Research - forcing diversification

How would this work out in multiplayer, though? It wouldn't be much fun if it were impossible to get past the second tier in most cases.

in multiplayer allow players to share technoligies, teams can collaborate on researching and sharing or even selling techs. also trading and selling of planets as well & ships, so one could consintrate on using tech slots for reasearch while another devotes itself to being aboe to build lots and lots of ships very fast and sell then or give them to team mates or to others... like the old lend lease program between the USA and Britian in 38-42

if teching is extremely slow as suggested, it would make many MP 1v1/FFA games (the opponents are not gonna trade vital techs if it can be used vs them) never ever get to higher research, doubt it will even get to tier 2 in many cases.

what i would like to see in the tech tree is to make everything more expencive to force us to choose... but make it "pay as you go." This is an RTS! its real time so lets take advantage of that!

I'm starting to see the point to this thread in my games.

I know we're getting two more races and assume they will play differently... but within each race (or just the humans) it would be great to see diversification.

In "other" games more focused on strategic decisions you research though a deeper tree in each area (beam weapons, missle, torpedoes, scanners, sheilds, etc.). You end up specializing in certain techs if you want to emphasize them.

If you find yourself up against someone using a tech you have a problem stopping, you need to use diplomacy or spies to get tech to help out.

You can still research a broad set of technology, but would miss out on the high level benefits on the tree.

The current tree is short and it's pretty easy to get most of the tech the other guy has. Yes you can then choose to build certain types of ships for your fleet and specialize that way, but it's too easy to obtain and does not force the type of pre-planning or strategic thought this idea is focusing on.

In my opinion that lends itself to greater re-playability and more interesting encounters.

I would make the effects cost and research of weapon techs do this, but not much else... that way you could get a clear distinction between he who has a focus on lasers or missiles... etc.

But Im mostly pleased as is.

to flesh this idea out more...

- more techs aligned in secific "verticals" (beam, missle, etc.)
- occasional special ships/upgrades/abilities at various levels in each vertical
- occasional branches in a vertical making a new one (possible missile and torpedo tech branch into better planet busting tech.)
- higher level tech becomes more expensive and/or time consuming, but not so much that it takes forever. This might depend on how deep the tree is. Don't want to keep people from getting to the end of the tree.

As a group we'd have to be creative with the tech tree to keep it from becoming just a bunch of incremental changes at each level... that can get boring. We need to spice it up!

Aside from a galciv2 weapon and shield system, which was the low point of the game, what would be the point in more diversified weapons upgrades when ships already fill diversified roles? It strikes me as a fairly limited system when it comes to counters, flak frigates are easier to get than the carriers they neutralize, so it comes down to army composition before research. It would be nice to have more research, you'd be able to research and build flak frigates from a shipyard while under attack and probably manage to defend against the enemy bombers, but that wont change with any weapon type diversification, and if it takes you ten minutes to research flak frigates, the multiplayer version is in big trouble.

Wouldn't work simply because each race has a different tech tree.

Besides that, in your usual multiplayer game you normally won't research much higher then lvl 6-9.

Dont like the idea, simple as that.

If you want this maybe mod it into your own game then share the mod for people who are interested in this kind of thing?

Reason i don't like it is because It forces games to become too long and sticks you in the stone age for HOURS

by the original example to get to tear 4 you would have to wait approximately 16 HOURS!!!!

Mhh, it seems that this idea pops out in pretty much any game at some point ^^
When i was making a huge mod for the spaceRTS Haegemonia (prophecy mod anyone) i had the same idea and also implemented it to test.
To cut things short: it can work but you seriously have to revamp the research system:

-Techs should no longer cost money, since they already have their own res: time
-Techs have to be balanced in their effectiviness -> research time (very hard)
-tech should scale exponentially in usefulness in higher tiers instead of current linarity

It takes a lot of work, is doable and can be rewarding.

