock quality 1, and not have lower odds than getting a legendary post game. (Assembling machine 2 has 2 slots, you start with 2% and can have 4% if lucky and 6% if very lucky, vs any legendary that is from the start higher.) So yeah, as I said, how to get quality was not implemented in a way for people to use quality, but to give an excuse for gambling.
Gambling is an element that many people don't want in Factorio. Do you enjoy waiting and waiting to see if an item randomly turns into higher quality? congrats (/s), you have a gambling addiction. Hope you stay away from gacha games since one day their server will close and you'll lose access to everything you paid for. And this is the point — no one wanted a gacha mechanism in Factorio.
How do we get quality? via a gacha mechanism of gambling, gambling, gambling, that of course involves recycling and getting rid of excess items. The vanilla method of getting quality is that of gacha games, not Factorio.
Any major overhaul mod shows exactly how to get higher mk tier of items. But you know what happens when you combine them with quality? you introduce gambling. Is the ratio the same? yes. Because you see, no one is complaining that it takes a massive amount of resources to get a better item. The issue is not that and never was that. The issue is that we are forced into gambling to get said items, followed by waste management, because of few people who did not seek help for their addiction and insted added it to Factorio, to then go on an pretend "there is no issue, everyone does it", and other mentality you will see and hear, when talking to people with gambling addiction, about their issues and the problems their addiction cause to others. Like ruining Factorio. But hey, use mods, because giving options and alternatives are not happening because how else can we justify that we have no chose but to gamble.... <- mentality of people with gambling addiction.....
Now that hopefully I covered those 2 points, I will come to the actual suggestion... yeah this was all just to point out the situation, blame to all the people with gambling addiction who love the current version.
1st change: quality to not be dependent on space age. Just like how the elevated rails is its own mod, the quality to also be its own, especially since this will allow to add a new tick list.
1st tick list — the very first one is actually the main one that, by default, is actually OFF. Why? because it will say something like "customise quality". Aka if it's off, we will have the current version of the game as it exists, no other settings can be changed (similar to how if you disable pollution or evolution, the sliders can't be adjusted).
If its tick box is checked, we can change the names of quality (sorry, please keep WoW terms to WoW and don't bring them to Factorio), the % of items, and where to unlock quality. Aka a drop list — you select the planet, including unlocked from start.
Same but for recycle, as in, where to unlock it and remove surface condition. Aka people will be able to use recycle even without space age, like overhaul mods that are not compatible with space age, but you still want quality in it and of course the recycle.
Plus, there is another reason why I want the recycle to be able to be accessed sooner. As I said, most of us paid for the expansion in order to have access and use the quality items, but NOT to be forced to gamble and told to use mods if we don't wish to gamble.
So here comes the second overhaul: you add a quality module? Common -> 100% uncommon. And as you can guess, this is kind of too much. This is where the recycle comes in.
The recycle to have a tick box. If this tick box is enabled, the recycle will work very similarly to how the Furnaces work. Just to be clear, I do mean to make it work just like the Furnaces exactly to remove gambling. Aka no, the 25% chance, keep it for yourself. My whole suggestion is about getting rid of gambling.
Idea is: you don't set any recipe. So any item put in the recycle will automatically be used just like how the Furnaces do with ores. This means that stack inserters are even more valuable, plus, combinators via "item is x stack or more", "set filter", and "hand size". See? no gambling and we already use more advanced stuff that the game offers.
So, going forward, to explain why I wrote those 3 terms: the recycle to work like a Furnace that is crafting steel plate. Meaning if you insert one or two iron plates, nothing happens. This is exactly where the "same ratio" but no gambling is. As in, we will need more items (seriously, there are mods that show exactly this).
As I said at the start, quality was implemented lazy. Why? because each item should have had their own ratio. Why is it just as difficult to get an uncommon burner inserter as it is to get an uncommon turret railgun?
Idea is that you put an item in the "tick box on" recycle, it will automatically detect what item it will process. Aka the same item but higher ratio.
For this, we need first of all quality modules. And here is one of the first major changes. There is no % chance. No, what the quality modules will affect is similar to productivity, as in, it will multiply the current item's "value" as an ingredient.
Let me give a simple but exaggerated example of what I mean. We add a quality module 1 that has 1%. Now the recycle will need 100 normal items to give 1 (100%, no gambling) uncommon item. Due to adding more quality modules, we now have 50%. This means you only need 50 to get 1 higher level. And of course, at 100% — 1 normal = 1 uncommon.
