Factorio Forums

CyberCider wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 2:29 pm Here is the .fjson file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VoC3dD ... drive_link

isn't public ?

Shulmeister wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 5:23 pm isn't public ?

Oops Fixed now.

CyberCider wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 7:54 pm

Shulmeister wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 5:23 pm isn't public ?

Oops Fixed now.

Not sure how to use this, that doesn't constitute a good demonstration for the case of sulfur.

evandy wrote: Sun Aug 24, 2025 4:06 pm Thus, I find the argument that it makes "everything" easy more than a bit disingenuous - you still need plenty of upcyclers. IMO, there is nothing wrong here with asteroid recycling. Go talk about 300% productivity and the LDS shuffle if you want a bug to complain about...

It seem like an emergent gameplay mechanic that makes quality more diverse to use and I share the opinion that there's nothing wrong with it, even with the LDS shuffle if you want to argue, because none of those are forced on the players, they are just things that happens to be possible, after playing quite a while but no players HAS to use it, it's very optionnal, just like quality.

Shulmeister wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 7:53 am Not sure how to use this, that doesn't constitute a good demonstration for the case of sulfur.

It wasn’t about sulfur, just about plastic. I didn’t make this graph just for the purpose of this discussion, but rather for use in my own games. And I never made quality sulfur, so I never did any calculations for it.

because none of those are forced on the players, they are just things that happens to be possible, after playing quite a while but no players HAS to use it, it's very optionnal

Sorry, but game balance cannot be approached with this logic. It’s simply incompatible with the concept. Especially in factorio, a primarily singleplayer game with excellent mod support. The default experience should be balanced, and if anyone wishes to alter the game to their liking in a way that isn’t necessarily balanced, they can look to mods. If infinity chests, adjustable inserters, infinite battery bots, large chests, an instant research button, linked belts, infinite starter patches, etc. were added to vanilla freeplay, people also wouldn’t be forced to use them. But does that mean they should be added? Absolutely not. They belong in the editor and in mods, and quality exploits belong there with them. People who want to use them will still be able to. No one will lose anything, but the game’s quality will be improved.

Asking players to actively avoid efficiency and optimization if they want a better game experience is, IMO, a fairly significant sin in game design. Such a practice inherently makes for a poor experience for a lot of people.

This is especially true in a game that puts a fair amount of emphasis on efficiency and optimization.

CyberCider wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 5:12 pm It wasn’t about sulfur, just about plastic. I didn’t make this graph just for the purpose of this discussion, but rather for use in my own games. And I never made quality sulfur, so I never did any calculations for it.

That is fair to recognize that you want something you never used to be removed from the game.

Hurkyl wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 5:19 pm Asking players to actively avoid efficiency and optimization if they want a better game experience is, IMO, a fairly significant sin in game design. Such a practice inherently makes for a poor experience for a lot of people.

Some players will avoid efficency and optimization unvoluntarily because they don't see it sometimes. Asteroid shuffler is easy to miss because you can only unlock it late game and it has very little purpose in the grand scheme of things. It's not efficient in UPS for sure, so it's very situationnal. It's definitly not something you need to actively avoid like solar pannel or logistic chest for the achievements, but even if , you see many people doing belt only base, or even train only base, because they want to do so, it is much more constraint than playing without asteroid shuffler.

Shulmeister wrote: Wed Aug 20, 2025 8:21 pm

CyberCider wrote: Wed Aug 20, 2025 8:05 pm You said that there’s a hole in my argument because the removal of asteroid rerolling would shift one part of the meta towards ore recycling, which is even worse. And this I agree with, although I wasn’t aware of it until relatively recently, which is why it never came up earlier in this thread.

That's what mmmPI said I'm sure he'll appreciate you don't have to tell him.

Here is a video that may help , to learn some of the things mentionned that seemed unfamiliar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umetTHC9pTA

I do

That's a nice video ! Interesting to note the time dedicated to quality, and the different methods shown, but at some point it says that the only method for biter eggs is to upcycle them directly and it doesn't appear correct as you can also recycle overgrowth soil, so i can only give it a 99 % or something Interesting conclusions on the "emergent gameplay mechanism" and how it plays in favor of the quality system in general for some players, it seem more nuanced than the "it makes everything easy" because you can actually see what and how ( no legendary sulfur though ? )

mmmPI wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 8:27 am at some point it says that the only method for biter eggs is to upcycle them directly and it doesn't appear correct as you can also recycle overgrowth soil

He also directly recycled tungsten ore
No wonder he complained about upcyclers being hard if his recipe choices are so poor. He even fell into the supercapacitor trap for holmium, but thankfully he corrected this one in time.

