Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowered

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afwbkbc
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Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowered

#1 Post by afwbkbc »

Everything stated below is a result of observations of many multiplayer games

1) early game.
Species with 150% industry 75% research get HUGE advantage over species with 150% research 75% industry:
- they colonize much faster
- Automated History Analyzer compensates lack of research bonus
- they capture natives much faster
- research species with research focus can research cool stuff fast (i.e. adaptive doctrine), but they will be far behind in population and number of planets so will still be at disadvantage
- research species with industry focus wilk be simply at twice disadvantage (75% vs 150% industry)
- research species can research strong military techs but they will be unable to use them without proper industry (it can easily take 15 turns for one robotic ship with lasers)
- research species can do some research first and then switch to industry - still, lots of time will be lost while industry species expand and colonize. Robotic Production and Fusion Generarion techs are cheap and industry species can research them early too. And Adaptive Industry won't help scientific species much due to few number of planets.
- industry species that capture scientific species basically win the game. Same may be true scientific species that capture industrial natives, but it's MUCH easier and faster for industrial species to capture scientific natives than counterwise. There are ZERO techs in early game that help capturing natives
- industry species can grow exponentially since the beginning, scientific - only after researching adaptive doctrine or capturing industrial nativea. setting industry focus at first turn with -25% penalty is suicide
- industry species with Nascent Artificial Intelligence will have same amount of science as scientific species by turn 30-40 due to larger number of bases. But they will have many times more industry, even if scientific species have Adaptive Industry. And once industry species get Adaptive Industry - they are unstoppable
- if they spawn close enough, industry species can rush scientific species with mass drivers and there's nothing that can be done to counter that. Even if scientific species already have robotic hulls, laser 4 and diamond armor - they will barely be able to build 2 ships before being overran and conquered. And even if they lose one planet - it's OVER because industry species will now also have science species in empire.
- one high-tech way of defeating zerg rush and early attacks is going stealthy. But then you won't have time for expansion and it's just a matter of time before industry species research radars and crush you anyway. Also building infrastructure for stealthy ships and stealthy ships themselves will take 100% of industry that you have, and even then it may be too late
- another high-tech way of early defense is maxing out planetary defenses, mines, planetary stealth. Still - it will save you some time before getting crushed. While you research defense, enemy will expand exponentially and can still harrass you and prevent your expansion (i.e. by blocking lanes, destroying outpost ships)

2) Late game:
- most research-boosting techs are closer to second half of tech tree. Industry species that have some scientific species in empire will benefit much from it. Research species with low industry and planets will benefit too, but this additional research is still pretty useless as there is no industry to back it up. Research species that somehow got lots of planets won't need it much because 1) their research is too high already (much more than industry) 2) end of tech tree is near anyway so no point in increasing research further. So, research boosting techs also help industry species to get some additional science (and they DO have industry to put researched stuff into use immediately) but don't help research species much
- as you reach end of tech tree, more and more research is wasted. Hopefully you got industry natives by that time and can repopulate your planets by that time. Industry species are still at advantage here because they already have most of empire populated with industrial species so no need to repopulate
- it seems the best efficient industry:research ratio is 4:1 . More science will mean that you won't be able to use researched stuff properly - i.e. advanced ships will take too long to build, growth bonuses will not give enough benefits due to low number of planets. It's MUCH easier for industry species to get research of 1/4 of their industry (even Nascent Artificial Intelligence alone is often enough) than for research species to get industry four times of their research
- Transcendence victory is not achievable in multiplayer games, I don't remember any game where anybody got at least 50% of it researched
- by turn 100-250 industry species in most cases have both science and industry superior to what research species have

So, research species require all of these conditions to be able to stay in game at all:
- plenty of peaceful time with lots of colonizeable planets
- industry natives nearby that can colonize planets and are easy to capture (i.e. no strong planetary defences, no guard ships, no space monsters blocking way, close enough to supply lines)
- no enemy industry species nearby
- no industry species in galaxy that can capture scientific natives early
Any if those conditions absent - and there's no chance of winning. It's just a matter of time before getting crushed by vastly more powerful enemy.
Industry species, on other hand, are doing fine without any of those conditions and can raise science enough by the mid game.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#2 Post by Krikkitone »

Possible solutions (if the problem is indeed there):
(ones you mentioned)
-more 'peaceful' time
-more 'industry' natives

-more industry boosts later in the tech tree (so research species have an advantage in getting them)
-less tech boosts early in the tech tree (so industry species have a harder time getting going)... or just make the early techs more expensive.
-more techs that have "instant effect" ie rather than unlock a building or ship part they give an automatic bonus.

