Factorio Dev Tracker

Originally posted by laserbeam3

Does that mean that until quality is researched, you only get normal quality items? Otherwise it sounds like stacks would break.

The start of quality is slightly unclear in the article.

"Not all of the quality tiers will be available from the beginning" sounds like some quality tiers are available (but invisible) from the beginning of the game. Even though the next phrase suggests that's the beginning of quality research.

Originally posted by Argonanth

I'm more worried about my trains. I know they've said there will be some updates to trains but right now everything would instantly break. The current (and common) way of handling trains is just a "wait until full" -> "wait until empty" but this doesn't work if you never get a full stack of whatever quality was inserted into the train.

Originally posted by salbris

I hope there is also a major overhaul of inventory planned because while vanilla is not a big deal my modded inventories are already a complete disaster to navigate. This is certainly only going to make that worse.

Originally posted by M1k3y_11

Well, there goes my smart train station system. This will be a big challenge to support "mixed" belts of items.

Originally posted by Ansible32

Does this mean I'm going to need circuits to set up a basic mall with sensible limits? Will I be able to make blueprints that don't care about quality? In a lot of cases it sounds like quality would just break a lot of stuff we do presently.

Originally posted by KuuLightwing

I actually think that random element fits factorio. As others pointed out, the kovarex process and the uranium processing also has random in it and it shows how nicely it breaks the design monotony.

Kovarex doesn't have randomness though, does it? It's deterministic, 40 U235 + 5 U238 = 41 U235 + 2 U238. Which is kinda the problem with these, compared to uranium. With uranium processing, I have to deal with randomness during the initial bootstrap process, after which I have deterministic production of U235, and random U235 is just small additional bonus at that point.

With these, if I need longer range power poles for some reason, or the fabled 25% productivity modules, I have no choice but to engage with RNG. And considering how many modules I'd need, and how slow are they to make, it's going to be just a nightmare. Oh, and you added quality penalty for speed, so we'd have to build absolutely enormous factories that just craft modules ove...

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Originally posted by ConspicuousBassoon

I feel like a lot of people who are saying they don't like this are forgetting that it's completely optional. Not only do you not have to engage with quality, it sounds like you can just avoid researching it altogether (unless quality modules are required in some unrevealed space age crafts). There are some valid criticisms to be made (the quality names especially), but I think converting this system into modules was the correct way to handle it

Originally posted by Wiwiweb

Haven't seen anyone share my question/concern here yet.

If quality doesn't affect science production, then this is just about malls. You'll have your normal prod/speed setup for science, but you'll need to create a whole new thing for malls. You can't just leech ingredients from science anymore.

Creating malls is already an unpopular part of Factorio, so I wonder how this will pan out. I'm waiting to try it out before forming a stronger opinion.

Originally posted by Effete-Snob

Three questions for the developers:

• Does the recycling machine have a fluid output, or will recycling something like batteries simply fail to recover the sulfuric acid?
• How does the quality system interact with train scheduling? If I have a locomotive set to depart when the inventory is full, but a high-quality gear somehow sneaks onto the wagon, will that train be stuck waiting at the station until enough high-quality gears arrive to fill that one stack?
• Will the mod API provide a way for recipes to weight quality output besides influence of modules? Say, a more expensive version of the green circuit recipe that provides a higher chance to output a better quality green circuit?

Originally posted by subjectivelyimproved

Two questions regarding mixed quality production and separate stacks.

Does an assembler accept mixed quality items as input for its recipe - Like, 2 perfect/legendary copper cable and 1 normal/basic iron plate and one normal/basic copper cable to make a green circuit?

If yes, how is the product quality calculated?

Originally posted by ultra1994

do higher quality train fuel increase top speed and acceleration?

Originally posted by CzTd

Is quality moddable? Can you add more quality types with modding?

Originally posted by Vitau

One question, can train locomotives have higher quality too? I would love a acceleration bonus on them too

Originally posted by PlusVera

Hmm. Interested feature. I'm mixed on it.

Pro: From the sounds of things, you do not get "Quality" Items until you use the Quality Module. So your miners won't be spitting out "Quality" Ore until you put the modules into them. This means that you can beat the game and ignore this system if you don't like it, like the circuit network.

Con: Once you start using Quality Modules, it might be VERY VERY PAINFUL. Not only will they start to take up space in Trains or other inventory locations, they will also end up in places you might not expect, due to the nature of Factorio factories being... intertwined after a while.

Pro: Higher quality items might help alleviate beacon spamming as a strategy in the early late-game.

Con: It might make the end-late-game way, WAY worse as q5 beacons with q5 modules are now so much more effective.

Pro: This does mean your starter base will likely not produce these items, and instead they will be the focus of mega b...

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Originally posted by Spaceman_05

I don't think the random element fits factorio well. Surely the quality module should charge a bar like the productivity module does?

I feel like a predictable system would allow for more depth of design, such as integrating well with the circuit network

Originally posted by MjccWarlander

To be honest it sounds like it would be quite tedious feature, knowing me (and I'm probably not alone on this) I would just recycle everything that isn't the best quality so entire factory only uses the top quality components and products.

Originally posted by AntaroNx

Does the endgame become gambling on high rarity parts that otherwise get recycled into another chance of becoming high quality because rng?

I don't like it, and I play gacha games. Hopefully this can be turned off. The module is fine, no need to change it for the sake of change.

Originally posted by MindWorX

To make things clear, the quality content is exclusively part of the expansion. The non-expansion binary works the same internally, it just doesn't allow any mod to define anything other than the normal quality.

This feels a bit icky to me. I get why, they want to encourage more people to get the expansion, but it also means fragmenting mods more since they now have to deal with supporting both vanilla or expansion. Many might just opt to default require expansion. I know it wont impact many, me included, as we will just get the expansion. But it feels like the wrong decision.

Only comparison I can make is something like StarCraft II, where each DLC added new things, but all engine features were still fully available to modders. The only limitation was the use of assets new assets and obviously mods that just replicated the expansion would be removed.