FreeOrion

Sounds good to me, after initialy proposing a woping 16 catagories I have after reading the debates here come around to seeing the benefits of less is more. I would even go so far as to say a very small number of Abstracted catagories might be good.

Exploration
Warfare
Construction
Society
Knowlage
Growth

Just felt like exploring the minimalist end of the spectrum here we will likly have more catagories then that.

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

As usual.

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Can COWs fly?

That's why i'm saying - don't spend time on unimportant issues and use a big open list of subcategories (open = new subcategories can be added in a process) to guide others in a process of creating techs.

I can say right now that those of you suggesting the small number of broad categories: that's already been decided against in the tech tree public review.

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

What number is too small. Is 8 the minimum or is it something bigger like 16.

From the results of the public review:



There are two relevant statements:

1: the design will assume a number of categories between 8-12 for the purposes of UI.

To utilae and others advocating a large number of economic techs:

Remember that we still need room for military techs. Eight economic techs is boardline excessive, sixteen is obviously outside the spirit and letter of this statement.

2: The categories will be ‘specific’ in that, give a particular tech, its category affiliation should be easily derived.

Hrm, I had hoped by own suggestion fit into the spirit of this statement, by virtue that given a tech it's category would be easily derived based on which meter the tech improves. Sounds like Aq might disagree.

Regardless of which categories are used, I hope that it will be obvious to the player where to go to improve each meter, esp. the v.2 meters that can hold a Focus (farming, mining, industry, trade).

For example, if I want to improve the industry meter, it would be nice if I didn't have to jump around lots of different categories looking for industry techs.

EDIT:

One last crack at it, specific sounding names for the meter derived categories. The orginal short name is in quotes.

* Life Cultivation "Growth"
Farming, Health, Population
* Material Production "Production"
Mining, Industry, Shipyards
* Academic Advancement "Learning"
Research, the end game techs, the BIG techs collected
* Statecraft "Social"
Happiness, security, spies, government picks
* Planet Development "Development"
Construction, Terraforming, Commerce (aka Trade, Economic)

Hmmmm, that's only five.

I don't really like basing all the tech categories around the meters. The meters are mostly economic meters aren't they.

There isn't really much in the way of ship or millitary categories in your latest list. Where are weapons, engines, etc.

Nor do I.
I think the plan is to only decide the economic / production categories right now. The ships stuff can be filled in when we design the ships system. (If we have a very simplistic combat system with little or no meaningful player control, adding 4 or 5 categories of ship parts would be silly...)

Anyhow...

Most people seem to want a category for Industrial Capacity (more PP) and Mining (more minerals). A few people suggested separating these into two categories along the lines of Mining as one and Inudustry as the other. Another possibility is Space-based and planet-bound. See below.

Most people seem to want a category for Social stuff (happiness, security). Often this category also includes Diplomacy and Espionage, which is a pretty good fit. Some people have also suggested putting Economics (trade) into this, but I don't think this is necessary.

drek wants Economics and Terraforming to be put together as "Development". I dislike this, as Economics has nothing to do with terraforming, and the category's name could just as easily contain mining and industrial capacity stuff.

I'd rather see Economics and Trade as its own category. I think we could find enough stuff to make focusing on the on this category and "the trade empire" strategy viable.

That only leaves terraforming on its own though, which presumably insn't enough for its own category. It could be put with mining, as some sort of "Planet Adaption" category, but I'm not to keen on that either. I've also suggested putting it with Biology stuff, but terraforming is not really very specific to biological issues.

It seems to me that we should decide either a) that terraforming is important and give it a whole category to itself, or b) terraforming is a minor or nonexistant part of the game, and if there is any terraforming tech, it's in other categories that are not specifically labelled with it.

IMO, terraforming is rather redundant with tech that improves the physical nature of your race. I'd like to have a category along the lines of "Life Science" that focuses on improving growth, health and altering the genetic / electronic / mineral / psionic / energetic strcuture of your race. This would effectively have the benefits of terraforming built in... Improving your race would make "poor" or "hostile" planets habitable. There would also be various other advantages to be gained by improving the members of your race as well. Psionics research and biological warface / defence would also fit in here. A slightly better name than "Life Science" could perhaps be found... ideally one that better indicates the purpose of the category for improving your race, improving growth and health and such.

