Ideas....
 

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to introduce "anti-requirements" to items (tech, vehicles, components etc.)

For example, cannot have tech area xxxxx
or must not have racial area xxxxx

It could introduce some interesting twists to the technology available if you had to make choices between things....

Comments? Discuss...

Matryx

Re: Ideas....
 

This would work well for Pirates/Nomads because you could limit the ship sizes and colinization techs.

It would work well to cancel off some of the techs that are included in Racial traits. Organic can only research Organic weapons.

You could link these anti-requirements into the culture you choose. Engineers are the only culture that can build Baseships. Worker are the only ones that can build Robotoid facilities. Scientists are the only ones who can build Central Computer Complexes. Xenophobes are the only ones that can build Citizen Data Bank facilities. The list is endless.

The possibilites are endless. This would really add to the game. Good Idea!

Re: Ideas....
 

A great idea! Branching tech trees! I think that it could add a lot of interesting gameplay to SE.

Re: Ideas....
 

Just reading on another post reminded me about "primitive cultures"
this would be a good way to restrict them from researching anything dangerous or too technologically advanced, while at the same time preventing others from researching too primitive technologies.

Matryx

Re: Ideas....
 

Mmmm. That could allow MoO2-style tech trees with hard choices... -- tasty. ;-)


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Ideas....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
... I don't think techs can restrict techs... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
you're right about that, you can only modify what tech levels are needed not what you can't have.
But i think it should be possible with minor hardcode changes, when the game checks what tech a player can research it automatically checks what techs the player already has, so instead of making it possible to research a tech, it should be made impossible...
Probably easier said than done http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
But if this is changed then the AI would also have to be able to handle this which means lot's of more work for aaron and the modders... maybe for se5 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Ideas....
 

Generally, I don't like the idea. (Sorry.) It doesn't seem realistic to me, and I don't like artificial restrictions. The current system does seem realistic, in that you are restricted from researching everything due to economic factors, rather than someone else's arbitrary choices. Makes for more variety.

However, I would be in favor of increasing research costs overall, and then giving discounts to players who are specializing in an area. For instance, if you've got two physics techs already, then the third one would be easier to research. Or maybe divide techs into categories like offensive, defensive, and infrastructure. This would encourage specialization without requiring it. Also it would make trade more interesting, because you wouldn't necessarily know how much each tech cost each player.

Or maybe research labs should be specialized. That would be more realistic. A bio lab isn't going to discover shields, and a physics lab isn't going to discover plague bombs. Or perhaps specialized labs should just get a bonus over general research facilities for certain techs, but a penalty for all other techs. So then the player has to decide what kind of labs to build. Think of what that would do for trading and strategy.

Also, I would like to see more incremental advances. "Hmmm...should I research more powerful weapons or longer-ranged ones or easier aiming or faster reloading or less supply usage or cheaper build/maintain cost?" Again, more strategy.

Lastly, there should be more techs. This would also encourage player-initiated specialization. (Because there would be too many techs to research them all.) Biology, in particular, needs to be fleshed out. (Sorry, couldn't resist that one. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...s/rolleyes.gif ) Where is genetic engineering?

Re: Ideas....
 

I think the MOO2 system provided more variety even if there were less total techs to choose from. You had to make an irrevocable choice. After that, trade was they only way to get additional techs.
I've played many games where I have basically run out of techs to research, even to the point of researching "useless" techs fully. It doesn't take much once you have 100-200k of research.
More techs would be nice but I think restricted techs would also be great. Maybe in SE5 as mentioned before....

Re: Ideas....
 

The arbitrary restrictions in MOO and especially MOO II were really annoying. Why would you be unable to research a certain level of combat sensors just because you researched a particular weapon? I much prefer the idea of a discount for related tech areas. Add an extra field to all technologies named something like "Field:" or "General Category:" and have some sort of compensation to your tech costs according to how much research you have already spent on techs in this same field. You would naturally tend to go for things that were related and easier to research. This would lead to "evolved" racial traits as well as inherent ones at game start.

DMM: I suggested just that sort of 'specific research types' idea a long time ago. It would make much more sense to have to build a particular sort of laboratory for a particular sort of research. Then techs could require various amounts of general sciences much like components require various amounts of resources. I suspect that this is too much change to be included in SE IV, though. Maybe SE V.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 31 May 2001).]