-stronger tech effect for combat (if a fleet costs X RP more for its parts it is just as good as a fleet that cost Yx as much industry.... increase Y..particularly for high X)

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#3 Post by afwbkbc »

more 'peaceful' time
Hard to achieve, will make game boring.
more 'industry' natives
This will aid both research and industry species (i.e. industry species will be able to colonize more planet types)
more industry boosts later in the tech tree (so research species have an advantage in getting them)
Maybe, but they must not depend on number of planets, or industrial species will become even more overpowered upon researching them. They should depend on research, i.e. 10% of total research is added to industry, next tech 25% and so on.
less tech boosts early in the tech tree (so industry species have a harder time getting going)... or just make the early techs more expensive.
Maybe Nascent Artificial Intelligence can be made slightly more expensive.
more techs that have "instant effect" ie rather than unlock a building or ship part they give an automatic bonus.
Yes. I.e. with effects like "Outpost modules become 50% cheaper." or make Cyborgs available slightly earlier, or something that instantly adds +5 to industry.
-stronger tech effect for combat (if a fleet costs X RP more for its parts it is just as good as a fleet that cost Yx as much industry.... increase Y..particularly for high X)
Maybe. But we need to be careful, to avoid repeating solar hulls situation - they are so powerful that just stomp over any previous hull based ships without losses.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#4 Post by Voker57 »

TL;DR: Scientific races have a slow start and can be rushed if encountered very early (10 turns?) but come way ahead in middle game.
afwbkbc wrote:Everything stated below is a result of observations of many multiplayer games
Of which you (nj in that spreadsheet) lost 95%, as a matter of fact. And you had mostly industrial-based species.
- Automated History Analyzer compensates lack of research bonus
Not really. It's a meager bonus and you have to build it while sci-races start with great science. In fact for all races except Egassem I change focus on starting planet to science.
- research species with research focus can research cool stuff fast (i.e. adaptive doctrine), but they will be far behind in population and number of planets so will still be at disadvantage
Nah they can grab hab-increasers and be ok. And after early adaptive automation sky is the limit.
- research species with industry focus wilk be simply at twice disadvantage (75% vs 150% industry)
The same applies to industry species with research bonus, what's your point?
- research species can research strong military techs but they will be unable to use them without proper industry (it can easily take 15 turns for one robotic ship with lasers)
Don't have improper industry lol. After AA you're all set, and you can quickly research exobots and get all the production you want.
- research species can do some research first and then switch to industry - still, lots of time will be lost while industry species expand and colonize. Robotic Production and Fusion Generarion techs are cheap and industry species can research them early too. And Adaptive Industry won't help scientific species much due to few number of planets.
No, you do research and keep doing research. Industry is fine with exobots and natives boosted with early techs like hyperspatial dam. If you have some gas giants, you can also get easy early instant +10 industry per planet.
- industry species that capture scientific species basically win the game. Same may be true scientific species that capture industrial natives, but it's MUCH easier and faster for industrial species to capture scientific natives than counterwise. There are ZERO techs in early game that help capturing natives
Valid point. If you have good research natives nearby, aggressive species rule early game. If you don't, industrial races waste industry on inefficient techs and researchers win. Cuts both ways.
- industry species can grow exponentially since the beginning, scientific - only after researching adaptive doctrine or capturing industrial nativea.
Good luck growing exponentially without all the habitability research.
- industry species with Nascent Artificial Intelligence will have same amount of science as scientific species by turn 30-40 due to larger number of bases. But they will have many times more industry, even if scientific species have Adaptive Industry. And once industry species get Adaptive Industry - they are unstoppable
Not really, planets fully pop'd with scientific races + hab techs >> several backwards Radon installations. Again, early industry is best when based on gas giants/asteroids because it does not rely on population which takes painful time to grow -- especially without tech.
- if they spawn close enough, industry species can rush scientific species with mass drivers and there's nothing that can be done to counter that. Even if scientific species already have robotic hulls, laser 4 and diamond armor - they will barely be able to build 2 ships before being overran and conquered. And even if they lose one planet - it's OVER because industry species will now also have science species in empire.
EARLY rush is problem. Then you can get deflector shields and laugh at savages with mass drivers.
robotic hulls, laser 4 and diamond armor
Pack of overpriced bullshit. Multicellular hulls + plasma + deflectos == same tech ballpark, cheaper, superior. Also, early stealth bombers can send all the low-tech junk back to their planets.
- one high-tech way of defeating zerg rush and early attacks is going stealthy. But then you won't have time for expansion and it's just a matter of time before industry species research radars and crush you anyway. Also building infrastructure for stealthy ships and stealthy ships themselves will take 100% of industry that you have, and even then it may be too late
Nah you can research better stealth too. But stealth supply is broken, yes. Anyway, not necessary.
2) Late game:
- most research-boosting techs are closer to second half of tech tree. Industry species that have some scientific species in empire will benefit much from it. Research species with low industry and planets will benefit too, but this additional research is still pretty useless as there is no industry to back it up.
What. There's a ton of industry-increasing techs throughout the tree. Research-heavy races greatly benefit from them
- as you reach end of tech tree, more and more research is wasted.
Only if you don't plan ahead.
- it seems the best efficient industry:research ratio is 4:1 . More science will mean that you won't be able to use researched stuff properly - i.e. advanced ships will take too long to build, growth bonuses will not give enough benefits due to low number of planets. It's MUCH easier for industry species to get research of 1/4 of their industry (even Nascent Artificial Intelligence alone is often enough) than for research species to get industry four times of their research
1:1, 2:1 at best
- Transcendence victory is not achievable in multiplayer games, I don't remember any game where anybody got at least 50% of it researched
It's grindy but achievable. I remember games won that way. Just not fun to draw out.
- by turn 100-250 industry species in most cases have both science and industry superior to what research species have
by turn 100-250 you can hardly distinguish between those two.
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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#5 Post by LGM-Doyle »

