Quality levels completely break factory

[mmmPI]

The sole exception is Gleba Science packs, which start at 100% freshness and lose science value over time. At higher quality tiers, the decrease in science value from time becomes much more noticeable.

So it is possible I just never noticed that Gleba Science Packs can start at less than 100% freshness?

It seems more likely to me that you decided to make a short wrong and easily disproovable claim on a different topic than quality expecting some contradiction about it to derail the thread even more. The second part of your sentence is also wrong, at higher quality the science pack have more duration, so the decrease in science over time is less noticeable. It's been the pattern from your first post it' s gonna be increasingly harder to believe it's random and not trolling imo. Still no picture from the problematic setup makes it hard to picture your case about quality .

[XT-248]

You seem like you know what you're doing. You're polite as someone who got a radically different product than they were expecting can be. The product is, by my own understanding, meant to be a challenging puzzle. Love to talk about how this stuff falls apart but hard to do that without a common set of metaphors or language. Top down planning is normally the way to go, that was the standard in 1.1.x.

The thing with challenging puzzles is that at some point, someone is going to stop having fun with the process of figuring it out. Another scenario is when people figure out the puzzle but don't have fun figuring it out and solving it; I obviously fall into this category.

Both quality and spoilage can be like that for many people. See the original post for a simple example of someone not having fun with figuring out the "quality puzzle."

[worph]

Still no picture from the problematic setup makes it hard to picture your case about quality .

Also, my current work-in-progress Gleba factory is like this now and far more stabilized at a higher production rate, but it requires more material to set up than I wanted, which is why I am looking to downsize. Some option includes but not limited to removing beacons and expanding the bioflux production line. I still haven't made the necessary modifications for it to self-restart from scratch.

grafik.png (2.94 MiB) Viewed 380 times

From this post. I found it enlightening. "Quantity isn't quality" hits extra hard in this context.

For better readability:

grafik.png (2.32 MiB) Viewed 371 times

Some of my personal highlights:

• Nutrients via bots everywhere, but then also on belts and the belt is supplied by bots.
• Fully backed up spoilage belt. (top right)
• Single-side jelly-belt inserting over other jelly already on the belt.
• Spoilage everywhere.

All in all, if this design is any indication, I am fully unsurprised with how this thread has been going. No wonder the factory is hard to diagnose.
But seeing 6-digits numbers in production means I must be doing everything correctly, right? /s

[coffee-factorio]

Still no picture from the problematic setup makes it hard to picture your case about quality .

Also, my current work-in-progress Gleba factory is like this now and far more stabilized at a higher production rate, but it requires more material to set up than I wanted, which is why I am looking to downsize. Some option includes but not limited to removing beacons and expanding the bioflux production line. I still haven't made the necessary modifications for it to self-restart from scratch.
grafik.png

From this post. I found it enlightening. "Quantity isn't quality" hits extra hard in this context.

For better readability:
grafik.png

Some of my personal highlights:

• Nutrients via bots everywhere, but then also on belts and the belt is supplied by bots.
• Fully backed up spoilage belt. (top right)
• Single-side jelly-belt inserting over other jelly already on the belt.
• Spoilage everywhere.

All in all, if this design is any indication, I am fully unsurprised with how this thread has been going. No wonder the factory is hard to diagnose.
But seeing 6-digits numbers in production means I must be doing everything correctly, right? /s

Sometimes tolerance is saying: "The nice men provided constructive criticism but he appears to have put beacons in the wrong place. They aren't fully covering his buildings."

[mmmPI]

Still no picture from the problematic setup makes it hard to picture your case about quality .

All in all, if this design is any indication, I am fully unsurprised with how this thread has been going. No wonder the factory is hard to diagnose.

I believe that is still unrelated to quality though ^^

[XT-248]

I found it enlightening. "Quantity isn't quality" hits extra hard in this context.

What do you mean by "enlightening"?


Those are Gleba Science Pack biochambers with productivity modules, and the picture shows them producing 349 Gleba SPM steadily for hours.

They have beacons, in contrast to prior claims that I don't use beacons at all. You made my case for me on this front.

