Yeah, unfortunately, nothing that was said about Quality puts my mind at ease about it. I don't understand why you want to introduce a major RNG feature into a game that, until now, only had one very minor RNG thing in it, but whatever. It's obvious that, just like many of the other changes you all did, you're going to stick with it. But, you also have a split player base on this one, too, so I understand. I may not like it, but you're not making the game for me. I guess once the expansion releases, sales and further feedback then will be the determining factor, which is not something that can be figured out here.
As for the research triggers, the idea and concept is good, and especially now the introduction of the mechanic for mod makers to use, but I'm not sure I'm sold on the current uses. For the new planets and everything to do after reaching the new planets, yeah, ok. But like others, I agree that locking oil the way you have doesn't seem any better than before. Actually, marginally worse. Ultimately, though, I kind of agree with this poster:
SuicideJunkie wrote: Sun Sep 17, 2023 3:53 pm
I would like to proffer the suggestion that oil and perhaps some other unlocks could/should be the *discovery* of oil by revealing a chunk which has oil sources in it, rather than actually pumping some.
As a bonus, when your radar station detects some oil, you'll get a Ba-ta-da! sound effect and know to check the map
On the other end of the scale, poison capsules are a thing that ought to need some biter corpses to be produced before you can unlock and research it.
I feel like the key difference may be "things that Everybody Knows" and you only have to realize you need it before you can direct your research to all the starter stuff, contrasted with things you'll definitely need samples of because its an unexplored alien world.
For some things, like oil, if you want to lock down the research until a condition that makes more sense, then
discovering it would be a better trigger vs mining it. Although, this would just add some additional overhead to chunk reveal for something that isn't already tracked. If minor enough, then great, otherwise these types of things should probably just be left as is/given some other method of unlocking, because it makes less sense to research how to pump it before finding it and then pump it before you can research how to use it, than to research how to pump and use it at the same time before finding it. Technically speaking, oil is a known resource and should be expected on any planet with well established life.
---------------------------------------------
blazespinnaker wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 12:57 am
draslin wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2023 11:24 pm
I'm still not sold on the implementation of quality. Primarily, in what world is a 90% failure rate acceptable when manufacturing a product?
There is no failure rate in quality/factorio. No DOA. so, it's 0% failure rate, not 90%.
As for variance in quality, getting it exactly right is nearly impossible.
Think about recall rates on vehicles.
What you generally have in manufacturing is everything that gets produced falls within some standard range of specifications. Getting something perfectly right, would be 'epic' (ugh) indeed.
Technically speaking, anything that does not meet the required specs and either goes back to be recycled or is rebranded as a lower tier product is a "failure" for the specs that it was being manufactured for.
For vehicle recalls, there's a couple things to consider, like the total recall count vs the total manufactured of all vehicles, the fact that vehicles are complex contraptions (end product) that is an amalgamation of many different things, and that not all recalls are for actual defective parts but rather defective design (it's still quality in a sense, but not in the same sense as the Factorio Quality system).
---------------------------------------------
Anachrony wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 1:25 am
draslin wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2023 11:24 pm
I'm still not sold on the implementation of quality. Primarily, in what world is a 90% failure rate acceptable when manufacturing a product?
I don't know if it applies equally to all product types, but the whole quality mechanic makes me think about microchip manufacturing. It's fairly common for microchips to have manufacturing defects, especially at the smallest, bleeding edge sizes. But single defect doesn't necessarily make the whole thing valueless. In many cases they can test what's working and what's not, disable what's not working, and sell it in a different product category depending on how much of it is working.
You know, with semiconductor/microchip manufacturing being pulled out so much, does anyone have some source numbers showing high failure rates? Because a limited, cursory Google search is coming up with results that suggest the failure rates are often measured in (single digit)
parts per million.
---------------------------------------------
mmmPI wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 4:14 pm
draslin wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 1:30 pm
Not sure I follow? Is it supposed to argue for or against the way wube wants to do quality? I don't think it provides support for either side of the argument, the way NASA build's rockets is different from the way one would build something for mass manufacturing like we do in Factorio.
From my reading, it's not about NASA but the European Space Agency. They also send rocket to space, like we do in Factorio. And it's written that to launch the James Webb telescope they didn't use a low quality engine in the rocket, not even uncommon or a rare, but at least an epic or legendary, probably because it is the James Webb telescope, and not just another satelites that would cost 1/10 or 1/100 of the price. That's probably not what one would expect for gears or copper wire, but it seem that for rocket engine they generally make many prototypes, and discard most of them to keep maybe the 1% or the 10% that performed the best which sounds pretty similar to how quality was explained.
Maybe the engine was made using quality modules that is not specified.
I feel like "modern day" space travel manufacturing is a bit different, simply because everything about it is freakishly expensive and there are often times actual lives on the line, so you always want to make sure you get it right the first time. But honestly, without reading the article and just going on your synopsis, this sounds more like the design phase and handcrafting the final product because you don't need them massed produced. If it ever becomes a more mainstream thing likes cars of today, I can totally see the attention to "only the best of the best" going to the wayside.
---------------------------------------------
Qon wrote: Sun Sep 17, 2023 8:51 am
It was a waste of time (for improving the system), because:
- The 35-page discussion was very low quality, mostly talking about unimportant things like the name and useless critique based on misunderstanding of the quality system. And it was mostly redundant. It wasn't really 35 pages of discussion, it was 35 pages of the same post redundantly posted in copies over and over from people who hadn't even read the thread (or blog post properly) to see that their view had already been shared by others.
Sooo... we should have one person that posts in favor of the system and one that posts against and just leave it at that? That doesn't seem helpful.
I mean, there's no poll or anything, so even if several people share the same exact view, how else do you measure the quantity of likes vs dislikes? I can also understand not wanting to read through several pages to see if someone else posted the exact same thing that you're thinking.
Qon wrote: Sun Sep 17, 2023 8:51 am
- Wube already knows how to design game systems better than more than 99.9999% of the player population (they made Factorio after all, the best game).
This isn't a valid point. Not an attack on Wube, this is just a generalized statement, but the ability to program (and do it well) or lack there of has no correlation to the ability to have a good idea or not.
---------------------------------------------
Vulkandrache wrote: Sat Sep 16, 2023 11:03 pm
Tech should requite tech that makes sense and not tech that unlocks what i need to make the items.
Basic example:
Red ammo tech should only require yellow ammo tech not steel.
Red magazines costing steel is irrelevant.
I disagree with this specifically. If a technology requires a specific something to make it, then it completely makes sense to have to research how to make that something before being able to research the subsequent tech. Otherwise, by your logic, red ammo tech shouldn't even require yellow ammo tech first. In fact, all techs should be researchable whenever instead of having a tree in the first place.
That would be, in my opinion, much more confusing and overwhelming to new players than the idea that the devs are trying to fix for the early game.
).
