Tech Categories List

[sdh]

It sounds to me that you might be happier with a set of categories based around "ways of doing things"

you are probably right.

1. Craft - stuff that moves and shoots, and its elements
1.1 Spacecrafts/Capital Ships
1.2. Offensive
1.3. Defensive
2. Planet Utilisation, all things happening on planets, buildings
2.1. Economy
2.2. The Sociology
3. The doctrines
3.1 Military doctrines
3.2 Science doctrines

this seems to be an example of a tech tree where more than 50 % of the advances seem to involve military applications or otherwise clobbering someone else on the head. i hope that the final tech tree will be at least 50% civilian / industrial / non military advances. otherwise that will take away from the empire building aspect of the game and the game will quickly degrade to "let's race to the ultimate weapons"

What is "military doctrine"? It's just apllied sociology or psychology, Physics or chemistry, we do not need it as separate category.
I agree with Sandlapper's scheme if he removes military from it

despite my initial support of sandlapper's proposal, i completely agree that "military doctrine" is redundant as a category. i believe that all tech categories should roughly contain the same number of techs or at least a high enough no. of techs so that it is viable as a category. i also believe that most advances to ship combat /ground combat or spying should come from weapons /spy equipment developed in other categories. "military doctrine" as a category suggests that there will be techs that give wide spread blanket bonuses to all your troops or spies from single advances that are just "strategies". while i could certainly see 1 or 2 of those, it would be weird imo to create enough military strategies just to fill 1 entire category. the advances in "military doctrine" should go to filling out the social sciences category.

1) Is Economics lumped with Industry and Mining?
--If not, are Mining and Industry lumped?
--If not, is Economics lumped with Sociology?

2) Is Diplomacy part of Sociology, Economics or something else?

3) Does Environment include Biology?
--If not, is it part of Sociology?
--If not, is there a Biology category?

4) Is there a Military Doctrines category?

5) Are Espionage and Diplomacy in the same category?
--If not, is espionage part of Sociology or the possible Military Doctrines category?

6) Is there a Theoretical category?


(did I miss anything important?)

1) i would prefer economics to go with industrial/mining unless this category is already brimming with techs. if this single (industrial /mining /construction/ economics) category will control your whole economy and contain all advances to production (including all the different buildings and building upgrades) then i anticipate that it might well be big enough to split into 2 categories. a relevant question might be : will some basic starting production buildings require tech advances ?

2) sociology

3) what exactly is there going to be in biology besides 1 or 2 medicine sciences and the possiblity of cloning ? if that's all there is to it than i suggest putting it with environment. this way, all advances that might increase population growth rate will be together.

4) my rather long explanation is above. the short answer is no

5) i believe that both diplomacy and espionage should be lumped in with sociology. as i mentioned, if most advances to espionage come from equipment advances then those advances should be grouped in their respective engineering categories. this means that the few theoretical advancements in espionage could fit in with sociology

6) i completely agree with :

The entire point of our system is that theoretical research is done in every category. Having a category for 'theoretical research' fails the 'tell me what is in this category' test and could contain anything that could go in one of the other categories.

my own points :

i would like there to be a "special" category where you put all the other super fantastic sciences like time-warp, super string control, 4th dimension use, etc. i would rather that psi abilities if any, be included in this category than biology.

[utilae]

-Geologic science or Geology (Resource Acquisition, mining, some terraforming)
-Biological science or Biology (farming, some terraforming, medical)
-Social Sciences (diplomacy, happiness)
-Economy (making money)
-Military Doctrine (better ways of fighting, mostly theoretical; adding bonuses, not new equipment)
-Engineering (construction, hulls, structures)(this one could be split up)
-Electronics (computers, sensors)
-Space/Time sciences (I like this idea, maybe all the wierd random things can fit here)

This is quite good, but I think environmental sciences is better cause it would cover geology, animals, nature, biology of creatures, anything about the environment.

Information Processing covers things like computers and scanning, scouting etc better than electronics would.

Social sciences would cover things like how people and sentient species interact, covering espionage, diplomacy, etc.

Resource aquisition, industry and infrastructure development would all be better under economy, because the end result is economy isnt it.

I guess millitary doctrine is a good field for offensive and defensive weapons/systems. What about destruction as an opposite field to construction. It would cover weapons well enough.

You don't have propulsion anywhere. I think propulsion should come under something like 'exploration', but maybe just propulsion would do. There are other misc fun fields like Energy, Chemistry and of course Space/Time. If we could lump these into one it would be cool, but I don;t know how sensible that is.