Some of my personal highlights:

Sure. I will respond to those highlights individually.

• Nutrients via bots everywhere, but then also on belts and the belt is supplied by bots.

Incorrect. You can see in the Gleba Science Pack production area that there are Bioflux-to-Nutrients Biochambers. Those nutrients from those same biochambers are then inserted directly into Gleba Science Pack and Pentapod Eggs biochambers. There are no chest requests for nutrients for Pentapod eggs, and I have ALT mode on!

Nutrients are not "supplied" by bots everywhere. This was done to have a secondary, faster way to kickstart biochambers at certain points rather than a fully dedicated delivery logistics. Some biochambers not pictured have requestor chests for nutrients.

• Fully backed up spoilage belt. (top right)
• Spoilage everywhere.

This was a sandbox environment save game. No one in their right mind would care if spoilage is "backed" up or not at all.

Furthermore, I looked, and I don't see any blocked belts. I do see a partially filled but not completely filled spoilage outlet where you indicated to look.

The spoilage belt goes to a burning area that can handle more spoilage than what you can see can potentially make.

• Single-side jelly-belt inserting over other jelly already on the belt.

How is that a problem? This is from a slightly older version, and I've made a few tweaks since then.

For the inserters that take out the jelly. I modified them after the screenshot was taken so they don't fully saturate the belt. Like this:

Code: Select all

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Anyone can tweak the inserter value higher or lower to match the length between the jelly biochambers and other biochambers.

All in all, if this design is any indication, I am fully unsurprised with how this thread has been going. No wonder the factory is hard to diagnose.
But seeing 6-digits numbers in production means I must be doing everything correctly, right? /s

This is a fully functional ~400 Gleba SPM factory that has been modified since the screenshot was taken. What "6-digit number"?

The factory isn't that hard for me to diagnose; just make changes and tweaks as needed, then run it. See if any problems show up.

I have no clue what you are talking about. Perhaps I am better off not knowing at all.


Perhaps it is time for you to move on because you are struggling with whatever it is that you are struggling with.

[worph]

I believe that is still unrelated to quality though ^^

You are right.


Entertain one thought for a second though: If you struggle with the core gameplay loop, you will struggle more with quality.

It's actually kind of eye opening for me. Some players can play factorio for thousands of hours, copy and paste trainstations, smeltstacks, science blueprints and never really improve as a player. Some people play chess or league for 1000s of games and are still at the elo floor. I would argue similar people will analogously struggle with factorio, with one exception: They don't notice.

But when they try advanced features, such as quality or designing something for Gleba themsevles without using other peoples blueprints they crash into a wall (paradoxically blueprints are less enticing on Gleba, because for someone like that foreign blueprints are hard-to-impossible to trouble shoot).

It makes sense that for many people Gleba and/or quality are dissuasive, some out of preference which is whatever, some for lack of skill. But being told "gid gud" by someone on the forums goes diametrically against what the game is telling them:
"I am producing 1milion green circuits on nauvis" or "I have played for 3000 hours" or "I have been to the shattered planet with someone elses blueprints". To a certain demographic of the playerbase there might be a huge congnitive dissonance between how good they think they are versus how well they actually understand the game. And at the core of this lies the "problem" that the game can be deceiving.

So maybe the cry for more onboarding is maybe useful in some sense, but different from what those people might think how it should look like.
One example for illustrative purposes - I don't necessarily think this should be in the game like this:
Agricultural science is unlocked via a triggertech that requires the player to craft 100 bioflux. This could be changed to say: ".. in a single biochamber, without anything spoiling in between".

And from this line of thinking, I am sure, something can be learned about quality.

Epic/Legendary quality could be combined with a an additional trigger tech, on top of the research itself - again, just for illustration:
"Before being allowed to research epic quality the game could require you to process 200 rare items in a recycler" (not great, because then you would need Fulgora to get epic, too. Currently one only needs to go to Gleba)
or
"Before being allowed to research epic quality the game could require you to craft 100 rare recipes" (so actually craft something at rare quality, not just using quality modules at the end of the line to skim some upleveled furnaces/asteroid collectors/turrets/etc.)
For an advanced player this is merely a small distraction, but for a beginner this might provide enough motivation to interact with those mechanics with more care and in a more focused manner.

