Please, DO NOT remove space casino

[kromulent]

I'm 100% going to regret replying here, but here it goes anyway I guess.

... in it's unfinished state it just diminishes the overall refined experience of Factorio.

It is finished. The last bit was quality trains.

A real shame they decided to tack on Quality for the Space Age DLC release and then double-down on it being an unfinished part of the game by reasserting they have no idea what to do with it even after 18 months with these non-starter changes.

Quality was the first system implemented in the expansion. It was not tacked on to anything. There are no intentions to change how things work because it *is working how it was intended to work*. I get it; not everyone likes how it works - but it is working how it was intended to work. A huge resource sink for marginally better versions of machines - something that you can use to scale *up* rather than out.

If I had one piece of advice for WUBE it would be to release Quality as a mod and remove it from the game entirely until they are happy it is a fully functional part of the base game experience from start to finish.

That is already the case.

If you are going to release a DLC then make it an experience you have fully planned from start to finish, and in your final updates touching it make sure it is a fully automatable portion of your automation base-building game.

It is as integrated with the start to finish game as it was intended to be: possible at the point you unlock it, but not required. Always an option should you want to dedicate time and resources towards.

Unfortunately, as we've now seen very clearly, "working as intended" is a very different thing from "working well."

[krozu]

Quality was the first system implemented in the expansion. It was not tacked on to anything. There are no intentions to change how things work because it *is working how it was intended to work*. I get it; not everyone likes how it works - but it is working how it was intended to work. A huge resource sink for marginally better versions of machines - something that you can use to scale *up* rather than out.

While I don't fully agree with it, if that's their stance, so be it. No point complaining from dawn to dusk knowing it's working as was envisioned with no intention to change it. Either accept it and move on, or risk looking like a spoiled child.

Doesn't change my stance on the game. Excellent either way.

And if it really bothers you that much, for crying out loud just mod it in again.

[kromulent]

Quality was the first system implemented in the expansion. It was not tacked on to anything. There are no intentions to change how things work because it *is working how it was intended to work*. I get it; not everyone likes how it works - but it is working how it was intended to work. A huge resource sink for marginally better versions of machines - something that you can use to scale *up* rather than out.

While I don't fully agree with it, if that's their stance, so be it. No point complaining from dawn to dusk knowing it's working as was envisioned with no intention to change it. Either accept it and move on, or risk looking like a spoiled child.

Doesn't change my stance on the game. Excellent either way.

And if it really bothers you that much, for crying out loud just mod it in again.

It's better to be considered a spoiled child for stating an opinion than it is to plug the ears and disregard feedback that doesn't agree with the developer's vision.

[emty]

Problem with the current nerf is that it mostly affects quality science production.
For the legendary infrastructure it does not matter.

Legendary calcite is trivially obtainable through moduled mining on vulcanus. No need to upcycle concrete.
No need to throw anything away - acid neutralization accepts any quality. Worst case you can dump uncommon landfill to lava.

Same story with coal - moduled mining is almost enough, MAYBE you need to produce some legendary plastic from epic coal.
Uncommon/rare coal is trivially liquefiable.
In some worst case I can see the need for grenade upcycler.

Iron plates just need more powerful processing unit loop.


So the nerf does not suddenly require "smarter" setups for the infrastructure.
It pushes quality science further into "DO NOT BOTHER" territory, and that cuts options from the game.
So overall it does not sound like "more fun" to me.


If the problem with casino was that people obtained too much good infrastructure too quickly, I believe that the better solution is to lock more endgame stuff behind holmium/lithium/quantum paths.
So there is Assembler 4 and Beacon2 unlocked on Aquilo.

Maybe tone down quality scaling:
- on the regular beacon, so distribution efficiency goes only 1.5->1.9.
- for module1/module2 as well, so legendary 2's are not equivalent to rare 3's

[Hurkyl]

Problem with the current nerf is that it mostly affects quality science production.

