Friday Facts #376 - Research and Technology

[Panzerknacker]

Hey I aint sayin the proposed names are the best, just that it matters for me to have proper chosen unique names.

[DiegoPro77]

Sorry if I come late, maybe you already answered to this question: will it be possible for modders to create their own custom productivity technologies?
That would be insanely HUGE.

[wyp020610]

The whole point of manufacturing is to produce an item of exacting, consistent, and reproducible specifications with as little waste as humanely possible.

Let's discuss with the example of a Power armor 2. I need a legendary PA2 here, and only one.
What I need is not manufacturing. It's experimenting. Getting one PA2, and make it powerful as possible. All those PA2s below legendary are considered failed prototypes. They are not needed, and better sent to recyclers.

The current quality system still feels wrong with this, but at least it makes some sense.

[juggernaut]

Hello. Then I have a simple question about quality. If I have a simple production facility at my base, for example, assembly machines, and I am not currently interested in their quality.
Will they stack into one pile regardless of rarity or will they start taking up 5 times more space?
If I just order 20 assembly machines, what will the drones bring me?
It turns out that it will be impossible to accurately calculate the productivity of a workshop if manipulators, conveyors and assemblers of different quality are used?
Is it possible to disable "quality" in the world settings at all?
In my opinion: after all, our game is about factories, and not about loot boxes. I don’t think that Boeing has a 10% chance of making a legendary wing for an airplane, and they send the remaining 90% for recycling.

[Koub]

Hello. Then I have a simple question about quality. If I have a simple production facility at my base, for example, assembly machines, and I am not currently interested in their quality.
Will they stack into one pile regardless of rarity or will they start taking up 5 times more space?
If I just order 20 assembly machines, what will the drones bring me?

If all your components are standard and you don't explicitly add quality modules in your factory, everything will remain standard quality and it will be "as in 1.1".
You will start producing items of higher quality once you add quality modules in your producing buildings and/or start having higher quality inputs. And then, items of different quality won't stack.

Therefore, you should limit the use of quality to where you absolutely want it.

At least that's my current understanding.

[mmmPI]

It turns out that it will be impossible to accurately calculate the productivity of a workshop if manipulators, conveyors and assemblers of different quality are used?

I think it will be more difficult if there are different quality level mixed in the same production lane. But not much more difficult than when there was different modules type/count in the assemblies/beacon or different assembly tier. From the FFF it seem that the quality will be visible, so hovering over one assembly should indicate its crafting speed and quality level.(no hidden bonus ). Also it sound like it will still be possible to use only 1 type to keep ratios simple.

I don’t think that Boeing has a 10% chance of making a legendary wing for an airplane, and they send the remaining 90% for recycling.

Well Boeing doesn't always make the wings :
https://www.mhi.com/products/air/boeing_787.html

When Boeing doesn't make the wings they still have a quality process :
https://www.boeingsuppliers.com/D6-8728 ... ements.pdf

This means they don't make wings with low quality material. There is a part about "calibration" that apply to their supplier and that they are allowed to inspect. Most of the components of the wings are measured and selected based on "spec", they need to satisfy certains quality level.

Such process are comon in the industries, for example for electric resistor :
https://www.logwell.com/tech/components ... alues.html

This doesn't mean that 90% goes to recycling. It means that certains supplier keep maybe their 10% more precise manufactured item for the production lane of Boeing's wing whereas 90% is sold for a lower price and is not going to be used in something as sensible as a plane.

For resistor, making them precise at 1% is very expensive, more often it's 5% or even 10% margin compared to the nominal value. However it can very well be the same production lane that is used to make the 1% precise, they are "selected"/"binned" after measurement ( calibration process ).
If you need very very precise resistors you pay a higher price and the manufacturer sell you the more precise, maybe when it's a Boeing supplier that need resistors for the wing, they can pay higher price for higher quality than when another supplier need resistor for a lawnmower or a toy.
(https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q ... robability)

Maybe it help if you think the wing is already made of legendary component, so it's then a 100% chance on the assembler. I think Boeing do it this way because if they don't select (only) legendary component, then they risk having to send the wing in the recycler as you say, and they don't want to do that for obvious money reasons

[Syriusz]

When I have read about the need to stay on the planet after reading about quality, the solution for me was simple- make planets that have resources with higher quality. And then make so advanced research is using quality items. So the first tech for quality could be that you land on the planet that have high quality resources, our engineer says "wow, that's amazing, I need to research this!". So he crafts first uncommon science packs with uncommon intermediate items made from uncommon iron and copper ore. At least quality science should require quality science packs, then there will be no issue for people who want to skip it, at least if there would be enough resources with low quality on every planet. And higher quality research packs should have a boost to productivity to be useful for regular science too. This would be great. At least I hope there will be a mod for it.

