Help! Ran out of stuff to research!!

[raynor]

In MOO2, you can research FOREVER. Once you've researched all the tech areas available, you start researching what I think it calls 'Advanced Technologies'. From that point on, instead of getting new items, you just make your existing stuff smaller.

I find this approach to be extremely realistic and am quite disappointed not to find something similar in SEIV. SEIV is the better game with more stuff to research. But its research will forever pale in comparison to MOO2's while it remains possible to research everything and then have your research labs sitting idle.

Comments welcome as always.

[Atrocities]

Well think of this from a programers point of view. How much to to little and how much is too much?

If you wish more tech, you can always make it yourself, and mod it to the game. If you do, let me know.

[raynor]

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
Well think of this from a programers point of view. How much is too little and how much is too much?

If you wish more tech, you can always make it yourself, and mod it to the game. If you do, let me know.

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Infinite is enough. Not infinite is not good enough. I'm not talking infinite items but rather infinite refinement of existing items. The more you research an area, the smaller the items get.

From a programmer's perspective, either the game engine supports changing the size of a component or it doesn't. Maybe hard, maybe not. It depends on the original game design.

I just hate that the game at some point stops and says: Okay. Once you've researched how to build a computer that can calculate rocket trajectories that fits in a single building, you stop. I want instead for the game to let me keep researching until such a computer sits on my desk.

Thanks for the offer. You can bet I'll take you up on it. Although, I may just try to spend some time documenting what other folks have done. It would be hard to match the creativity of the tons of folks whose Posts I've read!

[Warlord Adamus]

MM was originallly considering having a program that would just keep expanding component abilities infinitely but it was vetoed by the beta testers. Too time consuming, and eventually you'll start having game balance problems.

[raynor]

quote:

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Originally posted by Warlord Adamus:
MM was originallly considering having a program that would just keep expanding component abilities infinitely but it was vetoed by the beta testers. Too time consuming, and eventually you'll start having game balance problems.

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Hmm... that's disappointing.

I think right now, you have a problem in which an advanced tech empire runs out of decent weapons to research about 70 turns into the game...

[nmoppa]

I have to admit, WHAT WE HARDCORE GAMERS WANT is a game with unlimited possibilities, including an infinite number of possibilities to research. MOO 2 was also not unlimited, after researching everything (much less, though, than in SE IV!), indeed you could go on researching for some time resulting in only smaller "cargo" to include in whatever you want, but a level 10 it also stops. AARON feels the same about the infinite possibilities. I hope to live long enough that it's indeed possible to fulfill this dream. For the time being, however, I HARDLY SLEEP PLAYING THE CURRENT VERSION OF WHAT I FEEL IS THE BEST STRATEGY GAME EVER!

I don't complain, I knew what would going to happen when I ordered the game. Only it's SO difficult to explain your partner that it's really NOT possible to go to WHATEVER this evening since you have to "WORK " late again and to prove this is correct you show her or him all the time you spend on this BB to actually make live for a lot of humans better (and when he or she is convinced, quickly CTRL ALT TAB back to the game in progress ).

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PERHAPS THIS IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE <Worf facing another critical fight>

[This message has been edited by nmoppa (edited 10 February 2001).]

[ColdSteel]

I think Raynor has a good point about all of this. Right now, at some point, research goes completely away as a part of the game. This is bad design decision in my opinion as it removes an important and fun element in the critical end game stages. Maybe the decision wouldn't matter in other 4x games but SE4 offers the player really *long* games. It does matter.

MM didn't really have to do much more than allow you to keep researching to reduce component sizes so you can cram more into your advanced ships. In the late game where everyone has all the high tech goodies this becomes important and allows the building of multi-function ships and more powerful specialized ships.

In addition, MM could have opened up a similar line of research that would allow you to increase facility space on planets once everything else was researched. For each level of research completed, you would get 1 additional facility space on your planets. Again this would continue to allow growth in the late game stages.

This is one case where I think MM did the game a disservice by being swayed by beta-tester input (if that's what really happened) and by not looking for a simpler implementation to prevent the situation that Raynor so accurately describes. The MOO2 model is really the way to go here, IMO.

Maybe the game is flexible enough that a mod can address this shortcoming in some fashion. I hope so, anyway.

The real pity is, I don't think this approach would have been that difficult to code, given the modular approach SE4 takes to ship design and facilities. Maybe Aaron will rethink this decision after people have played the game long enough to reach some definitive conclusions and he has some more time on his hands than he currently does now.

Please understand, I think SE4 is a wonderful game and I love it. It has such tremendous potential. That's why I'm so saddened to learn that such an important component of the design is crippled in an unfortunate way.

[This message has been edited by ColdSteel (edited 10 February 2001).]

[nmoppa]

Coldsteel, did you ever play Moo 1 or 2? Really there is not much fun going on with researching anything only achieving Messages like "again we succeeded in minimizing" whatever. The fun of researching is simply to be confronted with something uterly new, That nmakes the difference for HARDCORE LONGLASTING gameplayers like us.

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PERHAPS THIS IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE <Worf facing another critical fight>

[ColdSteel]

nmoppa, the problem never came up that much for me in MOO/MOO2 because I always wrapped up the game before it became much of a consideration. The MOO games are *much* shorter than SE4 games so that's why it becomes more of a problem here.

You have a point about the interest waning after you run out of new tech to research but there is still *some* interest in being able to jam more stuff into a hull and increase facilities on a planet. At least then you are still using the research queue and your research facilities. Otherwise that part of the game just goes completely "bye, bye".

Maybe a better solution is for modders to band together and extend the research tree such that this will not be likely to happen even in long games. Is that even possible? Is the tech tree that extendable? Does this introduce other problems? I don't know.

As one who has designed some stuff myself, all I know is that its not good design to have a integral feature of your game design become useless at some point for the rest of the game. Especially if it is likely to happen often. Just bugs me, I guess.

[evader]

A way to add to research with out componets is to my more tach levels. I have done this to an extent and I find it to be a good addition to the game.