Tech Tree

completely agree on this point as it stands right now the tech tree is almost an after thought. there are a few must have tech like cap. ships and trade ports and some others, however the rest do not seem to impact gameplay on a huge level. yes someone that is way ahead on the tree is going to have a decided advantage but some of the tech are hardly noticeable.

i think the best thing to do is eliminate some of the repeats and add some more decisive tech possibly make it so you have to research for the individual cap ships. that way you have to make more important decisions, should i buy those 3 frigs now or research the battleship.

I love when a technology you research actually has a visual impact on the game that you can see.

I was playing a game, Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War, and despite the game kind of stinking, it still had some pretty good stuff.

For instance, I upgraded Chariot Archers, and now every time they fire an arrow it kills an enemy soldier in one shot. Not just kill them, but now, the soldier catches on fire and burns then collapses. Crazy.

Another good example is Starships Unlimited, a neat little Indie game.

You could research several various weapons: wave beams, lasers, pulse lasers, missiles, torpedoes, various other nifty looking weapons.

Here's the big picture though. Lasers was a branch, you started with a lightning bolt weapon, and work your way up to a super powerful laser cannon that just tears apart ships. Missiles start with a slow firing cruise missile that can barely hit the broadside of the barn but by the end they're like quick succession string of death. Basically weapons became infinitely times more powerful, and the color changed to help distinguish said powerfulness. If I saw the enemy firing a blue laser I knew they were one level of weapons behind me as opposed to my powerful gold laser beam of death. Gal Civ I & II is kind of the same way when weapons go up in power you can actually see the weapons improvement.


The other thing is that it's soooo bland. Gal Civ I and II had real funny interesting descriptions of the technology. The descriptions need an improvement.

I do agree that the technology could be more focused. Homeworld, you had to research each unit before you could build it in game, Conquest: Frontier Wars depending on what buildings you had constructed determined what ships you could make.

If technology in the game were set up so you had to research multiple individual parts, lasers, engine, antimatter core, hull structure, shields, then you could produce your first ship, I think that would be cool.

Also, since the game is trying to follow a real time strategy meets 4x space strategy game, I feel the technology pace needs to follow that. Your first ship should be small, experimental, weakly armed and mostly geared for exploration. Technology should ramp up and make it feel like at on point you were in a fragile vessel of exploration until in the end you have a decked out cruiser.

I agree. It would be cool if the game started with small skirmishes of small ships, than went on to big ships with big guns.

That is a problem, the technology tree should reflect the point in time you are in the game.

It feels like the beginning and end aren't that much different when technology comes into play.

Also, more stuff that you can build needs to be researchable.

I know the TEC is all about trade and make shift war cruisers, but it feels like there should be at least one or two cloakable ships. An aircraft carrier that's stealthy and fires torpedoes, like a submarine, a fighter/bomber wing that can cloak, and some stealthy cloakable torpedo boats. I know there is already a race with cloaking technology, but it feels lacking if the other races don't have just one or two cloaking ships to offset the enemy.

More bombers and fighters are needed too. A bomber that works like a fighter, a space superiority fighter, a ship that is designed to attack only enemy fighters. Fighters that use both machine gun fire and missiles.

yeah this is my biggest hang up if it is a 4x game it should feel like a lot of time is going by as the game is being played right now it feel like maybe only a few months are going by. i agree with what startrekdork said earlier about moving up to bigger and more powerful vessels.

maybe throw some of the capital ships up on the research tree, like the frigates are...

When I first saw the technology tree I thought it looked really confusing. Like, I had to reach five level one techs before I could begin researching level two? On top of that, now I have to build more then one research laboratory to get to higher levels?

I like the idea that you can build on research laboratory, and then upgrade that laboratory by adding on module after module to it. The more modules the higher the tech tree allows, maybe even give each module a snazzy name like Zero Gravity test chamber, or Holographic Imaging room. Then, with laboratories that have modules, if the whole thing gets destroyed you've just lost a lot of your labor. The more laboratories you have and the more modules, the quicker research can occur.

I was also surprised when I built my first capital ship factory and it allowed me to build all of the capital ships right off the bat.

It should be a big deal when a race builds it's first capital ship, and each ship after that should be progressively more advanced, as demonstrated in the technology.

I agree - @ the moment, the tech tree is rather sparse and is useless by end game.
However, we do not know what the Beta 2 content is - only that it is supposed to be significant.
I like the large tech tree of the Gal civ games.
Also, Space Empires V has a huge tech tree, where weapons & ships are researched in increments so that you get gradual improvements.
However, to do something like that would probably require an overhaul of the current tech tree and the way it is displayed. The current tech tree was changed in the latest beta release from a 1 panel view to a tabbed panel view, and I'm nor sure it would be easy to expand in it's current format.

