Please share ! :dBicycleEater wrote: βThu Oct 12, 2023 4:49 pm 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...
I'm not sure i'm sharing that conclusion, if you use quality only at the last layer, you remove yourself the chances of getting the "rare" +2 +3 +4 quality upgrade. You only expect the +1. That sound like not the most optimal way, maybe it's just because i haven't seen the numbers.BicycleEater wrote: βThu Oct 12, 2023 4:49 pm 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).
Also you first multiply the quantity of base input material with productivity, and then reduce it at the last step with the recycler, forcing a much larger footprint throughout the whole production chain, and many recycling recipe/loop. Whereas utilizing quality and recycler at the early stage of the production, will net only the "densest" material early, and later down the chain, only use productivity to multiply the quantity of this high quality material.
I know those two points are contradicting with each other (you can't use prod in many of the "last step" and you can't use "quality" either if it's maxed out already with the input).
But they are "reasons" to do differently than full prod and quality only at the last layer which may apply in one game or another depending the settings and objectives.