Quality before recycler?

[Chuck]

I havent launched any rockets yet, im almost there, i just have to wrap some things up with the nauvis 'starter' factory before i start messing with space. I also havent messed with quality stuff yet, for reasons that are discussed here in this post. That being said -

Does it even make sense to mess with quality stuff before you get the recycler? Without the ability to recycle poor quality stuff and roll the dice again, is it even possible to practically get enough materials to make a usable amount of higher quality things? Like for ammo, if you wanted to make a reasonable amount of quality ammo, you would end up making an unreasonable quantity of non-quality ammo, more than what your factory would really use at any given time (unless its a deathworld or something), and without being able to dispose of that ammo, you would either have to have lots of storage or just accept your machines getting clogged up.

I guess im just posting this to ask if anyone tried to mess with quality stuff without recyclers and to ask how that went for you.

[Vovarush]

Originally posted by Chuck:

I havent launched any rockets yet, im almost there, i just have to wrap some things up with the nauvis 'starter' factory before i start messing with space. I also havent messed with quality stuff yet, for reasons that are discussed here in this post. That being said -

Does it even make sense to mess with quality stuff before you get the recycler? Without the ability to recycle poor quality stuff and roll the dice again, is it even possible to practically get enough materials to make a usable amount of higher quality things? Like for ammo, if you wanted to make a reasonable amount of quality ammo, you would end up making an unreasonable quantity of non-quality ammo, more than what your factory would really use at any given time (unless its a deathworld or something), and without being able to dispose of that ammo, you would either have to have lots of storage or just accept your machines getting clogged up.

I guess im just posting this to ask if anyone tried to mess with quality stuff without recyclers and to ask how that went for you.

Quality is best used for one-off items till lategame anyway (ex - power armour, guns, tank, personal equipment). Its best to amass intermediates and go from there.

[TTV MiraiMitama]

Can probably totally disregard it without missing out but I've enjoyed my quality solar panels / accumulators quite a bit. It's also nice to shove quality assembly machines where I lack space but need some additional output at.

If you decide to go for quality I recommend focusing on getting quality quality modules first. I see getting a quality product as a nice bonus but am happy to use non-quality output if I don't receive anything good.

[Avloren]

There are a few ways to take advantage of quality without a recycler:

Put quality mods in end products that you're making a lot of anyway, like solar panels or assemblers. The high quality ones are nice for space platforms, and the extra stats don't hurt on Nauvis either. This is just a win/win with no real cost or effort needed.

Pour a lot of resources into mass producing a particular item you really want a higher quality version of. You'll have a lot of useless extras, which you can just destroy or stockpile until later when you have recyclers. Easy to setup but wasteful and unreliable. This is probably the worst way to use quality, but it might be worth it for something you only need 1 of, and its stats really need to be as good as possible, and preferably it doesn't cost too much (I used this method to get a rare/blue SMG and handheld flamethrower before I left Nauvis).

Put quality mods as early in the production chain as possible - in miners, electric smelters, and your assemblers producing common intermediates like green chips. Filter out the higher quality ones and stockpile them, until you have enough to craft something with guaranteed higher quality. This takes a bit of effort to set up (you have to be careful with your filtering, any higher quality items that slip into the main belts will pollute them, can't be used in normal recipes). Highest up front costs too - you'll need a lot of quality mods. But once setup it's a resource efficient and reliable way to guarantee a high quality version of almost anything you want.

[tilemon]

I made some to learn about how they work, I stuck them in my assembler that were making a bunch of buildings. Now that I know how they work I'm going to wait till I get recyclers to full dive in, but the few upgraded buildings I got are useful.