FreeOrion

I just found this project, and i'm totally enthusiastic about it. I definitly want to contribute to it, and i have huge amounts of half-finished ideas in my mind.

Its sad, that the old forum has been lost, especially for new guys, that dont know, what has been decided.

So, i'd like to know, how much of the tech-tree has been created already. I read the research-information on the Homepage, but i couldnt find out, if there has been some techs already.

Since im a student of physics and really liked techs in MOO2, i want to contribute to the techtree in particular.

So, it would be nice, if somebody could brief me in what has already been decided, and how i can contribute.

Btw, sorry for my english, im german.

Welcome to the forum. The lack of briefing information is definetly something we'll address in the near future. Keep a lookout for the Version Roadmap and the features board. That'll tell you what's been decided. Also we'll probably post specific threads for contributing of tech on the game design board when we deal with the tech tree.

So, if i dont misunderstand you, there is no tech-tree right now? Not even collected ideas for one?

I think the tech-tree is one of the most complicated and most complex aspects of a game, so i guess it should take quite some time to plan it.
So, wouldnt it make sence, to start collecting ideas about techs already?

I know, that creating specific techs is quite hard, without knowing all the game mechanics, but the general ideas and roadmaps could be prepared already.

We have the concept decided. As you said yourself, gathering specific techs right now is quite hard, maybe even impossible. I'd say we wait until we have decided something that can be modified by technology. As far as I know next up is the questions whether we'll have buildings or not. If we do, those buildings will be technology.

Brainstorming is of course, free for all, but don't expect any quick decissions on technology tomorrow

I think fleshing out more of the tech tree is in the pipeline for 0.3. Which means discussion on that will begin as soon as 0.1 is complete (I'd say it's a 1/4 or 1/3 done, but that's a guess really).

If you read the last sentence of Aquitaine's post at the link below, you will see a mention of the tech tree.
http://www.artclusta.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=10

Hope this helps, and welcome!

Actually, i'd like to get part of the team, responsible for tech-trees and similar things, but i know, i have to earn that by posts and ideas.

Is the gamedesign document all you have decided about? It's quite unspecific about some things, i.e. if there is a 1 out of 3 System, or not.

Have you decided how many fields, and how the fields are named?


I think a roadmap could be done without knowing the game-mechanics, by providing general ideas.

For Example, one could think of
Robo-Constructors: Decreases costs of all buildings, and if buildings dont get into the game, one could adapt the idea, to decrease cost of starbases instead, or decrease the cost of DEAs or whatever.

The no-techs-in-late-game Problem can be solved best with lots of tech-ideas.
Also, its no problem, to create 30 Levels of research, and implement only the 15 that have a game-mechanic meaning in v .02


Maybe we should meat on icq/irc and have a little talk

If I rightly recall, the tech tree was to be simlar to 'Hearts of Iron'. There were three branches of research. Theoretical, Applied and Refinement. Theoretical techs are the ideas and concepts that have not been turned into technologies. Applied techs are the ideas and concepts that have been turned into something useful and useable (eg. lasers). Refinements are a seperate branch that involves improving existing applied techs. That is making them smaller, more powerful, cost less, etc. Refinements are seperate from the standard tech tree containing theory and applied branches, so the player can progress through refinements independently of the standard tech tree (theory and applied). Refinements as a concept have not been worked out fully, so there is more to be decided there. The intention of a seperate refinement tree, is to allow the player to improve lasers as much as they want as soon as they get lasers (as an example).

I think that it essentially, but if I got anything wrong, someone say so.

As for actual techs, they have not been thought of. Just like race picks, they cannot be thought of so easily while the majority of th egame is unknown at this point (eg. are we even going to have buildings).

Feel free however to make a list of broad areas of technology, if you want, these broad areas can be expanded later, but ideas can gather until we use them.

Utilae is correct: Our tech tree will be similar to Hearts of Iron. The only things we passed so far are the split in Theory, Applied and Refinement areas and that we'll handle costs similar to HoI. You need to spend a certain ammount of RP per turn for a fixed number of turns. It's possible to spend less and thus have the project take longer but you cannot spend more to reduce time.