The Pros:
-The game progresses more continuosly since everyone can research without wasting res, only time, res are only used to build assets.
-People have to decide what to research, researching everything takes ages and researching all techs of one tier before progressing is often not feasible
-people have to plan ahead and use intelligence upon the enemy to see what he is planning
-more diverse strategies possible

The Cons:
-Games tend to get longer (can be good or bad)
-People having chosen the wrong path to research are often doomed, because they can´t get the tech to counter their opponents in time (think: getting 5 minutes to research flak frigates if you see that your enemy has carriers)
-Can easily lead to imbalances or single winning strategies
-Many techs that aren´t essential will rarely be researched (can be avoided with careful setting of the research times)

So in all this can be a good thing if implemented properly but i don´t think the devs are so late in the production cycle in for such a major revamp and all the testing included.
Personally i would like the idea of a cost free only time extensive research tree to focus res on the combat situation.

I also suppose there can be a middle ground, make the research free with time but the more money and crystal you pump into it the faster you get results, so at max things take, 5-10 min to research EACH but they are free, where as they take like current time 30 sec-1 min if you pump the current amount of resources into it

I'd support reduced cost, more time to research, it would allow me to still pick and choose... Else just leave it as it is...

In a recent game I got thoroughly trounced because of the lack of rewards afforded by extensive researching. For the cost (ESPECIALLY IN CRYSTALS) the gains were miniscule in overall capability. As the AI proved (embarrasingly thoroughly) it was more effective to spam space with weak, simple-tech ships than it was to research "advanced" upgrades for a smaller, theoretically more-effective force.

At VERY least, research shouldn't cost crystals or should cost fewer, that one resource became such an impossible pinch point that I was eventually left with no ability to defend against the pirate and AI battle forces.

"Infinite" tech trees would be more 4xish, so long as we don't make it take too long to research individual techs.

As for how to do this, keep the current "base 2" system with 2 techs for a given research item, but also allow (for specific techs) research past that limit using some kind of diminishing returns system (preferably a mix between increased resource cost and decreasing effect). This would allow "infinite" research even on maps that can't support 10 or 15 research centers for one tree, much less both. Obviously this should be limited to certain technologies -- some wouldn't make sense, some (armor, civic pop increases) could become way OP very easily.

I mostly like the research system as it is. As others have stated, getting to the end of the tree is not that easy - particularly if you research all the little nooks and crannies.

There is already a degree of (military) specialization, although I'll admit there is next to no specialization/diversification in the Civil segment. On the one hand, Kodiaks, battleships and Cobalts use the autocannon weapons, which have a long and expensive research line. Bombers, LRM frigates, Dunovs and Mardas use missiles, which also have a long and expensive research line. Capital ships, if you choose to build many of them as your main (or only) fleet, have their own long and expensive research line to get enough of them to go around.

However, you simply can't play a winning strategy -- unless you are constantly acquiring new planets -- without the colonization techs, and the Orbital Refinery (and arguably also the cargo hold techs). And just the concept of constantly acquiring new planets is next to impossible on anything but the most gigantic maps, without first adopting this economic strategy. The civic tree seems like a time-consuming but necessary effort that everyone has to invest into, which is the antithesis of diversification.

In response to TokenSDragon: if you are going to play heavily on research early in the game, put most of your logistics points towards military labs, and research things like hangar bays and improved gauss capacitors. Then build up armor and missile weapon tech. While you're researching, other players (particularly AIs) are likely to be building armadas of Cobalts, which they will "rush" you with after a while. To defend against this, you need to expand steadily but SLOWLY, fortifying each colony you capture before you move to the next. That way, whenever the enemy's main force reaches your outermost outposts, you'll be ready to put up a defense.

Also, it helps to be nimble: don't go with a completely static defensive strategy; keep a small fleet of ships around (Cobalts are good early game) to help your defenses when they aren't being very effective. Another wonderful thing about Cobalts is that they're the only formidable fighting ship ("formidable" mostly meaning a great number of Cobalts, since a single one isn't much) which costs zero Crystal. So you can save all your crystal for research!