It is more productive to debate the idea, than malign the source of an idea.

We should refute a bad idea, because the idea is bad.

We should accept a good idea, independent of the source.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#6 Post by afwbkbc »

TL;DR: Scientific races have a slow start and can be rushed if encountered very early (10 turns?) but come way ahead in middle game.
Really? How? Even rushing to Adaptive Industry will only allow to catch up industrial species that just expanded.
They can only get ahead if conditions I described are met, mainly 1) presence of accessible industrial natives nearby and 2) absense of research natives for other players.
Without industrial natives they are DOOMED. Exobots provide SOME industry, but TOO LATE and NOT BARELY ENOUGH. Switching to Industry focus just leads to losing all research bonus and just becoming "-75% industry" species. Shifting between research industry is too slow to be effective.
And you had mostly industrial-based species.
Um, actually no. I got industrial species about 1 of 3 games, and in these games I did pretty well. With scientific species I typically get "how the hell am I supposed to expand?" feeling entire game and then give up because others are overwhelming industry, research and military. Spending 20 turns in attempt to conquer some Acirema to get at least SOME industry is not uncommon. Also some games lost due to overpowered solars, which I expected to be able to counter with 6k/5k fleet of fractals but it just died. Solars were surprisingly overpowered every game.
We should only treat this statistic seriously once game is balanced.
Not really. It's a meager bonus and you have to build it while sci-races start with great science.
Well, it DOUBLE research if your focus is on industry, and 10 research in early game is enough to research Robotic Industry, Fusion Generation and Nascent Artificial Intelligence, after which you will have moderate research and huge industry, close to 4:1 industry:research ratio which is optimal.
In fact for all races except Egassem I change focus on starting planet to science.
I don't believe that. Maybe in some very rare cases and for species that have at least 100% industry. 5 (and especially 10) research is really enough to expand in early game as industrial species.
Nah they can grab hab-increasers and be ok.
Unless you rush to Cyborts and Pure-energy Metabolism, industry species can grab the same, early growth techs are pretty cheap. And they will have at least twice more planets than you and typically twice more natives.
And after early adaptive automation sky is the limit.
Yeah, for industrial species. Research species benefit less from it due to less number of planets and natives.
Adaptive Automation is just a MUSTHAVE for research species, otherwise they are doomed. For industry species it's a way to become even more overpowered.
The same applies to industry species with research bonus, what's your point?
Industry species are doing fine without research focus, especially with Automated History Analyzer. Then can easily build tons of stuff and expand, then Nascent Artificial Intelligence will boost their research based on number of planets. And if they capture scientific natives - they win. Again, 4:1 .
Don't have improper industry lol. After AA you're all set, and you can quickly research exobots and get all the production you want.
No, you're just reached the level of industrial species without AA. If industrial species get AA too - you're dead. Getting enough exobot colonies also takes time, AT LEAST 5 turns but typically more like 10-15. Until you're full of exobots, building every outpost ship is a pain.
And before AA (and first 10-15-25 turns after) you are basically a sitting duck.
If you don't, industrial races waste industry on inefficient techs and researchers win. Cuts both ways.
But industry species expand and build scouts, outposts and military stuff quickly so they can cover enough of galaxy territory and natives they need early enough. Even getting 100% research natives is enough mostly, because you can build a shitload of outpost ships and colonize half of your planets with them (if their planetary preference is different from yours, which is likely).
I don't really remember any game when I was industrial species and couldn't capture research-based natives (or at least with 100% research) before mid game. And even in this case, Nascent Artificial Research helps greatly (i.e. 10 more planets = 20 more research).
