wow modules are pointless

[Pay Child Suport]

just expand your factory. the increased 1% isn't worth all the exponential requirement just to get one.

[Malidictus]

I don't take the OP seriously, but it does neatly describe Factorio. Very little of what the player does makes a massive, night-and-day difference by itself. Small percentages add up across one's entire industry. A 1% increase across thousands if not tens of thousands of machines stops being insignificant. A 30% increase even more so, and that's still a minor bonus. This isn't even accounting for quality.

One can always build more machines, in much the same way as one can keep turn up the heating in their home rather than closing the window, or keep putting oil in their engine as a means of "fixing" a fuel leak. It CAN work if you put enough energy into it, but isn't necessarily optimal.

[The Toblin]

Really, it does get completely ABSURD by the end game. In my first Space Age playthrough, I had a single Cryo facility producing an absolutely absurd amount of plastic per second. ONE facility. One building. With just two beacons. 295.5 plastic per second.

"Modules are pointless", my butt. XD

[Taehl]

IMHO, the net effect of modules is to make a factory smaller than the equivalent non-module-using factory. That's far from pointless, I'd call it "non-critical" at most. Makes the game more interesting by vastly broadening the solution space.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Taehl:

IMHO, the net effect of modules is to make a factory smaller than the equivalent non-module-using factory. That's far from pointless, I'd call it "non-critical" at most. Makes the game more interesting by vastly broadening the solution space.

Well they are from the original game to, now when paired with the new 2.0 machines that offer a base of 50% productivity or "less resource use" in differing cases, which range in uses based on said new machine you can extend even further with sometimes productivity modules, or you can have productivity on top of quality. If your thing isn't quality and wish to ignore it though, at the very least efficiency, it is super easy to reach the max cap of 80% less power which means a mega ton less pollution and overall need to build mega power solutions lol or if you wish speed so everything is faster at the cost of needing more power, or a balance of both to keep power normal while increasing speed.

[Nasabot]

In my opinion its exactly the opposite: Game balance got completly obliterated with space age power creep(which is less a creep but an rather an explosion). And modules take a big part in this.

However, to be more specific, its not the power creep in it self (who does not like faster machines?) but its the destruction of what I would call "resource integrety".

It was already bad in the vanilla game with the multiplication of +40% productivity but now its complety ridiculous. 1 single ore might well result in thousands or at least hundreds of intermediate/endproducts. This means that the concepts of expansion, resource density and map settings become completly pointless, because you can probably feed a megabase off a stacked green ore belt for hundreds of RL years... (just exaggerating a little bit but you got the idea. Maybe its true for calcite)
In the vanilla game I liked the tasty moving 4 lane belts of ore which eventually dried out an ore patch, but this is now gone. I always hated production based games which had infinite resources (with no downsides). Pseudo infinite resources though I totally liked (like expanding the map with increasingly denser ore patches).

This is the part which disappoints me a lot because its also so unnessessary. Why do big drills need 50->8% depletion rate? Why not just go with 90->70%? Or just keep 100% and increase speed/radius instead? If you dont like resource scarcity why not completly remove ore patch capacity and make ore infinite? What is the point?

Those who do not understand the problem I described would not care, but people who do understand that the concept of resource scarcity matters, will care(not many unfortunatly). Same applies for the productivty balance which is now completly out of control

[the_hunter303✠]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

just expand your factory. the increased 1% isn't worth all the exponential requirement just to get one.

i used to think like you. i no longer do

[Pay Child Suport]

in the vanilla game, you only have to launch the rocket to win. modules in this case is pointless because like I said originally, just expand your factory. get more land area if you have to. unless I'm wrong, you only have to spread your roboport's area of influence so that the biters won't spawn at your base. call it roboport creeping if you have to. this means you only need 4-6 blueprints. 1 roboport with laser towers at the 2 or 3 corners, delete any biters in the immediate area, remove all towers but keep the roboport and expand again.

the only real reason why I would want to jrpg grind all those modules is to get legendary mech armor, tank and car. which again is way too late in the game

[The Toblin]

For Space Age, with the different planets and above all; the space platforms, optimizing for a small footprint becomes a lot more important than in vanilla.

And I really love the diminishing returns mechanic they added to beacons in 2.0. It makes beacon builds a lot more interesting.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Nasabot:

In my opinion its exactly the opposite: Game balance got completly obliterated with space age power creep(which is less a creep but an rather an explosion). And modules take a big part in this.

This is the part which disappoints me a lot because its also so unnessessary. Why do big drills need 50->8% depletion rate? Why not just go with 90->70%? Or just keep 100% and increase speed/radius instead? If you dont like resource scarcity why not completly remove ore patch capacity and make ore infinite? What is the point?

As a counterpoint, your factories can consume so many more materials.

Your science production? Your buildings run nearly 2 times faster over 1.1 due to quality. Another 4-8 times faster due to buildings with better crafting speed. Another 2.5x for quality on your speed modules.

