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If you operate off a platform, you quickly realize that you're up against a shortage of coal more than anything else. You might be watching for sunk cost fallacy specifically because a 120x240 meter platform is going to take 8 hours to make at 1 ips of foundation. Making that coal takes sulfur, so when you look at doing intermediate processes it is kind of like this:

* I could invest in what I do different elsewhere.

* I could reroll for a 1 in 40 rate that will give me a variety of materials. After the reroll it's going to get multiplied by 1.25 times a shower of ores at minimum. If the dev's allow the rocks coming back to occur more often then that 1.25 times is going up due to productivity modules and research.

* I could do different everywhere else and use this platform for transportation using normal quality LDS & Blue chips.

And the guns you put on are always running. You can void items but that could make a ups drain. Engine particles can make a UPS drain. But you have to be there, running a few platforms at once is going to be necessary because planetary science and something needs to go to the shattered planet. So you have to balance against multiple ships operating at once. And if you want to save on rocket launches, doing work on a platform immediately distributes all but a few items.

If it is perfectly balanced and the appearance of a mechanical advantage is only that, it's still happening in a place where the sunk cost fallacy can really hurt a player since they're investing a lot of emotion into their machine. If you do 120x240, why not do 180x360? If you make a mistake, do you what? Delete the surface and all the foundation on it? This is my opinion, don't pretend to know the dev's minds.

crimsonarmy wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:16 pm

Shirasik wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 9:52 am

h.q.droid wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:34 am Legendary science has real advantages over normals with asteroids. Without asteroids, iron / ice throughput would become a bottleneck.

So you need that much SPM. In not modded Space Age. What for exactly? If this is your own goal then ok. If you see that as a gameplay mandatory that explain please.

I think the idea is that it motivates legendary science.

I think of it like this:
If you can't do a legendary science for 1 : 6 investment, all the other productivity multipliers happen evenly. So why am I cleaning this copper plate up if instead of being sloppy with quality I can do what I always did and hit 10+ips on a legendary plant?

As for the notion that ice or iron is the bottleneck... I mean that's kind of the issue with platforms right there. Ice you can get an interesting cycle off of on Aquilo by making it with ammonia, then recycling ice platforms. Granted, it isn't a component so you get it at a worse rate. But you can do it in bulk.

Iron has an interesting cycle with blue chips, and belts can be attached by a process that does quality from cradle to grave and at a rate that is interesting.

Sulfur is always somehow going to be painful because it's a catalyst.

coffee-factorio wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:10 pm

crimsonarmy wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:16 pm

Shirasik wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 9:52 am

h.q.droid wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:34 am Legendary science has real advantages over normals with asteroids. Without asteroids, iron / ice throughput would become a bottleneck.

So you need that much SPM. In not modded Space Age. What for exactly? If this is your own goal then ok. If you see that as a gameplay mandatory that explain please.

I think the idea is that it motivates legendary science.

I think of it like this:
If you can't do a legendary science for 1 : 6 investment, all the other productivity multipliers happen evenly. So why am I cleaning this copper plate up if instead of being sloppy with quality I can do what I always did and hit 10+ips on a legendary plant?

As for the notion that ice or iron is the bottleneck... I mean that's kind of the issue with platforms right there. Ice you can get an interesting cycle off of on Aquilo by making it with ammonia, then recycling ice platforms. Granted, it isn't a component so you get it at a worse rate. But you can do it in bulk.

Iron has an interesting cycle with blue chips, and belts can be attached by a process that does quality from cradle to grave and at a rate that is interesting.

Sulfur is always somehow going to be painful because it's a catalyst.

These are some really cool ideas. (For context: I have made a casino then got annoyed because of a bunch of small things and I am now doing quality some other ways.)

How about a different solution? A BEFORE you start the game, slider. Where we can ajust how much ridiculus gambling exist? You know, the thing that only people who play online games and other similar additions enjoy. After all, we paid to have access to quality yet it's behind a GAMBLING wall??????? Even the modul 3 has only a 25% increase vs moduel 2????? this is screeming they don't want people to have access to quality unless they gamble.

So, the ideea of the slider is simple. Default is default. Lower = lower chance. Higher = higer chance. As an exemple, at max, 2 legendary Quality moduel 3, will turn anything they create 100% into legendary. Again, this is if that slider is at MAX, and NOT default. Default remains the current version. I'm just suggesting this because it's simple not normal that we paid to get quality and it's behind a GAMBLING wall no one asked for.

PS for OP: just don't add Quality modules on crushers. Oh, you don't like that I'm telling you how to play the game? well that's exactly what you, and the devs did. But hey, quality is optional, we only paid for it so we need to use mods to fix it.

PS for Devs: Many of us know you got inspiered by WoW, a game we did not want to come to factorio. So, could you please do us all a favore and actually fix the Quality for the DLC?

