DESIGN: Learning Category

Message

Bastian-Bux · #46 Post by **Bastian-Bux** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:25 am

K.

OK guys, you did read Aquitaines announcement? Well, there are a lot of suggestions in this thread already. I'd ask the writers of them to pls reposte them here, but following the guidelines:

- XML
- requirements rules (no refinement except for refinement...)
- no changes to current_science, or Geoff bites your head off ^^
- only small changes to max_science. If its more then +3 for a late tech you'll have to answer to me personally ^^

utilae · #47 Post by **utilae** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:57 am

People should edit there posts into XML format, rather then reposting techs in XML format (XML takes up alot of room).

#48 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:25 am

Code: Select all

<Tech>
    <name>LRN_TRANSLING_THT_THEORY</name>
    <type>TT_THEORY</type>
    <description>
        LRN_TRANSLING_THT_THEORY_DESC
    </description>
    <category>LEARNING_CATEGORY</category>
    <research_cost>200</research_cost>
    <research_turns>15</research_turns>
    <prerequisites>
        LRN_AI_THEORY
    </prerequisites>
    <EffectsGroup>
        <scope>
            <Condition::And>
                <Condition::Focus>
                    <primary>1</primary>
                    <FocusType>FOCUS_RESEARCH</FocusType>
                </Condition::FocusType>
                <Condition::EmpireAffiliation>
                    <empire_id>Source.Owner</empire_id>
                    <affiliation>AFFIL_SELF</affiliation>
                    <exclusive>0</exclusive>
                </Condition::EmpireAffiliation>
            </Condition::And>
        </scope>
        <activation><Condition::Self/></activation>
        <stacking_group>TLTTECHBIGBONUS</stacking_group>
        <effects>
            <Effect::SetMeter>
                <meter>METER_RESEARCH</meter>
                <value>Target.MaxResearch + 3</value>
                <max>1</max>
            </Effect::SetMeter>
        </effects>
    </EffectsGroup>
    <EffectsGroup>
        <scope>
            <Condition::And>
                <Condition::Or>
                    <Condition::Focus>
                        <primary>1</primary>
                        <FocusType>FOCUS_BALANCED</FocusType>
                    </Condition::FocusType>
                    <Condition::Focus>
                        <primary>0</primary>
                        <FocusType>FOCUS_RESEARCH</FocusType>
                    </Condition::FocusType>
                </Condition::Or>
                <Condition::EmpireAffiliation>
                    <empire_id>Source.Owner</empire_id>
                    <affiliation>AFFIL_SELF</affiliation>
                    <exclusive>0</exclusive>
                </Condition::EmpireAffiliation>
            </Condition::And>
        </scope>
        <activation><Condition::Self/></activation>
        <stacking_group>TLTTECHSMALLBONUS</stacking_group>
        <effects>
            <Effect::SetMeter>
                <meter>METER_RESEARCH</meter>
                <value>Target.MaxResearch + 1</value>
                <max>1</max>
            </Effect::SetMeter>
        </effects>
    </EffectsGroup>
</Tech>

TRANSLINGUISTIC_THOUGHT_TECH: "Translinguistic Thought"

TRANSLINGUISTIC_THOUGHT_TECH_DESC: "Lesser minds struggle with, or accept the confines of the language they have learned. Adequate minds reach and feel constrained by the concepts they are given ways to express. Truely great minds break free of the bounds of language, forming and analyzing thoughts that verge on the transcendental. But merely great minds are left isolated and futile, for without language to express thoughts, how can they share their insights?"

Human Readable Effects Summary:
Gives +3 to Primary Research Focused World of own empire
Gives +1 to Primary Balanced or Secondary Research Focused Worlds of own empire
These two effects stack with eachother, so Research/Research worlds get +4, but do not stack with themselves, so if somehow two empires own a single appropriately focused object, it only gets at most one each of the two possible bonuses, and if a world is balanced/research, it only gets +1, even if it somehow gets this tech's effects fired on it twice in one turn

drek · #49 Post by **drek** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:46 am

Nice Geoff. I like the fluff desc.

I'd make a couple of changes. A: since it grants bonuses, you could make it an application of a LRN_AITHEORY. B: append LRN_ to the name, and shortened C: I think we should be printing out the effects of the app in the desc, or at least in human readable form in forum posts. D: the cost should probably be higher, since it's obvioulsy not a bottom tier tech (or is it?)