However, all this was regarding items that you want to increase the quality via themselves, like iron ore to iron ore. As in, for recipes, things will be implemented differently.
Idea is that when playing, we don't see all these recipes any different from how we see them now. So, if I select a normal quality item, I will need to provide normal quality. If I select uncommon recipe, I need to provide uncommon ingredients.
However, if a quality module is added, how many of said ingredients I need to provide will be increased with the % of quality. And the other change is that despite me selecting a normal quality recipe, the result will be 100% a tier higher (no jumping or otherwise).
So, to give a recap: new recycle tick box on — I put in an uncommon gun turret, it will NOT destroy it, it will ask me for more. So like in case of 2%, I will need to give around 98 uncommon gun turrets, but the result will be a 100% Rare Gun turret.
This way we get rid of any kind of waste management exactly because many don't want gacha mentality in Factorio. You need more or something better? make more, and use more! And like this, we will never have unwanted quality items sitting around until we unlock epic and then legendary exactly because we can upgrade any of them, and we do need more of them for this.
This means we will actually actively build more and more quality items. Especially if the devs realise they added quality for the enemies but the enemies never are quality... as in... we will need quality turrets and more due to the enemy having quality boost.
Any recipe that exists won't be chance on its own. But when we add quality modules, how many we need is increased depending on the quality %. And the end result will be 100% one higher quality item, no junk, no scrap, no nothing because the whole idea is to remove gambling and gacha from Factorio.
We already have waste management forced on us on Gleba, and excess items we need to get rid of on Fulgora and space platform, so yeah, too much is too much. And just to point out, quality on legendary recipes has the same effect as it has right now: nothing, but if you have a mod for higher tiers, then you'll get those.
So, to point out: everything keeps the same ratio, meaning that it's not game-breaking or easy to get higher quality. As mentioned, no jumps. Meaning with a 1% chance, you'll need 10,000 normal items to get 1 rare. And of course, 1,000,000 normal to get 1 legendary. But again, this is for 1%. Since the higher the % is, the fewer items you will need.
As an example, via mod or whatever, 100% quality on the "tick boxed" recycle: 1 normal item, via recycle it 4 items, it will become 1 legendary. Eliminating any gambling element, still making quality hard to access but easier the higher the quality %.
Eliminate any stockpile of quality due to all of them being consumed exactly to get higher rank, including no "ok I need to destroy this turret and now I have its materials I need to waste manage" situation exactly because the new tick box recycle converts same item to itself, exactly to remove the waste management aspect we are forced to do on Fulgora.
And as a reminder, from the start, I said all this is not enabled by default, but you need to tick a "customise quality" that allows you to change how the recycle works, how quality works, the names of the ranks, heck, even add more ranks, and who knows what else. I mean, many mod makers showed how this PAID feature could have been implemented.
I mean, is that not why we always hear "use mods"? because others are able to show that this could have been implemented way differently. But no, we have a 1% chance, because we need gambling... so you either gamble from the start of the game, or waste hours and hours, or just advance the game until you are almost done with the game so that you actually have a chance of getting quality items... yep... very nice... what can I say.
By the way, how about changing the "next quality has only 1% chance"? Like what I wrote. Instead of 100 normal items for 1 uncommon, how about 10 normal items for 1 uncommon item even at 1%? And legendary to need even more items exactly because they are the highest. Aka the ratio of how many lower quality items you need for the higher quality to change according to the rank of the end result quality item.
Why?
Because gambling and gacha mechanics don't belong in Factorio. The quality system was implemented in a lazy and random way that rewards luck instead of engineering, planning, and automation — which is the very essence of Factorio.This overhaul removes gambling completely, keeps ratios logical and balanced, allows more control through configuration, encourages building more instead of recycling randomness, and fits the game’s design philosophy. It gives value to modules, automation, and ratios instead of random chances, and removes unnecessary waste management forced by the current system. Plus no more everywhere you look, recycles, recycles, recycles, and more recycles. At least if there was recycle mk2 and mk3 with better speed, more modules, heck, more % default quality (aka the building itself has % quality) exactly because they are used for quality farming. But no, slow, very slow, and low chance, because you wanted quality? want you got, was gacha gambling, where it takes days to get that shinny ultra rare whatever you won't have access once they close their servers so stop forcing WoW and gatcha elements in factorio and seek help for you addiciton insted of justifing that we need gambling elements in Factorio or else it won't be "fun".
