Ideas....

[Lemmy]

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?

[Nitram Draw]

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.

[Matryx]

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
My suggestion was that it would be good to ADD "anti-requirements" to the game

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

[Taqwus]

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


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Lemmy]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
... I don't think techs can restrict techs...

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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
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

[dmm]

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. ) Where is genetic engineering?

[Nitram Draw]

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....