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Photoloss
Photoloss
Join Date 01/2010
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[MOD QUESTION] What's the better option (economy researches)?

November 5, 2010 10:05:05 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Not sure this is the right board, I'm posting here because this is where most of the balance discussions are.

My question is: Which of these methods would you prefer for balancing out resource management in a race that's supposed to be focused around research? Note that the researches should be much more powerful than current incarnations.

1. Income increases: Like extraction techs, valuable goods and cargo hold researches: Things that directly increase your resource income. I guess resource focus and popcap techs go here too. Ships etc would start off more expensive to compensate.

Advantages: easy to handle, easy to understand, easy to change

Disadvantages: Can spamtrade resources, can amass near-infinite mounds of spare cash if not spending for a while

 

2. Cost decreases: Greatly decrease object costs via research, possibly including research itself. Things would start out more expensive of course.

Advantages: Once researched, can't be whittled down/stolen by enemies, but can be triggered off via killing labs. Doesn't amass huge amounts of money during stalemates. Also fairly simple.

Disadvantages: Weak diplomacy due to low resource income, potentially free ships. With allies, can build huge fleets from small donations.

 

3. Upkeep meddling: Decrease upkeep/increase fleet supply via researches.

Advantages: Doesn't interfere with resource trading until very lategame

Disadvantages: Doesn't take effect until later, gamebreaking in the end (imagine fighting someone with 3k fleet supply at his hands)

4. Other things to include: Refineries (would go under 1., but they don't scale with empire size), resource focus, vasari scuttle and wreckage salvaging techs, cheap'n'easy capture neutral ability, market discounts, bounty techs, steal/plunder ability, drain planet, anything else you come up with.

 

Just give your opinions, especially if you know a good reason why any of these won't work. For point 4, list mechanics you like/find interesting.

And if this should go in another subforum, either move it (if mods can do that), or tell me where to put it.

Thanks in advance!

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Photoloss
Darvin3
Join Date 12/2008
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Reply #1 November 5, 2010 9:56:31 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

As a general rule of thumb, the size of your empire determines how good upgrades are.  With only a handful of exceptions, small empires simply have no business above the 3-lab level on the civic tech tree.  Changing the effectiveness of certain techs will just change the "tipping point" at which they become viable.  Cost plays a major role in whether an upgrade is viable; TEC's metal production upgrade is an excellent tech selection since it's very cheap, but the Advent crystal upgrade is a horrible one because it's so expensive for the same effect.  Most upgrades are relatively balanced as is, and the most important ones are the prototypes.

 

Other things to include: Refineries...

I'd classify refineries (and trade ports, and culture centers) under the "prototype" category.  This is the generic classification for any technology that enables you to build a new unit or structure, or adds a completely new ability to a unit or structure (so "resource focus" would fall into the prototype category). These are generally quite good for any empire since they let you use logistic space that would otherwise have limited economic value.  Generally speaking, prototype technologies are the driving force behind tech investment, and everything else is just gravy on the side. 

90% of the time the number of civic labs I have is directly proportional to the highest-level prototype I want to research.  In fact, that's also true of the military tech tree 90% of the time...

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Photoloss
Photoloss
Join Date 01/2010
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Reply #2 November 6, 2010 8:44:39 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Thanks for the reply, but I specifically wanted to make a race where researching some of these "gravy" techs is mandatory. Not in that you are forced to get that specific tech asap every game, but that you have to get something via research or you die. You should want to have more labs than your highest prototype, with costs and enemy attacks forcing you to not just get all tech at once.

The race should start out with weaker/more expensive ships and structures, and should require research just to break even with the other races. In exchange these researches should be cheaper to get than those of the stock races, and later techs should be far stronger than their counterparts. You will, of course, have to survive with an inferior military and economy at first, so you can't just steamroll from the start, and losing labs should cripple your forces (deactivating weapon/shield/hull research, like current prototype techs, if you fall beneath the lab number required to initially research them, for example)

As for point 4/refineries, I mainly listed stuff that can boost an economy, but generally can't serve as a major economic tech. And you have to admit that refineries, unlike tradeports and the passive econ techs, don't scale directly with empire size, and are very lackluster compared to most other prototype techs. Of course refinery research is a prototype tech, but I didn't list the techs based on their classification. Bounty/black market techs are passive boosts, plunder/drain planet are ability unlocks, capture neutral would be a research buff to an existing ability, and wreckage salvaging is a passive boost which I would consider an ability.

I mainly want to know which of these concepts would work best for such a custom race, or if a mix of different techs would be better. And, more importantly, which techs to omit from their techtree at all costs because it would be too strong (unless the boost is so small it's worthless instead, of course)

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Photoloss
Darvin3
Join Date 12/2008
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Reply #3 November 6, 2010 2:35:51 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

You should want to have more labs than your highest prototype, with costs and enemy attacks forcing you to not just get all tech at once.

The problem is that you're looking for a one-size-fits-all solution.  Technology benefit scales enormously with empire size, so all you're doing is tweaking the tipping point at which they become viable.  The simple fact is that a +10% trade port income upgrade is going to be much much more valuable to someone with 20 trade ports than it is to someone with 5.  Anything that is even worth consideration for a small empire will be a complete no-brainer for a medium to large one.

The race should start out with weaker/more expensive ships and structures, and should require research just to break even with the other races.

I think that without a complete overhaul of the research system, this concept is infeasible.  Presuming you balanced for the average case, this would make this faction horribly gimped in scenarios where it has a small empire and completely unstoppable in scenarios where it has a large empire.  While you might be able to find a sweet-spot for the typical case, the simple fact is that a large empire will max out all these benefits and overwhelm the other factions, while a small empire simply won't be able to afford any of them and get crushed.

I'll tell you that when I have 5 or fewer planets, I basically don't touch tech.  I unlock the units and structures that I want, but as a rule you're better off building more units and more trade ports to boost your fighting power and income.  On the flip-side, if I have 20 or more planets I'm basically researching non-stop and unlocking everything I can.  You can't balance techs for both scenarios, and by extension you couldn't balance a faction dependent on techs.

And you have to admit that refineries, unlike tradeports and the passive econ techs, don't scale directly with empire size, and are very lackluster compared to most other prototype techs.

Refineries are a bit of an odd duck compared to the other structures available.  It all depends on the map layout and whether you get a good intersection to build a refinery farm.

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