Maybe if the meta wasn’t so completely dominated by exploits, he could have had a chance to learn some real quality mechanics and apply them, making quality less grindy or frustrating for himself. Right now, everyone recommends exploits to anyone who is new to quality, and youtubers show them off to their audiences all the time. Even some people who want to try other methods still think with the mindset that the exploits created: “Get legendary ores/plates, then work from there.”. And it’s very difficult to apply this strange mindset to regular quality, so many people give up on it even if they were willing to try it. Honestly, if quality was ever really fixed, I’m concerned about how long it would take the playerbase to adjust to the playstyles and design philosophies that upcycling demands. Because currently in the age of exploits, they are really overlooked and ignored by most players. And unlike asteroid rerolling, an inefficient upcycler would actually take a toll on your base, so people might start to find quality too unforgiving.

Well, who knows what would really happen, and if it would happen at all. Maybe this little prediction of mine is completely wrong.

Hurkyl wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 5:19 pm Asking players to actively avoid efficiency and optimization if they want a better game experience is, IMO, a fairly significant sin in game design. Such a practice inherently makes for a poor experience for a lot of people.

This is especially true in a game that puts a fair amount of emphasis on efficiency and optimization.

I think that's a fair point.

I'm of two minds on it because on the one hand, there's mass manufactured products where quality is counterproductive.

On the other hand, there's things like automobiles where a high quality vehicle is mass produced and can require the kind of care you expect from a professional chef. The balance seems to be to favor science as a commodity part.

That was something I noted about the million SPM video. Sulfur wasn't discussed because legendary science was not done. At the ratios indicated on the wiki, it is no surprise why it wasn't. I think it's appreciated as an art project but not as something to practically do.

Once you put a benefit on something, the law of large numbers no longer holds because if you multiply a bad ratio by a small benefit. It's a penalty; say on the amount of science pursued. Any UPS being saved is an indication of a lack of productivity.

CyberCider wrote: Thu Aug 28, 2025 5:12 pm
The default experience should be balanced, and if anyone wishes to alter the game to their liking in a way that isn’t necessarily balanced, they can look to mods. If infinity chests, adjustable inserters, infinite battery bots, large chests, an instant research button, linked belts, infinite starter patches, etc. were added to vanilla freeplay, people also wouldn’t be forced to use them. But does that mean they should be added? Absolutely not. They belong in the editor and in mods, and quality exploits belong there with them. People who want to use them will still be able to. No one will lose anything, but the game’s quality will be improved.

I have a significant negative emotional response to the idea that quality should produce a low ratio of parts. It's just a more productive conversation if I respect the idea and say "Note I hold the opposite point of view". At the rates of return of quality vs. gameplay time in a week, my expectation is you'll see evidence sometime in months. It's more productive to humor your idea, because quality modules ends up causing both of us problems.

Now say you're right. And there's evidence that it is at least conditionally true, quality requires several tiers of upgrades to produce a good brick and the same is true for sulfur. We don't have to go into rates.

But then you have asteroid rerolling. In your world, well it does solve its problems by using a jam free layout. But it's ratio of production is worse than foundries, so technically a player is wasting parts. And to get that ratio you have to get to level 25 research. Even when you get it, a player is arguably better served by having their attention be directed to just basic upcycles.

This is true in the world where you think 300% recipes are balanced. Because instead of going "Okay, I need an assembly line of biter eggs yesterday so I don't need to get to level 25 research, but I still need a good cycle for getting beacons before I get this stuff". You have someone trying to get level 25 science research in asteroids. The research costs for science are 1000*1.5^(level), that includes the researches that make rerolling compete with but under perform a foundry. You start adding on a million science per level at 20.

Doesn't matter if either of us is wrong. (Edit: The modules just don't) provide a benefit, and takes the player out of the puzzle. I'd argue to ban on that basis, with the observation that if crimsonarmy can figure out there's better methods given time. And it sounds like they did, so it might be something where it's a matter of players training away from an emergent mistake.

That's a lot of quoting from someone who said i should be not interacted with so here's a minimalist answer :

CyberCider wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 2:25 pm He also directly recycled tungsten ore

At least he's not using grenade upcycler

After seeing the video and reading the thread my mind is made on who is a more competent player between you and the person who made the 1M SPM base, whose argumentation is logical and makes sense to me.

CyberCider wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 2:25 pm so people might start to find quality too unforgiving.

I believe it's fairly well explained in the video that it's already the case, and the possibility to find alternate methods that are more tricky to setup but also higher yield and unlocked late into the casual game are making up for it in a lot of ways.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 5:47 pm alternate methods that are more tricky to setup but also higher yield and unlocked late into the casual game are making up for it in a lot of ways.