Your production for factory building? You maybe need a hundred times the materials! The buildings are expensive, a big cost multiplier for chasing after quality... and you can't use speed beacons with it so you need several times more buildings....

If you take a Factorio 1.x production goal and say "I want to achieve this in Space Age" then all the new stuff probably makes things seem too simple.

However, you're supposed to scale up your thinking by two whole orders of magnitude or so.

---

And as a note, iron and copper are not scarce in Space Age for reasons completely unrelated to your analysis. On Vulcanus you can make endless quantities from lava*. On Gleba you can do it with agriculture. On Fulgora, iron and copper plates are waste materials you void to keep your factory unclogged. And in space you can hoover up endless masses of asteroids in the space routes to process into basic resources.

*: For true renewability you would need a handful of calcite drops from space.

[Pay Child Suport]

you know what? I just realized the more I play the game, what really gets me going was, ironically enough, the spaghetti factory. yes I did launch the rocket eventually despite being spaghetti. yes I had to keep reminding myself to defend and keep the turrets up. but yeah it was the spaghetti for me. over 60 hours from a 2nd playthrough. yes blueprints work, and I will probably make my own blueprint book that builds the base

[Pay Child Suport]

One can always build more machines, in much the same way as one can keep turn up the heating in their home rather than closing the window

the flaw in this analogy is that modules isn't as easy as closing the window to get more heat. setting up the module factory, keeping up with the material cost, and then giving those modules to your buildings isn't as easy as closing the window. and then you have a diminishing return penalty (i refuse to say bonus) when you upgrade the module from 1 to 2. and that goes up to legendary status. and most importantly, the all too hated RNG. so no, there's no RNG in closing a window.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

One can always build more machines, in much the same way as one can keep turn up the heating in their home rather than closing the window

the flaw in this analogy is that ... no, there's no RNG in closing a window.

There is if you live in a neighborhood with kids. Baseballs and assorted other "toys" don't mix well with windows. Pure RNG if one of your windows is next. And hope it ain't the Arcadia door. $$$

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

One can always build more machines, in much the same way as one can keep turn up the heating in their home rather than closing the window

the flaw in this analogy is that modules isn't as easy as closing the window to get more heat. setting up the module factory, keeping up with the material cost, and then giving those modules to your buildings isn't as easy as closing the window. and then you have a diminishing return penalty (i refuse to say bonus) when you upgrade the module from 1 to 2. and that goes up to legendary status. and most importantly, the all too hated RNG. so no, there's no RNG in closing a window.

Well you don't have to force legendary, best to wait till you get certain planets to try mass producing, like fulgora you get better productivity from that building for all chips, which means more chips!

But generally just feed leftover at the end of the bus to modules lump in quality use what you get to start.

But they stack pretty hard and not all are lower. Quality is low at 1% then 2 then 2.5% before quality. However it's easy to get 10% thats 10% if you make "uncommon" but if you craft uncommon it's 10% to rare. Then you can upcycle with recyclers at 12.5% lowest tier of mk3.

But what I'm saying is set some up let em run, don't stress about "keeping up" you'll have full chest in no time if your doing other things, highly suggest efficiency if nothing else cuz mk2 makes it easy to make the entire factory consume -80% power.

[Entropy]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

One can always build more machines, in much the same way as one can keep turn up the heating in their home rather than closing the window

the flaw in this analogy is that modules isn't as easy as closing the window to get more heat. setting up the module factory, keeping up with the material cost, and then giving those modules to your buildings isn't as easy as closing the window. and then you have a diminishing return penalty (i refuse to say bonus) when you upgrade the module from 1 to 2. and that goes up to legendary status. and most importantly, the all too hated RNG. so no, there's no RNG in closing a window.

Tier 2 legendaries are very enough if you don't go ULTRA ULTRA megabases. So you don't need to hunt for very rare legendary tier 3 mats. Since tier 2 legendary access is fairly easy in this game.. .With asteroid processing legendary farming rng is minimal. Steady supplies u can say. Tier 1 legendary speed module = Tier 3 normal speed module. Tier 2 legendary quality is bigger than all tier 3 qualities except legendary so...

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Pay Child Suport:

the flaw in this analogy is that modules isn't as easy as closing the window to get more heat. setting up the module factory, keeping up with the material cost, and then giving those modules to your buildings isn't as easy as closing the window. and then you have a diminishing return penalty (i refuse to say bonus) when you upgrade the module from 1 to 2.

You still have to get off your ass and do it, though. That's kind of my point - setting up logistics for resource and tool production IS the core gameplay loop of Factorio. "The factory must grow to support the growing factory" and all that. The point of that analogy is that you very much CAN get away with not using modules, absolutely. You'd just be throwing more energy and more materials into facilities with a larger footprint to achieve the same goals.

If you want a "better" metaphor, it's like turning up the heat in your house, rather than applying heat insulation cladding. Does that work better, do you think?