Factorio Forums

Quality takes a lot of work to get started. Currently you will never see items like Legendary Power Armor MK1 in game because of how late it takes to unlock legendary. This is one example but there are many items this applies to.

Making higher quality possible earlier could create new slower challenges like only allowing use of legendary equipment through the run. Legendary items are not free. They take a lot of work to create especially earlier in a playthrough. What I suggest changing is that quality ranks are not unlocked through research. Instead only the better quality modules being the limit allowing the possibility of reaching legendary earlier if one decides to put in the effort with the lower chances of earlier modules. This gives more choice in a playthrough. If someone wants to take their time and perfect everything ie legendary modular armor, they would have this option unlike now. This strictly improves the choices that a playthrough can have and if necessary some minor rebalancing of quality modules can make this a new enticing option to give the game extra different playthroughs. Yes legendary items are strong but they take a lot of work to create and I do not see sense in limiting this choice like it currently is.

+1

There is a mod for exactly that. I tried it. Already the rare quality is hard to get, everything above it is pretty much only a nuisance in the early game.

In am strongly against this.

First of all, lorewise: The engineer just crashlanded and he certainly is in no position to create the most pristine items in the universe. It makes sense that we need better tooling etc. Eventhough most recipes don't change ingredients (i.e. iron gears) after unlocking new quality levels, it can be inferred that the sophistication of the factory increased in that time and now better items can be created.

Second, mechanically:
Depending on how OCD you are, there are VERY strong incentives to make everything legendary, as a second priority after not being eaten by biters.
Every electric mining drill should be legendary as soon as you unlock the first quality research. The entire factory could be put to just producing more quality drills. Because the resource drain reduction is just sooo strong. Same with basically every other item.
And now quality becomes something you must design your factory around.

Compare this to the way it currently works:
I stick some quality modules in the final production steps for: Electric furnaces, Assemblers, Solar Panels, and other stuff that is used on rocket platforms.
Throughout the first few planets I get a a couple useful uncommon and rare items that I can use to make space platforms more space efficient or fill some bottlenecks with quick in-place upgrades. But there is no strong incentive to go hard on quality immediately. Even researching the second tier quality modules is a trade-off. It's very expensive research at that point and I only go for it if nothing else is really important right now, but I would like a bit more quality stuff.
If legendary was available, you better believe I would get everything legendary right away as much as I can brute force it.

It is a very useful restraint, the way it currently exists.