Another Approach to Research

[JeffM]

Many games have a technology tree that is climbed by making investment decisions. SE4 is no different. Yet, this is not how inventions occur in the real world for the most part. It may be how ENGINEERING of the invention happens, but it's not how invention happens, usually. I think SE4, and most games, lumps research and engineering into one Category called "research" or "the technology tree", etc.

Innovation is largely a function of two things: individual initiative and a perceived or felt need for something to be better/different. And, this happens in an environment of actual experience with the predecessor item and experiments upon it to see if an improvement will work. Invention is mostly incremental improvement and generally, the improvement happens without funding support (investment) of the society. This is not always true, but usually.

Acceptance of the resulting invention/improvement is another matter. Individual, cultural and societal resistance to change often results in significant delay in the usefulness and application of the invention/improvement.

The problem is how to model all this “soft” stuff. Well...

p=(exp(i+n)+E)/R

Where
p=the probability a hoped for/needed improvement will occur
Exp=level of experience with predecessor/existing technology
i=the individual inventor’s ability
n=the level of perceived or felt need
E=the number of experiments needed to actually demonstrate a practical improvement
R=the level of individual, cultural and societal resistance to the improvement

I don’t know if this formula would actually work, but it might be a first step toward one that could be put in a game.

What I like about SE4 is that there is a strong emphasis on what I think of as the engineering of incremental improvements like armor 1, 2, and 3 before someone gets a good idea and comes up with emissive armor 1. I also like the serendipidous discovery of alien technology and the resulting engineering investment that results in more fun goodies for us to play with. And, I like the hidden technology areas. Neat to be surprised and this is pretty true to real life: research in an area often leads to an outcome no one expected.

What I'm not so thrilled with in a game that is so heavily technology dependent as SE4 is that once I decide to invest in a new technology, I ALWAYS get it. It's 100% sure. I don't think it should be that certain. I think it would add a real interesting dimension to SE4 if when I invest in engineering improvements and I achieve armor 3 and then decide to invest in emissive armor 1, there should be a real chance of failure.

To me this would add an uncertainty factor to the game I'd really appreciate. What do you think? How could MM implement that?