Help! Ran out of stuff to research!!

[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.

[Marty Ward]

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]

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]

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]

quote:

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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.

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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]

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.