I don't like that at all, i've got bigger things to do then worry about my research lab. I like the way it's done now,


That's true, I think that that capships should be unlockable to, instead of them saying, "hey, in adition to this big shipyard, we here at R&D thought you might like design for half a dozen capital ships to"

I'm not asking for a techtree like this one (from the above "starships unlimited") but it would be nice if progress along the tree was represented by actaul bigger ship. SotS had this quite well, bigger ships and bigger guns the further you get in the tree.

Even a dedicated merchant society would have a significant population of smugglers amongst them... so there is every reason to believe that the TEC has some sneaky weapons and cloaking technology available to them.

Currently the technology is so sneaky, that you cannot see it in beta 1!

  

That's chart is misleading on the amount of technology that is utilized. Half of it is weapons technology, and you usually only research one branch of weapons technology.

But it is a fun trip down memory lane!

Some of the technology you had in Starships Unlimited:

Teleporters: In the game you explore planets and they have weird aliens around them that you have to kill, once they're killed a shuttle flies to the planet to pick up artifacts on the surface. With teleporters, you just beam the artifact up saving five seconds. Later on, you can have a technology that allows you to beam over to enemy ships to capture them.

Federation: This is the only thing you have to research for diplomacy. Once researched, it allows you the offer to form a Federation with another race, depending on your diplomatic standings. You can trade with them, give them gifts, demand things, trade money for technologies or ships etc. If they like you, a lot, then you can ask them to form a federation with you. Once you form a Federation, all of their planets and ships are yours, making your force one giant cohesive group. You can then have other races join your Federation and even others. I once had four or five races teamed together.


As for the ships in TEC. It feels like all the ships are evenly priced and even deal out equal damage. It doesn't feel like each ship is it's own component. When I build a fleet I just click each ship once repeatedly not really caring or knowing what I'm assembling. Dreadnoughts vs Carriers don't feel like there is that much of a difference.

I would like a more involved tech tree. I'd like technology that had an impact on the game play or visual appearance of the game.

Like, why is it that all of your capital ships just start with the ability to have fighters? And for that matter, how come over the course of a war new fighters are never developed? The special abilities for each ship are cool, that doesn't feel like something that needs researching, but the weapons on ships feel like they could be more unique. I still think that what this game is missing is some type of super death weapons, be it a nuke or biological weapon that wipes out a planet's population, or a "Death Star" that just blows the planet up. Or, some type of ship that fires a powerful laser that cuts enemy ships in half. Maybe truly tactical missiles that can blow up an entire fleet like in Nexus.

There was no such thing in Nexus. True, tactical missiles are deadly but they need to be fired in swarms so that some survive the point defence - and even than they are not hugely effective agaisnt shields. Only after the shields fall (what was it, three missiles for bigger ships?) are they really effective. Which may take a while because the missiles take time to recharge.

Whoa whoa...

You never used a nuke in Nexus that not only wiped out all your ships but also the enemies?

You had five or six ships and the enemies ships and one nuke goes off right in the middle and bam game over. It was like a super nova going off! That or the missiles that took out shields, that would ruin your day.

You had missiles.....and you had torpedoes. I think torpedoes were the ones that took shields in three hits.

I'm talking about Battlestar Galactica/Supreme Commander/Starcraft nukes.

Two fleets in a system and someone fires a nuclear missile devastating the other fleet. Or vice versa. In BSG whenever they deploy nuclear missiles they make it a really big deal. Supere Commander's nuclear missiles are like crowd control. Enemy swarms are so huge you have to deal with them in nuke ordinance.

I think tactical ordinance involving nukes or super powerful disabling missiles would add some strategy to the game.

Not that I remember... Perhaps Chip5541 could give more insight, but torpedos needed much more than three hits to disable the shields. Also a lone nuke never made it to the enemy fleet. PD systems were more than a match for it so having one ship with nukes was a waste. Waiting a long time for the nuke to recharge and than have it go out like a mosquito was frustrating.

It could be that my memory is failing me though. It is known to have been before, he he he!

But what is definitely true is that the battles were VERY nicely tuned (balanced) except for lasers that were not efficient enough. I was able to just sit back and watch... Ok, enough of other games...

I believe they were called something along the lines of "energy bomb", it could take a shield in one hit, but took a load of energy to charge, they didn't deplete though. The torpedo's (or missles, whichever one you got only a handfull of) could deal massive damage, but were vulnerable to PD, it was worth it though.