None of these categories have research. I think research could come under Information Processing (which would also cover the gathering and collecting and development of information, therefore research, scouting etc).

Time to adapt my proposal according to new thoughts, etc.
UTILAES proposal v2:
*Transport (Ship propulsion, Land/Air Vehicle propulsion)
*War Sciences (weapons, offensive strategies, energy/chemical/missile/balistic weapons)
*Security (defenses, protection, safety, security, shields)
*Environmental Sciences (Terraforming, Farming, Biology, Genetics)
*Social Sciences (Espionage/Diplomacy, Morale, Medical Sciences, Government)
*Economics (Trade, Mining, Infrastructure, Industry, Trade)
*Construction (Buildings, Ships, Starbases, Ships hulls, Armour)
*Information Processing (Computers, Sensors, research, scouting)

EDIT: removed Space/Time Sciences as a category, it now makes a nice even number of categories.


*Space/Time Sciences (Teleportation, Dimensional Gateway's, Stargates, manipulation, Mysteries of the universe)


This is perfect in my opinion, but Space/Time sciences still seems like the odd one out. If there was a better name maybe. I was thinking dimensional or something to do with phylosophy, or creation of the universe, mysteries of the universe.

I was thinking actually that Space/Time probably would come under various headings I already have. IE teleportation/dimensional gateways/stargates could come under transport. You could have various space/time based weapons and defenses, which would come under War Sciences and Security. And then mysteries of the universe would probably come under social sciences or environmental sciences (the later being more likely, because the universe is like the biggest environment possible).

[NameisToad]

I think you guys have played too many games by game designers who followed the lead of games like Master of Orion and Space Empire. I see no reason why the tech tree shouldn’t be modeled more fully after a real-world parallel.

Many technologies in our world were stumbled across by one or two very fortunate individuals, while they were doing something only vaguely resembling the research for which they eventually were credited. Many other technologies are simply off-shoots of these early efforts.

In this example, plastic is a natural resource which is neither plentiful enough nor quite resilient enough for many applications. Many people attempt to create better plastic, some by treating the plastics currently available, and others by chemical construction.

Both yield results, but the point is that people did not specifically set out to research “Vulcanized Rubber”. Charles Goodyear was attempting to improve on natural rubber by coating/mixing it with other substances, and he happened across a method by which a much better type of rubber could be manufactured.

“Vulcanized Rubber” is the method humankind used to create rubber tires (themselves an upgrade to an existing technology, “Wheels”), which were later used to cushion vehicular travel. (Allowing all types of transportation to increase its speed, among other things)

In short, a man trying to create a more durable rubber ball/seal/whatever ended up creating a substance which increased propulsion technology.

If Charles Goodyear had not stumbled across the “Vulcanized Rubber” technology, and no one else had ever cooked sulfur-treated rubber, I have no doubt that someone somewhere would have found a way to increase our transportation speeds and increase the mobility of the populace eventually. The point is that your propulsion technology category is entirely unrealistic and cumbersome.

As time went on, other people found other ways to modify plastics of many types to fit other tasks. Research into new ways to use plastics and new ways to modify plastics has not abated in the slightest.

The suggestion that the categories as suggested here are more intuitive is only true so long as you expect the game to behave as other games have behaved. If you expect the game to behave as Human research has, then categories like “Propulsion”, “Ship Hulls”, and “Planetary Industry” are all fairly disingenuous and disappointing.

If I may propose:

Tangibles
--Minerals
----Lubricants (graphite, water, etc)
----Adhesives (nails, rivets, etc)
----Materials (Adamantium, Titanium, etc)
--Organics
----Lubricants (oil, alcohol, formaldehyde, etc)
----Adhesives (epoxy, caulk, etc)
----Materials (rubber, plastic, fuel, etc)

Forces
--Natural
----Constant (gravity, valence bonding, photonic energy, etc)
----Immediate (lightning, heat, radiation, etc)
--Artificial
----Constant (energy shielding, electricity, ship propulsion, artificial gravity, etc)
----Immediate (beam weapons, explosives, inertial dampening, etc)

Attitudes
--Economic
----Cooperative (communism, socialism, etc)
----Competitive (barter, capitalism, etc)
----Destructive (fraud, theft, might-makes-right, etc)
--Governmental
----Cooperative (democracy, republic, hive-mind, etc)
----Competitive (monarchy, despotism, feudal, etc)
----Destructive (anarchy)
--Religious
----Cooperative (self sacrifice)
----Competitive (ranking systems, self-righteousness, etc)
----Destructive (fanaticism)
--Cultural
----Cooperative (medicine)
----Competitive (genetic engineering)
----Destructive (bio weapons)


Under this system, something akin to the Tech System of Master of Orion I could be implemented. Players research the tech categories they choose to research, perhaps with emphasis on a certain portion of the tech structure, and the specific advances achieved could be chosen at random from the list of potential advances.