[Jan11]

Read the FF and really like it.

[Zathuras]

Huh, dont pay attention for a few months and suddely, stuff happened.

Very interesting Ideas, I look forward to a lot of those!

You could do a C&C expansion, a city expansion, micromanagement like building a factory that is the inside of all your assemblers, some towerdefense stuff.. I would pay money for all of those. Hell I made new steamaccounts just so I could buy two more copies to support you.

However: "quality" sounds like the EA version of Krastorio that was supposed to force you to buy DLCs to replace this "feature".


The quality-thing is a nope from me. Yes factorio is about automating what would be a grind. But there is one thing that is worse than grinding: wait-grinding. And it is done once so far, for uranium. You set up the centrifuge, and then you wait. building more is possible, but after ten or twenty, cutting the wait in half again will just have you wait for centrifuge-ingredients instead. You could do other things while its running. And when Nuclear power is the last thing youre waiting for, you leave your computer on while going shopping.
But, Uranium extraction IRL its a million times more tedious, and I like the head-nod to that fact. Also, its one thing, and you can strategize when to start it and then do other things.
But quality? Hell no. Modules are already a pain. That ridiculous compression of mass, setting up a factory ten times as large and repetetetetive as your actual factory, hoping to get the modules for all of it done by christmas.. and now I am supposed to use 4 level three modules, lets say they add 4% quality chance each, to grind to a max level at the rate of 0.16^5? That is 0,0001048576% At 25% recycling output, repeatable, the outcome is still near 5000 times the ressources and production time.
+ Little quality markers are (sorry to say it) the laziest of upgrade visualizations I have seen in any mod.
In what world is this better than new tiers of buildings with new graphics, specialized functions, maybe new footprints forcing different setups, needing more refined or more difficult to attain inputs..
After you have it, I dont see the gameplay difference between a Masterwork express belt 45i/s+100% and an Immersite Belt at 90i/s.
The difference is the way to get there. If you enjoy waiting thousands of circles though an upgrade factory, I would say be careful watching trees grow. The exictement might give you a heartattack.

[mmmPI]

and now I am supposed to use 4 level three modules, lets say they add 4% quality chance each, to grind to a max level at the rate of 0.16^5? That is 0,0001048576%

I have a good news ! that's not how probabilities work. If you have 4 module that gives you 4% each, it makes it 16%. that's 1/6.5 or 0.16 That means you have 0.84 chance of failure, that's this part that you need to multiply by itself if you try several time.

how many chance of at least 1 success with 1 attempt = 1-0.84 = 0.16 = 16% chance
with 2 attempts = 1-(0.84*0.84) = 29% chance
with 3 attempts = 1-(0.84)^3 = 40%
with 5 attempts = 1-0.84^5 = 58%.

You can use this website that was linked earlier if you want : https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/ ... t=cmp-true

If you write 0.16 as chance of sucess and 5 attempts and 1 success, it will show the last number as 0.58179 which means 58%.

That means if you have 5 machine producing at the same time you have more than 50% chance to get a success each cycle from one or another machine.

After you have it, I dont see the gameplay difference between a Masterwork express belt 45i/s+100% and an Immersite Belt at 90i/s.
The difference is the way to get there. If you enjoy waiting thousands of circles though an upgrade factory, I would say be careful watching trees grow. The exictement might give you a heartattack.

I think you missread the FFF, it is said that belts only get HP bonus from quality. So the difference would be immersite belt have double througput. Maybe it make more sense to pick an item that actually benefit from the quality feature ^^ and you don't have to watch your factory, if the automation is good, you can build something else in the meantime

[Zathuras]

Apologies, I didnt read through the benefits. Doesnt change my point: to me, a new thing, with new graphics, higher-tech inputs and new game mechanics, trumps a +1 slotmachine any day of the year. Even if it turns out to be kind of fun, I would not like myself having fun on a slotmachine. So I will proactively decline to engage :-/

But on the probabilities, I was talking about quality level five. Wasnt it said that when you have 16% chance of +1 quality, with five levels of quality, you need to get lucky on a 16% chance five times in a row? Pretty certain that would be 0,16^5.
Or was it 1 in 10 upgraded parts are +2, 1 in 100 +3 and so on?

There was something about "the quality of the inputs matters." If you could push the reliability of higher grade stuff until level5 becomes like 60%, and level 4 like 98%, through iterating factory overhauls, that could be kinda nice.
That is what happened when a guy started to turn steel really fast to shave it in small increments instead of hammering it.
Each spinning machine was used to make a more precise spinning machine, until he could produce 9999 out of 10000 screws within 0.01 millimeters of each other.

