GregoriusT wrote: Mon Sep 08, 2025 10:32 am
it is optimal to use random quality ammo
'optimal' is a strange term since it changes with your goal. Producing quality ammo reduces the total amount of resources you need to craft said ammo*. However, in space you have infinite resources. So, the only reason to use quality ammo in space IMO is if your platform cannot collect enough resources to sustain itself midflight without using quality. And if that's the case, a redesign might be called for as relying on random chance to get enough high quality ammo in the right turret at the right time is, well, likely the fail at some point.
So, what other benefits does using quality ammo use, outside the the lessened resource demand?
Well, does it reduce the power draw? No. If power is a problem, you use efficiency modules and bring power down to a minimum of 20%. If you have quality modules in the assembler, now you need beacons (more power), and quality modules slow down the crafting, making the AM consume power for longer, effectively increasing the power demand when compared to putting efficiency modules directly into the machine. Therefore, assuming your power isn't solar, using quality will not lessen the demand to import nuclear/fusion cells to your ship. (my intuition here might be wrong, I haven't done any math).
OK, so, using quality lessens resource demand in a place where you have infinite resources that you can refine at a speed to match consumption, so using quality for resource reduction is nigh useless. Using quality also doesn't reduce power demand (as far as I can figure), so, what other benefits does using quality ammo give?
Going back to the resource reduction point, using quality ammo can, theoretically, reduce the number of asteroid collectors/crushers you need, but, umm, you probably have collectors all along the front of the ship anyway, and I've proven that you can get all the way to the shattered planet with only three crushers, so that's also not a reason..
Ok, so, there aren't many positives to using quality ammo in space. What about potential negatives?
I can think of two off the top of my head:
1. One downside to using quality is the mass alerts that you're getting frustrated with.
2. Another downside is belt stacking. It's a lot harder to stack the ammo belts if you're using quality.
I use stack inserters for my ammo lines to increase buffers (the belt is my buffer) just in case there's a low period in resource collection during a high period of ammo demand (can technically happen if the chunk belts are really long for huge ships and you use a system similar to mine where collectors only collect chunks if the hub is missing them, and I read the chunk input belts as well to prevent overflowing). This is a niche edge case and only occurs with systems like mine and very large ships. I have a very large (modded) ship. It has a complete mall on it. I don't suffer from this problem and the hub is in the bottom left corner. So that's not a concern. (tldr I don't need to stack the ammo belts. It's technically a waste of resources).
So, in conclusion, I'd argue to your friend that using quality ammo in space, while technically can save resources, there's no need to reduce resource consumption, and it has negatives that impact your enjoyment of the game, and therefore is not worth it.
* assuming that the quality reduces the total number of ammo needed by at least one. In some cases, it doesn't. For example, if you have enough railgun damage upgrades to one shot a huge asteroid, there is no reason to ever use quality railgun ammo since it won't save on any resources.