Re: Ideas....
 

That's a good idea. I also like the suggestion of branching research trees for items, like higher ranged, more accurate or more damaging weapons.
Anything that gives the game more variety is good in my opinion.
The MOO research basically made for a greater variety of ships later in the game where as in SE4 you can pretty much guess what you will face late in the game, there aren't many surprises. I don't mean it's not challanging just somewhat predictable.

Re: Ideas....
 

It seems to me that the current racial tech system is more for play balance than realism. I prefer the suggestion of discounts for related tech, too.

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Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 31 May 2001).]

Re: Ideas....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
I've played many games where I have basically run out of techs to research... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
You need to raise the research cost to "high" in a large game, if you want to avoid that.

Re: Ideas....
 

I tried that. It only effected certain techs though. Is this the way it is suppose to work?
Also, I found that with a high tech cost the AI really falls behind because they don't build as many research facilities as I do.

Re: Ideas....
 

I believe the "high tech cost" setting just affects how fast tech costs rise.

I always take high costs, and each tech level prety much doubles (or maybe quadruples, not sure) in cost.

On low cost, each tech level is only something like 50% more expensive than the Last.

So the difference in cost is higher for long tech threads than short ones.

Re: Ideas....
 

What I mean was not every tech was effected by changing the tech level from medium to high. Some stayed the same, some doubled, some went up a little.
Oops now I get what you mean, the price per level gets higher.

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 31 May 2001).]

Re: Ideas....
 

We had a whole thread on this a while back and we worked out the formula as...

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>For a Low Tech Cost Game:
The multiplier is simply tech level. It is linear.
For Example, Ship construction
Level Cost = 10000
Level 2 cost is 10000 X 2 = 20000
Level 3 cost is 10000 X 3 = 30000
Level 4 cost is 10000 X 4 = 40000

For a Med Tech Game:
The multiplier is the result of Tech Level rasied to the power of 2 and then divided by 2.

For example, Ship Construction again
Level 2 cost is 10000 X 2(2 to the power of 2 is four divided by 2 is 2) = 20000
Level 3 cost is 10000 X 4.5(3 to the power of 2 is 9 divided by 2 is 4.5) = 45000
Level 4 cost is 10000 X 8(4 to the power of 2 is 16 divided by 2 is 8) = 80000


For a High Tech cost game the multiplier is
Tech level raised to the power of 2

Ship Construction again
Level 2 cost is 10000 X 4(2 to the power of 2 is 4) = 40000
Level 3 cost is 10000 X 9(3 to the power of 2 is 9) = 90000
Level 4 cost is 10000 X 16(4 to the power of 2 is 16) = 160000<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In all these, level cost is from the components text file.

Hope this helps.

Geo

Re: Ideas....
 

You could make every tech racial specific. It would just be a tremenous amount of work assign each tech to various races. It would be very interesting though.

Re: Ideas....
 

i think matryx in his original post meant something like this

you can't research tech 1 when you have already researched tech 2.

this way you could add more contradictory techs, or am i the one who is missing the point?
can't think of an example now...maybe later


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2b| |!2b?

Re: Ideas....
 

You may be right about that LemmyM but I don't know if that is possible. I think you can only restrict techs from traits, I don't think techs can restrict techs. It would be cool if you could do that, like MOO2 where you could pick one of the tree techs at each level but there was no going back.

Re: Ideas....
 

LemmyM is correct in his assumption.

For example, if your race researches Quantum Electro Dynamics they may not be able to research Flux Capacitance.

or (a rather more extreme example)
if they researched "advanced religion" they may not be able to research "science"


As for current restrictions, I think you can only restrict techs based on racial traits you have selected... which IMO sucks http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
My suggestion was that it would be good to ADD "anti-requirements" to the game http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

As for the assigning tech to all races individually... well it would be a lot of hard work but possible.
However, it would probably be easier to do it the way I suggested (or at least a lot faster)

Matryx

Re: Ideas....
 

