The biggest new system in Factorio: Space Age is the new Quality mechanic. The system has seen some changes throughout the beta and ultimately reached its current form shortly before the release of the expansion. Here is everything you need to know about Quality in Factorio: Space Age including how it works, why you should bother with it, and how to get the best Quality items!
How Quality works in Factorio
In Factorio: Space Age, most items now have a Quality effect. That means an additive effect that buffs that item in some way. The actual effect is different varied on item, but here’s some of the major item effects introduced with Quality:
- Armor now adds Health
- Modules gain an increased buff to their produced effect
- Assembling Machines craft faster
- Turrets have increased range
- Inserters are faster
- Power Poles have increased tile range
- Roboports have increased Robot Limits
- Accumulators have larger capacities
- Ammo deals more damage
- Miners have reduced resource depletion
- Radars have a bigger scan range
- Beacons consume less power
- Reactors, boilers, engines, and turbines have increased output
Some of the added Quality effects really make a huge difference. For example, higher quality Accumulators can change the overall Solar Panel to Accumulator ratio you have to used. Ore patches with higher quality Miners on them will last longer without having to lower output. The higher Quality the item is, the bigger the bonus effect by using Quality.
How to create High Quality Items
In order to make High Quality Items in Factorio, you first need the components and materials required for the recipe of the item you are trying to make of the Quality you are trying to make. For example, if you’re trying to make a Rare Quality Circuit Board, which requires an Iron Plate and a Copper Cable, you’ll at the very least need those two components to be of Rare Quality to have the chance for the crafted Circuit Board to be Rare Quality as well. Once you know what you’re trying to craft of higher Quality, choose the item on the Assembling Machine and then click the dropdown box at the bottom to change the target Quality. Fluids do not have a Quality, so any recipes requiring Fluids can use just the regular Fluid. Here are the Qualities in Factorio: Space Age:
- Normal (Tier 0) – 1 Gray Dots
- Uncommon (Tier 1) – 2 Green Dots
- Rare (Tier 2) – 3 Blue Dots
- Epic (Tier 3) – 4 Purple Dots
- Legendary (Tier 5) – 5 Orange Dots
Once you’ve selected the proper item on the Assembly Machine and prepared incoming materials for the Recipe that are of the same Quality, you need to insert Quality modules into your Assembling Machine. If you scroll over the Quality Module, you’ll see the increased in Quality that the module provides. There are also some negative effects from using Quality Modules such as the reduced crafting speed. The effect chance of the Quality increase is additive. That means if you have four Uncommon Quality Modules in a Assembling Machine each granting +2.5% Quality, that means with all four slotted in the machine, you will have a total 10% chance for the items crafted at that Assembling Machine to proc the desired quality.