Legendary science only really made sense as a UPS optimization to avoid using bots on the cargo landing pad though, right? The unloading bay from #443 satisfies that need.

[h.q.droid]

Legendary science only really made sense as a UPS optimization to avoid using bots on the cargo landing pad though, right? The unloading bay from #443 satisfies that need.

Legendary science is the main legendary material sink. If one wants to build sustained legendary production, it's a natural goal in itself.

[Tertius]

Legendary items are an engineering investment, not a goal by itself. In any economy, you pay for something to get more back in return. The investment for legendary science was to enable higher science throughput on a throttled landing pad, and it paid back with higher science numbers. The investment was required to overcome some hard limit, otherwise you just hit a wall.

This doesn't apply any more. Now, legendary science costs more but doesn't pay anything back, so it no longer makes sense. You can get that high science numbers without paying for legendary science, so it doesn't make sense to make legendary science any more.

[Hurkyl]

I can imagine someone setting a goal for themselves of mass producing legendary materials as an added challenge on top of just building a big factory.

But thinking about it just makes me even more confused. If that's your motivation, what is the point of someone clinging to an EZ-mode for it? And why would nerfing the casino change anything about their motivations for making legendary science?

[kammerer]

Legendary calcite is trivially obtainable through moduled mining on vulcanus. No need to upcycle concrete.
...
Same story with coal - moduled mining is almost enough, MAYBE you need to produce some legendary plastic from epic coal.

You can, but naturally it's a grind mechanics. Which technically solves the problem, but in my opinion is not joyful. Upcycle designs, while maybe they are not that much necessary in the end game due to high mining productivity factor, are at least give you some challenge in the middle game. And for coal and calcite I simple don't see other ways rather than just grinding them through the moduled miners throwing away unneeded subproducts. Hand grenades are feasible but too slow, and for calcite I simply don't see other workarounds.

You can grind basically any raw material this way, but Factorio gives you specific and usually unique workarounds for each type of material by upcycling intermediate products. And each upcycling design has it's own unique challenges you have to figure out. Some materials you can upcycle more or less directly on the same planet. Other require indirect intermediate components. And some even require interplanetary quality logistics (e.g. quantum processors). Some argue that LDS shuffle was broken, but I would say it was kind of an Easter Egg: one type of the quality materials you get for free - why not?

Space quality processing, in my opinion, was not an outlier. It is unique in that, first, it integrates space platforms itself into the quality production design, and second, it gave you an alternative to upcycling, which diversifies upcycling uniformity itself. Many materials are subject to upcycle, but coal and calcite need to be reprocessed in space.

And by removing this recipe, the developers simply didn't gave us other reasonable options than just to grind calcite and coal. Which seems a little odd to me. Why removing an integral part of the gameplay without reasonable alternatives?

Speaking of the quality science packs. I assume that the main UPS bottleneck would be the Promethium science rather than the other pack types. Making of legendary Promethium science is highly inefficient because interaction with asteroids is the most performance-greedy factor. Other types of science packs perhaps are feasible even without the space casinos, but you would stuck on legendary Promethium production much earlier.

[kammerer]

But thinking about it just makes me even more confused. If that's your motivation, what is the point of someone clinging to an EZ-mode for it? And why would nerfing the casino change anything about their motivations for making legendary science?

My main point is that another mode is in fact a grind. Without space casinos, there are no other ways around to produce legendary calcite and coal than just grind them directly with moduled miners. Ok, for coal there are hand grenades, but they are slow. And direct mining is actually more easy mode than space recycling, which returns us to the question of is space casinos are really that "easy". Also, this raises a question about overall production consistency. Space recycling allows us makeing quality copper and iron in the same proportion. But without asteroid quality you can easily produce large amounts of copper (through the LDS shuffling), whereas the iron remains a challenge (even with the EM chips upcycling). I'm asking myself what's the purpose of this imbalance? Both items are Nauvis base raw materials.

