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Geoff the Medio
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#31 Post by Geoff the Medio »

drek wrote:Monument to Exodus
Cost: ?? 50/pp for 15 turns?
Prerequisites: Heroic Explorers (special: Monument to Exodus cannot be started once *next age tech* is researched…is this possible?? TBD)
Edit:

This can be done like so, given the status of the Effects wiki document at the time of this edit, assuming I understand it correctly: The "Monument to Exodus" tech ("MtE tech") would list the building "Monument to Exodus" ("MtE building") in its unlocked items field. When researched, the MtE building would become buildable. Later, the "*Next Age Tech*" would have a SetTechAvailability effect, with TECH_NAME = MtE tech, AVAILABLE = false, and INCLUDE_TECH = true. This would make the items unlocked by MtE tech not buildable, but would (I think) leave MtE tech researched for other techs' prerequisites purposes, and would allow any effects of MtE tech to continue to work.
Last edited by Geoff the Medio on Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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utilae
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#32 Post by utilae »

drek wrote: Monument to Exodus
Cost: ?? 50/pp for 15 turns?
Prerequisites: Heroic Explorers (special: Monument to Exodus cannot be started once *next age tech* is researched…is this possible?? TBD)

A tower that reaches for the stars, the Monument to Exodus commemorates the heroic sacrifices of early explorers. The monument inspires the entire empire towards the pursuit of the unknown.

Effects:
*possible leader effects TBD
+1 Science, Happiness all Balanced Focused worlds
+2 Science, Happiness all Science Focused worlds
Effects above do not stack.
Upkeep: 1 (money/turn)
If ya want some more prequisites for this I have made some techs that could be used:
Vertical Construction Theory (Theory) found in construction
Vertical Habitation (Application) found in growth

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#33 Post by drek »

Actually,

I'm thinking with the exception of the "Age" techs in Learning, no tech should have a prerequiste outside it's category.

But I suppose that's TBD.

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Geoff the Medio
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#34 Post by Geoff the Medio »

drek wrote:Actually,

I'm thinking with the exception of the "Age" techs in Learning, no tech should have a prerequiste outside it's category.

But I suppose that's TBD.
Based on this post:
viewtopic.php?p=7821#7821

It seems that the plan is / was:
:arrow: Theories usually (but not always) have only one prerequisite
:arrow: The prerequisite(s) for a theory are usually (but not always) theories themselves
:arrow: The prerequisites(s) for a theory are usually (but not always) from within the same category as the unlocked theory
:arrow: If a prerequisite for a theory is from another category, it is usually from "several levels earlier" in order to limit the interdependence between categories
:arrow: Applications commonly have prerequisites from other categories
:arrow: Theories should be located in the category which has the largest number of applications unlocked by the theory. If another category has more applications unlocked by a theory, the theory should probably be in that category instead.

To me, mostly prohibiting inter-category prerequisites to Age Techs isn't a good plan. In the categories design thread, it was asserted that intercategory links would be available, and that this justified using categories named by game-purpose, rather than fluff. To illustrate, if we have a variety of "energy field" techs, which unlocks theories or applications in a variety of categories, it doesn't make sense to need to independently research the basic idea of energy fields in separate categories. Rather, it makes more sense to discover the root energy fields theory in some category, say "ship defences", and have it called "ship energy shields", and then have that theory unlock applications or sub-theories in appropriate other categories (that are unrelated to ships or defences).

That said, "energy fields" could be an "age" transition tech... and is somewhat closer to my preference for what should separate different ages that what drek wants. However not all such situations can be resolved by making another new age transition... as that would greatly reduce the significance and increase the number of age transitions to the point that the concept becomes essentially meaningless...

Another alternative that I'm fond of is to have the base theory for energy shields be in the Learning category, whilst not actually making it an "Age" tech. Thus you'd have a theory in Learning called "Energy Fields", which would unlock the "Energy Shields" theory in the Ship Defences category, the "Energy Lab-coat Cleaners" theory in Learning (which would have applications in Learning) and the "Energy Field Growth Enhancement" theory in Growth.

In this system, "Age" techs would also be in Learning, but would be extra-important root-of-the-tree type techs, which form the root of a new prerequisite tree of major / general theories in Learning (the new "Age").

