Epic and Legendary quality unlocks

[Factorymustgrow2004]

Epic and Legendary quality unlocks are too late in the game and are some of the most expensive research in the game despite the hoops you need to jump through to actually craft very high quality products. On Aquilo you can research all of the game ending tech combined for cheaper than unlocking Legendary quality. I propose Epic quality be moved to Utility research and Legendary quality be moved to Gleba if they must be unlocked at all.
This would allow players that enjoy quality as a mechanic to focus on it during the journey to reach the high end of quality rather than it only being available at the end especially in legendary's case where it is almost inaccessible until the post game.

[Molay]

I share the concern that legendary quality is available too late. You're done settling new planets by the time you get it, so all it's good for is the space platform or the postgame? In my opinion legendary quality should unlock before Aquilo.

My preferred way to go about it would be like this. On nauvis you unlock your basic quality modules, and max uncommon quality.
Vulcanus, Fulgora and Gleba each have a science-pack specific research that increases max quality level by +1 (a bonus akin to robot follower count). The order does not matter. After your first expansion planet, you can get rare quality, after your second you can get epic and after your third you can get legendary.
That would open up legendary quality before Aquilo.

I realize there still is a point to legendary quality in the postgame, just like megabasing and such. But quality is the most fun feature in my opinion, and it's locked all the way at the end, when there is nothing more to properly settle/colonize.

Is there any reason it was decided that legendary quality unlocks right as you no longer really need it to build new bases/face new challenges? If you've made it this far, everything is working well, can be improved, but doesn't need to be. There's still the final bit I haven't interacted with, but afaik it's all about building a space platform, which is really awesome and a reason to get some stuff to legendary quality, but many things don't even work on space platforms to begin with. That excludes a large chunk of buildings from having a reason to be made legendary during normal play.

To me, it does feel a bit awkward as it is currently. Quality does not feel optional, yet it does not really invite you to do much with it until the very end. Particularly, epic quality feels like it has no place. By the time you get it, you go from +60% to +90% effect, there is little reason to retrofit anything or plan for it, the jump to legendary instead is immense with it's jump to 150%.

Maybe that's not true if you go to Gleba first and unlock epic quality early (I would've done so in retrospect only for quality gameplay), but I ended up going there as the last of the three, so pushing on to legendary was a natural fit and epic was just a stepping stone to scrap and upcycle.

[shopt]

So I'll admit I haven't gotten this far in space age yet, but 1.1 has some items which were only really relevant for post-game (eg. spidertron, atomic bomb, artillery). I'm not sure I see the problem that one of the quality levels is effectively post-game. Just pretend there are 4 levels.

[Rykuta]

Epic only comes late if you goto Gleba last; though I think for most people, this is very much the norm.

Maybe making it so that you just need to finish construction of "any" of the sciences from any of the planets to unlock rare would make it more accessible in playthroughs.

Likewise the Legendary comes from making Aquilo's science packs which it could then basically be used just for the game winning space ship and nothing else. Earlier might be just requiring it to have Aquilo travel unlocked (all research up to Aquilo unlocked). That way you can set something up everywhere before heading to the final planet.

Though I also wouldn't mind it just coming along with quality's initial research in general so you can immediately start trying to harvest legendaries from the beginning.

[AileTheAlien]

My preferred way to go about it would be like this. On nauvis you unlock your basic quality modules, and max uncommon quality.
Vulcanus, Fulgora and Gleba each have a science-pack specific research that increases max quality level by +1 (a bonus akin to robot follower count). The order does not matter. After your first expansion planet, you can get rare quality, after your second you can get epic and after your third you can get legendary.
That would open up legendary quality before Aquilo.

This sounds reasonable to me!

I wouldn't mind quality levels just coming along with quality's initial research, so you can immediately start trying to harvest legendaries from the beginning.

I'd also be fine with this, and it'd be simpler to implement. Like, you'd still need to get T3 modules from Fulgora or only use quality modules on the 5-slot machines to get really high chances, so you wouldn't really be able to rush legendary, but you might be able to build a couple items with it.