I don't mind the challenge, I just don't like grind. Aside from this, I don't think that space casinos is an easy mode. It gives you base Nauvis materials more or less easily. But not in the beginning of the game. It's just the begin of your journey in upgrading everything to Legendary once you passed all base planets (which presumably is not the beginning of the game). The game gives you nice base things on start, but for everything else you still have to design large interplanetary upcycling production.

[mmmPI]

I can imagine someone setting a goal for themselves of mass producing legendary materials as an added challenge on top of just building a big factory.

But thinking about it just makes me even more confused. If that's your motivation, what is the point of someone clinging to an EZ-mode for it? And why would nerfing the casino change anything about their motivations for making legendary science?

Recycling ore at the mining drill is much easier than space casino, and LDS shuffle are still in the game, so when you talk about clinging to an EZ-mode for it , really it's missing the point for me as it confuses what is difficult and what takes times.

But even then, it's not because you want to "make legendary science" as a goal that you will do it in the worst possible way, you may just decide to set this up for yourself and then after the goal is setup, try to use your brain to achieve such goal any way you want, it's a different choice than the choice of the goal, example : player set deathword mode, because they want challenge, but they still use the flamethrower, they are not going to pass on a good method to defend themselves. You can set for yourself the objective to have "legendary science" and when playing come to the realization that such goal means, when studying the options available for you, upcycling ore at the mining drill and doing some LDS setups.

Space casino required players to design a mechanism that balances out the ratio of legendary material produced, like actual recycling loop , you either need to throw away some legendary stuff to prevent clogging or use science as a sink, whereas if you upcyle ore at the mining drill you no longer have to design such feature.

[emty]

I'd prefer that quality science would be viable and made sense as a next step in the game, giving some tangible benefits for increased complexity.

As I said, the casino removal just pushes it into "pointless" territory, without giving anything in return, not even in the ultralate game.

The rest of consequences are:
- instead of using asteroid loop WITH processing unit loop, you need to only use processing unit loop now
- minor collateral nerf for the big platforms

Straight removal instead of tuning just made 3 things worse, does it really make anything better?

(And presence of casino did not remove the necessity of 10 other upcycling loops which you MUST figure out anyway.)

Hand grenades are feasible but too slow, and for calcite I simply don't see other workarounds.

You can upcycle stone furnaces if you really want, but looking at my calcite legendary consumption/vulcanus total production, it's like 1:50000. Normal QM2s already give 1:12500.

For coal you can totally do capture bot into bioflux into nutrients/carbon + biosulfur. But why bother, if mining is enough?

Speaking of the quality science packs. I assume that the main UPS bottleneck would be the Promethium science rather than the other pack types. Making of legendary Promethium science is highly inefficient because interaction with asteroids is the most performance-greedy factor. Other types of science packs perhaps are feasible even without the space casinos, but you would stuck on legendary Promethium production much earlier.

That's true, and it's also fine, not everything has to be legendary. But it could probably be fun if there are Legendary Huge Promethium Asteroids deeper in space.

[MBas]

I also find hard to understand why casino is nerfed and in the same time when there are by far much more broken ways (like materials with productivity research). But if we take just regular recipe with no extra research, which is considered "normal way" I would say

Casino: Loosing 20 percent material per cycle with 2 quality modules in the loop
Batteries production in cryochamber with 8 prod modules: Loosing 25 percent material per cycle with 4 quality modules in the loop (recycler)

Does really casino look like something needs to be nerfed with compare of other regular ways?

[Tertius]

My main point is that another mode is in fact a grind. Without space casinos, there are no other ways around to produce legendary calcite and coal than just grind them directly with moduled miners.

Certainly there is.

Or, actually you don't need it in the first place. The only solid product you craft with calcite is stone. So you don't want to produce legendary calcite, instead you want to produce legendary stone. What do you need legendary stone for? The only useful product I see with stone is the stone brick. So instead of legendary stone, you want to produce legendary stone brick. Now, what do you need legendary stone brick for? For electric furnace, concrete, refinery etc. So this is a useful legendary intermediate. Let's craft legendary stone bricks.