Finally, this might be a good fluff opportunity to make a building, something like the Universal Translator wonder. It could be a army of really smart blokes hooked into a massive artifical intelligence complex, serving up translation requests real time and on que. (with TBD diplomatic effects, in addition to research effects.)

utilae · #50 Post by **utilae** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 3:54 am

drek wrote: I'd make a couple of changes. A: since it grants bonuses, you could make it an application of a LRN_AITHEORY. B: append LRN_ to the name, and shortened

go here to find that I have made an AI theory theory:
viewtopic.php?t=971&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Ive been using LRN_AI_THEORY.

drek wrote: Finally, this might be a good fluff opportunity to make a building, something like the Universal Translator wonder. It could be a army of really smart blokes hooked into a massive artifical intelligence complex, serving up translation requests real time and on que. (with TBD diplomatic effects, in addition to research effects.)

On the same page I have a tech called "Collective Thought Network". perhaps it could be made into this wonder you speak of. Right now it is as described below (xml form of it is through the link above):
Collective Thought Network (Application)
+3 Max Research Meter
Prerequisites: Mind Storage (Theory)
"By transferring the mind into cyberspace, thousands of minds can act as one, solving problems and making breakthroughs that no single mind could."

#51 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:05 am

drek wrote:you could make it an application of a LRN_AITHEORY.

I'm thinking of applications as being actual things or concepts that can be built or put to specific use... I figured applications would generally unlock a building, or having rather more significant bonuses than those... though I suppose what qualifies as "significant" is debatable.

So Translinguistic Thought is really more of a nifty idea that could have some interesting applications than an application itself.

B: append LRN_ to the name, and shortened

Is there a tags naming convetion / style guide I should be aware of? If not, could you write one?

C: I think we should be printing out the effects of the app in the desc, or at least in human readable form in forum posts.

For the desc, a style guide would be good to claify this for all. For the forum, yes you're probly right.

D: the cost should probably be higher, since it's obvioulsy not a bottom tier tech (or is it?)

I didn't put much thought into the cost. I figure this'll be dealt with during balancing... feel free to suggest some numbers though. This is probably a medium-late tech.

Finally, this might be a good fluff opportunity to make a building, something like the Universal Translator wonder.

If we had something resembling diplomacy or a reason to need translation, I would agree.

For now, I'd thought about some sort of Translinguistic Institute, or Institute for Translinguistic Communication, unlocked by a Translinguistic Coummunication application which has Translinguistic Thought as a prerequisite. This ties into the ending bit of the description, which asks about the use of thought if it cannot be conveyed to others.

I'd also planned to tie this into Psionic / Telepathic communication. Presumably if you can communicate with pure thought anyway, limitations of language do not impede your discussions...

#52 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:12 am

utilae wrote:On the same page I have a tech called "Collective Thought Network". perhaps it could be made into this wonder you speak of.

Perhaps we could have two paths of thought stuff in learning... one dealing with Collective Thoughts / Groupthink / Massminds, and another dealing with new frontiers of individual thought.

Perhaps the two could come together at the end, for something extra good?

There's also the psionics angle on collective thought to consider... perhaps it could be another alternative path? You don't really need a computer network to link your minds if you can do it telepathically...

drek · #53 Post by **drek** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:26 am

Funny you should mention that Geoff:

http://home.earthlink.net/~drekmonger/Learntree1.gif

Still working on the particulars...I was thinking I could map out all the theories, then we could hang applications into the tree (or add/replace theories where needed.)

For example, the Collective Thought thingy might replace "Psionics" or be an application of "Psionics". (actually, I was thinking the application "Telepathy" unlocks application "Collective Thought", or the other way around.)

Your translatation tech could replace Galactic Communication (which is meant to mean a galactic sized internet), or be an application of galactic comms or AI theory.

Once we get a decent enough tree put together, it'll be much easier for people to fit techs in, like sliding pieces into a puzzle (or hanging lights on a x-mas tree.) I think our first task should be to map out the skeleton of a theory tree, quickly, and for each category....allowing Aq's category leads to be the arbiters of the theory skeleton.

The learning tree would come first, since other trees would depend upon the general research techs in learning (such as AI Theory, or whatever we call it).

Quickly is the key--the structure is certain to change, so we shouldn't spend a lot of time debating it.

edit: the start of a construction tree is on the same site, illustrating the use of Learning techs on other trees:

http://home.earthlink.net/~drekmonger/Consttree1.gif

#54 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:52 am

drek wrote:Quickly is the key--the structure is certain to change, so we shouldn't spend a lot of time debating it.

I happen to have written up a tree for Economics last week:
viewtopic.php?p=17286#17286

It's pretty basic though... and has a bunch of applications in there... and wasn't intended to be a whole tree (it's just got two theory forks that join for an application a few times)... and I'm not sure why I even made it, but there it is.