Here are 5 exemples: A slider to get rid of gambling (aka what I wrote till now). Adding a tick box for enemies to have quality (tons of mods exist that do this, why it's not a default, i don't get it). A drop box that can change how many quality level exist. Aka the current 5 is default. And for us to be able to increase max 10? (I used mods, and I noticed a lot of stuff are hard cap at 10, and some, will get bugged). And the reason why I mentioned WoW: just because thoes are the terms used in Wow, can you please let us rename the "quality ranks" without us needing to add mods that might or might not mess up when used with other mods?

PS for anyone who says: just use mods. As I meantion, we paid for this, why is the solution to fix a paid DLC to use mods and not a vanilla standar game? Because as I mentioned over and over again, only add BEFORE start of the game tick box and slider. Default remains default, just let us ajust the values. And if this is a core vanilla thing, there is low to no risk of bugs or other issues when used with other mods

Green Cat wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:02 pm How about a different solution? A BEFORE you start the game, slider. Where we can ajust how much ridiculus gambling exist? You know, the thing that only people who play online games and other similar additions enjoy. After all, we paid to have access to quality yet it's behind a GAMBLING wall??????? Even the modul 3 has only a 25% increase vs moduel 2????? this is screeming they don't want people to have access to quality unless they gamble.

So, the ideea of the slider is simple. Default is default. Lower = lower chance. Higher = higer chance. As an exemple, at max, 2 legendary Quality moduel 3, will turn anything they create 100% into legendary. Again, this is if that slider is at MAX, and NOT default. Default remains the current version. I'm just suggesting this because it's simple not normal that we paid to get quality and it's behind a GAMBLING wall no one asked for.

PS for OP: just don't add Quality modules on crushers. Oh, you don't like that I'm telling you how to play the game? well that's exactly what you, and the devs did. But hey, quality is optional, we only paid for it so we need to use mods to fix it.

PS for Devs: Many of us know you got inspiered by WoW, a game we did not want to come to factorio. So, could you please do us all a favore and actually fix the Quality for the DLC?

Here are 5 exemples: A slider to get rid of gambling (aka what I wrote till now). Adding a tick box for enemies to have quality (tons of mods exist that do this, why it's not a default, i don't get it). A drop box that can change how many quality level exist. Aka the current 5 is default. And for us to be able to increase max 10? (I used mods, and I noticed a lot of stuff are hard cap at 10, and some, will get bugged). And the reason why I mentioned WoW: just because thoes are the terms used in Wow, can you please let us rename the "quality ranks" without us needing to add mods that might or might not mess up when used with other mods?

PS for anyone who says: just use mods. As I meantion, we paid for this, why is the solution to fix a paid DLC to use mods and not a vanilla standar game? Because as I mentioned over and over again, only add BEFORE start of the game tick box and slider. Default remains default, just let us ajust the values. And if this is a core vanilla thing, there is low to no risk of bugs or other issues when used with other mods

I think you misunderstand the fundamental point of quality. It isn't primarily gambling. Imagine if someone plays the lottery 1, 10, or 100 times, that's gambling. If someone plays the lottery 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 times the randomness evens out (there are people who noticed unbalanced lotteries and made money off of it). The same is true in Factorio you can gamble with quality, but the main benefit is from when the scale is so large that the randomness doesn't matter.

As to the mods thing, you paid to have the DLC and very good mod integration with it. If something benefits everyone (or the vast majority of people) it should be in the base game, otherwise use the very well integrated modding system.

Green Cat wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:02 pm

Go take a break

Benefitting from 'unbalanced lotteries' happens rather frequently -- you just have to be the one running the lottery.

In the analogy, if someone views themselves as the gambler and not the casino boss in the analogy, they're building their casino wrong.

(unless that's specifically the experience you wanted and designed for it, I suppose)

Green Cat wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:02 pm How about a different solution?

We were talking about asteroid rerolling.
Consider starting a new topic on this in idea and suggestions.

crimsonarmy wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 8:58 pm
These are some really cool ideas. (For context: I have made a casino then got annoyed because of a bunch of small things and I am now doing quality some other ways.)

It's a hard one for me because when I study it, it burns me out a lot. I'm glad you find some value in it. Be rather careful, I've yet to see better than item per minute rates on a lot of stuff, even if it works well. And the tradeoffs are usually really stiff in this system.

Hurkyl wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 3:22 am Benefitting from 'unbalanced lotteries' happens rather frequently -- you just have to be the one running the lottery.

In the analogy, if someone views themselves as the gambler and not the casino boss in the analogy, they're building their casino wrong.

(unless that's specifically the experience you wanted and designed for it, I suppose)

Yes exactly !

Hurkyl wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 2:27 pm I heard that the devs have said they are banning quality modules for asteroid reprocessing. Have they said why they ultimately decided on it?

Was it really that it was "easier" to design? Or something about asteroids being too plentiful making this too good? Or because it's too good of a hook for getting quality plastic? Something else? Or have they not said at all?