I think such weapons would fit in Sins, which IS about big fleets, but maybe only as a special ability, or as the main gun for one ship, which should not have other weapons.

Also, you overestimate the effect of a nuke in space. A nuclear blast is pressure and heat. Without an atmosphere, both have far smaller effect and significatly less range then here on earth. Add to that the lack of the ground, the blast doesn't reflect of of it, so the energy gets distributed along a full sphere, and you've got a not-so-area-of-effect weapon.

I have 2 suggestions for the techtree application, so please read both before you respond since they go hand-in-hand.

First, I think that once you have researched a technology, ships (with the exception of fighter squads) should have to be upgraded individually, instead of having the upgrade automatically installed on all ships. This would allow you to create two of the same ship, yet give them different abilities. Of course that depends upon number 2...

Secondly, I think that ships should have a maximum number of upgrades they can hold. Let's suppose that I want a scout ship and the corvette I am upgrading can hold a maximum of 8 upgrades. I would have to pick and choose the upgrades I wanted to install, maybe invest 4 of my upgrades in sensors, 3 in engines, and 1 in countermeasures. This would make it easier to create "specialty" ships within a ship class and reduce the risk of someone creating a "monster" ship that has every upgrade immaginable. Fighters would be upgraded in units instead of individually. And all the capital ships would have to have a similar number of upgrade limits. For instance, a carrier might be allowed 10 upgrades while a covette would get 8, a heavy gunship would get 9, and a fighter squadron would get 5.

With the sheer numbers of frigates in Sins, upgrading them all individually would just be tiresome. It's just too much micromanaging for this game.

100% agree!

Ok, what if there was an player option on the toolbar for toggling automatic upgrades on and off? That way players like me who like to design special purpose craft can still do it, and players who hate excessive micro-managing don't have to. I was really hoping that the idea of upgrade limits would get implimented, but it won't be much good if the entire fleet ends up with the same configuration.  

Ok, scratch my last post. I was outside mowing the lawn, and I had a brainstorm for how ships could have an upgrade limit, have custom upgrades (scouts, defenders, etc.), and yet keep micro-managing to a minimum.

I would like to suggest that the developers create a upgrade preset creator for ships.(Similar to the MechLab in Mechwarriors) How it would work is as follows: Before you go into multiplayer, you would enter the preset creator and set the upgrades for particular ships and give them a variant name. (Once again, suppose I create a scout variant on a cruiser with a max. upgrade limit of 8; giving 4 to sensors, 2 to engines, and 2 to countermeasures.) The variant would appear in the build que during multiplayer, so you don't have to upgrade every individual ship manually. In addition, as you unlock more of the tech-tree, the variant ships are upgraded automatically according to their preset.(So if I unlock engine upgrade level 4 and I have a scout variant cruiser already built with level 3 engines, the game would automatically upgrade the engines on the cruiser.) The developers would have to impliment a stock preset, of course, so that you could play right away. But just think, no more danger of a 'monster' ship that has all the upgrades. No more micromanaging. More customizing of your fleet. And best of all, no two players fleets will be alike; each will have it's strenghs and weaknesses depending on the upgrades each chooses.

The only downside it the developers would have to do quite a bit of work to implement this into the game. I personally think it would be worth it; adding to the have-it-your-way reputation of Stardock and Ironclad.

Parts of my tech tree seem to be useless...and I mean totally useless. I can't get the damage buffs for the laser and autocannon to actually increase the damage done by these weapons The artifact that is supposed to reduce all research costs doesn't work for me either. The issue remains even after uninstalling and reinstalling...is anyone else also having this problem?

Yeah, we do. It's called beta...
No need to get angry about it or get pissed off.

One example of a great tech tree I like to use is Warzone 2100, an older RTS title that most people missed. The tech tree is very deep, and composed of small logical upgrade steps.

You can browse the whole tech tree here.

Here's the link to the technologies necessary for the best projectile weapon, the Gauss Cannon.

A way to capture the WZ2100 style of tech advancement is to have some techs with many levels with a small effect with others with large effect, but only 1 level and high research costs and times.

Carrying on the projectile weapons example:

High-Density Gauss Shells
+10% gauss damage per level
max 20 levels

Superconducting Railgun Magnets
requires level 3 High-Density Gauss Shells
+100% gauss damage
+50% gauss range
max 1 level

Oops, it wasn't my intention to come across as all angry and what not (was it b/c of the frowning face?) Have you noticed any other research items not having their intended affect? I'm not sure but it seems that none of the researchable weapon damage buffs do anything. =\ Has this always been the case or did these upgrades work in previous versions?