Research into Tangibles-Minerals-Lubricants could reveal the advances:

Air-cooling – early combustion engines used air-cooling, rather than the oil lubricants enjoyed by engines today.
Water-cooling – more effective than air, but still not tremendously effective
Graphite powder – useful as a lubricant, also incredibly good at marking objects
Ball bearings
Mercury-based lubrication
Quicksilver – very nearly perfect (although I have no idea whether a perfect lubricant is possible)

Research into Attitudes-Economic-Competitive could reveal:

Trade – I have fish, you have grapes. I give you a trout for a double handful of grapes. Ug.
Currency – Gold and silver made good equalizers for Europeans. Africans preferred animals. (Would require a certain level of governmental ability)
Corporations – Cooperation amongst a small group in competition against a different small group. (Would require a certain level of A-E-Cooperative ability)

Research into Forces-Artificial-Immediate could reveal:

Energy Shielding – only after Forces-Natural-Immediate-Repellant
Weapons-Grade Lasers – only with the requisite Tangibles-Minerals-Materials (I.E. Gemcutting)
Disintigration beam – only with the requisite Forces-Natural-Constant-Gravity

Etc, etc, etc, ad nausiam.

With a system such as this, you could have nearly unlimited applied technological advances, and insert them wherever they belong in the tech tree. Research is all general, and the player doesn’t have to worry about levels or linear progression or the impracticality of specifying what outcome he/she wants the research to have. (As in, specifying that you want to spend research points inventing the wheel. If you know what the wheel is, then it’s already been invented.)

I believe that a system like this one can be very fun for the player (reference MoO I) and very realistic at the same time. The player can focus his/her research efforts on certain aspects of technology, in the hopes of acquiring specific types of technologies (“I need a better weapon to put on my ships. I’ll focus a little more on Forces tech, and specify that most of the focus should go into Artificial-Immediate tech, which is where all the weapons have come from so far.” “In my last game, I got this great weapon called Graviton Beam which said it was from the tech Applied Gravity from the Forces-Natural-Constant tree, and Artificial Gravity from the Forces-Artificial-Constant tree. If I even out my technology over the entire Forces section, maybe I can get other weapons that are better. If I neglect the Natural side of the Forces Category, then I may never advance beyond Lasers.”)

As far as implementation, naming the Applied technologies and creating a diverse collection of such technologies would be the biggest challenge. MoO I just used graduated naming (I.E. Shields level I, Shields level II, Shields level V, Shields level IX, etc.), but they also used specifically named techs (such as Fusion Engine (speed 2), Ion Engines (speed 4), and Hyper Engines (speed 7)) in the effort to bring diversity to the table.

I’d say that research into Tangibles-Mineral-Materials could get you Anti-Matter, but research into Forces-Artificial-Immediate would be required for Anti-Matter Drives or Anti-Matter Bombs.

I also think that a simple slider could be used to measure what percentage of the research is being done by the military. Some of the greatest military developments have come out of kitchens and innocent experiments involving energy manipulation, but the great majority of military technology is developed by the military.

As the slider approaches the military side of things, more refinements are developed, and fewer “pure” research breakthroughs are achieved.

A civilian scientist might come up with the phasor, and he might come up with a shield-piercing variation on an existing phasor, but he won’t be looking for either usually. A military scientist will usually be working with a current weapon and trying to improve it, so a military scientist (or engineer, as you see fit) is more likely to come up with the shield-piercing version of whatever weapons are already in place, and less likely to come up with Phasors when the whole military is currently using Graviton Beams.


If you guys are dead-set on using the same tech model as every other game on the market, then you will be received the same as so many other games on the market today. If you bring innovative new techniques to the table, you have a chance to achieve something spectacular. The graphics for this game are already better than the graphics in MoO III, easily on a par with Stars! Supernova Genesis. You say they will be better soon, and I can’t wait to see it, but looks aren’t enough to make a game great. The mechanics have to be great as well, and the tech trees I’m seeing suggested in this thread are all exactly the same type of thing as the Stars! and MoO II developers have already done.