How can we craft legendary stone bricks if not with legendary stone? We upcycle it. Given the multiple recipes, the best method is with concrete, because concrete can be crafted in the foundry with inherent productivity and 4 productivity modules. And there was a recent change with hazard concrete, which recycles into the same ingredients as concrete so we have 2 crafts with the chance of quality increase instead of just 1 as with most other upcycling methods. So it's especially efficient.

So we do this:
- craft stone bricks with electric furnaces and quality modules.
- craft all quality tiers of concrete in foundries with quality modules
- craft all quality tiers of hazard concrete in assembling machines with quality modules
- recycle all non-legendary concrete (we need legendary concrete as well, it's a welcomed byproduct here)
- recycle all hazard concrete
- recycle all iron ore, optionally craft stuff from the occasional legendary iron ore you get; I craft iron plates to consume them.
- feed back all non-legendary stone bricks to the start of the production line
- store legendary stone bricks and legendary concrete
- for more concrete, craft legendary concrete in a foundry with productivity modules
- for other end products requiring stone bricks, provide the legendary stone bricks to whatever mall you maintain

Looks like this, for example:

06-28-2026, 18-35-52.png (3.63 MiB) Viewed 384 times

Now about coal. What do you need legendary coal for? You need it for plastic. Other uses, for example carbon, don't apply because you need carbon only for products you have to upcycle anyway, so you get legendary carbon while you upcycle these products.
But there is a need for legendary plastic, so you can craft low density structures which is an essential legendary resource and the vehicle to legendary steel via LDS shuffle.
So let's get legendary plastic, and you craft this with upcycling low density structures. As byproduct, there is an enormous output of legendary copper plates and some legendary steel. Crafting plastic in a cryogenic plant with all quality modules is quite efficient and a good start for the upcycling loop.

It's a direct upcycle loop, the only difficult thing is to get rid of non-legendary steel and copper, but you will do this on Vulcanus so just throw it into the lava.

- for more legendary low density structures: craft them with legendary plastic and productivity modules in a foundry.
- for more legendary steel: start LDS shuffle (not shown here)

Looks like this, for example: [non-legendary steel and copper is being recycled here, on a real map you would throw it into the lava]

06-28-2026, 18-48-39.png (2.14 MiB) Viewed 384 times

The result is legendary copper, legendary steel, legendary plastic, legendary low density structures.


There is a 3rd thing missing as proper replacement for the space casino, circuit production. You will also perform blue circuit upcycling to craft green circuits and red circuits. Produces vast amounts of legendary green and red circuits, and since you overproduce legendary green circuits you need to recycle them so you get iron plates, copper wire and copper plates (since you need to recycle copper wire to get rid of them).

- for legendary blue circuits, craft them from legendary green and red circuits in a electromagnetic plant with productivity modules.


Looks like this, for example:

06-28-2026, 19-00-56.png (1.29 MiB) Viewed 384 times

The final thing missing is legendary iron plate. It can be upcycled in a somewhat similar manner as the stone bricks, with 3 quality upgrading steps.
- cast iron plates in a foundry with quality modules
- craft all qualities of pipes in a foundry with quality modules
- cast all qualities of underground pipes in a foundry with quality modules
- pick legendary pipes, since they are a valuable intermediate we often need in our mall
- recycle everything else
- pick legendary iron plates

Looks like this, for example:

06-28-2026, 19-08-56.png (2.29 MiB) Viewed 384 times

Statistics: [LDS shuffle not included, so steel production is quite low]

06-28-2026, 19-13-58.png (275.79 KiB) Viewed 384 times

In my opinion, all this is a quite interesting thing to build as a whole and way more fitting to the Factorio vibe than a space casino which used a quasi-exploit as core and build a whole production environment around this exploit instead of a real factory. Because of the latter, players are probably so upset, because not just the asteroid upcycling part is gone, the whole infrastructure around it on the space platform is became obsolete as well.

