Changing a machine's quality chance mid-craft should reset its progress to 0% instead of penalizing its quality chance

[E-102 Gamma]

TL;DR: If a machine is working and its modules are altered such that its chance of producing a quality output changes, it should restart its current crafting operation with the new quality chance instead of continuing uninterrupted and being penalized to 0% quality chance for that craft.

Currently, if one were to e.g. insert a quality module into a machine before it finishes crafting something, the chance of its output's quality being increased is silently penalized to 0%, on the assumption that the player is trying to cheese the quality system. As far as I know, this penalty is never mentioned anywhere in-game (I'm not sure even the wiki makes note of it). However, there are various situations where this can happen under completely normal gameplay circumstances—like scheduling a machine's quality modules to be upgraded by construction robots as better modules become available—which leads to innocent players being unfairly punished.

The simplest way to avoid this penalty is to switch the machine's recipe, change the modules, and then switch the recipe back so that it starts over with the new quality chance. I propose automating this process by simply having the machine restart its operation should it gain or lose a quality module while it is working, with no hidden penalty to its quality chance.

[Alfonse215]

However, there are various situations where this can happen under completely normal gameplay circumstances—like scheduling a machine's quality modules to be upgraded by construction robots as better modules become available—which leads to innocent players being unfairly punished.

The player is "penalized" for maybe 2-3 crafts, depending on how long it takes to get the modules in place. If the modules are that slow to arrive, odds are good they had several crafts before the modules were placed.

Would the player even notice?

This penalty only has meaningful consequences for someone who is trying to game the system (specifically, adding speed modules to beacons after a craft starts). For a normal player, it nothing they'd actually notice. Out of the 100+ crafts, how would they know that the first 3 didn't get quality bonuses?

[E-102 Gamma]

The player is "penalized" for maybe 2-3 crafts...

Why the scare quotes? If the machine's chance of producing a higher-quality item is 0% where it might have otherwise been 10% or 20%, that's a penalty. Are we in disagreement on this point?

Would the player even notice?

Your point being that the penalty is insidious? I agree. There is no indication whatsoever that an item didn't get a quality upgrade because a module was added or removed. I certainly would have noticed if that Quality Module 2 had turned out to be Rare, though.

Out of the 100+ crafts, how would they know that the first 3 didn't get quality bonuses?

You assume that a machine will be crafting a great many items; but what about expensive items that are needed in only small quantities, such as nuclear reactors? Suppose a new player is crafting his first rocket silo. Should he be punished (again, silently) for the "blunder" of putting the ingredients into the assembling machine and allowing it to begin crafting before inserting quality modules?

I'd like to know why you advocate against my suggestion. Would it not be just as effective as the current behavior at preventing cheese strats, while being more fair and intuitive? Do you prefer that the game assume the worst of you and penalize you without telling you after the fact or warning you prior? Your argument seems to boil down to, "the current mechanics don't suck that much." But, like... what if they just didn't suck? Perhaps your concern is the amount of time it would take the developers to make this change. How about we let the devs themselves decide what is and isn't worth their time? They've made much smaller changes than this before.

[boskid]

I am throwing this topic straight to outdated because it is based on incorrect assumptions: you are saying that by inserting quality modules the penalty kicks in at full power and quality chance drops to 0. First, penalty only applies when quality is decreased, second, the penalty is proportional to how much the quality effect was decreased. Quality chance at the end of crafting cycle is effectively based on lowest quality effect value during entire craft. Also i am not sold by the idea of restarting crafting: first, it would cause problems with mods that assume that for certain amount of energy you can finish certain amount of crafts, second it would make it easy to automate productivity exploits by having a beacon with speed modules (since they have negative quality effect) constantly turned on and off messing with quality effect restarting the craft which means ingredients would not be fully consumed while bonus products were being given as the productivity bar was charging.

-- edit:

To make sure we agree on basics, 2.1 that is currently in experimental behaves the way as i described. If you are playing on 2.0, this behavior may be different.

[E-102 Gamma]

you are saying that by inserting quality modules the penalty kicks in at full power and quality chance drops to 0.

[...]

To make sure we agree on basics, 2.1 that is currently in experimental behaves the way as i described. If you are playing on 2.0, this behavior may be different.

The behavior is indeed as extreme as I described it in the current main branch version (2.0.77), as confirmed by my own testing. I'm glad to hear that it has since been toned down, though rather bewildered as to why I am only just now learning of this, since I have read through all of the 2.1.x release notes so far.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to explain the complications that make the current game behavior necessary. I'm still disappointed, but at least I get it now. My one remaining concern, though, is whether or not this quirk of the quality system is communicated to the player in-game.

[boskid]

Its possible that this change was not in the changelog because it was done as part of item product quality control feature. It was hinted in 133486. For the purpose of product quality control, since a base quality of a product may be different than recipe quality, i had to decouple quality roll computation from random generator call which means by having value from random generator available on the crafting machine while quality effect is reduced, it was possible to recompute quality roll using the same rng value but lower quality effect value.

[E-102 Gamma]

I see. Thanks again for your time.