Factorio Forums

Should superconductors be recyclable?
At the moment, they seem to recycle to nothing. In contrast, Quantum Processors can be recycled. This disparity is highly confusing.

The reason they aren’t is because all tier 3 modules have their unique ingredient not recycle into ingredients but into itself. We could revisit for the suprconductor though.

V453000 wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 8:25 pm The reason they aren’t is because all tier 3 modules have their unique ingredient not recycle into ingredients but into itself. We could revisit for the suprconductor though.

I see. That makes sense, though it also removes quite a bit of complexity and potential fun of working out how to get legendary versions of those unique ingredients. I can see it either way.

I think it is worth specifying how everything recycles in the Factoriopedia!

V453000 wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 8:25 pm The reason they aren’t is because all tier 3 modules have their unique ingredient not recycle into ingredients but into itself. We could revisit for the suprconductor though.

To circle back around to this, as I just realized this one myself and would have put a bug in if I hadn't searched first.

The four tier 3 modules components are spoilage, biter eggs, tungsten carbide, and Superconductors. Of the four of those, only Superconductors comes from a non smelting/chemistry(biology) item so the Recycler seems like it should give back it's ingredients, rather than act as if Superconductors came out of a smelting/chemistry recipe.

Makes sense for ease of recycling tier 3 modules, but the inconsistency is a bit confusing.

I made this account and was about to post a bug report like this myself before i decided to see if anyone else was having the same issue i was when attempting to recycle superconductors. There is no indication that superconductors cannot recycle into their ingredients and they are crafted in a "standard" (non chemical/furnace) machine.

I would also like if they recycled into their parts. Recycling them with quality would provide another needed way to produce higher quality holmium plates and plastic, something I always seem to need.

I was confused by this too, especially since supercapacitors recycle just fine - seems to me like they should behave the same.

Most importantly i started crafting quality quality modules on Fulgora and ran out of quality plastic, and i realised i had several thousand uncommon or better superconductors - i was like "yay, that'll be a nice boost to get some initial modules" and boom - nothing. in my case the limiting factor by a massive amount is red circuits, so the plastic would have been way more useful than the superconductors at this time.

This decision seems completely arbitrary. Recyclers state they can undo processes other than smelting and chemistry; given that this recipe is not performed in a furnace or a chemical plant it's fair for the player to assume it's neither. I think this is a bug, if not in the recyclability of superconductors, then in the description of the recycler or the lack of recyclability indications in the Factoriopedia.