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#35 Post by drek »

hrm.
Another alternative that I'm fond of is to have the base theory for energy shields be in the Learning category, whilst not actually making it an "Age" tech. Thus you'd have a theory in Learning called "Energy Fields", which would unlock the "Energy Shields" theory in the Ship Defences category, the "Energy Lab-coat Cleaners" theory in Learning (which would have applications in Learning) and the "Energy Field Growth Enhancement" theory in Growth.

In this system, "Age" techs would also be in Learning, but would be extra-important root-of-the-tree type techs, which form the root of a new prerequisite tree of major / general theories in Learning (the new "Age")
I favor this, personally.

Also, forgot all about the theory/application thingy when describing my techs above. :oops: Obvioulsy, they would need to be reworked.

Perhaps:

Heroic Exploration (Theory) [no effects, it's a theory]
--Propaganda (application, thinking of something like the US space race providing inspiration, needs a new name, same effects as Heroic Explorers.)
--Peering into Infinity (application, would be reworked to include a chance for a black hole cult arising as a special on a planet during Exodus Age)
--Monument to Exodus (application, unlocks build project of the same name)

Self-Organizing Databases (Theory) [no effects]
--System Archives (application, unlocks build project of the same name)
--Encyclopedia Exodus (application, increased effects from the description above)

Secrets of the Starlanes [theory with no effects]
--Starlane telescope thingy (application, unlocks build project of the same name)
--something else....


Together Self Organizing Databases and the Starlane Secrets tech form the prerequisites for the "next Age" tech:

Age of ***** (Expansion?) (big theory)
A theory that unlocks lots of engine and colonization techs in other categories, plus the next bit of the Learning tree, plus some "extra credit" techs like "Energy Field Manipulation" that are not needed for the next age, but unlock nice toys over in the military categories.

Course, theories that primarily unlock military stuffs we can safely ignore in v.3.

The idea is that the player can either middle around in Exodus age, researching Heroic Exploration, or go straight for the next age. Most of the applications in Heroic Exploration lose their effects once Age of Expansion is researched--so it's an important choice.

concerning military techs, I suggest the v.3 tree be very very simple, since it will scrapped in v.4.

Exodus Era Ships (theory)
--Scout (starts researched)
--Colony (starts researched)
--Mark I (application)

Expansion Era Military (theory), requires "Age of Expansion"
--Mark II
--Defenses

Empire Era Ships (theory), requires "Age of Empire"
--Mark III

Mastery Era Ships (theory), requires "Age of Mastery"
--Mark IV

Transended Military (theory), requires "Age of Transcendance"
--Mark V

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#36 Post by Bastian-Bux »

All the till now mentioned ideas sound good, but we will have to bring them to a common fluff soon.

Another thing that I want to mention:

Zanzibar and some other already proposed techs with up to +35% on the meter.

Remember, guys: the max production of RP should be around 20 times of the starting production (got the feeling that the multipliers of most X-games tend to be in this size, right?).
What does it mean in game terms? Well, the multiplier of 20 is equivalent to a Pop AND Sci meter at 100.

So if we already now have techs that give scie meter increase of 35, our tech tree will have 3 of them and thats it.

Restrict yourself a bit.

Btw, Aquitaine, what will the meters be at game start usually? If we view for a multiplier of 16-25 the Pop and Sci meters would start at 20-25 each.
Wenn du die Macht hättest die Geschichte zu ändern, wo würdest du anfangen. Und viel wichtiger, wo aufhören?

If you had the power to change history, where would you start? And more importantly, where would you stop?

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#37 Post by drek »

You can read what the meters start at in the D.D.

Max Population varies dependant upon planet size and enviroment. An Average sized world with the correct enviorment has a max pop of 20. The homeworld grants +10 to max pop for 30.

Science (and the other resource meters) start at 0. Primary focus adds +15, Secondary focus adds +5, balanced adds +3 to all meters. Homeworld adds +10 to most resource meters.

Techs should add very little to "every world". Most techs should add to worlds set to primary, secondary, or balanced focus. For example:

Technology X

adds +3 to Science to all worlds with Primary focus in science
adds +1 to Science to all worlds with Secondary focus in science

Early techs might concentrate mostly on adding small amounts to "all worlds", to bring the meters in line with v.2 economy.

