Better item quality question
Better item quality question
I am new to the space age DLC and item quality seems a bit overwhelming. I've seen people use recycling recepies to achieve better item quality, but I don't get how that works. Also, is it feasible to craft items of higher quality without those recepies? I would appreciate if you guys could link some resources that you recommend when it comes to getting the hang of it all.
Re: Better item quality question
You're not alone with that feeling. In general, you're able to get items of a given quality by either directly crafting it (each recipe exists for all quality) or by crafting an item of lower quality (with the corresponding lower quality recipe) and get the chance of a higher quality item by having quality modules in the crafting machine.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Quality
However, to directly craft an item of higher quality you need to have ingredients with the same higher quality, which you don't have yet.
So you need to craft quality modules and put these into an assembling machine and craft a normal item. With quality modules, any item crafted by the assembling machine has a chance of higher quality. You can either use this item or if you need an even higher quality, you can use a recycler to retrieve the higher quality ingredients. Use the higher quality ingredients in a higher quality recipe and craft an even higher item. It's also possible to use quality modules in a recycler, so recycling also has a chance to get higher ingredients than the original item.
This can be done in a loop, called upcycling. Create item (chance for higher quality), recycle (chance for higher quality ingredients).
This loop consumes a huge amount of (normal) source items, since the recycler retrieves just 25% of the ingredients.
It's not a required game mechanic, the whole Space Age DLC works without ever crafting/using any quality item and it can be finished perfectly well without.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Quality
However, to directly craft an item of higher quality you need to have ingredients with the same higher quality, which you don't have yet.
So you need to craft quality modules and put these into an assembling machine and craft a normal item. With quality modules, any item crafted by the assembling machine has a chance of higher quality. You can either use this item or if you need an even higher quality, you can use a recycler to retrieve the higher quality ingredients. Use the higher quality ingredients in a higher quality recipe and craft an even higher item. It's also possible to use quality modules in a recycler, so recycling also has a chance to get higher ingredients than the original item.
This can be done in a loop, called upcycling. Create item (chance for higher quality), recycle (chance for higher quality ingredients).
This loop consumes a huge amount of (normal) source items, since the recycler retrieves just 25% of the ingredients.
It's not a required game mechanic, the whole Space Age DLC works without ever crafting/using any quality item and it can be finished perfectly well without.