Also, to comment on a post further up: Yes, boeing doesnt throw wings away. The titanium-sheetmetal-forge does, though. And the Furnace checks for imperfections as well. Bentley throws away 80% of Fuel tank covers, because they have a scratch or something.
Best example by far, and I have an Idea the WUBE team got their inspiration from that, is binning in chip-manufacturing.
Any i3 CPU is just a bad quality i9.

[mmmPI]

Apologies, I didnt read through the benefits. Doesnt change my point: to me, a new thing, with new graphics, higher-tech inputs and new game mechanics, trumps a +1 slotmachine any day of the year. Even if it turns out to be kind of fun, I would not like myself having fun on a slotmachine. So I will proactively decline to engage :-/

That's a point of view i suppose. I have a personnal rule of never gambling or betting money, i wouldn't hate myself for having fun at a slotmachine, if it's fun I would if i was feeling tricked to lose money for a hypothetic chance of winning money because that's kind of a paradox to hope winning money where the probabilities are made against you by the bookmaker or the casino

But on the probabilities, I was talking about quality level five. Wasnt it said that when you have 16% chance of +1 quality, with five levels of quality, you need to get lucky on a 16% chance five times in a row? Pretty certain that would be 0,16^5.
Or was it 1 in 10 upgraded parts are +2, 1 in 100 +3 and so on?

Well it was written on the FFF about quality

With this straightforward approach, if you want to produce items of legendary quality, and you already have enough legendary quality 3 modules (which is not an easy thing to get in the first place), the legendary items are 56 times more expensive than normal items.

It gives an order of magnitude, it's not 5000 times more expensive, it doesn't have to be at least.

0.16^5, that kind of thing would math out how much probabilities that you only have successes. If you have 16% chance of winning, that's the order of magnitude you have to find the good number using a 6 faces dice. And 0.16*0.16 would represent the chance of getting your prediction for the dice right twice in a row. and 0.16^5 makes a very small number, it is the likelyhood that 5 times IN A ROW you happen to guess right a dice number.
0.16 ^ 5= 0.0001048576, this means in % you have to move the coma two rows to the right, and it gives 0.01048576% (1/0.0001048576 = 1 chance out of 9500 more or less.)

(This is close to what this website is telling https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/dice If you try with 5 dices, and "All dice with the same face/side value". which is an equivalent in term of probabilities. Because whatever you bet the odds are the same against you of 1/6 which is 16.6666%, getting it right 5 times in a row is quite rare indeed, you need on average 10 000 attempt for it to happen once since proba are around 0.0001 chance. So a casino could place the reward at something like 8000x times your bet if you win 5 times in a row since there is around 0.01% chance of winning the average customer will lose money. That's the kind of slotmachine i wouldn't play )



The other formula, when you do 1-0.16=0.84 and then you do 1-(0.84)^x this represent the "risk of faillure", basically, how much probabilities that you have only failures. The more you attempts, statistically, the less likely it is that it fail all the time. ( which in the case where you just want 1 armor make sense i found ).

So when you get 58% chance of success with 5 attempts, really it's the opposite, it's 42% risk that there is 0 success. that makes it 58% chance that there is AT LEAST 1 success. But you can also have 0 or 2 or 3 or 4 and even 5 success with 5 attempts. The other website https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/ ... t=cmp-true shows the probability for P>= 1. that means 1 or more success is 58% ,but if you look closely there is also the probability for P = 1 that is 39% chance. And the probability for P>1, that is 18%.

This means on 5 attempts you have = 42% chance of 0 success, 39% chance of 1 success, and 18% chance or 2 or more successes. ( that"s 100% total if you do not account for my roundings ).

If you try again on this website with 2 success 5 attempt and 0.16 chance of success, it shows that the probability to get EXACTLY 2 successes is 15%. That help to further divide the previous 18% into 15% chances of having exactly 2 success and as such 3% or so to have more than 2 success out of 5 attempt with 16% chance of getting it right.

There was something about "the quality of the inputs matters." If you could push the reliability of higher grade stuff until level5 becomes like 60%, and level 4 like 98%, through iterating factory overhauls, that could be kinda nice.
That is what happened when a guy started to turn steel really fast to shave it in small increments instead of hammering it.
Each spinning machine was used to make a more precise spinning machine, until he could produce 9999 out of 10000 screws within 0.01 millimeters of each other.

All i have written here was only considering the chance of getting a +1 quality upgrade.

But it is also possible to get a +2 quality upgrade, althought that is rarer that would still further boost the odds in the player's favor.