In my personal opinion, there is not much to be done, but clearly some people could use some more guidance/would benefit from the game telling them: "You have not mastered certain aspects of this game, here are is a rough pointer how to improve".

[mmmPI]

In my personal opinion, there is not much to be done, but clearly some people could use some more guidance/would benefit from the game telling them: "You have not mastered certain aspects of this game, here are is a rough pointer how to improve".

Having your factory inexplicably stop from time to time and being unable to diagnose appears to be such pointer toward "things yet to be mastered", judging from what quality made OP felt, "what am i missing ? " they ask. Unfortunatly, other player do not see it the same and can't entertain the idea that maybe they are missing things before complaining the game need be changed and even when being explained those things they will ignore, complain about other non sensical stuff, make irrelevant proposition and overall pollute unrelated thread.

It's beyond what the game can fix at this point.

[coffee-factorio]

The factory isn't that hard for me to diagnose; just make changes and tweaks as needed, then run it. See if any problems show up.

I have no clue what you are talking about. Perhaps I am better off not knowing at all.


Perhaps it is time for you to move on because you are struggling with whatever it is that you are struggling with.

You are, as a reflex, suggesting other people are off topic when you don't get your way.

I don't know why that is. But it's very easy to identify as a personal issue you have.

It is such a reflex that when we first discussed things even when I agreed with your premise you accused me of being off topic.

There are five technical commentators in the chat who will happily call you out for individually derailing this thread, even beyond the broad scope of "it's quality so it's completely breaking a part of the factory". To the point where modules then beacons, were sort of yielded to "but spoilage"!

Humoring you resulted in any amount of DM's coming into a chat, regardless of the context. So it's not for lack of being nice.

Tolerance is not an infinite experience, but rather a finite experiment. I think we've all, in our ways tried our version of that experiment.

Next on the agenda? If we are not satisfied with the slight diversions towards other places?

[XT-248]

You are, as a reflex, suggesting other people are off topic when you don't get your way.

I don't know why that is. But it's very easy to identify as a personal issue you have.

It is such a reflex that when we first discussed things even when I agreed with your premise you accused me of being off topic.

I laid out some basics for conversing a while ago. One of them is to not make it personal.

If someone doesn't like something I have to say, there is no reason to comment about me as an individual who made the point. Make the response about what I have to say instead.

I laid out the basics for a reason: when people don't follow them, the expected outcome is chaotic and uninteresting.

Tolerance is not an infinite experience, but rather a finite experiment. I think we've all, in our ways tried our version of that experiment.

I have had to tolerate plenty of unrequested personal comments across several conversations. From my perspective, when individuals make personal or unkind remarks, it often suggests they may not be interested in offering support.

I have made an effort to treat all the commentators I read and respond to with respect. However, I have noticed that a few individuals have not always shown the same level of respect in return.

[mmmPI]

I have made an effort to treat all the commentators I read and respond to with respect. However, I have noticed that a few individuals have not always shown the same level of respect in return.

I disagree, i think you are receiving much more respect than you are giving. It's kinda disrepectful to contradict people when you have no clue on what you are talking about, like with beacon, or with quality, or with the freshness of Gleba's pack, or the hallucinated timeline. Since none of what you said on the thread appeared true despite the assertive tone and all the doubling down, nor relevant, nor polite, but just baseless accusation, empty propositions , or ridiculous question to which you ignore the answer , it's expected that at some point people adapt their behavior and start talking either with very simple word, or just make the remark that you're being particularly obtuse. It's not a lack of respect it's a factual observation imo. You may feel in hurt in your ego that other players suggest you have a lot to learn on the game , but that again is not a lack of respect, it's a factual statement that appears grounded in multiple evidence. Considering the childish behavior you've been having on this thread there is very little likelyhood you are willing or able to assess the situation objectively, so it's even brave and selfless from other people to try and explain to you the amount that you are missing on, definitely raising the bar of the discussion and making it very unfair that you'd be the one claiming there is a lack of respect somewhere.