About making you responsible for the tech tree, Elfstone: I don't think we'll apoint any single person to be responsible for any given area of our game. We have always decided things more or less by consensus and I expect (at least) the entire core design team to be part of the tech tree effort. Of course that does not mean that somebody with decent ideas will be excluded, but I don't think the tech tree will be a one person job.

The IRC thing is definetly something we should look into. Right at the outset we planned to have monthly meetings but that was sort of discontinued.

Anyway, feel free to ask about our procedures or about what we have passed and what not, I know it's hard to tell that without our old forums. If you have trouble understanding anything I may also be of assitance as I'm german, too.

I didnt mean to be responsible for the tech-tree alone of course. I want to contribute, and have some influence to the outcome of it.

I.E. i would defintly say "Laser" is a theory, since a Laser is just a form of light, you can't do anything practical with it.
You could have

Theory Practical Use
Laser Ship-Laser, Laser-Canon, Laser-Communications, Laser-Manufacturing
Gravitation Graviton-Laser, Anti-Grav-Harness, Anti-Grav-Transport System, Graviton-Drive

Most of this can be done with only little knowledge of the game-mechanics, and can be adapted later.

Questions
1. Will there be the same amount of theory and applied techs?
2. Will Refinement be general or specific? (I.E. Beam-Weapon Improvements, that improve all Beamweapons, or Laser-Improvements, that only Improve Laser-Weapons?)
3. Is it possible to become a member of the core-design-team, if so how? (Apply, post lots of ideas on the board, PayPerDecision)

Would be nice, if someone could answer those 3

As an official member of the official design team I hearby give you the official answers to your questions:

1: We don't know.
2: We don't know.
3: Yes, post some good, useful ideas, stick around for a good length of time, eat your vegetables. Contribute to the project in meaningful ways. But really, being a member of the "core design team" is 99% cosmetic. I'm doing the exact same list of things now that I was doing before I was an official member of anything. Anyone can contribute.

Right now, the tech tree is off the burners. We aint concerned with it until design starts on v.3, which will occur when v.1 is completed. To anticipate your next question: I don't know when v.1 will be completed.

anyway, you seem like a smart guy. Happy to have you aboard. BTW, we will require proof that eat vegetables, so start collecting stool samples.

Then i can design a complete tech tree now, and seconds after v .01 will be finished, i can throw them in here for brainstorming

Lacking the knowledge of what has already been done, what could be discussed about v .02, so i can start doing something (besides hanging out in the chatroom alone )

Tommorrow we probably start public reviews on v.2 stuff. Casting your vote there would be a good start. As time progresses we'll hopefully have more of the knowledge the old forums contained reflected in the new forums, making it easier for new people to aquire clues.

Just saying that when the time comes for v.3, posts today will be buried under the weight of literally thousands of other posts--these boards have been pretty active in the past. (or possibly deleted by another forum amegeddon, hopefully not but it's not entirely impossible).

If you find it fun/useful to start worrying about the tech tree now, go right ahead. You might want to experience Hearts of Iron's tech tree first, as we are modelling our tech system after that example.

Actually we do know that there will be a lot more applications than theories... at least that's the way I remember it from the old forum.

It's already been observed that real work on the tech tree won't start until we begin work on designing v0.3 (which will be when the programming team is beginning work on coding v0.2). But since I just sorta-kinda chewed you out in another forum (sorry!), I'll throw you a bone here.

First, give us a week or so to see if we can salvage the old forums. Reading the tech tree model we passed will help you get an idea of what the task is precisely (explicitly as we passed it, as opposed to what some of us remember -- I wouldn't trust my own memory. Maybe drek's).

After that, if you really want to work on this even knowing that parts of your work may get changed/modified/eaten up/thrown away, you could start wireframing the tree -- not specific things like 'laser' or deciding what to name techs, but to come up with categories and their effects (i.e. 'weapon theory 1, weapon application 1a, and so on). Part of the futility of doing this now is that we don't know how we're going to incorporate things like buildings or if we'll have morale or how exactly space combat will work, so figuring out techs for them is pretty hard. I suspect we will have to make a lot of those decisions for v0.3, even if v0.3 itself won't have all of it implemented.

Cheers,
Aquitaine

_________________
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!

Before we start filling the tree we should talk about the concept once more, I think. Like how many techs we want, how much refinment should be able to do, what categories we want, etc...