Help! Ran out of stuff to research!! - Page 2

Marty Ward · #11 February 10th, 2001, 08:58 PM

You could also increase the cost of research facilities, the cost of research per topic or add empty research levels in areas that are requirements for other techs.
I don't think the problem is the lack of things to research but that you can research most things relatively fast.

nmoppa · #12 February 10th, 2001, 09:38 PM

Marty, I have played soo many games in this genre, I believe I can honestly say at a certain point you feel it is important the game allows new tech to research, and not how long it takes. Coldsteel feels the same, if I understand his Messages correct.

Now, It's also true NO GAME sofar has giving us players SOO MUCH to research as SE IV does. BUT we always want more, as it should be. MM listens to our requests, incomparable to the after sales support from other "commercial" games.

Just try to play Reach for the Stars 2, It's an embarrasement to the general intellect of SE IV players. A real waste of time and money. In my opinion the only real competitor to SE IV is Stars! (the promised and upcoming release SUPERNOVA I mean). And exactly there lies our hope of competition. Unless we guys start our own project to TRY TO DO BETTER THAN MM. Big task, I promise you!

Sorry for any typoes, I'm not a native English Speaker.

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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 · #13 February 10th, 2001, 10:07 PM

Well, I do think pacing does play a role here. The current tech tree will probably not run out in games with smaller numbers of sectors and races. It's those big games that are a problem.

You could make the research rates variable depending on the number of sectors in the game. Essentially assign a tech "burn rate" that fits the size of the game you configure on startup. That's one approach that I think might work and would be real easy for MM to implement.

Another would be to have some final end game technologies that are just so awesomely powerful that whoever got them would soon crush their opponents. This is essentially what happened in MOO/MOO2. (remember Stellar Converters?)

A final idea would be to introduce the idea of regression. That is, where races could lose areas of technology (due to plagues, virus', alien mind tech devices, mind attacks via enemy intelligence projects, whatever) so that you might have to go back and research an area once again if it got wiped out. By doing this, a races' advances would not be a straight up steady line graph but instead a series of peaks and valleys that more closely mirror the ups and downs of a real civilization. The progress of the human race to date has been a series of these periods of discovery and enlightenment, followed by dark ages where knowledge is lost only to be discovered once more later on.

Something to think about, anyway.

raynor · #14 February 10th, 2001, 10:21 PM

quote:
Originally posted by 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.

You didn't think it was fun to keep researching until you could fit as many weapons/shields on a small ship as once fit on a large ship?

I certainly did.

raynor · #15 February 10th, 2001, 10:32 PM

Once you run out of stuff that you *want* to research or once you have *actually* researched everything, then you just have tons and tons of facilities lying around useless.

How about adding a tech area which converts research points into intel points? Yeah, I know this would require MM help not just a mod. Let it start out at 50% intel points for all your research points and then let that number go up and up as you researched progressively more expensive projects.

Another option would be to create a facility which changes research points into mineral, organic and/or radioactive production. This also would help minimize the impact of having tons of research facilities sitting idle on many of your planets.

The bottom line is to find some way so that research facilities aren't just sitting idle once you have researched everything.

Warlord Adamus · #16 February 11th, 2001, 12:09 AM

Not saying it wouldn't have been an interesting addition, but i'll just play devils advocate for a minute..

"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..."

This is entirely dependant on what path your empire chooses. Iv'e probably played hundreds of games and Iv'e never run out of weapons research by turn 70. If you're doing that then your empire is most likely being unattended in other areas.

"Right now, at some point, research goes completely away as a part of the game. "

Not really. The fruits of that research are there until the game ends.

"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. "

Most could say this about SE4..

"A final idea would be to introduce the idea of regression. "

Very interesting in theory, but what in practice ? Can you imagine being locked in a Multi-player battle and all of the sudden your tech base randomly drops to the stone age ? That wouldn't be fair. Or in single when an AI player is afflicted with the same problem. A human player would destroy that player before he could ever recover.

"Once you run out of stuff that you *want* to research or once you have *actually* researched everything, then you just have tons and tons of facilities lying around useless. "

This is why there is now a "scrap facility type" button. Not a perfect solution I know, but all of the sudden the build space your empire occupies is doubled. While you won't research a Superdreadnought, you can now build a whole lot more of them with the facility space freed up. I guess it's a glass is half empty vs. half full kinda thing.

Lloyd Heilbrunn · #17 February 11th, 2001, 12:17 AM

Speaking of research, anybody else like to see an option to start the game somewhere between the current medium and high tech?? So you get to the good stuff sooner or in a shorter game, but are not maxed out so no research is used at all?

klausD · #18 February 11th, 2001, 12:33 AM

I think its quite easy to circumvent the "research" problem.
Fact is: there are several sizes of the universe (from tiny to huge, 255 systems)fact is: the sum of research points costs is the same for every single size of the universe. This is IMO the problem.

Solution: MM has to introduce a tech cost "multiplier" which is choosen either automatically by the game and/or which you can adjust manually at the begin of the game.

some examples:
-you play a game in a medium universe. The game sets the research point multiplier to "x1" which means that the point cost is the same as it is now.

If you are playing in a 255 system universe the game assume a RP-Multiplier of "x5" for example, which means that every tech costs 5 times the amount of now.

Of course you should able to edit every multiplier in x0,1 steps manually if you want to adjust your games.

Such a system would also help in special scenarios in which techs have a limited or more important role. (ok, the scenario generator ... a long way)

by
klausD

raynor · #19 February 11th, 2001, 01:21 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Warlord Adamus:
"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..."

This is entirely dependant on what path your empire chooses. Iv'e probably played hundreds of games and Iv'e never run out of weapons research by turn 70. If you're doing that then your empire is most likely being unattended in other areas.

Ahhh... go back and read what I said. I didn't say I ran out of weapons to research. Rather, I said that I ran out of 'decent' weapons to research. I'm one of those crazy PPB-loving fools who stops researching weapons after I get PPB V's.

If I had money, I'd offer a reward to the person who could design a ship using any other weapon in the game and match it up against the PPB V. (I'm talking my PPB V ship vs. an AI ship, of course. I'm sure a careful human player could make even a lousy weapon like the WMG III seem okay.)

raynor · #20 February 11th, 2001, 01:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Warlord Adamus:
"Right now, at some point, research goes completely away as a part of the game. "

Not really. The fruits of that research are there until the game ends.

Good point. You don't lose the fruits of the research. But you do lose the fruits of buiding lots and lots of research facilities.

I think my main complaint is twofold. First, the empire who heavily invests in research facilities is strongly penalized at a certain point in the game when s/he runs completely out of new tech to research. Second, this player is even more strongly penalized because s/he now has tons and tons of useless facilities lying around. Compare this to a player who builds only Intelligence facilities. These facilities have value from the start of the game to the end of the game.