It makes things extra complex if you want to measure precisely absolutly everything. And i feel less of a randomness thing, if you indeed push the quality of intermediate, which you can do pretty reliably if you use several machines working over some time. ( if you have 100 machines doing 5 cycle each, you will end up with 42 % machine failing all 5 time, but 58% machine succeeding at least once !)

Edit: it occured to me later, that if there are 5 quality level, one only need to succeed 4 upgrade, not 5 duh , all those math are quite not those from the game beware !

[Koub]

0.16 ^ 5= 0.0001048576, this means in % you have to move the coma two rows to the right, and it gives 0.01048576% (1/0.01048576 = 1 chance out of 95 more or less.)

0.0001048576 = 0.01048576% <> 1/0.01048576

Roughly, it's a 1 over 10k chance

[mmmPI]

No mmmPI that's not how probabilty works stop confusing people on the forum.

OK sorry Koub i fixed my math mistake.

[FuryoftheStars]

Also, if you're all gonna discuss probabilities, should probably use the actual numbers given by the devs instead of making up random numbers.

[mmmPI]

Also, if you're all gonna discuss probabilities, should probably use the actual numbers given by the devs instead of making up random numbers.

The % here are those with tier 3 quality module, not Legendary tier 3.
With those :

Normal: Base quality for everything, no bonus
Uncommon: +30% bonus
Rare: +60% bonus
Epic: +90% bonus
Legendary: +150% bonus

If the quality module are "RARE" , i suppose that means instead of 10% chance with 4 of them, you go up to 16% chance. Not sure if those are made up but they would apply for the middle quality level.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone creates a factorio calculator for probabilities when times come

[FuryoftheStars]

Ah, right, I did forget that modules themselves could benefit from quality (assuming quality modules are not exempt from this), and if it was mentioned somewhere that rare modules specifically was being used for the calculations, I missed it.

I do wonder why use rare modules for the calculations, though? I'd think it'd be better to do the calculations at lowest and/or highest? Unless you're sitting there micromanaging the crap out of everything, I don't see much beyond those two tiers being used in most applications. In fact, I'd think it'd be better to run your quality module production lines until you're producing T3 Q5 quality modules (and have the quality module production line filled with them) before sending any others out to the wide world at large.

[BicycleEater]

Just, note that the numbers given by the team are about right - presuming the quality works as:
Level+1 has probability p
Level+2 has probability p^2
Level+3 has probability p^3
Level+4 has probability p^4

then with 4 standard quality 3 modules, and recycling (but no modules in the recyclers), the L5 takes the ingredients to ~3363 L1, where using 4 L5 quality 3 modules, the cost is around ~65 (I didn't work it out precisely).

[mmmPI]

Ah, right, I did forget that modules themselves could benefit from quality (assuming quality modules are not exempt from this), and if it was mentioned somewhere that rare modules specifically was being used for the calculations, I missed it.

I do wonder why use rare modules for the calculations, though?

No it wasn't mentionned, i just looked up after you mentionned it if 16% was possible, i though it was taken randomly as illustrative number that is in order of magnitude. But i suppose your speculations are part of the depth of the expansion Maybe Q3 is all you can get before the 4rth planet and it may make sense in the progression to scale things up at Q3 given your expense/deathworl and whatnots configs. Those considerations appeal to a calculator like there exists for dices and coinflip or specific to games. In fact i thought i could try to do one with combinators in factorio

(I didn't work it out precisely).

devs are pro though ! x)

For a player there's a lot to take into account

As the numbers you/the devs give is one method to get a "legendary" item, the one where you use the lowest quality input and recycle everything until you get the highest quality input. But in game it is possible that you need roboport only Q3 for your tileable blueprint, and you end up recycling the Q4 and Q5 you occasionnaly get by excess luck and use those high quality material from the recycler as input for maybe laser tower where you want only Q5.

How much iron ore for 10 roboport and 80 turret per hour ? you have untill the release of the expansion !

[BicycleEater]

(I didn't work it out precisely).

devs are pro though ! x)

For a player there's a lot to take into account

As the numbers you/the devs give is one method to get a "legendary" item, the one where you use the lowest quality input and recycle everything until you get the highest quality input.

Hmm, ok, I've just made a spreadsheet to come up with the numbers, and it seems right, and it's now giving 40x as expensive - 30x if you're clever and put L5 prod mods in a few assemblers...
If you use multiple layers of crafting with quality then it gets muuuuuch cheaper - every layer you use quality on roughly halves the cost - and that's actually independant of the quality of the modules (provided you're using the same quality of module everywhere), though the power of L5 prod modules evens things up, so if you're at L5 you have no reason not to just use prods everywhere, then qual on the last layer with a recycle loop (presumably drone driven, as honestly at that point you don't even need to recycle that much anyway - a full third of level 1 ingredients get upgraded anyway).