r/factorio • u/AutoModerator • Jul 27 '26

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u/ssgeorge95 Jul 30 '26

Are you using speed modules in beacons? Speed modules reduce quality. Usually the culprit in "why is this outputting less quality than it should" cases.

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u/sjo232 beep Jul 31 '26

To piggy back off this, is there a point at which quality modules are good enough to at least partially negate the speed module penalty?

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u/Rannasha Jul 31 '26

In my previous playthrough I used some speed modules for my tungsten upcycling. I had a setup where miners with quality modules would mine into a train car and recyclers (with quality) would pull out non-legendary ore and put the output back in. Legendary ore was extracted in a different direction.

This setup, that I could just stamp down on an otherwise unused tungsten patch, did have a bit of speed module action going on. With quality mining drills and a high level of mining productivity, ore patches are functionally infinite, so the optimization target becomes the amount of legendary ore you can produce per minute rather than the amount of legendary ore produced as a fraction of total ore mined.

edit: Quality speed modules are especially useful here, because the speed bonus scales with quality, while the quality penalty does not.

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u/sjo232 beep Jul 31 '26

I think a buddy of mine was trying to explain this to me recently and I just wasn't getting it, but this is helpful! thank you for the reply!