Upgrading the Q of resources

[StreetCaptain]

I think there should be a way to get higher Q resources than what are available in your environment. 

I propose a mid-late game technology that will, at cost, give you materials of a higher Q.

Say you only have Q100 Metal and want Q150? Maybe for every 10 points of Q, the materials required go up by a factor of ten, starting at a ratio of 10:1. So, to get your Q100 metal to Q150, it would take 1,000,000 metal to make 100. I feel like this would make it more viable to actually mine/pump/otherwise acquire low Q materials from your environment. This ideo obviously needs more work to be properly considered, but I'm posting here as kind of a marker of my thoughts so far, before I forget them.

[Deantwo]

Oh it is that time of the year again.

If we could upgrade resources like this, you wouldn't have any reason to explore or colonize other worlds.

I will agree somewhat however, I have in the past suggested a new tool bonus that simply increase the quality of the resulting product by a little bit. Raising the quality of a production output by 5 or 10 wouldn't totally break everything. And there are already nice tool effect indicators and functionally, so it should be easy to implement.
This would also lead nicely into my suggestion of making more advanced tools that are required for advanced resource extraction and manufacturing.

[AnrDaemon]

Was that sixth or seventh?

[StreetCaptain]

Hey man, I even said myself this idea is pretty much half baked, but the gist of it is that it should be so expensive that it would only be really useful in isolated scenarios, like getting better Q modules for, like, a single ship, or maybe to get a better patent Q. I definitely believe that there should *not* be an easy or fast way to turn lots of low Q materials into lots of high Q materials... but maybe an expensive and slow way to turn lots of low Q materials into a few high Q materials.

Right now, the bug with patents for materials that don't require a sample is really screwing with me, as I can't harvest anything above Q79 Magmex, among other things.

[AnrDaemon]

This has came up so many times, it's a shame it has to surface this early in the new year.
There's no associated cost that could offset the infinite supply of resources.

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That aside, justifying "enhancement" with bugs present is… entertaining.
Bugs needs to be fixed, not worked around with would-be-features.

[StreetCaptain]

Bug breaking my progression or not, I think that there should a way to at least boost, with a hard limit, the Q of materials, at cost. Maybe be able to increase materials up to a max of Q200 or Q180, and beyond that, you gotta find naturally occurring materials above that Q? I dunno. I just feel like y'all are trying to shut this down without any real discussion beyond "yeah, we heard it before".

Obviously you shouldn't be able to just mass-produce Q255 of any material without actually finding it at that Q. I just feel like the Q of the materials you have shouldn't be a hard limit on output tools/equipment/etc. - but still a limiting factor nonetheless.

[Deantwo]

boost, with a hard limit, the Q of materials, at cost. Maybe be able to increase materials up to a max of Q200 or Q180, and beyond that, you gotta find naturally occurring materials above that Q?

The only problem with that is that it make all resources below that hard limit instantly equal in value and therefore as common as dirt.
You can have a costly "refining" process when our resources are in infinite quantities. Even more so with the new production capabilities of cities.

Like I said, i don't see that big a harm in having advanced tools that increase quality of some manufacturing processes by a static amount of like 5 or 10. That would add value to having access to those advanced tool and likely create uses for some under utilized resources.
For example: Magmium tools being required to harvest Vulcanite, but also boosting Ore quality by 5 if you have the tool.

[StreetCaptain]

For the hard limit, I meant more towards it being dependent on the source Q. Like, Q30 can only be turned into, say, Q70, and then those resources are flagged or something as having been converted, stopping them from being upgraded again.

[AnrDaemon]

And have two stack of Q70 ore: one marked, and one not.
Meaning of which - ?

[Minty]

For the hard limit, I meant more towards it being dependent on the source Q. Like, Q30 can only be turned into, say, Q70, and then those resources are flagged or something as having been converted, stopping them from being upgraded again.

Just seems like it would inflate all materials to effectively be worth 70 higher, or whatever scaling system you go with. There's no way to balance this system in any way with resources being infinite. Going out and finding those rare Q255 resources is the only real progression in the game past colonizing your first system or two.