He calls them “clever”, not “complex”. It’s tricky to realize that they exist, because they rely on obscure exploits that regular players will never come across in normal gameplay. Once you know about them, using them is easy and they are disproportionately powerful. By universally preferring them to upcycling in his playthrough, he only proved my point. In this specific respect, him and I are of the exact same opinion: Quality exploits make quality a lot easier and simpler than it was designed to be. You can’t choose which one of us is right, because we both say the same thing. He disagrees with me later only by saying quality needs this difficulty drop because it’s too hard by design. But he doesn’t deny that the difficulty drop is there. And he had a frustrating experience with regular quality because, well, simply put, he’s not very good at it. It’s a strange thing to say about someone who built a 1M spm base, but he demonstrated his subpar knowledge of upcycling recipes in his video. He chose some inefficient recipes and then complained that they were working too slowly. There’s nothing else to say.

CyberCider wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 2:25 pm He also directly recycled tungsten ore

At least he's not using grenade upcycler

For a moment I actually hoped that you were starting to make sense, but this here reminds me that it’s still not really the case. I can’t even tell what this means. Maybe I really was wrong to give reasoning with you another chance.

CyberCider wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 9:53 am He calls them “clever”, not “complex”. It’s tricky to realize that they exist, because they rely on obscure exploits that regular players will never come across in normal gameplay. Once you know about them, using them is easy and they are disproportionately powerful. By universally preferring them to upcycling in his playthrough, he only proved my point. In this specific respect, him and I are of the exact same opinion: Quality exploits make quality a lot easier and simpler than it was designed to be. You can’t choose which one of us is right, because we both say the same thing. He disagrees with me later only by saying quality needs this difficulty drop because it’s too hard by design. But he doesn’t deny that the difficulty drop is there. And he had a frustrating experience with regular quality because, well, simply put, he’s not very good at it. It’s a strange thing to say about someone who built a 1M spm base, but he demonstrated his subpar knowledge of upcycling recipes in his video. He chose some inefficient recipes and then complained that they were working too slowly. There’s nothing else to say.

Well, after doing 1M eSPM with quality science, I won't say quality is too hard by design, but it's certainly ill-equiped by design. Due to the negating interaction with speed modules, the majority of upcycling recipes are total shit (e.g. grenade / supercapacitor), and sulfur / coal lack usable recipes at all. Especially coal, even asteroid reprocessing is too slow for quality science and I'm only able to get rare military science with quality mining.

If anything, the quality system demonstrated that a "search-for-the-best-recipe" puzzle doesn't work too well in the internet age: with enough participants, shortcuts are found almost instantly. The remaining part is the logistics part of the puzzle, which is very annoying and artificial for regular upcycling: not-having speed modules, stack inserters not working with random quality output, recyclers auto-clogging with quality output despite having so many output slots, destroying unwanted byproducts from variance.

mmmPI wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 8:27 am That's a nice video ! Interesting to note the time dedicated to quality, and the different methods shown, but at some point it says that the only method for biter eggs is to upcycle them directly and it doesn't appear correct as you can also recycle overgrowth soil, so i can only give it a 99 % or something Interesting conclusions on the "emergent gameplay mechanism" and how it plays in favor of the quality system in general for some players, it seem more nuanced than the "it makes everything easy" because you can actually see what and how ( no legendary sulfur though ? )

I disagree with recycling overgrowth soil The surplus biter egg volume from a promethium setup is so large that you won't get nearly enough seeds to upcycle them in soil. And at such a volume even dumb recycling gives too many legendary eggs.

CyberCider wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 9:53 am He calls them “clever”, not “complex”.

Who cares ? visibly that's someone with much more experience and serious than you, that's all i'm saying. I believe you were the one who try to insinuate that coal upcycling was not a thing, you asked if it was shown in some guide or something, and it turns out it actually is in a guide by someone who visibly knows what they are talking about.

h.q.droid wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 4:07 pm

mmmPI wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 8:27 am That's a nice video ! Interesting to note the time dedicated to quality, and the different methods shown, but at some point it says that the only method for biter eggs is to upcycle them directly and it doesn't appear correct as you can also recycle overgrowth soil, so i can only give it a 99 % or something Interesting conclusions on the "emergent gameplay mechanism" and how it plays in favor of the quality system in general for some players, it seem more nuanced than the "it makes everything easy" because you can actually see what and how ( no legendary sulfur though ? )

I disagree with recycling overgrowth soil The surplus biter egg volume from a promethium setup is so large that you won't get nearly enough seeds to upcycle them in soil. And at such a volume even dumb recycling gives too many legendary eggs.

You are saying it's not a good method, not that it doesn't work

h.q.droid wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 4:07 pm I disagree with recycling overgrowth soil The surplus biter egg volume from a promethium setup is so large that you won't get nearly enough seeds to upcycle them in soil. And at such a volume even dumb recycling gives too many legendary eggs.

