Help! Ran out of stuff to research!!

Warlord Adamus · #1 February 11th, 2001, 04:07 AM

BTW, I do agree with you that in a perfect world we'd never run out of new things to research. But I just don't see it happening. Making everything smaller could be interesting until everything is size 1.

A program could have been created that had a single component, example:

Laser Beam I

Size:1
Range:1
Power:1

Now a program could just expand on the numbers for each successive level researched, and change everything to 2 or 3 or 569 but you end up with limitations in tactical combat. Range being one limitation (you can only shoot so many squares), damage being another (You don't need to do 6 million damage to kill a DN). This is similar to what was one the SE4list and what MM was considering.

All that said though, I like Klaus and Instar suggestions as a better solution.

raynor · #2 February 11th, 2001, 04:37 AM

You build intel facilities. They generate intel the entire game. The only time that intel points aren't useful is when everyone is dead and the game is over.

You build research facilities. You resesarch everything. You run out of stuff to research. Those buildings are now useless to you.

The only way you can argue that those buildings aren't useless once you've researched everything is if you think that maybe you have to spend research points to maintain your current tech level. I suppose that might be an interesting idea. But it isn't currently the way the game works.

Once you've researched everything, those buildings are wasted space. I'm not saying they were wasted space the turn before you finished researching everything. I'm saying they are wasted space now that there is nothing more for you to research.

To put it another way, once there are no more research projects for you to create, those buildings are useless to you. If there is nothing to spend research points on, there is no reason to build, upgrade or keep existing research facilities.

I'm gonna keep going until you agree with me on this extremely simple point.

Marty Ward · #3 February 11th, 2001, 06:46 AM

Also, since this is an open ended game you will eventually run out of stuff to research. You could never add enough unique or original items to keep you researching until turn 10,000

Tomgs · #4 February 11th, 2001, 06:48 AM

Hmm atmosphere changers are also useless after the atmosphere has changed but you can also scrap it out and use that space.

Well I guess you could perhaps move a different race onto the planet and see if it changed the atmosphere again

.

I understand that a lot more facilities are involved when you talk about research facilities but the principal is the same. Yes it would always be better if there were more areas to research but more can be added by modding them in. You can also make the Phased Poleron Beam less effective in your games so you would want to research other areas.

One problem if infinite technology was added into the game how would you play an all tech game then? The computer would go into an infinite loop, I haven't caused one of those since I studied fortran in college

.

Actually my favorite fix for this research problem would be to have a bit of randomness added to the research areas. If you don't know the actual range or damage for each specific weapon each time you started up the game you would have to spend more time researching because the first thing you researched probably wouldn't be the baddest weapon on the block for that game. And if the resource production for mineral miners came out low resources would be at a premium and Organic tech races might do better that game.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 11 February 2001).]

Warlord Adamus · #5 February 11th, 2001, 07:05 AM

raynor- You are missing the point. Of course having tons of research facilities around *after* you have already researched everything don't help you. But, you should have scrapped them before then. Your whole assertion in this thread was that empires that focus on research especially are penalized, my view is that they are not.

Your intel comparison doesn't cut it, as the missions are canned, single level operations. The lone programmer can not input a limitless amount of techs so that the research facilities are totally useful throughout the entirety of 'raynor's' game. As I already mentioned, if you've researched the entire tree you should have already won by then. The other solutions on this thread are fine.

raynor · #6 February 11th, 2001, 08:08 AM

There are two points I've been making here. The first point is: I want more research fields. I think the best way to get more research fields is to make very expensive techs that take many turns to research but which result in smaller components.

The second point I've been trying to make is that if there isn't anything left to research, then there should be *something* to do with those research facilities. Don't expect me to accept the 'Oh, just scrap them then' argument anytime soon.

raynor · #7 February 11th, 2001, 08:12 AM

quote:
You are missing the point. Of course having tons of research facilities around *after* you have already researched everything don't help you. But, you should have scrapped them before then. Your whole assertion in this thread was that empires that focus on research especially are penalized, my view is that they are not.

Nope. My first point was that I wanted more research areas. My second focus was the creation of open-ended research projects that generate intel points.

quote:

Your intel comparison doesn't cut it, as the missions are canned, single level operations. The lone programmer can not input a limitless amount of techs so that the research facilities are totally useful throughout the entirety of 'raynor's' game.

I think the point I was trying to make about the intel projects was along the lines of what to do with the research facilities--i.e. create a reseach project that generates intel points so that intel facilities aren't useless after everything has been researched.