[drek]

I see no reason why the tech tree shouldn’t be modeled more fully after a real-world parallel.

Welcome to the board.

There's a faq on the wiki you might want to read:
http://www.freeorion.org/wiki/index.php ... ame_Design

We don't care about realism, and strongly discourage forum posts that blither on about realism. It's a space opera: a fantasy with sci-fi trappings, like Star Wars.

The general shape of the tech tree has already been decided, we are just offering suggestions for category names now.

Ball bearings

Ten bucks says a civilization advanced enough to warp to another star has already discovered the secret of ball bearings.

With the exception of the spathi, of course.

[PowerCrazy]

How about:

The tree directly parallels our meters that we have already established.

For example.

Construction
-terraforming
-infrastructure
-new colonization possibilities
Farming
-Improved Farming
-Population Control
-New uses of food
Minerals
-Improve Mining
-Greater mineral use efficency from
-Mineral Substitution
Industry
-Improved Yield
-Better techniques
-ship construction concerns
Science
-How to research better
-How to research faster
-Open up new branches in all categories
Ships/Starbases
-offense
-defense
Spying
-Spy stuff
Diplomacy
-Diplo stuff

That way the player has a direct method of addressing his shortcomings.

Hmm, I sure would like to get some more food so I can grow faster. I know, I'll research some farming tech.

Or wow, I'm really falling behind in my rate of discoveries, better research some Science.

I just don't like vague categories or unrelated categories.

Basically what drek said.

[Daveybaby]

Sounds eminently sensible to me.

Trouble is, you might end up with a LOT of categories, with a handful of techs per category. Might not be a problem, but may initially cause players to go and cry in a corner because they have too many things to choose from. Also makes tech trees (interdependencies) a bit messy.

IMO youre probably doing things the wrong way around - what needs to be done FIRST is to determine what kinds of techs you want in the game - i.e. what are the gameplay effects you want to achieve via technology.

e.g.
4 levels of farming
5 types of industry
5 levels of shield
7 types of beam weapons
4 types of missile
etc

THEN work out roughly where in the game's timeframe you want these techs to appear - i.e. do we want the 4 levels of farming spread evenly throughout the game, or do we only tend to need farming techs nearer the beginning of the game.

FINALLY work out some way of grouping these techs that (a) makes sense, and (b) is fairly neat and tidy.

[utilae]

Sounds eminently sensible to me.

Trouble is, you might end up with a LOT of categories, with a handful of techs per category. Might not be a problem, but may initially cause players to go and cry in a corner because they have too many things to choose from. Also makes tech trees (interdependencies) a bit messy.

This is true. Most of the meters are economic type things, so they should all just go into a category called economics. Also I can't imagine many techs that would fit in the Mineral category for example, except for Improved Mining Versions 1 to 10, maybe terraforming, though that is more environment.

IMO youre probably doing things the wrong way around - what needs to be done FIRST is to determine what kinds of techs you want in the game - i.e. what are the gameplay effects you want to achieve via technology.

THEN work out roughly where in the game's timeframe you want these techs to appear - i.e. do we want the 4 levels of farming spread evenly throughout the game, or do we only tend to need farming techs nearer the beginning of the game.

FINALLY work out some way of grouping these techs that (a) makes sense, and (b) is fairly neat and tidy.

I agree, and it makes sense too. Though we can do it with categories first. We just need to think of categories to cover everything or hope their is a category that a stray tech can be put into.

[drek]

THEN work out roughly where in the game's timeframe you want these techs to appear - i.e. do we want the 4 levels of farming spread evenly throughout the game, or do we only tend to need farming techs nearer the beginning of the game.

FINALLY work out some way of grouping these techs that (a) makes sense, and (b) is fairly neat and tidy.

hrm,

Yeah, that might be the sensible way of doing things.

[Geoff the Medio]

I'd like to repeat my suggestion that the categories be user-customizable. That is, let the user pick to sort things by fluff-content, class of applications, academic disciplines, meter-altering relevance, weapon delivery mechanism, or whatever else we think might be useful and feel like setting up.

Is it necessary that the categories of techs be strongly defined? (I recall seeing talk of having prerequisites limited by categories to some degree, but I'm not sure if this was a reason for or a consequence of the categories).

