I love the premise of this mod, it makes Gleba feel rewarding. But I noticed a downside in that it kinda just leaves other planets in the dust after a while, because the consistent quality basically eliminates the need for some of what the other planets are doing. It kinda ruins the recycler as functional for upscaling, and the high-volume output of Vulcanus stops mattering because the quality guarantee with the seeds over time will just outpace Vulcanus.

If I may be so bold, I would recommend making it so you get diminishing returns on the amount of seeds you get with quality seeds. Like, still be able to cultivate them but maybe make it so that the percentile chance return rate on higher and higher quality recipes for the mash and the jelly goes down?

I meant to hit the edit button and didn't catch that I used Quote by mistake, ignore this comment lol

I haven't tried the mod yet (am about to!), but this seems like a good compromise, especially since you won't be using quality on already legendary seeds, so you use productivity instead, which makes up for a smaller seed chance. I don't know which numbers would be fairly balanced, but maybe only make it so it's viable with lategame prod modules? Or maybe disable prod on the seed cycle, so the max-quality one is net negative and you'll need a lower-quality farm to accompany the max-quality one because it has higher seed drop chances? (yes, I really dislike saying epic/legendary as well)

Howdy, So the initial version of this mod did exactly this,

there was diminishing returns on the seeds, however there was a another recipe utilising uranium to up-cycle the seeds, so you could use a regular farm to get seeds, up-cycle them reliably to legendary - then farm with them. Alternatively, you could also use maxed legendary prod modules to break even with seed production. And that underwent several balance iterations. (This is all pre version 1.0.0)

That first version was specifically coded for Jellynut and Yumako seeds. However I really wanted to expand my mod to include my other mods - or anyone elses mods. One issue with this was the procedurally generated content, and how to balance seed making (as there's no easy way to garuntee that the seed production mechanism is the same for modded plants etc etc, so I just used the base tree harvest recipe, and called it a day.

For this reason, you get the unbalance you mention. I get it, I've been playing with the new balance and it is rather easy to get the legendary stuff once you eventually set it up correctly. And I imagine even easier once you setup the space cultivation! But i suppose the goal of the mod switched from balance to more fun in general - or perhaps to just making a Gleba / Gleba main run a primary part of the game type.

There are a few ways to address these issues:
Alter the existing recipes of the mod for yumako and jellynut only - as they are the ones that are properly predicted - to be balanced such that you don't get enough yumako fruits per craft to get a return on seeds without more productivity.
(This would likely require altering the pentapod seed iteration recipe, as it would take carefuly calibration to ensure you get enough of seeds of each quality to craft enough nutrients to continue seed upcycling.)

Make it into a separate mod with the balance you describe, which is simple about balance

Make some mod settings to control the total amount of Cultivation outputs per seed - so it can be customised to your desired difficulty.

I have been thinking about it alot, and I think addressing mod balance with settings is a good way forward, as there are many people who enjoy it a bit easier to farm their legendary factory, but your quite right that in its current state It is a tad easy and over-shadows the other planets (Although to be fair in the games vanilla state, Vulcanus is too easy and overshadows the other planets anyway haha)

What do you think about some mod settings to control the total amount of products from a cultivation.
What do you think about more researches to increase the Cultivation productivity?

I totally agree that Vulcanus is currently the easy overshadowing planet, but admittedly I have a Vulcanus bias because I love its theming lol

I didn't want to be like "It should be done this way", to be clear. I just wanted to throw an idea into the aether just so it wasn't like me just being complainypants with no solutions (Especially for a mod that does something I like, broadly). What you've suggested for mod settings could very well work. I mean, if people are playing modded games then they may as well be able to be flexible with the mod, right?

My comments on the sliding scale mod route would be that I think that such a setting should have a default and clearly labeled "Balanced" mode that would put Gleba on the map but not overshadow the others necessarily. The basic idea of "Gleba only/Gleba primary" run is neat, and totally has merit, I just would suggest making that the opt-in one and clearly label that differently from a balance one.

Cultivation productivity is also an interesting solution. I'd maybe put forward that it could be locked it behind Aquilo research because that would create an interesting dynamic where Fulgora and Vulcanus are clearly the superior mid-game planets, but Gleba development becomes something most definitely worth doing (Which works out because Gleba is, IMO, the hardest planet to develop, so making its development more useful at the end-game makes more sense). I'd also suggest making it a repeating (Not necessarily infinite) research that at the top either becomes seed generating neutral or seed generating positive Realistically it would also only be worth doing this when processing fruits of quality because otherwise cultivation broadly on Gleba would be really irritating. I suspect from a purely gameplay balance standpoint, this is likely the better option. But the point about Gleba extended functionality also has merit and may make this less optimal from that perspective.

I appreciate your comments and broadly agree, I like the idea of it being locked behind aquilo, a lot of the early ideas (before i went and made it too easy! haha) were about exactly what you describe, once you have conquered all the other planets, that Gleba became the logical location for legendary/quality mass production (as an alternative to space gambling haha). Although much of this initial mod idea went out the window when I made space cultivation for fun haha.

I think I will start off by changing the amount of fruits you get from cultivation, and have a setting that balances as you say, with the default being that you need at least legendary prod 3 modules to break even with the seeds. The idea of a research I'll still mull over... it may be implemented in the future as an alteranative to the prod modules.

Thanks again for the discourse, I'm new to the Factorio modding community, and its so far been full of useful ideas and ultimately leading to the mods improvement.