Restrictions do not have to be arbitrary or unrealistic. One of things I dislike about the racial techs is the reasoning does not work both ways. On one hand if you're organic, it's taken ions to develop their special tech and hence is too difficult within the bounds of the game for others to learn even if taught by a willing ally. Yet if one developed an organic culture, wouldn't the reverse generally though not always apply? Having devoted their entire culture in organics for ions, wouldn't there be certain general techs which would be equally unlearnable to them not being of organic nature. As it is, there is no way of limiting them to the general techs (or any of the other racial techs). This is where I would see the use of a "can't have a certain tech" requirement. If you choose to follow certain paths like the racial techs, there would be areas because of that specialization which you would as find as undecipherable as the racial techs are considered to be to the rest of the races. There could be other specialty techs which would preclude some other tech if for no other reason than the inertia that builds up as huge amounts of resources are devoted to any single task. There becomes a point when too much is invested with too many people's egos, etc. on the line to change to something else. It's not always one can't do something as much as one won't. And if it basically got you to the same general point its even tougher. The organics come up with their own Version of armor, they wouldn't even think of developing any other type as the one they have within their frame of reference works just fine. They shouldn't have ability to research the general tech armor as they would have no cause to until such a time as they encountered other races and some other armor proven more effective. It wouldn't have to prevent you from capturing the tech.

Re: Ideas....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The organics come up with their own Version of armor, they wouldn't even think of developing any other type as the one they have within their frame of reference works just fine. They shouldn't have ability to research the general tech armor as they would have no cause to until such a time as they encountered other races and some other armor proven more effective. It wouldn't have to prevent you from capturing the tech. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sounds to me like increasing the tech level costs for low level stuff by 10x would just about do that for you.

-"I've got Organic Armor, should we really spend 10 million research points and three decades to get something almost the same, or get something new, like better engines instead?"

That would give you a longer build-up and a longer sweep of tubulent tech changes for more variety.

Re: Ideas....
 

Just adding by $0.02.

I found an interesting thing. This particularly applies to the technology in the game Battletech.

Basically, as time goes on for the BT universe technology will actually shrink and recede.

The story is that the Star League united humanity into a utopic enlightenment where research flourished. Then it all went to hell and the Star League left the rest of humanity to fight each other. Without the Star League scientists, all the remaining humans found themselves unable to advance technology and were hard-pressed to even keep current tech levels from dropping. As it stands, they can produce and repair, but not research technology any further,

I guess it could act like some sort of research maintenance on technologies. If there isn't enough researching then technologies will be gradually forgotten. And as you get more and more technology you will pay more maintenance and have less research to advance with.

Which would have different effect on gameplay like, "Do you really want to go that far with this particular tech field? It may not allow you to advance others."

So empires could actually hit certain research caps and be unable to advance their technology any further without adding research centers.

What do you think?

I can dream can't I?

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Re: Ideas....
 

As long as you are able to use designs that have tech beyond your current understanding.

You should be able to retrofit to the super-tech design, but not build it.

So, If you've got some ancient techs that you've forgotten, you can still upgrade the ship to hold better engines that you've researched, without losing the Polaron relics you've got.

Re: Ideas....
 

Actually, the way I figure it would work... If you lose the technology you lose the capability to produce, retrofit or repair those components altogether. But you could still use em if you built them before you lose the tech.

As it is, there is little limit to how far you can take technology you simply research and research away. I would be very interested in seeing how the game would play if I was forced to limit my total known techs due to research maintenance.

I would think that tech degradation would be a slow process if it wasn't properly maintained.

I think it would be pretty cool to have as an option. It would seem a bit unrealistic.

Too much work for MM to implement though. =/

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Re: Ideas....
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Too much work for MM to implement though.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not necessarily: a cut down Version could be implimented very cheaply.

Add a "Tech Maintenance Cost" parameter to the race - default (say) 5%.
Then every turn reduce the available research points by 5% x cummulative number of points spent thus far.
If the result is &lt;=0 no further research until you build more research centers.

This would have the effect of making late changes of research emphasis suitably expensive. E.g. If I'd focused on missiles and at a late stage of the game decided that I needed some direct fire tech, I'd have to build extra research centers just to catch up with my maintenance outgoings before spending the next 10k points on "Polaron Beams I" or whatever.

Perhaps this is a more realistic "tree" model? Techs aren't mutally exclusive - it's just very expensive to change tack.

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Resistence is futile.

(Edit to clarify that tech maintenance shouldn't be cummulative. I.e. -ve research points shouldn't be carried forward. This is to match the "use 'em or lose 'em" property of +ve research points.)

[This message has been edited by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (edited 01 June 2001).]