The trunk alone is here: http://home.cogeco.ca/~toppingwebspace4 ... eTrunk.PNG

Regarding the broader process, I can pretty much guarantee that I'll hate your naming and tree structures... Which would make forming a consensus quickly unlikely.

Though perhaps we can discuss some less fluff-related issues... Such as general tree structure. You've got a very dense multipath tree, whereas my economics theories tree trunk has two basically independent pathes that just meet up at the end.

Which of these would we prefer, and why, or should it even be consistent across the board? Going down one path in the tree, and ignoring another is a more traditional way of doing things... and makes the two options into a rather bigger choice for the player, though the flexibility of the dense linking is also nice.

Maybe fluff reasons could suggest one style for certain categories and another for others? The three basic paths for thought stuff in learning for example... that alone isn't enough to make a whole tree, but the idea of basically independent ways of doing the same thing is possibly portable...

Edit: Stylistic Comments about your Learning Tree:

By my reckoning, Galactic Communication and Dimensional Travel are applications, not theories.

Does it *really* matter than much that Matter Creation happens Instantly?

"Quantum Mechanics" and the GUC are a bit too already done on Earth now to be included in a future sci-fi setting. We could have "Quantum Gravity", "Gravimetrics" or "Theory of Everything" or somesuch, or perhaps something vaguer like "Fundamental Reality" or "Nature of Existence" a bit later in the tree.

"Physics of the Mind and Soul" sounds a bit silly / hokey to me.

We should probably have some theory about the existance of the Universe that includes without explicitly referring to a religious god or gods with conscious thought. Maybe "The First Cause" or "Creation of Existance" or "Origin of the Universe" perhaps?

"Artificial Sentience" is borderline theory / application. Perhaps we could have something a bit broader like "Essence of Consciousness" or "Root of Sentience" or perhaps something that implies that a "mind" cannot exist without a "soul" (of ambiguous definition) like "Soul of Sentience". "Artificial Sentience" would be an application or sub-theory from one of these... and if an application, would unlock a building called "The Machine-Mind Nexus" or somesuch...

Rather than "Energy Manipulation", I'd like to be a bit more specific... as "manipulation" is so vague as to include any controlled chemical or physical process, pretty much... (energy is being "manipulated"). I'm not really able to come up with anything much better though... Perhaps throwing "Fields" in there... or "Force-Field Manipulation", as I think what you were getting at here was energy shields and the like, which are presumbly going to be possible due to some as-yet-unknown way to manipulate fundamental forces into some sort of protective field... (and other applications)

utilae · #55 Post by **utilae** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:04 am

Good stuff ampping out the theory in those diagrams. I imagine you have more to add, I'll give some ideas on theories or areas of a category we should cover:

CONSTRUCTION:
Planetoid Construction (Super large scale construction, create a planet from asteroids or something)
Nano Construction (a building made of nanites can be programmed to dynamically change its shape, style, etc)
Dimensional Construction (a building can be constructed across multiple dimensions, not just physical space, effectively resulting in buildings such as a 1mX1mX1m box that actually has infinite space)

LEARNING:
Singularity (a point at which advancement is infinite)
History of the universe (all things from the past are known, not technology, but events, eg how the universe was created, etc)

GROWTH:
Mastery over life and death (the dead can be brought back and the living can live forever)

EDIT:

Geoff the Medio wrote: Regarding the broader process, I can pretty much guarantee that I'll hate your naming and tree structures... Which would make forming a consensus quickly unlikely.

I quite like most of dreks theory names.

Geoff the Medio wrote: You've got a very dense multipath tree, whereas my economics theories tree trunk has two basically independent pathes that just meet up at the end.
Which of these would we prefer, and why, or should it even be consistent across the board?

I think "very dense multipath tree" like dreks is the way to go.

Geoff the Medio wrote: Does it *really* matter than much that Matter Creation happens Instantly?

Yes it does matter. Would you rather be able to create matter instantly or should it take a few years to be created.

I think the economic theories need to be defiend as theorys like drek has done, but we need to make them easy to understand so we don't have to be economists to know what they mean.

#56 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:14 am

utilae wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote: Does it *really* matter than much that Matter Creation happens Instantly?
Yes it does matter. Would you rather be able to create matter instantly or should it take a few years to be created.

Maybe it would matter if this was an application, but it's a theory. The idea of creating matter doesn't require that it happen infinitely fast.

utilae · #57 Post by **utilae** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:19 am

Geoff the Medio wrote: Maybe it would matter if this was an application, but it's a theory. The idea of creating matter doesn't require that it happen infinitely fast.

