Solving Factorio Quality
a day ago
- Factorio Space Age introduces five quality tiers (normal, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary) and quality modules that add randomness to production, which can be managed through repetition and recycling.
- The author uses matrix multiplication to model quality transitions as probability vectors and transition matrices, enabling exact calculation of multi-step processes.
- Key strategies analyzed include opportunistic crafting without recycling ('gambling'), pure recycling loops ('washing'), crafting-recycling loops ('upcycling'), and asteroid reprocessing ('space casino').
- Dynamic equilibrium for recycling loops is captured as a system of linear equations, solved via Gaussian elimination to obtain exact ratios instead of iterative approximations.
- An interactive web calculator (factoqual) was built in TypeScript using rational arithmetic for exact results, deployed on Grebedoc with source available on Codeberg.