Ellestar's suggestion of many precise mini-categories might help with this as well. We can set one of these for each tech we add, and have the various categorization filters be defined in terms of them.

[Aquitaine]

I think we need some framework with which to design the techs. The category list we come up with now may not be the one in v1.0, bu we need a 'working copy,' so to speak.

There's also nothing that says the user can't sort the tech tree in any way they like, i.e. 'give me all ship technology at once,' but that doesn't excuse us from having to develop the actual categories to which they belong so that we can balance them.

I will go over this thread this weekend or early next week and figure out what the next step is.

-Aq

[Geoff the Medio]

Right... I'd forgotten the oft-stated desire of various people to have empires or their strategies be distinguished by the category of tech in which they specialize...

Along those lines though, how would it be most desirable for the categories in which one might specialize to be organized? What should or shouldn't one category contain that can only be gotten from another category? Thus, what should be the differences between empires that specialize in different categories? Does, and if so how does, this influence how the categories should be defined? Are these question relevant to the non-combat side of things?

(Just pondering)

[Impaler]

Just had a disturbint thought

Ware dose MATH go? Seems we probably do need to have the "Pure Research" catagory that Geoff sugjests their are simply things to broad to be nailed down to such function based catagories.

[drek]

I think we need some framework with which to design the techs. The category list we come up with now may not be the one in v1.0, bu we need a 'working copy,' so to speak.

Makes sense.

(I recall seeing talk of having prerequisites limited by categories to some degree, but I'm not sure if this was a reason for or a consequence of the categories).

Oh yeah. Not just to some degree, but I'm thinking any prerequisite ought to be in the same category, with no exceptions. (but as stated before, BIG techs could be in multiple categories.)

I strongly leaning towards giving some symmetry between the meters/foci and tech categories. If you want to improve farming meter, farming category. But, certain meters do have relationships with each other, both gamewise and "realistically", suggesting they'd share many of the same prerequisites:

* Farming + Health relate strongly to each other: both effect Population. Colony ships might fall under this category as well.

* Mining + Industry relate, since one feeds the other. Plus, common sense might indicate that shipyards would share prerequisites with these meters.

A player concentrating on expansion would research into the Farming/Health/Population category. A player concentrating on building stuff would research into the Mining/Industry/Shipyard category.

The other meters are a bit trickier:

* Research might be paired with *all* the BIG techs, meaning to get the top level of research tech, you'd have to research all of the multi-category theories. (plus BIG theories might provide some minor empire wide bonuses. the Research category would be the interface if the player wants to concentrate on accuring minor bonuses which don't require a building.)

EDIT: This could also be the category for an end-game research victory tech, as in SMaC. You'd have to research all the BIG techs to get the final techs, so this makes some sense.

* Security and Happiness. Government, spies, defense against spies, possibly any diplomacy techs.

* The remaining concepts are Constuction meter, trade meter, general purpose buildings, and terraforming. Perhaps they can be grouped together in a "Development" or "Infrastructure" category. A player concentrating on building up his pre-existing worlds would research into this category.

Trade is kind of an odd man out. Maybe it would be better off in the security/happiness category....but that would leave this category a bit sparse. EDIT: it might make slightly more sense if Trade were renamed "Commerce".

Summary of the economic categories, and potential names for the categories:

1: Farming/Health/Population: "Expansion", "Growth"
2: Mining/Industry/Shipyards: "Production", "Manufactoring"
3: Research/BIG theories: "Advancement" "Learning" "Wisdom"
4: Security/Happiness/Government: "Civilization" "Social" "Sophistication"
5: Construction/Terraforming: " "Infrastructure" "Development"

That makes five economic categories: plenty of room left for the military side of things.

We'd re-enforce the relationship between tech categories and meters on the UI. The meters themselves might be grouped by which tech category they fall under:

(imagine this is the listing of meters on the planet screen:)

Code: Select all

"Growth"         |Population meter
                 |Health meter
                 |Farming meter  *
==================
"Production"     |Industry meter *
                 |Mining meter   *
==================
"Learning"       |Research meter *
==================
"Infrastructure" |Trade meter    *
                 |Construction meter 
==================
"Social"         |Security     
                 |Happiness

Notice the meters that can have Focus (marked by a *) are grouped next to each other.

[Geoff the Medio]

Ware dose MATH go? Seems we probably do need to have the "Pure Research" catagory that Geoff sugjests their are simply things to broad to be nailed down to such function based catagories.

