Friday Facts #375 - Quality

[MeduSalem]

I’ve seen people say that you can mix ingredients quality and the output will be the lowest, is that correct because I’ve skimmed the FF page and can’t see it? It would solve the issue that I’m having with the quality mod where I’m getting too much of one level quality ingredient and not enough of the same quality of another and it locks the builds up.

As I understand it will not always be the lowest quality output if you mix ingredient qualities.

The quality modules inside machines will affect how high the chances are to get a better quality item produced.
But the ingredients you input themselves also affect the chances for getting a better quality item.

So if you mix different quality ingredients you will still get some quality items out, but not as much as you would if they would all be the same quality.

I think the only thing that is guaranteed is that if all ingredients are the same quality then the quality of the output item cannot be lower than the quality of the input was.

[Loewchen]

As I understand it will not always be the lowest quality output if you mix ingredient qualities.

Without quality modules you will always get the quality of your lowest ingredient.

[MeduSalem]

As I understand it will not always be the lowest quality output if you mix ingredient qualities.

Without quality modules you will always get the quality of your lowest ingredient.

Is that written somewhere already? ^^

Anyway if that is the case and how it will work then I will blatantly say that it is stupid because it bares any logic of what the average player expects to happen.

Because imagine you have a recipe with 5 ingredients, and 4 of them are legendary quality and only 1 is base quality. If what you say is true then the entire output is base quality just because you don't have a quality module in the final assembler. ^^

The more logical result should be that the result should be a weighted distribution between the lowest and the highest quality ingredients. At least that is what I would expect as a result. If it is a good result, is debatable, but at least it is what I would expect.

[Nemoricus]

I find it quite reasonable to say that you're limited to the worst of your inputs. A chain that has all high quality links except for one weak link isn't a high quality chain.

Put another way, you get quality by committing to quality, not by cheaping out on one component or another.

[spinba11]

If I’m making a legendary gear will the inserter pickup any Quality iron that goes by, meaning if I actually want a legendary gear I can only let legendary iron go down the belt (there’s no quality modules in the assembler).

[Loewchen]

If I’m making a legendary gear will the inserter pickup any Quality iron that goes by, meaning if I actually want a legendary gear I can only let legendary iron go down the belt (there’s no quality modules in the assembler).

You will be able to filter by quality.

[Sickc]

There should be a low quallity that gives debuffs. That way not upgrading also slows you down and provides low quallity ofcourse it could also cost less so there would be a use for it if you have space and need something crafted in bulk. Guessing the quallity averages out with a chance of higher or lower quality to pop out when crafting so if you fail to update early production endgame items would go down a quallity or two just because the intermediates where made with low quallity items and assemblers. The values for qualities will probs be changable with mods so it dosent have to be changed in the main game.

[Ranakastrasz]

Query.
Can you mix quality levels in a recipe, not in the sense of t1 gears and t0 copper/iron plates, but in the sense of t0 and t1 gears? As in, you have a classic green circuit assembly setup, with quality modules in the copper wires. Does there being t0 and t1 copper wires mean it can't properly feed the green circuit maker?

Suggestion. Use the average of each input component type's quality, and average those with all the input slots, to determine the effective base quality. So mixing a few quality components in will give better results, but not as good as using all quality components.
- so a green circuit made with Q0 iron plate and q2 copper wires would be treated as having quality 1 inputs. A green circuit made with Q0 iron and 2 q0 and 1 q1 copper wire would be (0+((0+1)/3))/2= 0.17 base quality, meaning 1/6 of the time it would act like t1 compinents we're used, but the rest would act as though t0 components.
This way you can, and probably want to filter out quality components, but if you just place them in your existing layouts it won't jam and will still give value.

[FuryoftheStars]

Query.
Can you mix quality levels in a recipe, not in the sense of t1 gears and t0 copper/iron plates, but in the sense of t0 and t1 gears? As in, you have a classic green circuit assembly setup, with quality modules in the copper wires. Does there being t0 and t1 copper wires mean it can't properly feed the green circuit maker?

Suggestion. Use the average of each input component type's quality, and average those with all the input slots, to determine the effective base quality. So mixing a few quality components in will give better results, but not as good as using all quality components.

My assumption is yes, because they don't have different recipes for each quality tier of input ingredients.

That said, it has been said somewhere (I don't think here on the forums other than by moderators) that mixing quality tiers will use the lowest quality ingredient as the base tier.