As for the idea of reducing the cost of research at the expense of time, I think this is a great idea. Time IS money in SINS - so the time hit should be significant if you "choose" to research a tech slower, rather than researching it at a reasonable speed for the existing cost. The time cost should be so great that someone else with the same resource income as you, but who spends *more* of their percentage of income on research, should be able to out-tech you even if you're both doing research. Because the money you don't spend on tech is going to be spent somewhere else - and this needs to be balanced carefully, lest people sail through the game spending very little on research whilst building a large fleet of ships with their spare change.

The problem is that you can research things at the same time as you gain resources, attack people, build stations, etc. So the amount of "time" you lose isn't across the board - it's research time only. If you build a large-scale fleet of low tech ships, and continue researching at a low cost all the way to the Kodiak Heavy Cruiser, you can basically end the game with your large scale by overwhelming a player who's gone the "normal" tech route and spent much more of their income on research. So this should be carefully balanced if it's offered at all.

As for the posts that make a case for totally doing away with a resource-based research, I reject those on principle.

Regards,

-Allquixotic

You know, you can dismantle and replace research labs after you've finished researching what you want from one side of the tree. Even on a map with four planets you could get to refinery and still advance through the military techs to area effect missiles and command cruisers. Just get the basics out, build your five research stations, pop out the stuff, blow them up and replace them with more military labs. You'd end the game long before you got the research done unless you were both incompetent, but it's quite reasonable to get up the tree if you take long enough in your game.

I tested out a more balanced approach and it certainly played much more to my advantage so I'll retract my earlier woes about crystals. (though I still feel they're painfully imbalanced comparated to the other resources).

Just a thought, but one thing that might allow for more diversification would be certain basic "shared" technologies that open various research paths from either the military or civilian pathways...

This might be far too insane to balance appropriately, but it seems that things like "long jump drives" and "interstellar networks" have advantages for both civilian and military goals. What if research done on one side could affect what was available in the other? Perhaps specialist upgrades in-between the normal technologies which would only be available with certain similar core technologies from the other research tree. Perhaps these could be a third intermediary research tree that could only be accessed via the appropriate choices from the other two.


For a couple examples: Get "Orbital Commerce", "Interstellar Networks", and 3 levels of "Military Academy" might open up "Arms Dealer"... buy and sell weapons on the black-market from/to various factions or subsidize your enemies' insurgencies with a steady stream of vicious killing machines.

Similarly: "Rampant Consumerism" + "Advanced Modular Construction" + "Celio Command Ship" + "Robotics Ship" might open up: "Spoils of War"... provide a new colonization ability to capture enemy structures within a grav well once their planet has been colonized for approx 1/3 the cost of purchasing a replacement structure.

I'm just thinking there could be a really interesting way to add variation and still balance out the research on both the military and civilian fronts by providing such shared capabilities. Thoughts?

This is already true in Sins for shorter/smaller games. The only time you really research everything is on large maps with lots of downtime, not because you need it but because you really have nothing else to do with that much money and you might as well.

This mostly applies to Civ techs, most Military ones are more directly useful

Sword of the stars has an excellent tech tree system. I'd love it if this games tech tree were similar.

True. Especially the rock/paper/scisors effect it creates and the way AI is more than able to use it itself.

But this game is designed completely differently. In SotS you have time to create custom ship designs because you dictate the passage of time with turns.

Bleh, I hate rock/paper/scissors in games.

Ok, let me reiterate.

It gives plenty of action/reaction possibilites. You are able to find a contermeasure and usually a counter-countermeasure, making it a good arms race.

What it prevents is a simple research gun, better gun, better gun, better gun... that other games offer.

So it's the same as in Sins.

Moot point then.

Oh - there are some examples of that in Sins as well, definitely. Like shields/shields breaker special ability.