Bug #449

This is constructive criticism of core game mechanics, not a bug in the game....

Status:	Not Planned
Priority:	High
Added by:	Anonymous on April 25, '26
Assigned to:	Unassigned
Due date:
Reported for:	0.8.5 Auto

Steps to Reproduce

No steps to reproduce

Explanation

This is constructive criticism of core game mechanics, not a bug in the game.

Issue: Upgrades in the tech tree for structures -- which fundamentally affect throughput values for structures at a global scale -- remove player agency.

The essence of this complaint is that -- in Modulus' current game design iteration -- the act of upgrading a structure has the consequence of removing the original structure (operating at the original throughput) from remaining available as a game element to the player. Within this report, I humbly do my best to make the case that factory games are at their best when players make the choice between "tiers" of structures, each of which -- as an entire class -- have fixed operating parameters (i.e. tech unlocks don't affect their values).

Conversely, having operational parameters of a class of structure change globally, makes the lives of players (who are acting as systems designers) needlessly difficult, resulting in less fun.

Suggestion: implement individual tiers of structures, such as belts, operators, miners, furnaces, et cetera. Once unlocked, players may take the action of upgrading existing buildings to a higher tier as well as placing new instances of structures of a specific tier. This replaces having unlocks globally modify the underlying statistics of structures at a class-level.

To better illustrate the game design issue in more detail:

The sort of game mechanic (FWIW, Shapez shares this flaw), when a player unlocks upgrades [to belts, miners, furnaces, operators], the underlying statistics of all existing buildings are instantly modified. When the player designed a system, it was designed for a specific operational environment (balancing throughput between buildings), when stats are globally modified, so too is the operational environment, invalidating previous designs at a global scale!

Imagine running a factory IRL, and machines suddenly started operating differently because of a software update. This would be absolutely intolerable due to risk of production loss or halting entirely.

In games like Satisfactory or Factorio, players never face this issue because they can count on all of their existing systems to remain fixed in their operational state. I.e. unlocks don't change the behavior of existing systems.

!! Key insight: When upgrades are implemented as tiers of structures, unlocking new technologies actually EXPANDS the design/solution space instead of modifying the game's physics !!

One of the first times players are likely to encounter this is the Assembler operator building upgrade, which doubles throughput from 15/m to 30/m. However, looking at the efficiency view, most players will have to live with these buildings suddenly operating at 50% (yellow) instead of 100% (green). It's just not worthwhile to go back and fix this issue. Not a big deal at the early game, but the problem gets worse as more unlocks become available to the player.

You could say, oh, players could build with the foresight that this doubling will happen. This is true, though this requires advanced knowledge that the change is coming (okay experience playing the game) but it also requires significant engineering to build a system that can adapt to the future change. Mostly, however, it is not an issue worth building for solving. It's just not fun for most players to add that level of complexity to the design. They want to solve the issue at hand in a simple way and continue progression.

Moreover, there's not just one change coming, each operator further complicates the issue, and then the belts have this issue. Solving this is more easily done by just rebuilding the system from scratch, but then you change another operator, which triggers the need for another redesign. Hopefully, it's clear that as the game progresses, this just is not fun, and only the most hardcore and OCD of players will be willing to attend to resolving the efficiency issues with the game in its current design state.

As stated before, IMO, the better solution is to allow the player to have various tiers of structure, and tech tree upgrades actually unlock higher tiers of the structure. Thus, once a structure is placed, it retains its operational parameters, and players can count on the placed structure to remain constant. If a higher tier structure is desired, the player actively makes the choice to place it into their system.

I understand that this is an extremely major rework of the game, from user interface considerations to game logic all the way to graphical assets and testing. This may not be as difficult as expected though:

One of the advantages of Modulus is that "Buildings" structure archetypes (e.g. Basic Core Facility/Bot Assembly/Processing Plant) already have a game design pattern in place that allows for this sort of player agency: users add floors to Buildings to change their production level, and this is exactly what is [IMO] needed for other factory structures.

A similar mechanism that allows players to do this for Operators and other structures would work well, though some careful thought is needed for changes to belt levels is highly recommended. It is worth looking towards Satisfactory's mechanism for upgrades to solve this, as visual indicators for belts at Modulus' visual scale may be one of the bigger challenges.

Please carefully consider this recommendation. While it is a fundamental and high-effort change to the core design of the game, it is one of the biggest flaws of Shapez that seems to be carried over into Modulus. However, In Shapez, this flaw can be worked around by cautious players choosing to enact belt and operator upgrades across the board at the same time, so that the throughput ratios are kept constant across the board.

Due to higher constraints on space and Modulus' emphasis on adaptation to various spatial impediments on layout (which I do find make the game much more interesting), these constraints also make it worthwhile to unlock operator upgrades in a more ad hoc manner, leading to more flux in the "core physics" of the game and eventually bad headaches as the game progresses.

Unfortunately, at this point, I consider this a game-breaking issue, making me hesitant to continue investing playtime, which is indeed unfortunate, as otherwise, I consider the core game mechanics and world theme to be far superior and interesting than Shapez.

Thank you for your time and consideration, I hope you will make this game the best it can be, and please note, I only wish the game and the team behind it the best success in this highly competitive gaming landscape.

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Device Info
Device: Z690 AORUS ULTRA (Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.)
CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K
RAM: 65309 MB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090

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Attached Files
Screenshot/Video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1otUioJ4qKdfvLUZjdFyLsThkXuwsq5D2

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Report Info
Version: 1.0.3-pre.21+de56c06d.4271
Player-rated impact score: 7/10
Steam Username: rod*ed
**Steam ID: 76561197966921476
Game-breaking/crash: No
Reporter Email: rodman.lau@gmail.com
Cloud Service ID: 3273CB5EC7C806E5
GameAnalytics ID: f93c8470-a0a4-4e22-b4d5-24c1171396a7
Submitted via Google Form: 25/04/2026 09:10:43

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