Good luck growing exponentially without all the habitability research.
Early habitat techs are cheap and enough to colonize most planets (except Hostile). This allows to extend supplies and quickly find natives than you can settle on remaining planets.
Not really, planets fully pop'd with scientific races + hab techs >> several backwards Radon installations
What do you mean by "> >" ? Yes they will have higher science, but less or equal (if you sacrifice research) industry. During war, industry is more important, and even to use advanced high-tech you research you need industry.
gas giants/asteroids
Still problematic because you will have to set planets to Industry focus to receive benefits from them, sacrificing your research bonus.
Only after Exobots researched it's viable.
Then you can get deflector shields and laugh at savages with mass drivers.
In our last game I had deflector shields tech but was rushed before releasing first DS ship. And Defense Grid robots with lasers died like flies to overwhelming force.
Also Deflector Shields doesn't work against fighters, and fighters can be built very early.
So no.
Multicellular hulls + plasma + deflectos == same tech ballpark, cheaper, superior.
Cheaper, really? Do you know how much plasma ship part and deflector costs? And I would have to sacrifice growth techs and Adaptive Automation to get to these techs early enough.
Research species do not have 1000% research.
What. There's a ton of industry-increasing techs throughout the tree. Research-heavy races greatly benefit from them
Not really enough. Pure Energy Metabolism, ok. Anything else? Increases of Industry for Industry-focused planets is not beneficial for research species.
1:1, 2:1 at best
1:1 - definetely not. Your expansion will be significantly slowered.
2:1 - maybe for peaceful advancement. Still, expansion will be suboptimal. And if there's war - you will hard hard time.
The problem of 'too much research' is that your number of planets will decrease slower than they could, so youre empire will scale in one dimension instead of two. So, in time, you will lose to 4:1 folks.
I remember games won that way.
Single-player games?
by turn 100-250 you can hardly distinguish between those two.
You can typically distinguish by looking at graph. Originally industry based species will have it twice of 3 times higher than research-based natives. Again, not always, but in most cases.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#7 Post by afwbkbc »

I seemed to come up with with easy balance fix:
Let Cultural Archives provide fixed 10 Industry and 10 Research on home planet.
Let's try.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#8 Post by Vezzra »

afwbkbc wrote:Let Cultural Archives provide fixed 10 Industry and 10 Research on home planet.
I don't think that will address the basic issues (which mostly a consequence of an imbalanced tech tree IMO), but nevertheless it's worth a shot. I never understood why one bonus is fixed and the other pop dependent anyway. Flat 10/10 sounds good.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#9 Post by MatGB »

Vezzra wrote:
afwbkbc wrote:Let Cultural Archives provide fixed 10 Industry and 10 Research on home planet.
I don't think that will address the basic issues (which mostly a consequence of an imbalanced tech tree IMO), but nevertheless it's worth a shot. I never understood why one bonus is fixed and the other pop dependent anyway. Flat 10/10 sounds good.
If we're going to make them both one or the other, I'd rather move away from flat bonuses across the board and definitely not for this: that industry can go up with population is one of the thigns that makes research focussed species better in many ways, it's definitely a help to them as they can rush growth techs more easily.

But yes, the main problem is the research tree is increasingly a complete mess and various items in it in the wrong place, the four main research boosting techs are, for me, normally got at roughly the same time or very soon after each other (unless I've got Telepaths in which case one is a LOT earlier), I find almost always that once I've got my Enclave of the Void built I turn off most of my research worlds, etc. I want to rebalance the research tech tree specifically and the growth tech tree more generally, but I am still unsure whether a complete rewrite would be better/easier for everyone than a series of tweaks heading in a specific direction.