Pure / academic math advances aren't really the purpose of the pure research category as I intended it.

There are several other possibilities, though. Math-related advances coudl appear in various other categories where the advances would be relevant. There could also be math stuff predominantly in an information-related or expanding-the-mind/philosphy type category, if such exist... Other than those, I don't think "math" as a separate category really works... as what can you do with just math? Generally it needs to be applied to be useful in any field other than information or philosphy...

... I'm thinking any prerequisite ought to be in the same category, with no exceptions. (but as stated before, BIG techs could be in multiple categories.)

Could you reiterate what is meant by "BIG techs" ? Are these the era/age transition techs?

I strongly leaning towards giving some symmetry between the meters/foci and tech categories. If you want to improve farming meter, farming category.

I'm fine with meters being roughly correlated to tech categories, but only when doing so arises naturally (not by forcing things into such a paradigm). That means that the meters grouped together should be practially related... ie. you need one to use the other, mostly. "Thematic" connections that aren't realized as practical ones aren't so helpful... SO:

The industry/mining stuff fits together well. Both are needed to build anything, and both are hard/physical resources-related. Construction-as-in-building stuff could be in here as well.
Growth/Environment/Farming work together pretty well. All combine to increase your population, and are thematically linked (at least partly) as biological/natural/environmental type stuff. Could throw in biomodification / genetic engineering and the like as well.
Sociology covers happiness and security and any culture stuff (and perhaps diplomacy).

Issues that aren't readily resolved for me:

Construction-as-in-the-meter could be in sociology from a thematic point of view. Presumably the rate at which you can get your population organized and working effeciently is a primarily sociological, rather than industrial know-how issue. (The construction meter actually determines how fast your industrial capacity grows, anyway...) That said, it's kind of an odd fit with diplomacy and security...

Economics (trade meter) might also fit in sociology, though the connection is again mostly "thematic" rather than practical in this case (you don't need to be happy to be rich), so perhaps economics deserves its own category.

Given both the above points, perhaps a category combining trade and construction-meter could be made? It does make thematic sense, in that the effeciency of your planned or free-market or other type of economy would determine how well your population gets organized into doing what's needed... "Construction meter" could be arguable called a measure of the economic flexibility of your planet (and could be renamed to reflect that if necessary). The practial connection isn't obvious though, in that the trade meter would presumably grow as a function of the construction meter, and you don't really need one to do the other...

As you say, research is tricky, and is a meter that I don't think should be represented specially by a particular category.

Anyway, we agree about a lot. Mostly I don't think there should be a research category, think you should lump terraforming/environment with health/growth/farming, and don't think construction and trade really work together.

[drek]

Anyway, we agree about a lot. Mostly I don't think there should be a research category,

The research category would:

*deal with the science meter improvements
*catch all the BIG techs in one place, like your theoritcal category. A BIG tech is any theory that only serves as a prerequest for other theories--ie, has no direct applications. It can appear in multiple categories, but only needs to be researched once. Ideally, it has a larger than average cost to research.

The idea for the BIG techs is explained in more detail on the second page of this thread. Search for "BIG" from a post by "Guest". (I was the guest...forgot to log on.)
* Finally, include any Victory technology, like the end game techs in Civ and SMaC. These victory techs would have prerequests consisting of every BIG theory.

It does make thematic sense, in that the effeciency of your planned or free-market or other type of economy would determine how well your population gets organized into doing what's needed... "Construction meter" could be arguable called a measure of the economic flexibility of your planet (and could be renamed to reflect that if necessary). The practial connection isn't obvious though, in that the trade meter would presumably grow as a function of the construction meter, and you don't really need one to do the other...

Let's rename the "Trade" meter Commerce. It makes more sense that way: the final category would be "Development" as in high rise apartments, nice shady parks devoid of hostile lifeforms, and corporate headquarters.

Why is terraforming in Development? First, an empire with heavy research into farming and growth probably wouldn't *need* to terraform anything. Second, terraforming is a kind of development--albeit on a grand scale. Terraforming is the equivlent of turning an entire planet into a nice shady park.

Terraforming shouldn't be in the Growth category. "Growth" category let's you expand, as in colonize new worlds. To colonize new worlds, you need:

*Population to stick in the colony ship
*A surplus of food
*Good Health meter to counteract poor enviroments and quickly drag a new colony up a decent population

Terraforming isn't involved in rapid expansion; it's a kind of development.