For all i know it's a one liner 6 month ago by 1 dev on discord that mentionned the removal of quality module from asteroid reprocessing, and it was implied that it was too good in general from the context of the discusssion, but no precise explanations. Now at the release of space age, devs mentionned that such good system was a reward for players that went thru the effort of setting-it up. To me it shows things can still change ( maybe even in 2.2 ). And even then dev literally wrote : it's balancing that can be done by 1 lane of data, so i take that as "trivial to mod".

I know Wube always deliver on their announce, but here it might also be a personnal message from one dev taken out of context where some plans are conflated for an announce, or just one side of a more in-depth rebalancing is understood as the whole thing, maybe i've missed some other annouces too though !

If you don't like quality asteroid recycling, then I have a different challenge for you...

What is another way to get Legendary resources with fewer buildings? The entire design thrust of the quality system is to be able to do more with fewer buildings. So if you want to talk removing quality modules from the asteroid recyclers (A solution which takes a decent size & space to get usable throughput no less) - what is the alternative? I can beacon a foundry / EM plant / cryoplant / whatever to produce belts and belts of resources, so fast that they might need to be direct inserted into the next process. How can we produce quality metals/plastic/etc with a small footprint and a few machines. Feel free to require quality machines to do this - first do it slow, then unlock the better way is a common factorio meme afterall.

At the end of the day - stamping down a few dozen copies of an upcycler blueprint takes nothing more than ... 30 seconds, and real estate which is dirt cheap on vulcanis with the infinite raw materials so I never need to find a new ore patch. At least with asteroid recycling I have to design a new ship, around a new process, with different inputs, the potential for lockups and jams, and other interesting problem solving. Personally, I think that removing asteroid recycling would trivialize quality into nothing more than "stamp down N copies of the same factory."

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. But this is mine.

Instead of nerfing they should just re-add it as a late late game tech build. There's this guy on reddit that built some insane space platform. It'd be pretty sad if he got nerfed, tbh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... shattered/

Pretty sure he's not the only one

And tbh, it's kinda cool. Be silly to remove a fun mechanic from the game entirely.

Some grandfathering tech boost for pre-saved games would be neat-o if they do re-add it as a late game tech.

crimsonarmy wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:29 pm I think you misunderstand the fundamental point of quality. It isn't primarily gambling.

Yeah, I LOL everytime someone says 'casino'. I mean, wtf is my dopamine rush?? Lulz. Very lame casino.

If they had some mechanic where killing biters with a hand weapon dropped l00t, sure, that'd be casino. But quality, fr, is not casino, certainly not anymore than the 1% uranium processing is. it's just really expensive production

Just divide by quality, and that's how much you need to process before getting a product. Not a casino.

factorio_player wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 3:31 am Just divide by quality, and that's how much you need to process before getting a product.

You mistook quality for productivity.

factorio_player wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 3:31 am

crimsonarmy wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:29 pm I think you misunderstand the fundamental point of quality. It isn't primarily gambling.

Yeah, I LOL everytime someone says 'casino'. I mean, wtf is my dopamine rush?? Lulz. Very lame casino.

Then engineer it in yourself. Make a system where, say, you manually drop a Power Armor MK 2 into a chest, the system fetches the rest of the matching quality ingredients from storage, have it flash some lights while a Mech Armor crafts, and if you get a high quality craft, flash more lights even more energetically and maybe even play an alert to celebrate.

Maybe even set something up a similar system for dumping the lower quality mech armors you don't want as they recycle and maybe give you an armor back.

I do think the name 'Casino' is an apt metaphor for a factory where you profit from industrial scale random chance.

evandy wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 8:43 pm At least with asteroid recycling I have to design a new ship, around a new process, with different inputs, the potential for lockups and jams, and other interesting problem solving.

Do you even know what an upcycler is? Have you ever built one? All of these things are exactly what upcyclers deal with. Asteroid rerolling does also have them to a degree, but they are lessened. There are three different items and recipes, sure, but they all behave 100% identically. There is no split between ingredient and product, like in upcycling, and no ratio that must be maintained either. In this way, asteroid rerolling most closely resembles putting raw ore through a recycler.

At the end of the day - stamping down a few dozen copies of an upcycler blueprint takes nothing more than ... 30 seconds

Personally, I think that removing asteroid recycling would trivialize quality into nothing more than "stamp down N copies of the same factory."

Well, sorry to break the bad news to you, but… That’s everything in factorio . Everything is scaled via copy pasting, the design of the single cell is what determines complexity. And if you compare a single cell of upcycling to a single cell of asteroid rerolling, you will see a dramatic drop in complexity.

and real estate which is dirt cheap on vulcanis with the infinite raw materials so I never need to find a new ore patch.

Well, that’s a different problem with Space Age . This post is targeted only at one. Vulcanus is a complete mess, Space Age release should have been delayed a few weeks to make Vulcanus presentable. It’s so bad that it distorts the balance of the rest of the game around itself, like some kind of singularity . And I don’t expect that planet will ever be good, not without the help of mods. Making such drastic changes after full release is something developers try to avoid if possible, and for good reasons, so I don’t see it ever happening. But patching an exploit/oversight is very much within the scope of a post release minor patch, which is why I believe it can and should happen.