Of course, taking "health" and "growth" away from farming is a problem, as farming isn't enough on its own for a whole category. I'd thus stick farming in "Life Science". This is reasonable, as food is clearly an important part of any race staying "alive". I don't think there needs to be very many farming techs, so this hopefully wouldn't make "Life Science" to overfull. Doing this would also make namging the category a bit harder, as it has to cover food production in addition... Perhaps "Growth & Life Science" ?

The remaining concept is Construction. IMO there's no need for a category for improving the construction meter, and there's not likely to be enough stuff relating to condstruction to make it into its own category.

Now, taking count, it seems I have these categories: "Industry & Mining", "Sociology & Diplomacy", "Trade & Economics", "Terraforming" (optional), and "Life Sciences"

Which is only 4 or 5, which probably isn't enough. Thus I'd propose splitting Industry & Mining into Space and Planet-based categories, and putting the relevant "construction" and "infrastructure" stuff into the appropriate categories. Having a specific category for space industry would be condusive to putting shipsyards stuff into the space category as well, which fits nicely, IMO. If there is not a specific terraforming category, then the "Planetary Industry" would likely be a good place for most of it, IMO.

I, as would others, also like to see a category for Advanced Research, Information Processing and the like. I dislike drek's name for this, "Academic Advancement", and would suggest something more like "Information & Research".

Thus, I have these semi-final categories:

Planetary Industry
Space Industry
Sociology & Diplomacy
Trade & Economics
Terraforming (optional)
Growth & Life Sciences
Information & Research

Depending on the fate of terraforming, that's 6 or 7 categories, which IMO is a good number for a list that has no ships categories in it.

I'll share my thoughts related to my own list of categories.

To me industry and mining are economic, as they help improve your economy by building things, buildings or ships, etc.
My Category:
*Economics (Trade, Mining, Infrastructure, Industry)


I don't think trade fits in. After all trade isn't necesarily customer service or anythig to do with dealing with other races. It is more tourism, local attractions, etc.
My Category:
*Social Sciences (Espionage/Diplomacy, Morale, Medical Sciences, Government)


No don't put economics and terraforming together. Terraforming has nothing to do with improving the economy. Terraforming is turning mars into earth, etc.
My Category:
*Economics (Trade, Mining, Infrastructure, Industry)


I think terraforming belongs with environment. Alot of things can go into environment, including farming.
My Category:
*Environmental Sciences (Terraforming, Farming, Biology, Genetics)


I think farming can go with terraforming in environmental.
My Category:
*Environmental Sciences (Terraforming, Farming, Biology, Genetics)


I disagree. There are lots of things related to construction. And you have to improve the construction meter some how.
My Category:
*Construction (Buildings, Ships, Starbases, Ships hulls, Armour, Missiles)


Yes, I like this idea and also dislike dreks name, though we can expand on yours and mine. I was thinking a category that deals with the collection, storage and processing of data/information. This would cover such things as computers, sensors, scouting and research and maybe some spying techs.
My Category:
*Information Processing (Computers, Sensors, research, scouting)


Seems good, though I think my list expands on yours and seems more logical to me, and it includes millitary techs (its not to hard to imagine where abouts they would go).


See, here is my thinking. Transport would cover a range of things from teleportation of objects to engines capable of allowing ships to travel to stargates and dimensional gateways.

War Sciences deal with weapons of any kind, as war most often involves defeating the enemy, the best way to do that is with weapons, rather than defense.

Security involves the security of your worlds, people, ships, computer systems, etc. Defenses such as shields and the like would come under this heading.

Environmental Sciences covers all things about the environment and those that live in the environment. It includes terraforming and farming. Biology and genetics of those that live in there specific environments.

Social Sciences covers the interaction between people and races. So it includes diplomacy, spying. It is also covers the social system of your races, which includes government, happiness and health.

Economics covers all things involved in improving your economy. Since Trade, Mining, Infrastructure and Industry all have an effect on your economy they go here.

