FreeOrion

When playing MOO and other games using the concept of developing something to gain a tech, a weapon, or whatever - I find these tech/development-trees to be rather static and boring. Typically more advanced techs obsolete earlier techs etc. In the later stages of the game you have it all and tend to build the same ship types, weapons etc etc. Well, it might also be my playing style, but I think this can be avoided if we're a little smart about it.

Gameplay will be entirely different if your initial choices of what to research affected the tech tree. Research done in the earliest stage of the game could set some values on related technologies so that these become a race's "special field".

If a value is applied to all the "depend upon" nodes 3-5 links further into in the tech-tree when a tech is discovered it would simulate this nicely, reducing tech discovery cost for related techs. Let this value applied be lowered for each turn/tech discovered in the game, so that the players initial choices in some way "specialize" the race. Techs that have effects with numerical values could be raised in pretty much the same way.

This would enhance the spezialization of AI-races, and also allow the human player to venture out on a journey that plays out in a unique way on every new game started. Quite interesting effects

I really like this idea. It's more realistic (which is great as long as it doesn't negatively affect gameplay) and it makes Tech a much more strategic decision rather than just buy all techs until you have everything possible and then you just throw everything you have at whoever you are fighting with.

I also like it because it doesn't sound very difficult to implement. (not that I've been into the code much yet, but adding a modifier to the cost of new tech based on previous tech sounds fairly straightforward).

The current plan is to do specialization using just tech dependencies... by which I mean the techs that must be researched before another tech can be researched. We might add more complicated tech cost interactions to the design later, but it's not a priority or necessity right now.

The FO tech tree's shape is rather different from your average Civ tech tree. Unlike most Civs, the various branches can go a long way from the trunk... in other words you can have a very high level of tech in one part of the tree, and a low level in another part. The branches aren't totally independent, but they should provide the opportunity to garner technology in significantly different ways in different games.

Theoretically the optimal research strategy will be significantly different depending on your species and other starting conditions. If the tech strategy turns out to be always the same, we'll have to change something.

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Here its a bit more like a tapestry with the way the techs connect to each other.

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I think it would also be cool if a new tech improved or changed previous tech. For example, research that developed plasma-based-engines would radically improve ordinary plasma rifles that you developed 40 turns ago and is now useless. Or, you could add levels to an existing tech like crude plasma rifle v1 plasma cannon v4. To do this, you could reresearch that tech, or develop more advanced tech that is related to that tech, like the plasma engine I mentioned earlier. Thoughts?

"Refinements" are planned type of technology, that will alter the way previously-researched techs or unlocked stuff works.

Refinements should upgrade everything related to that particular technology so we don't have Plasma Cannon v1, v2 and v3. Instead "Plasma Refinemant" would increase the damage and efficiency of all Plasma Weapons, as well as improving anything else realated to Plasma.

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That seems like a simpler idea.

We have 3 kinds of techs:
Theories, Applications, and Refinements

Theories don't produce tangible results, but open up new levels of Applications
Refinements are a dead-end tech-tree branch that provides quicker results.
For instance if a player has just discovered the plasma weapons application, he can take research in two directions:
1) refine the plasma weapon for relatively quick gains in weapon power
2) start researching the next kind of weapon, which will take a lot longer, but be more powerful that the most refined plasma weapon.

Though the engine could support it, I really don't see why we should make techs that improve multiple very different categories. Generally choosing which tech to research should be a strategic choice. If the techs improves lots of stuff at once there aren't going to be very many distinctive choices. It also makes individual techs more vague and nebulous if they do several disjointed things at once.

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The idea isn't to upgrade everything at once though, in practise my idea is a lot like yours. The Prerquisites for a refinement would be all the things that it upgrades, for Plasma Refinement you would need to have researched Plasma Cannon (Ship Weapon), Plasmagun (Ground Forces Weapon) and Plasma Thrusters (System Drive). Then you would have to choose wether you wanted to research Plasma Refinement which would increase the effectiveness of its prerequisites by 20% or you could start on the next tier containing Hellfire Cannons, Rail Rifles and Hydrogen Fuel Cells which would each require different relatives for refinement.

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Captain? What does the big shiny red button do?

These kind of techs have been done in games like Diablo and other RPG games. Basically the "+10% to all fire spells" type abilities/techs.

It's also something you find in some 4X games too. Most often when associated with propulsion techs.

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IMHO, I don't think it's a good idea to say that the next level of weapon will be definitively more powerful than the most highly refined version of the plasma weapon, just different, in that it has different features that permit different options. I believe that the highest level of Plasma Cannon refinement should be significantly more expensive than the next weapon tech (though obviously the lowest level of refinement would be significantly cheaper) because this makes it a choice between "enhance the weapon (and the strategy that comes along with that weapon)" or "research new weapon (and use the strategies that said weapon opens up)", which, IMO, is significantly better than the choice of wether to "enhance the weapon (and get a small gain in power for a small price)" or "research new weapon (and get a large gain for a large price)".

From a strategic point of view, things like accuracy and firing rate, and possibly special in combat effects - such as allowing you to board enemy ships or deliver spies onto planets - are much better for creating more strategic options that just making a bigger gun.

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I don't mean that there will only be one kind of weapon. We have fundamentally different types: PD, Long Range, Short Range, and there may be different subgroups with different kinds of effects.

But as stated earlier there's a limited number of sane weapon types possible. At some point the next weapon on the tech tree is simply going to be stat-wise, a more powerful version of a previous weapon. That's what i'm talking about in the quote above.

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