And given it will require a lot of cooperation with the AI team and they're fairly swamped I've never pushed for it to be prioritised, but I think it'll need to be either before or immediately after Influence: perhaps better before then alongside?
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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#10 Post by Dilvish »

MatGB wrote:And given it will require a lot of cooperation with the AI team and they're fairly swamped I've never pushed for it to be prioritised, but I think it'll need to be either before or immediately after Influence: perhaps better before then alongside?
Before sounds better to me. Simply making a tech cheaper or more expensive, or a bit more or less powerful, is actually relatively easy to make an at-least-reasonable adjustment for (although I am finding it to be a headache sorting out which tech is really which when trying to make these kind of adjustments in the new techlist setup), Making a really finely tuned adjustment can be quite a bit trickier, but it takes more experience with the change to get that down really well so I think there's no point in being too hung up on that-- when the change first goes in a reasonable adjustment will have to be enough.
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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#11 Post by MatGB »

Dilvish wrote:
MatGB wrote:And given it will require a lot of cooperation with the AI team and they're fairly swamped I've never pushed for it to be prioritised, but I think it'll need to be either before or immediately after Influence: perhaps better before then alongside?
Before sounds better to me. Simply making a tech cheaper or more expensive, or a bit more or less powerful, is actually relatively easy to make an at-least-reasonable adjustment for (although I am finding it to be a headache sorting out which tech is really which when trying to make these kind of adjustments in the new techlist setup), Making a really finely tuned adjustment can be quite a bit trickier, but it takes more experience with the change to get that down really well so I think there's no point in being too hung up on that-- when the change first goes in a reasonable adjustment will have to be enough.
Oh absolutely, there's no way you can get it right immediately,s ame as with balancing, I'm certain Fighters will need another pass but we need feedback en masse and to be sure the AI's using them right, etc, same with hulls in general.

OK, we've talked about next release being Stealth, which'll need tech tree work as detection vs stealth needs a lot more nuance to make stealth fun, perhaps get started on it during that, which means actually setting out what we want to do and head towards.

Um, has anyone any experience with Github Projects? Because in theory that looks like it could be a useful tool for planning things that require different groups together but I've not done more than look it all over.
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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#12 Post by dbenage-cx »

Let Cultural Archives provide fixed 10 Industry and 10 Research on home planet.
Could you make a PR to test?
...Github Projects
There is the existing project for refactoring, you can also create one in your personal repo to test it further if desired.
From what I gather, outside of categorizing PRs and issues, you can create "cards" which can be turned into full issues later if needed.
Might work better with(or replaced by) one of the github integrations to allow for broader discussion, but certainly worth trying out further.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#13 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:If we're going to make them both one or the other, I'd rather move away from flat bonuses across the board and definitely not for this: that industry can go up with population is one of the thigns that makes research focussed species better in many ways, it's definitely a help to them as they can rush growth techs more easily.
As the bonus provided by the Cultural Archive is one you get right from the start the significance of flat vs. pop dependent boni wrt to research focussed species is irrelevant in that particular case. Anyway, I don't have a strong preference for one or the other wrt the Cultural Archive, we certainly can make both the research and the industry bonus pop dependent. The only thing why I think flat boni would be a bit better is because pop dependent boni will definitely give species with a good pop bonus trait (which is already a very powerful one) even more of an advantage, which might be quite significant at that stage of the game.

Concerning future plans regarding flat boni: Depending on what our decision on the formula for the influence costs for colonies will be, will also decide what we can/must do with flat boni. The current consensus is to make the influence costs depending on the number of colonies, and not on pop. This would introduce a dynamic where going for flat boni will give you the advantage of building up quicker, especially getting more out of colonies on smaller planets quicker. But it will have the distinct disadvantage of a higher influence cost per point of resource output than an empire which focuses on pop boni, because in the long run it will have more pop (which equals more resource output) per colony, which translates into lesser influence costs per point of resource output. (The "wide" vs. "tall" empire discussion we already had.)