Buildings should generally have an area of effect and not be stackable:

Technology Y
Unlocks Building Y

Building Y
adds +1 to science to all worlds within 1 starlane hop
adds +3 to all worlds with secondary focus in science within 1 starlane hop
adds +5 to all worlds with primary focus in sciene within 1 starlane hop
above effects not stackable

In addition, buildings can have special FX, like:

Technology Z
Unlocks Building Z

Building Z
adds +1 to science to all worlds in the same system
above effects not stackable
5% chance each turn of spawning "Event Z"


Event Z
kills off 5 points of current population
kills off 10 points of current construction

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#38 Post by Geoff the Medio »

drek wrote:Science (and the other resource meters) start at 0. [...] Homeworld adds +10 to most resource meters.
I believe the homeworld also starts with current meters at 75% of their respective maximums. Or at least that was the original plan... I seem to recall that tzlaine may have changed that slightly for some reason... I guess the important thing is to note that the meters on the homeworld don't start at 0, so the homeworld won't starve itself to nothing on the first turn...
drek wrote:Event Z
kills off 5 points of current population
kills off 10 points of current construction
From an email,
tzlaine wrote:Changes to current meters should only be included in Events, which aren't even in the game yet.
Emphasis mine. I don't know when he's planning to add events, but they aren't there yet. (This quote also serves to remind people to modify max meters with techs / buildings, not current meters...)

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#39 Post by Bastian-Bux »

OK, so if I see it correctly, the starting conditions are like:

The current pop of the homeworld is 15 (75% of its unmodified max pop), the max pop is 30 (20 for superb average, +10 for homeworld).

The current sci meter is at 2.25 (75% of the unmodified max science), while the max sci meter is at 13 (3 for primary balanced + 10 for homeworld).

So the homeworld start with:

Resources Produced = (2.25/10) * 20 = 4.5 RP/turn.

Its max production of RP is:

Resources Produced = (100/10) * 100 = 1,000 RP/turn,

assuming that the meters are capped at 100.

Well, thats a bit more then the 20 I see from other games, actually its 10 times as much, but we will see.


So as a generell guideline we can look at the following:

All techs, buildings and other effects together shouldn't increase the max science by more then 87, and the current science by more then 98. Else we will face a serious overspill on the science meters, which will be capped at 100 anyway.

Please remember: We need to leave space for race specifica as well. So if we assume a hardcore research race with a +30 bonus to max meter and current meter, we should restrict ourself to added modifiers of 55 to max meter and 65 to current meter.

PS: remember, you can circumvent this caps partly if you present mutualy exclusive ideas. So its better to invent three buildings with 1, 2 and 3 bonus that are following each other (this giving a max bonus of 3), then have the same buildings/techs stackable (deducting 6 from our max boni).

Also remember that the current science meter is multiplied with the pop meter. So its a very bad idea to design something that increases both, especially for the early game. A tech that increases sci and pop by only 1 would increase the RP output at the start of the game by 50%!!! Also have an eye on the influence of your designs on the construction meter, as increasing the construction meter will speed up the growth of current science also.
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#40 Post by drek »

close.

it isn't explict in the DD, but the intention is for the 75% (or whatever it was) to be of the *modified* amount (after homeworld bonuses).

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#41 Post by drek »

couple more things:
Bastian-Bux wrote: All techs, buildings and other effects together shouldn't increase the max science by more then 87, and the current science by more then 98. Else we will face a serious overspill on the science meters, which will be capped at 100 anyway.
I think it's ok to go a little bit over (perhaps by 25 points) as there will be events and some buildngs that reduce max meters. But yes, the bonuses should add up to the ballpark of 100--the bonuses most people have been proposing have been a bit high for this.
Please remember: We need to leave space for race specifica as well. So if we assume a hardcore research race with a +30 bonus to max meter and current meter, we should restrict ourself to added modifiers of 55 to max meter and 65 to current meter.
I have no idea how we are going to handle races. +30 maybe way too high---possibly give races small bonuses (like +5 mining), but reduced research costs on certain categories, and other special powers. Unique leaders, ship parts, techs, stuff like that.

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#42 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Bastian-Bux wrote:Its max production of RP is:

Resources Produced = (100/10) * 100 = 1,000 RP/turn,

assuming that the meters are capped at 100.
I may be alone on this, but I don't expect that planet populations will ever get nearly as high as 100 as you assume in the above. I was of the impression that max population would not be increased very much beyond the inital values for the various planet sizes and environments. A huge optimal planet can support 35 population, and most planets will probably support much less than that.

(I also don't believe population was supposed to be treated as a meter for capping purposes anyway... I'm not sure how tzlaine implemented it, but I don't think the design doc specifies that pop is capped at 100 for all planets)
Well, thats a bit more then the 20 I see from other games, actually its 10 times as much, but we will see.
Why are you so worried about the ratio of initial to final RP / turn production for the homeworld? If you start with one planet producing 5 RP / turn, then end up with dozens of planets producing several hundred of RP / turn each, the ratio will be much bigger than 200:1. Also, if we tweaked the starting values of meters or population slightly, we could drastically change the ratio of peak : initial RP production, but that wouldn't really mean much in terms of how a graph of RP / turn for a whole game would look... it would just be a slightly different first few turns... And why does the ratio matter at all? We can scale the costs of techs according to how fast we want advancement to occur, and probably in accordance to how big the galaxy is...
All techs, buildings and other effects together shouldn't increase the max science by more then 87, and the current science by more then 98. Else we will face a serious overspill on the science meters, which will be capped at 100 anyway.
Increasing the current science shouldn't be done by buildings or techs at all. This would increase the value *every turn* that the empire has the building / after the tech is researched. And it doesn't make sense to look at the total increase to current science anyway, since the current science is capped by max science, which varies over time. So increases to current right after a big increase to max would make a big difference, but increases to current when current is already equal to max would do nothing. This means the total effective bonus of various additions to current science can't be determined just by adding up all the bonuses at design time... you have to account for when the bonuses are applied.

You might also want to consider that there may be specials that affect resource meters, including Science... giving bonuses in some cases... of as-yet-undertermined magnitude.

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#43 Post by Zanzibar »

Well the techs I was proposing that give you about a 1/3 increase in your meter are late to end game techs. Of course in no way should they be beginning game. Also if you feel it is too much, it can always be adjusted for balance :)
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#44 Post by Bastian-Bux »

OK, can someone clarify pls if what drek says is correct?

Cause in the DD its written different. Suppose it wasn't changed after the +10 bonus to everything for the homeworld was worked out ^^.

OK, so lets look at the new data:

The current pop of the homeworld is 22.5 (75% of its max pop), the max pop is 30 (20 for superb average, +10 for homeworld).

The current sci meter is at 9.75 (75% of the max science), while the max sci meter is at 13 (3 for primary balanced + 10 for homeworld).

So we start with a science production of ~ 22 RP/turn.

I agree that a +30 on a race is too high, so what to settle as max? 20 or 25?

Well, going a bit over it is ok, as long as it won't be by that last critical researches, that ain't worth researching cause they will spill all your research meters over 100 ^^.

I myself would prefer if a 100 max_science meter is only possible for a research heavy race (+20?) on a research specialized homeworld (+5+10+15) with all possible boni. So this boni would be only 50 alltogether.

75 given your +25 overspill. Though then a tech race would never specialize on research on their homeworld in the end-game. Odd.

About population: well, planets already start at a max_pop between 2 and 35. I assume that our guys over at growth will invent some ways to increase max_pop as well. And even if they restrict themselver to a multiplier of 3 this puts some planets at 105 max_pop.

I hope not many of our planets will be such monsters, but we have to assume that some will.

About the ratio early game / late game: its ok Geoff, you are right in most terms. I just ain't sure if we don't invite to big a snowball effect by allowing a to big ratio. Lets wait and see.

So if I understood your comment correct Geoff, you point out that current_science should only be increased when max_science is increased first. And only on a very limited base.

@Zanzibar Even in end game they are much to strong :).

Lets assume we only have 25 techs that effect max_science at all. Given a limit of 50-75 maximal possible bonus points this leaves a "mid-game/average" tech at a possible bonus of 2 or 3.

Please keep that in mind people.
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#45 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Bastian-Bux wrote:I agree that a +30 on a race is too high, so what to settle as max? 20 or 25?
I'd go with +10
So if I understood your comment correct Geoff, you point out that current_science should only be increased when max_science is increased first. And only on a very limited base.
It's not so much that current meters should only be increased after corresponding increases to max... It's more so that increases to current will have no effect if current already equals max. Whether this is what "should" happen can be decided on a case by case basis.

That is all rather moot however, in that it's best to almost never increase meters with tech or building effects, unless you've got some very significant penalties as well, or some other way to keep things under control. Even a signle +1 to current meter on a tech or building will significantly screw up the meter growth formula. So don't change current meters except in exceptional circumstances... The "real" use for the abilitiy to change current meters is one-shot bonuses or deductions due to events, which don't exist yet.

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