[ividyon]

I will chime in with a voice for "it's fine as it is"; I find Legendary quality to be a fitting reward for conquering Aquilo, and without it, there wouldn't be much excitement in reaching that milestone.

[Fharkas]

I support the idea for the Epic and Legendary Tech to not be planet specific researches.
It even makes sense, the more you learn about production (Foundry, Electromagnetism, Biochemistry) the higher quality your production.
First new planet technology level reached - Epic
Second and Third (two) planets technology level - Legendary

That would mean during my replays I can start with any one planet for Epic and get Legendary for Aquilo.
Why this is important?
- Exploring and colonizing new planets with limited high quality stuff is super fun.
- If Legendary is unlocked on Aquilo, it will be only used for deep space, which is just an already explored "space biome" end game, not a completely new one.

Also Quality without recycling :
I setup a whole parallel production line on Nauvis and Vulcanus so I can get enough materials for Rare stuff that I find really worthwhile. Space platform stuff, Power Armor, Lightning Rods for Fugora. However, by the time I finish on my first planet I have more than enough rare stuff, so I can use them quite freely. If I would have then a trickle of lucky epic, I would be back to making hard decisions where to use up that stuff most strategically and enjoy the benefits on the newest planet. Also, I wouldn't be restricted on planet progression, adding replay value.

[PSYCHOELECTRIC]

personally, i think its fine as-is due to quality generally being a post-game mechanic anyway. its mostly just there to reduce UPS or gamble for early boosts. its not worth investing in that hard until aquilo anyway, since promethium harvesting grants many-a-boon to higher tier harvesters

[HadesSupreme]

I think it'd be fine if Gleba just unlocked both Epic and Legendary.

Unlocking Epic is kind of annoying to me because if I want to make Legendary items then I feel like setting up just an Epic quality manufactory is a waste of my time. The only value of unlocking Epic on Gleba to me is being able to start stockpiling materials before unlocking Legendary and actually putting them to use rolling items. The most important items to have quality (personal equipment) is something you don't really need to upgrade further post-gleba and post-mech armor anyway.

[Rykuta]

Epic can come as early as you want if you just zoom on down to Gleba first. Weird thing about that is that, for some reason, all of the quality enhancing gizmos and gadgets are all on Fulgora. So if you want the most out of the new rarity you have to goto Fulgora anyways. Which means you're already 2/3 planets down by the time it has relevance.

It feels like higher quality tiers was intended to be on Fulgora but they needed more things to make Gleba enticing. Could probably move the mech suit to Gleba and make it more of a bio-mechanical suit and swap the two and it might make it feel like Epic comes around earlier.

Legendary comes late because everything on Aquilo comes late if you just plan on beating the game. Once you unlock the railgun you just have to assemble a ship that uses it and that's it, the game is done, you don't ever have to revisit anything. It would have been neat if unlocking quantum processors unlocked new manufacturing chains on each of the 3 other planets that all require you to largely upscale your setups in order to handle the new demand before you can actually /win/. This would give time for legendary and the other techs to actually have a use before the game just ends. Kinda like a final challenge to prove mastery rather than just optional toys for post-game.

But also maybe it was designed that way on purpose so that legendary is basically just for post-game resource sinking and not much else. Still would be neat to play around with it earlier though.

[EustaceCS]

Please understand the duality of Quality.
You either can or cannot afford higher Quality tiers.
If you can afford it or (at the very least) reveling in gamba won't become the end of your playthrough (which, by extent, means that you can afford it anyway) - you're fine.
If you can't afford it - especially if you think you can - you'll waste unreasonable time finding it out.
ESPECIALLY with Epic/Legendary becoming affordable and well withing reach.

If (if!) research cost for Epic looks too steep - maybe you can't afford it. Or maybe you shouldn't. But you can try. The game doesn't ban you from doing so explicitly. The game just sets well-justified entry fee tho...