Construction covers the building of man made things. It ranges from buildings, ships and spacestations to armour and misisles.

Information processing covers the collection, storage and processing of information. It includes research, scouting, sensors and computers as well as some spying.

I don't understand this position. To me, "Economy" in FO is measured by the economy/commerce/money meter on a planet. This has little or nothing to do with how many minerals you extract and use to build ships. If anything, taking skilled workers out of the local economy to build a ship that will fly away and do nothing for the planet would hurt the local economy...

I have no objection to the categorization, but biology and genetics aren't really "Environmental" sciences, in the context they'd likely be used in FO. An alternative name is necessary, IMO.

None of those things are related to the construction meter, which is used to determine how fast your resource meters grow from current to max values. IMO the construction meter (which really measures how fast society switches from doing one thing to another, not just its ability to build stuff) would be likely improved by stuff in Sociology-related category. Based on what you included, the category you propose is mostly about spacecraft, which are out of the scope of this discussion (as far as I know). I'm not sure what you mean by "Buildings", as presumably most buildings would be found in other categories, depending on their function.

As I have "Information" in my own category name, how is your category an expansion of mine and yours? My name covers the content of your category, but also adds the other research stuff that various people have expressed a desire for.

As I stated before, my proposed categories are for non-military techs only. Additional categories for military stuff will be added later, and based on what Aq said, military categories won't be decided at this time.

I wan't thinking of the economy as in just money, I was thinking the power to make a good as well as sell it. So you might mine loads of minerals, this affects industry, which affects construction of things. Industry may be used torward improving infrastructure, which in turn improves trade, therefore the economy. All these things can be linked.


I was thinking more along the lines of "things that are constructed", I guess it might be too broad though.


What I was meaning was that the names of the categories that you and I have seem good, though it would be good if the name covered things like collection and analysis of information. Plus you mainly stress research, but I think you could also have scouting, sensors, computers and some spying. All these things are based around collecting and analysing information.

Let me guess. You logged in as Guest again Drek.

Anonymous (drek?): Indeed, realism in of itself is of no consequence, but having techs located in categories that make sense together intuitively, (that is, are preceived as "realistic") would actually help the player find a particular tech. To me, it doesn't make sense to have mining in a category called Economics.

Also, it's not essential that categories be organized primarily around meters for it to be clear what category has things that will influence a particular meter. Depending on what assumptions one makes, it could be aruged that grouping only based on meters makes things harder to find, as it implies that other classifications that might have been more helpful are not used. In some cases, splitting a category by a non-meter critera would more helpful, such as my proposed split of space and planet industry. (One could argue they would synergize to a large degree, but this is a realism argument almost entirely).

Regarding making each category about equally as useful, organizing by meters is most certainly not the way to accomplish this. A just category for improving the research meter, construction meter, health or growth meters to the exclusion of anything else would be of little use.

Any categorization will also need to cover various things that are not directly related to meters. Categorizing in a way that does include the meters stuff, but also all the other stuff, is much more logical, IMO.

Regarding my suggestions,
The only ambiguity for categories for stuff that affect a particular meter is for the production and mining meters. IMO a split by space and planet based would be more useful than having all of the mining and industry in one jumbo category.

That time, the guest wasn't me.

But I agree with it anyway. Not sure what techs you plan on putting in "space-industrial"....there aren't any v.3 concepts that fit, unless you count colony ships.

Mainly that one of them is on planets, and the other is in space...

Techs relating to industry in space. "Industry" is used loosely, to refer to everything from mining to assembing into final products (what some might call construction).

Various people wanted to include shipyards and starbases and the like in "Construction" or whatever category had industry and mining. Instead, I've put these in the "Space Industry" category. There would also be various asteroid and gas giant mining advances.

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The planetary/space distinction is not that important, and I wouldn't be terribly distraught if it was not included. The categories could be:

Industry & Resources
Sociology & Diplomacy
Trade & Economics
Terraforming (optional)
Growth & Life Sciences
Information & Research

The starbases and shipyards stuff would be in categories relating to ships (to be added later).