Quality of items in the expansion!
Mixed feelings about this one.
On the one hand, it looks like an interesting game mechanic and I can see it being fun to chase some legendary gear.
On the other, it all feels a bit Fortnite-esque, especially with the names they currently have.
The graphics look really awkward too. All those legendary inserters don’t look at all good IMO.
The naming and graphics are presumably easier to change than the core mechanics, so hopefully things will evolve a little there before the final release.
The names and colours of the different rarities are quite standard and way older than fortnite
I’m more worried about quintupling my inventory clutter, and ratios getting out of wack if you’re not keeping a close watch
The recycler seems like a really cool concept! No more chests filled with old-gen items laying around.
I am happy that you can avoid quality. While this seems to be a great feature, having two or three different kinds of each item occupy separate inventory spaces would surely make the game a lot more complicated for less experienced players. I do see using it myself though, but I feel like I would need a really mature base before I try anything more than equipment.
What I didn’t get: do miners also produce higher quality ores when loaded with quality modules? And smelters?
I initially hated the idea, but if it’s possible to hit crazy benchmarks without trains then it gives a new way of reaching mega base.
Also it can limit the reliance on blueprints. There is something satisfying about pasting a big block, but it gets repetitive when you are pasting your 8th green circuit block.
I’m glad they said it’s optional. I don’t like this. We already have quality in tiers. Assembler 1, 2, 3. This just makes it random and harder to see. Random isn’t fun, it’s tedious. Harder to see isn’t fun, it’s just mental tax.
I was pretty skeptical when I first started reading through this, but I’m actually kind of looking forward to it now. People seem to be really turned off by the RNG, but with the recycler, you can essentially automate it away. I’m excited to play with recycling loop designs and separate production lines for high quality items/intermediates, and fast/efficient low quality production lines for science. I also think people are getting caught up in only thinking of the late game and waning to leap frog to tier 5 instead of thinking of the tiers as progression as you slowly build and iterate on your factory. I do agree that the naming for the tiers really doesn’t match Factorio though and something more industrial would fit better.