What I show as alternative, did work before and needed just minor adjustments due to the concrete change (it improved, actually)

[Hurkyl]

I also find hard to understand why casino is nerfed and in the same time when there are by far much more broken ways (like materials with productivity research). But if we take just regular recipe with no extra research, which is considered "normal way" I would say

Casino: Loosing 20 percent material per cycle with 2 quality modules in the loop
Batteries production in cryochamber with 8 prod modules: Loosing 25 percent material per cycle with 4 quality modules in the loop (recycler)

Does really casino look like something needs to be nerfed with compare of other regular ways?

The issue is throughput and breadth of coverage.

Depending on how much asteroid productivity research you have, when making iron plates via metallic asteroid chunks, in 2.0 you get somewhere between a 64x and 600x throughput multiplier from the basic crushing recipe and then smelting into plates. (using legendary productivity 3 modules)

For comparison, were you using those batteries to make legendary EM science packs? Your throughput multiplier is a little under 0.75x.

[coffee-factorio]

I also find hard to understand why casino is nerfed and in the same time when there are by far much more broken ways (like materials with productivity research). But if we take just regular recipe with no extra research, which is considered "normal way" I would say

Casino: Loosing 20 percent material per cycle with 2 quality modules in the loop
Batteries production in cryochamber with 8 prod modules: Loosing 25 percent material per cycle with 4 quality modules in the loop (recycler)

Does really casino look like something needs to be nerfed with compare of other regular ways?

Because if you test batteries, you'll discover it's possible to have a sulfuric acid shortage on Vulcanus. And that's typically the case with most other builds. I can't resolve a random walk on say, processing units by just putting green circuits through a reroller. It becomes immediately apparent when you're doing something that's a non-trivial puzzle or is just made out of misery to scale.

[mmmPI]

In my opinion, all this is a quite interesting thing to build as a whole and way more fitting to the Factorio vibe than a space casino which used a quasi-exploit as core and build a whole production environment around this exploit instead of a real factory.

Also you :

I'm in the process of adding LDS shuffle since it wasn't nerfed

I feel if this is the result of removing space casino, it's not a win for the game imo as LDS shuffle feel worse than the space casinos. It's a bit subjective to mention it's "more fitting the Factorio vibe", to me the infinite ressources are a feature from Space Age and the asteroid shuffling was like the pinnacle of this, so it did felt like factorio "Space Age" eventually , and like a nag to "real grinding game" because you could "easily" game the statistics if you were into late game.

I also find hard to understand why casino is nerfed and in the same time when there are by far much more broken ways (like materials with productivity research). But if we take just regular recipe with no extra research, which is considered "normal way" I would say

Casino: Loosing 20 percent material per cycle with 2 quality modules in the loop
Batteries production in cryochamber with 8 prod modules: Loosing 25 percent material per cycle with 4 quality modules in the loop (recycler)

Does really casino look like something needs to be nerfed with compare of other regular ways?

Because if you test batteries, you'll discover it's possible to have a sulfuric acid shortage on Vulcanus. And that's typically the case with most other builds. I can't resolve a random walk on say, processing units by just putting green circuits through a reroller. It becomes immediately apparent when you're doing something that's a non-trivial puzzle or is just made out of misery to scale.

Not everyone agree on what is an easy method and why apparently x) to me battery can be a "difficult receipe" because if you recycle them you will have copper and iron plate of different quality and possibly different ratios, so unless you make sure you have a buffer to handle it or you have a way to void the extra material to avoid clogging. Overall it is a "recycling loop". Similar to casino. Whereas you could also decide to make them "easily" from just upcycling the ores from the mines to make legendary plate and legendary battery.

Now sulfuric acid shortage on Vulcanus is NOT a thing i would consider problematic, on the contrary , it being a liquid makes it easier because batteries then only have 2 solid component whose temporary divergence in quality ratio from the recycler require a buffer and a mecanism to void. Also it's infinite then since you get it from geysers.

Depending on how much asteroid productivity research you have, when making iron plates via metallic asteroid chunks, in 2.0 you get somewhere between a 64x and 600x throughput multiplier from the basic crushing recipe and then smelting into plates. (using legendary productivity 3 modules)

For comparison, were you using those batteries to make legendary EM science packs? Your throughput multiplier is a little under 0.75x.

Maybe it is my comprehension skills failing me here, but i was under the impression that battery was choosen because it's on purpose a material that do not benefit any research, so it would need to be compared with methods available for players at the same time aka without research if we want to compare meaningfully, because otherwise it was pointed out that there exist other researchs, like those with material productivity ( hum hum LDS ) that would outshine the space casinos.

[h.q.droid]

Maybe it is my comprehension skills failing me here, but i was under the impression that battery was choosen because it's on purpose a material that do not benefit any research, so it would need to be compared with methods available for players at the same time aka without research if we want to compare meaningfully, because otherwise it was pointed out that there exist other researchs, like those with material productivity ( hum hum LDS ) that would outshine the space casinos.

I think they mean battery upcycling for iron plate. I tried that too because the high theoretical yield. It sucked: batteries are impractically slow to make and consume ridiculously large amounts of acid. One of the reasons space casino worked is because they were quite fast: each chunk was worth 400 plates so the average per-plate time cost was quite low.

The same reason for blue chips: it was also too slow for legendary science at +300% productivity with 31% quality. And the byproduct ain't free (in terms of UPS) to dispose either. My base were dumping entire cars of legendary blue chips as holmium byproduct.

For the normal use of base building materials, they work to some extent. They are still a bit slow if you want to build a legendary promethium ship.

[h.q.droid]

My main point is that another mode is in fact a grind. Without space casinos, there are no other ways around to produce legendary calcite and coal than just grind them directly with moduled miners.

Certainly there is.

Or, actually you don't need it in the first place. The only solid product you craft with calcite is stone. So you don't want to produce legendary calcite, instead you want to produce legendary stone. What do you need legendary stone for? The only useful product I see with stone is the stone brick. So instead of legendary stone, you want to produce legendary stone brick. Now, what do you need legendary stone brick for? For electric furnace, concrete, refinery etc. So this is a useful legendary intermediate. Let's craft legendary stone bricks.

How can we craft legendary stone bricks if not with legendary stone? We upcycle it. Given the multiple recipes, the best method is with concrete, because concrete can be crafted in the foundry with inherent productivity and 4 productivity modules. And there was a recent change with hazard concrete, which recycles into the same ingredients as concrete so we have 2 crafts with the chance of quality increase instead of just 1 as with most other upcycling methods. So it's especially efficient.

So we do this:
- craft stone bricks with electric furnaces and quality modules.
- craft all quality tiers of concrete in foundries with quality modules
- craft all quality tiers of hazard concrete in assembling machines with quality modules
- recycle all non-legendary concrete (we need legendary concrete as well, it's a welcomed byproduct here)
- recycle all hazard concrete
- recycle all iron ore, optionally craft stuff from the occasional legendary iron ore you get; I craft iron plates to consume them.
- feed back all non-legendary stone bricks to the start of the production line
- store legendary stone bricks and legendary concrete
- for more concrete, craft legendary concrete in a foundry with productivity modules
- for other end products requiring stone bricks, provide the legendary stone bricks to whatever mall you maintain

Looks like this, for example:
06-28-2026, 18-35-52.png


Now about coal. What do you need legendary coal for? You need it for plastic. Other uses, for example carbon, don't apply because you need carbon only for products you have to upcycle anyway, so you get legendary carbon while you upcycle these products.
But there is a need for legendary plastic, so you can craft low density structures which is an essential legendary resource and the vehicle to legendary steel via LDS shuffle.
So let's get legendary plastic, and you craft this with upcycling low density structures. As byproduct, there is an enormous output of legendary copper plates and some legendary steel. Crafting plastic in a cryogenic plant with all quality modules is quite efficient and a good start for the upcycling loop.

It's a direct upcycle loop, the only difficult thing is to get rid of non-legendary steel and copper, but you will do this on Vulcanus so just throw it into the lava.

- for more legendary low density structures: craft them with legendary plastic and productivity modules in a foundry.
- for more legendary steel: start LDS shuffle (not shown here)

Looks like this, for example: [non-legendary steel and copper is being recycled here, on a real map you would throw it into the lava]
06-28-2026, 18-48-39.png
The result is legendary copper, legendary steel, legendary plastic, legendary low density structures.


There is a 3rd thing missing as proper replacement for the space casino, circuit production. You will also perform blue circuit upcycling to craft green circuits and red circuits. Produces vast amounts of legendary green and red circuits, and since you overproduce legendary green circuits you need to recycle them so you get iron plates, copper wire and copper plates (since you need to recycle copper wire to get rid of them).

- for legendary blue circuits, craft them from legendary green and red circuits in a electromagnetic plant with productivity modules.


Looks like this, for example:
06-28-2026, 19-00-56.png


The final thing missing is legendary iron plate. It can be upcycled in a somewhat similar manner as the stone bricks, with 3 quality upgrading steps.
- cast iron plates in a foundry with quality modules
- craft all qualities of pipes in a foundry with quality modules
- cast all qualities of underground pipes in a foundry with quality modules
- pick legendary pipes, since they are a valuable intermediate we often need in our mall
- recycle everything else
- pick legendary iron plates

Looks like this, for example:
06-28-2026, 19-08-56.png


Statistics: [LDS shuffle not included, so steel production is quite low]
06-28-2026, 19-13-58.png

In my opinion, all this is a quite interesting thing to build as a whole and way more fitting to the Factorio vibe than a space casino which used a quasi-exploit as core and build a whole production environment around this exploit instead of a real factory. Because of the latter, players are probably so upset, because not just the asteroid upcycling part is gone, the whole infrastructure around it on the space platform is became obsolete as well.

What I show as alternative, did work before and needed just minor adjustments due to the concrete change (it improved, actually)

Just one small reminder: all the "real" factories you show here will eventually jam when legendary output were constantly consumed. You need circuitry to dispose excessive intermediates from random swing, which I don't find enjoyable to design.

One of the reasons I prefer space casino over any upcycler setup is that it doesn't need clunky intermediate disposal to avoid jamming, its expected jamming time being exponential rather than quadratic.

[MBas]

I think they mean battery upcycling for iron plate. I tried that too because the high theoretical yield. It sucked: batteries are impractically slow to make and consume ridiculously large amounts of acid. One of the reasons space casino worked is because they were quite fast: each chunk was worth 400 plates so the average per-plate time cost was quite low.

It was just one example out of many giving you both (copper and iron) base resources and which can be created in cryogenic plant (meaning there is 8 + 4 modules in one loop). Roughly speaking EM plant, biochamber or foundry gives you 2 "free" module slots because its productivity is equivalent of 2 productivity modules.

I never used LDS or Blue Circuits exploit before because it seems almost like a cheating. Now I am unsure how to grasp situation when casino is nerfed but productivity research on recyclable materials stays.

And why I mentioned batteries in the first place? I still think it is one of the best options. These 8 + 4 modules is very powerful and can beat many other factors (sulfur acid consumption, high production time) easily because how the series is exponential against module contribution.

See table in https://wiki.factorio.com/Quality espetially the part "crafts" when it should be obvious how much is cryogenic plant powerful on this.

And since preffered way is to have 8 prod modules in cryogenic plant and leave all legendary modules to recycler, you may speed up cryogenic plant so its just all about speed of recycler.

But again, I am not saying it is total op. But the casino is not either. You can use green circuit then. With 5 prod modules so you have

Green circuits: Loosing 31.25 percent of material with 4 quality modules

My guess noone is using this just becouse there is still more powerful (and broken in my opinion) processing unit production.