If we are going to take that road, flat boni can make sense, are even a must to counter-balance the big advantage bigger planets get from a number-of-colonies based influence costs. Should we decide on a different formula, I'm with you, then we might have to cut down on them.
I want to rebalance the research tech tree specifically and the growth tech tree more generally, but I am still unsure whether a complete rewrite would be better/easier for everyone than a series of tweaks heading in a specific direction.
Considering the ideas that have been tossed around, and the current state of the tech tree I fully expect a complete rewrite of the tech tree from scratch at some point. I don't think an approach of small steps will work here at all.

And considering the enormity of that task I think there is no way around dedicating an entire release cycle just for that, which I expect to be particularly AI development and playtesting heavy. I also expect it to be of the longer kind.
And given it will require a lot of cooperation with the AI team and they're fairly swamped I've never pushed for it to be prioritised, but I think it'll need to be either before or immediately after Influence: perhaps better before then alongside?
Unless we want to postpone a lot of things (influence the most prominent of them) for a very long time, I suggest to first complete the most important things that will have a very strong impact on the tech tree: basic influence framework and mechanics based on/tied with it (happiness-allegiance, colony influence costs, basic influence projects maybe?), revision of detection/stealth, revision of the ship hull lines, polishing of carriers/fighters & revision of weapons (we now have different kind of weapon systems which need to be balanced properly against each other).

I expect these things to take us a few release cycles. And only after all that's done I think it's worth a try to take a shot at the tech tree rewrite. Until then I suggest we continue maintaining the tech tree as we already do: try to keep it in a shape where, while far from balanced or anywhere near reasonable, it's still playable. Which means a bit of polishing and rebalancing here and there, and extending it to give access to new features/mechanics/elements. But nothing earth-shattering.

It's just not effective to invest huge efforts in redesigning the tech tree only to have it messed up with the addition of a new mechanic which requires a major tech tree revision anyway. I'm aware that we'll most likely have to go through that a few times (major tech tree revision that is), but I'd prefer to limit that ordeal to a minimum, especially out of pity with the AI team... ;)

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#14 Post by Vezzra »

MatGB wrote:OK, we've talked about next release being Stealth
To be precise, the next release (0.4.8 ) is supposed to be about the proposed imperial stockpile mechanic. Which is connected to the stealth stuff insofar as a major idea behind it is to make stealthed empires possible, however, it's not really directly about stealth. Actually it can make sense even without any relation to stealth, as it's basically about how to transfer PP between parts of your empire that are cut off from each other (which can have a variety of reasons, having a stealthed empire is just one of them). So it's an interesting mechanic all by it's own.

Of course nothing stops us from working on the stealth stuff too, I fully expect we will, I just won't say that 0.4.8 is particularly about stealth.

Regarding stealth, after the release I want us to have a discussion on a fundamental level about what we want "stealth" basically to be, before we do anything else in that department. I don't think we have any real consensus here, but many (interesting and exciting!) ideas floating around. IMO it's important that we first nail down what we want it to be, and what not, what ideas/concepts/mechanics we want to include and what we should leave out, before we start to consider things like stealthed supply. I think we got a bit ahead of ourselves on that front.

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Re: Industry vastly overpowered, Research vastly underpowere

#15 Post by MatGB »

Vezzra wrote:
MatGB wrote:If we're going to make them both one or the other, I'd rather move away from flat bonuses across the board and definitely not for this: that industry can go up with population is one of the thigns that makes research focussed species better in many ways, it's definitely a help to them as they can rush growth techs more easily.
As the bonus provided by the Cultural Archive is one you get right from the start the significance of flat vs. pop dependent boni wrt to research focussed species is irrelevant in that particular case.
I'm obviously not being clear.

If I'm on Research focus, and get my very first tech, Planetary Ecology, this slightly increases my homeworld population, which will increase my Research output if I'm on research and my Production output regardless. The most effective way to increase your production output in the very early game for virtually all species is to increase your population and rush to Adaptive Automation, more population gives you more research and more production.

Research focussed species can improve output by researching growth, industrial focusses species are better off researching Robotic Production and Fusion Generation if they're going for a Rush attack, which frequently they'll need to.

On turn 1, there is no difference, but there is on turn 3 onwards.

And yeah, the stockpile is the plan, but that's intrinsically linked to the strategic desire/need to have separated stealthy colonies and it ties in with the work I've been plotting and testing on stealth very well, if this is the Fighters release even tho we've done other stuff, next is the Stealth release as the stockpile plan is part of a bigger push. We don't name releases, if we did, that's what I'd call them.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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