Factorio: Space Age expansion to get a big new feature: Quality

destructoid.com:

In its latest Friday Facts blog post, Factorio developer Wube Software highlighted a major new feature coming to the Space Age expansion: Quality. In Factorio: Space Age, every Item, Entity, and Equipment will now have five possible qualities. The qualities use familiar names: Normal, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Each successive quality after Normal increases the bonus you get from the higher tier quality. Uncommon will grant a 30% bonus, Rare a 60% bonus, Epic a 90% bonus, and Legendary a 150% bonus.

The intended goal of adding Quality to Factorio is to balance Horizontal versus Vertical growth in the core gameplay. In the current version, players have the challenge of building more mining outposts and production facilities—which is the Horizontal growth. But, also, have to consider improving the efficiency of existing facilities with better machines, smelters, modules, and more, which is the Vertical growth. The newly added Quality to all Items, Entities, and Equipment will add another balancing act to both facets of gameplay.

Alongside the bonus, higher-quality Entities will also have more health and unique bonuses based on their type. For example, higher-quality electric poles will have a larger supply area and wire reach. Inserters will move faster with higher qualities. Turrets and guns will have an increased range, and ammo will deal more damage. For energy production like solar panels, higher quality panels will produce more energy.

Wube Software quickly decided that simply adding a ton of higher-tier recipes to higher qualities was not adding much to the gameplay of Factorio: Space Age. So, instead, they decided to create a new type of module: Quality modules. The new quality modules have a special