And what about the unfairness of the criticsm ? How unfair it is to complain that you can't fix your factory and blaming the game when at the same time you ignore the main elements of it ? If you don't even know that science pack uses the freshness of their product, how can you be expected to debug your factory ? It's like trying to correct some math you never learned or understood in the first place. And then complaining the math should be made easier. That's a situation where anyone i believe would re-asses their initial proposition. Having missed such a thing at least would qualify as "missing the basics" and warrant an apology, certainly after having insinuated that the two different players pointing out the mistake were wrong themselves in quite the derogatory and provocative manner.

If someone doesn't like something I have to say, there is no reason to comment about me as an individual who made the point. Make the response about what I have to say instead.

You haven't made any point there. It's only a compilation of your alledged intent that maybe you think is useful to explain a behavior that otherwise would appear more malicious than uninformed. But there is nothing to adress that wouldn't be personnal. This is basically a paradox since there is no relevant point made about the game and that may very well be the cause of the remark you receive , there wouldn't be a proper way to formulate such remark.

And that's beyond the obvious lack of respect for the etiquette or OP you are showing by constantly polluting this thread about quality and Fulgora with your unrelated problems about Gleba.

This is beyond wether what you say is like or disliked, when the statement are factually incorrect, even without any personnal feeling, you can expect them to be corrected by other people.

[worph]

I disagree, i think you are receiving much more respect than you are giving. It's kinda disrepectful to contradict people when you have no clue on what you are talking about, like with beacon, or with quality, or with the freshness of Gleba's pack, or the hallucinated timeline. Since none of what you said on the thread appeared true despite the assertive tone and all the doubling down, nor relevant, nor polite, but just baseless accusation, empty propositions , or ridiculous question to which you ignore the answer , it's expected that at some point people adapt their behavior and start talking either with very simple word, or just make the remark that you're being particularly obtuse. It's not a lack of respect it's a factual observation imo. You may feel in hurt in your ego that other players suggest you have a lot to learn on the game , but that again is not a lack of respect, it's a factual statement that appears grounded in multiple evidence. Considering the childish behavior you've been having on this thread there is very little likelyhood you are willing or able to assess the situation objectively, so it's even brave and selfless from other people to try and explain to you the amount that you are missing on, definitely raising the bar of the discussion and making it very unfair that you'd be the one claiming there is a lack of respect somewhere.

And what about the unfairness of the criticsm ? How unfair it is to complain that you can't fix your factory and blaming the game when at the same time you ignore the main elements of it ? If you don't even know that science pack uses the freshness of their product, how can you be expected to debug your factory ? It's like trying to correct some math you never learned or understood in the first place. And then complaining the math should be made easier. That's a situation where anyone i believe would re-asses their initial proposition. Having missed such a thing at least would qualify as "missing the basics" and warrant an apology, certainly after having insinuated that the two different players pointing out the mistake were wrong themselves in quite the derogatory and provocative manner.

100% agree. Thank you!
I personally think it's as good a time as any to close this thread now (one could argue the appropriate moment has passed some time ago already).

[XT-248]

I am going to return to the topic of guidance on both quality and spoilage mechanics.

I had a chance to play a new game fairly recently. I was impressed with their guidance; I think some lessons from how it guides players could carry over to quality and spoilage mechanics.

This is an automation video game, and the first thing the game does is give you a request for X items. The players had to search the tech tree to find the item and work backward to the first step. Then, once that first request is completed, the next request is for a different item that requires more tech and guides players to the next step. Repeat and rinse. Only two steps from spoilage's experience does anything remotely like this; all other steps could have been done accidentally without building a factory.

The way that request worked encouraged more critical thinking and experimentation than spoilage from Space Age did. Quality could also benefit from a more open request like "craft an item of one next uptier" or something to that effect. Right now, nothing prompts people to try quality mechanics because it's opt-in.


If you have something interesting to add, I am willing to listen and talk.