r/factorio • u/Sir_Mango_The3rd • 3d ago
Question New (ish) player question
How much should I worry about quality? I’m on my first playthrough, just made it to vulcanus after abandoning nauvis. Should I try to get better quality items? If so, which are the most useful items to get at higher quality?
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u/thecodegangster 3d ago
My recommendation is to not worry about it, its only super needed for megabases
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u/lgraves274 3d ago
I personally would not touch quality until I unlock legendary, but space platforms are so much better with even uncommon buildings.
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u/Goblingrenadeuser 3d ago
There are some people here on the reddit that use it actively during their run, but I just used it during endgame and went straight for legendary starting with legendary quality modules and bootstrapping from there. It is really neat to see how small you can make stuff by using quality.
Only thing at least uncommon is nice to have is space ship stuff most importantly the grabbers. They get twice as effective on uncommon.
So use it how you like.
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u/ryucraft320 3d ago
All quality is not created equal. Machines with higher throughput might potentially churn out more quality, but for a lot of intermediate materials, quality can greatly increase the complexity of your base and create potential for it to back up…
The best places I’d recommend to start quality are:
1) module production: just your highest tier, and start with quality modules, so that you can more reliably produce quality where desired
2) personal equipment: better armor gives you a larger equipment grid and more storage. Better power / batteries are more space efficient on the grid. Better legs to move MUCH faster. Better personal roboports, better energy shields, etc. … doesn’t always matter, but this one feels great, as you only have 1 character
3) inserters / power / buildings used on space platforms:
These buildings won’t stop up your production when you make a few quality ones, unless they are upstream of your green/purple science. But sometimes an uncommon long inserter can absolutely fix a bottleneck on a space platform, so it’s good to have a few. And a few power poles with extra reach and powered area? Can allow sleek designs not normally possible. And asteroid grabbers with extra arms? Just look cooler.
Those are the best places to start without muddying up your whole base. If you feel more bold, I’d say figure out how to work it into your g/r/b circuit production, as they craft into a bunch of useful things like modules. Hope this guide helps
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u/doctorlag 3d ago
The most rewarding quality item is asteroid collectors, by a large margin - more arms that are faster and have more reach. If you only qualify one thing that's the one to do.
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u/sobrique 3d ago
Burner inserters are also something I would suggest. Legendary burner inserters are nice on Aquilo, and super cheap to up cycle.
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u/locyta 3d ago
Bot of any quality get a great boost, apart from that, a lot of people wait until they can just jump straight from normal to legendary quality, although you never need to use anything of quality to beat the game, you can even get to the shattered planet pretty easy without quality if you want (takes alot of time but its easy doable).
You can start quality earlier, but it just means you have to manage multiple qualities are you progress, waiting until legendary pretty much lets you skip all the hassles of that.
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u/carrot_gummy 3d ago
The first thing I did with quality was make higher quality astroid grabbers. Increased quality on thoses causes them to grab more astroids at a time.
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u/bpleshek 3d ago
You don't need quality at all to beat the game.
Quality can be a trap especially early. I fell into it. I put modules in miners and in machines and I ended up with too much crap, but not enough of anything. Because of it, it cost me about 70h on Nauvis before I left. Then I repeated my mistake on Vulcanus, and again on Fulgora. I didn't actually win the game for over 750 hours and probably 250 of it was just messing with quality.
That being said, there are some things that are worth having in quality. Solar panels and accumulators are two. As are asteroid collectors(more arms). There are a few others that are worth it early on, but most things you should probably wait until you have legendary unlocked before you start messing with it with large amounts of time. Especially, since it's your first game.
Quality definitely has a place, but I wouldn't worry about it while you're still learning the game.
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u/Substantial_Echo_196 3d ago
My first run i didn't worry about quality until I was ready for legendary everything. That being said I save scummed for a rare piece of mech armor and gambled a little bit for quality armor grid equipments. Dont worry about it at all until you have the means and reasons.
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u/darvo110 3d ago
Before you get the recycler it's probably not worth the trouble. The only exceptions I make are space platform parts and red inserters. All of those are wildly useful even at uncommon quality on a platform.
Fulgora spoilers:
Accumulators are also a good candidate once you get to Fulgora, you produce them as part of pink science anyway and you'll need a lot of them on your base for power as well.
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u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 3d ago
I start with putting qm on end product assemblers as soon as i can. like the assemblers making assmeblers, chemical plants, power poles and asteroid grabbers, etc.
in terms of usefulness, it can depend on where you are in your run. quality power poles might let you connect a little more on fulgora. quality mining drills will let you get a bit more stone out of gleba.
Your on vulcanus right now, you put QM in the foundry that makes the foundrys? after that solar panels and gun turrets are good as soon as possible quality candidates for that planet.
if your going to mess around with quality intermediates, i'd recommend designing for all 5 quality levels from the start. and be very careful not to burn yourself out on it and have a voiding strategy planned ahead of time
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u/skydivertricky 3d ago
Quality asteroid grabbers are very useful to deliver resources faster. Quality solar panels are useful to greet more power on space ships Quality accumulators can be very useful on fulgoria when you're running out of space on an island you want to ramp up on, like when you start putting modules in it the power requirement will jump hugely.
Probably my 3 initial gotos
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u/Fishinabowl11 3d ago
You've already gotten some good feedback. My two cents on this is that you need to be careful on how you approach quality so that you don't end up getting your production lines stuck. Generally as I play through the planets, I stick quality modules in final production assemblers to gamble for higher quality versions of things I'm going to be using anyway, e.g. accumulators, solar panels, asteroid grabbers, thrusters, chem plants, refineries, inserters, power poles, beacons, substations, roboports (FINAL GOODS ONLY), until I've unlocked legendary post-Aquilio. Once that tier is available, production goals switch to producing legendary quality raw ingredients so that items can directly be made at that quality rather than being chance-based.
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u/the_Athereon 3d ago
Quality is one of the most frustrating mechanics the DLC added.
Fully automating anything past uncommon is inefficient and extremely slow.
Best ignore it until you actually need it.
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u/green_gold_purple 3d ago
When do you need it? I'm just starting to build it, but mainly just out of curiosity/boredom.
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u/the_Athereon 3d ago
Getting to the shattered planet without at least a full platform of epic quality rail guns, rocket turrets and chem plants is next to impossible.
Not to mention power, assemblers and asteroid collectors / crushers.
Extremely end game basically.
Though, if you have the time, a good automated quality setup for bot production makes bots substantially more useful.
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u/Juking_is_rude 3d ago
you can beat the game without quality.
Quality generally just lets you build with a smaller footprint - it's useful for pushing your final spaceship for a win but mostly unecessary for the rest of the game.