Actually, even with mash disposal (recycling) factored in, overgrowth soil upcycling does in fact require significantly less machines than biter egg recycling does. I was surprised as well, but honestly quite relieved. Overgrowth soil is a very interesting upcycling recipe due to its unique logistics requirements, I’m glad to know that it’s really more viable than the simple and boring method of raw recycling eggs en masse.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 4:23 pm I believe you were the one who try to insinuate that coal upcycling was not a thing, you asked if it was shown in some guide or something, and it turns out it actually is in a guide by someone who visibly knows what they are talking about.

Has there been some kind of misunderstanding here? I don’t believe I ever said or insinuated something like that. Especially the “guide” part. I used the search function, and the only istance of myself mentioning a “guide” was related to the topic of quality rocket ammo for space platforms. Could you elaborate on what you mean, or quote the statement of mine you’re referring to? I mean it, I’m not being sarcastic or anything.

Besides, I thought we were mostly in agreement regarding coal?

Who cares ? visibly that's someone with much more experience and serious than you, that's all i'm saying.

Hey, all I’m saying is that he “visibly” made some poor and inefficient choices regarding quality. It’s in the video, you can’t deny it.

CyberCider wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 6:57 pm Has there been some kind of misunderstanding here? I don’t believe I ever said or insinuated something like that. Especially the “guide” part. I used the search function, and the only istance of myself mentioning a “guide” was related to the topic of quality rocket ammo for space platforms. Could you elaborate on what you mean, or quote the statement of mine you’re referring to? I mean it, I’m not being sarcastic or anything.

There are several statements to justify why i don't believe you should be taken seriously when you propose balance change but here is one :

CyberCider wrote: Wed Aug 20, 2025 7:49 pm To be honest with you, since I originally started this thread, I have learned a lot about quality. And I have learned, much to my surprise and disappointment, that coal recycling is actually viable. It has inferior resource efficiency to grenade upcycling, but higher throughput.

I believe you are ok to recognize you did mistake when talking to other player but not me, so why interact with me ?

See because when i read this i can't help wondering , how have you been doing your coal upcycling then ? have you ever done it ? have you used grenade upcyclers ? that's what made me laugh, because i imaged you did and then you give advice to other players and recommandations x).

You said yourself you never made legendary sulfur or science, but you correct someone who did when they explain something about legendary science, that is quite the circus to me where the only person who seemingly lack competence is unaware of it and is the one proposing how things should be changed.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 7:23 pm See because when i read this i can't help wondering , how have you been doing your coal upcycling then ? have you ever done it ? have you used grenade upcyclers ? that's what made me laugh, because i imaged you did and then you give advice to other players and recommandations x).

This is a pretty strange assumption to make. Anyway, I recommended grenade upcycling to Hurkyl because, from the way he spoke about other methods, I could tell that he seems to particularly care about the resource efficiency of quality methods. And in that aspect, grenades would indeed be more favorable to him. And I personally use grenade upcycling because I find ore recycling to be boring, and I would prefer to design something more interesting.

But honestly, how has this discussion become so focused on coal? I mean, heck, I even admitted I would be ok with quality rerolling for carbonic asteroids remaining in the game in case no other interesting method for plastic is added. How are we still going on about coal? Asteroids being a source of iron, as well as making copper and stone exploits a lot easier to use, are both much more important and impactful.

You said yourself you never made legendary sulfur or science, but you correct someone who did when they explain something about legendary science, that is quite the circus to me where the only person who seemingly lack competence is unaware of it and is the one proposing how things should be changed.

I don’t believe I ever corrected anybody on the topic of legendary science. I would have no reason and no ability to, because I know pretty much nothing about this particular kind of run. I’m not really into gimmick or challenge runs, I’ve always preferred mods when seeking an alternative experience. And legendary science has never really been super relevant to the main topic, has it?

CyberCider wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 8:25 pm And I personally use grenade upcycling because I find ore recycling to be boring, and I would prefer to design something more interesting.

That may explain why you don't understand when people are mentionning sulfur to you. It seem to confirm that it was based on ignorance when you said grenade upcycler need 2 component and compared it as something "more complicated" than legendary coal from space, you probably never used it and as such didn't realized that it was also requiring 2 components. Sulfur and carbon.

mmmPI wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 8:50 pm That may explain why you don't understand when people are mentionning sulfur to you. It seem to confirm that it was based on ignorance when you said grenade upcycler need 2 component and compared it as something "more complicated" than legendary coal from space, you probably never used it and as such didn't realized that it was also requiring 2 components. Sulfur and carbon.

You need water too ! which come from Ice, that's a third component ! But maybe someone will argue that grenade upcycler is more interesting because grenades do not recycle in themselves like plastic but instead in their component, that makes it very complex x)

CyberCider wrote: Sat Aug 30, 2025 8:25 pm And I personally use grenade upcycling because I find ore recycling to be boring, and I would prefer to design something more interesting.

Do you mean in a real game or you did some quick math in foreman and you can't really share something at the moment ?