Before that theory matter can be created, just through a means that is too slow and requires certain things. The theory to my understanding would relate to matter created near instantly and without all required resources. Basically you want some oil, flick your fingers and walla, instant oil.

#58 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:27 am

utilae wrote:The theory to my understanding would relate to matter created near instantly and without all required resources. Basically you want some oil, flick your fingers and walla, instant oil.

I think it's better left implied that the matter is being created at a usable rate. We haven't specified that it's "Custom-Designed, Stable, Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Instant Matter Creation", have we? Unless there's a preceeding theory for "Slow Matter Creation" from which we need to distinguish the new theory, I'd generally prefer more general theory names. Most of the details of usability are, to me, really more appropriate for applications and refinements.

drek · #59 Post by **drek** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:34 am

Does it *really* matter than much that Matter Creation happens Instantly?

laff. good point. I was basically thinking about Star Trekkish replicators and transporters. Basically, it's a general knowledge tech meant to be useful to other trees....once you have it you can teleport and make stuff out of thin air.

"Quantum Mechanics" and the GUC are a bit too already done on Earth now to be included in a future sci-fi setting. We could have "Quantum Gravity", "Theory of Everything" or somesuch, or perhaps something vaguer like "Fundamental Reality" or "Nature of Existence" a bit later in the tree.

Agreed. It was orginally self organizing databases, then something else, then this. Grand Unified Theory was orginally "Theory of everything", changed it to avoid copying Smac.

(I'm perhaps not the best person to be inventing FO's technobabble fluff....)

"Physics of the Mind and Soul" sounds a bit silly / hokey to me.

I'm thinking of something like "Godel, Escher, Bach"....an understanding of the way sentience works. I wanted an AI Theory (rather than an app) because it seemed more useful for other trees.

"Artificial Sentience" is borderline theory / application. Perhaps we could have something a bit broader like "Essence of Consciousness" or "Root of Sentience" or perhaps something that implies that a "mind" cannot exist without a "soul" (of ambiguous definition) like "Soul of Sentience". "Artificial Sentience" would be an application or sub-theory from one of these... and if an application, would unlock a building called "The Machine-Mind Nexus" or somesuch...

see above.

I'd be happy to endose a different tree, and it sounds like you might have some good ideas. Feel free to whip up a tree.

Point isn't to force my tree (which I made in about ten minutes), but to say it would be nice to have a skeleton for a tree, starting with Learning.

Basically the process would be:

1: Build a quick, decent (not perfect) skeleton, ultimately approved by the content thread lead
2: You or I write up the XML for the skeleton
3: Everyone fleshes out the skeleton with XML defs for apps, buildings, etc. Everyone who wants one could "own" their own pet theory, and flesh it out completely as I did over with my first example theory in construction category.

Because as it stands we are shooting in the dark when deciding where to place a technology....

#60 Post by **Geoff the Medio** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:48 am

drek wrote:I'm thinking of something like "Godel, Escher, Bach"....an understanding of the way sentience works.

That sounds more like mind / brain - what makes them good analysis, rather than the deeper root of sentience issue. There's lots of opportunity to right emotive fluff about how analysis of the brain allowed us to make incredibly powerful biocomputers and enhance our own abilities, but we were never able to create true artificial sentience until we realized that just intelligence was not the true source thereof.

Both of those are good candidate theories, but the first tier one should probably be about "Biomechanics of Thought" or the Brain (SMAC: "Secrets of the Human Brain"), and the subsequent theory about the "Root of Sentience".

Edit: perhaps to be whittled down for Root of Sentience fluff, we might want to add something about sentience arising only under certain conditions. Perhaps the essence of sentience requires some sort of sensation, which can be external or internal (ie. your own thoughts)... meaning a sentient being need not have any external stimuli... however perhaps this does not necessarily mean that a sentient being can be created without external stimuli... but can only continue to exist without further external stimuli after sufficient external inputs to reach the sentience threshold... (and the appropriate stable internal thought processes...)

I wanted an AI Theory (rather than an app) because it seemed more useful for other trees.

Good point... though if we do the above sentence / intelligence split, are you wanting an Artificial Sentience, or Artificial Intelligence theory?

Point isn't to force my tree (which I made in about ten minutes), but to say it would be nice to have a skeleton for a tree, starting with Learning.

I think I'll take back my complaint about the structure of the tree... yours is fine (and mine sucks, though I wasn't by any means suggesting mine by used).

Beyond that, it's just naming issues and nitpicking stuff like the above.

What you have now can be a basis for what we end up with.

Grand Unified Theory was orginally "Theory of everything", changed it to avoid copying Smac.

TOE is not SMAC-specific...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything