Concrete should take 10 times less times to recycle or give back refined concrete loop

[Erfar]

It just stupid that recycling look at times required to produce 10 blocks of concrete and calculate time to recycle based on this whole recipie instead of 1/100th of it

[radical_larry]

I agree. Same complaint for nuclear fuel cells (not the depleted ones), raw lithium, bioflux, biter eggs, sulfur, and whatever else is crafted in batches of >1

[Duck986]

+1

[nzer]

According to the devs they discussed concrete recycling not taking the 10x recipe output into account during 2.1's development and decided it was intended.

I'd like to know what the reasoning for that was, and why they thought it was necessary to increase the time needed to void concrete on Fulgora by a factor of 10 in 2.1 by a) not fixing this and b) changing hazard concrete to prevent it from being used to void concrete more efficiently.

[waterBear]

Absolutely not.

This complaint dominated discussion on Reddit for a while, and I have not heard a compelling reason beyond "I was using it before and now my factory doesn't work." That does suck, but it's not a balance argument.

I am currently processing something like 35+ stacked turbo belts of scrap on Fulgora without using this trick (or any other trick). There are people out there doing 10x as much as me. There *are* designs that can easily handle all the concrete you produce. You just have to find them.

[robot256]

I am currently processing something like 35+ stacked turbo belts of scrap on Fulgora without using this trick (or any other trick). There are people out there doing 10x as much as me. There *are* designs that can easily handle all the concrete you produce. You just have to find them.

That is not a balance argument either. You could make 1000x science the default and say "just build more machines". The question is what is fun to play, what is intentional, and how are the players told/shown this intention.

You can argue that concrete should take longer to recycle because it is so dense. Certainly I agree that hazard concrete should have the same recycling recipe as regular concrete.

But from a neutral perspective on the architecture, the problem is that the "number of items per craft" in the recipe definition is being implicitly repurposed to become "how much harder this item is to recycle than it is to make." If the devs want concrete specifically to be 10x harder to recycle than other items, they should do it in a way that doesn't make every other multi-output recipe suffer the same effect by default.

[waterBear]

But from a neutral perspective on the architecture, the problem is that the "number of items per craft" in the recipe definition is being implicitly repurposed to become "how much harder this item is to recycle than it is to make." If the devs want concrete specifically to be 10x harder to recycle than other items, they should do it in a way that doesn't make every other multi-output recipe suffer the same effect by default.

What you're saying is that hazard concrete made concrete an exception and not a rule. They didn't change anything about any other recipe. And being harder to recycle than other outputs is also not a problem. Some things can be harder to recycle than others (like steel).

If you really need a cheese to void concrete, there are ways. I saw someone using cargo landing pads to achieve the exact same end result and that seems workable. It comes with a cost (being the other input materials, some of which you need like blue circuits) which makes it work better.

Fulgora is designed in such a way that you have to choose what to recycle. Blue chips you need for rockets, for their green circuits (for science), and for the electromagnetic plant. So choosing to spend them just to void concrete faster makes it an interesting trade.

Having a magic "recycle concrete 10x faster" button with no penalty was obviously far too easy and not an interesting trade. You should just always do it and turn your brain off.

There's your balance argument.

[macdjord]

+1 on fixing the recycle time of concrete.

[h.q.droid]

+1 on fixing. It's more inconsistency than balancing to me, and it's not just concrete. At least battery and rail are also affected.

[illakunsaa]

Personally I've never had problem with recycling. I just build couple extra recyclers and stop thinking about it.

A funny I idea came up with is to hook up a wire to a land mine and have it explode when a chest is full hopefully destroying the chest with items you want to void.

[nzer]

This complaint dominated discussion on Reddit for a while, and I have not heard a compelling reason beyond "I was using it before and now my factory doesn't work." That does suck, but it's not a balance argument.

"This existed for 18 months and wasn't unbalanced" is, in fact, a balance argument.

Meanwhile, I've heard no compelling arguments in favor of the change. "I wasn't using it anyway" isn't compelling, and ironically is not a balance argument. Lots of people do lots of suboptimal things, either by choice or by ignorance, and are able to muddle through the game just fine. That doesn't mean the devs should start removing random mechanics simply because it's technically possible to ignore them.

In terms of design, allowing faster recycling by crafting something up first isn't just rewarding experimentation and mastery, there's also literally an entire game system designed around it. Calling it cheese suggests a flawed understanding of the game itself.

What you're saying is that hazard concrete made concrete an exception and not a rule. They didn't change anything about any other recipe. And being harder to recycle than other outputs is also not a problem. Some things can be harder to recycle than others (like steel).

On the contrary, hazard concrete is only now an exception, as it's now the only item in the game that recycles to its precursor's ingredients. And guess what, steel can be crafted into steel chests to be recycled faster. As can iron be crafted into iron chests. Just like concrete and hazard concrete.

[worph]

I just tested Fulgora on the newest experimental version and I really do not get why there is even an argument about this issue NOW.

Basically not a lot was changed.
You can still use hazard concrete to void concrete fast. You just have to deal with bricks and iron ore instead.
Coincidentially, this is kind of great for quality, because the iron (and brick) coming out can be upcycled almost infinitely to whatever your heart desires.

I understand the general inconsistency about steel chests not recycling to iron ore, and batch-crafted items taking relatively longer to recycle in general.
But the outrage is really weird because it seems the new system is essentially the same as the old, or even better in some circumstances.
Seems many people just read the changelog and didn't even check it out properly.

I personally like it so far, although I can see the inconsistencies and am not a fan of them either.

[nzer]

You can still use hazard concrete to void concrete fast. You just have to deal with bricks and iron ore instead.

No you can't? Hazard concrete now has the same recycle time as concrete, and recycles to the same products.

[worph]

Alright, I guess I was not observant enough. It apparently takes the same time as concrete also, not just the same results.
But I could have sworn that this was a much bigger issue in the past, huh. The fact that I didn't notice should say something about the change.
Sure it takes longer than other items, but nothing a few more recylers can't solve.

It's still significantly faster than steel and the positive effect on quality really helps.
Again, still not a fan of the inconsistencies as such, but it's really not that bad.

[nzer]

Yes it's not that bad. But also, "it's not that bad" isn't a reason to make a change like this, which introduces inconsistencies and harms the player experience for no discernible reason.

Steel is an interesting point of comparison, because crafting up to steel chests to recycle it faster is literally the same way hazard concrete was being used, and steel chest recycling wasn't changed.

[worph]

Have you considered, that they did this not to nerf concrete recycling, but to give us an alternative to space casinos at least for iron ore?
Because if they did it to nerf concrete recycling (as you and most other people discussing this seem to imply), they would have also done something about iron and steel chests (IMHO). Which is indeed an interesting observation.

[Hurkyl]

I conceptualize the hazard concrete change mainly by the fact hazard (refined) concrete is basically a glorified UI element, sort of like how red/green cables and spidertron remotes were actual items you had to craft in 1.x. (except the hazard concrete is for cosmetics rather than being functional)

So when there's an odd interaction that gives you a gameplay advantage from its existence as a recipe, it doesn't feel particularly odd to me for it to be patched out.

[worph]

But the patch made the use of hazard concrete more useful in terms of quality.

Old version

--> -->

New version

--> --> ( + ) -->

And that is assuming you wanted to maximize quality concrete, which you likely wouldn't necessarily want.
Looking at more complex constructions this becomes better with every step, because it gives you another source of raw iron ore that will be of higher quality in many cases already, because there are much more steps before you get it on Fulgora.

1. --> --> 2. --> --> 3. --> 4. --> 5.

Compared to conventional mining:
1. --> --> 2.

I am absolutely convinced that this is not a nerf to concrete recycling but a buff to quality iron production on Fulgora.

However, I would totally be fine with them removing hazard concrete as an item and treating it similar to red/green wires that consume a concrete instead, just so wen can have a clear answer.

[thedoh]

It is far more efficient to do concrete recycling/upcycling on Vulcanus than it is, or would be on Fulgora. The limiting factor is only the upcycling of calcite, which is extremely abundant on Vulcanus. I've had this loop running for a long time and I'm drowning in stone bricks. Anybody need 2 million legendary stone walls or 4 million legendary stone bricks?

Though, that said, it's better to use iron/steel chest upcycling as a byproduct of purple science production on Vulcanus. In fact, my 120 purple science/sec builds on Vulcanus demand me to void molten iron (or copper but that would be silly) to get enough stone for the science. It just made sense to use the excess molten iron to upcycle.

Point is: Using concrete to do this on Fulgora is so wildly inefficient compared to anything you could do on Vulcanus. That you can do it is similar to suggesting that you can technically use individual buildings to beat the game, but it doesn't mean you should.

[nzer]

I am absolutely convinced that this is not a nerf to concrete recycling but a buff to quality iron production on Fulgora.

Then you are absolutely wrong, because it is objectively an enormous nerf to concrete recycling. The suggestion is mildly ridiculous, frankly, because iron ore is not useful on its own and all of its downstream recipes can be better targeted with other methods.