Tech tree per species type

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

Moderator: Oberlus

Message
Author
xahodo
Space Floater
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2012 6:49 pm

Tech tree per species type

#1 Post by xahodo »

How about giving each species type its own tech tree, which would allow for differentiation in the species.

Variations could be placed on anything which could be researched. Allowing species to exploit their niche to the fullest. While other things could be common through all or some tech trees.

If a species does not include a tech tree, it could default to the standard one (which doesn't exploit its niche to the fullest). Species could also include a partial tech tree and/or exclude certain techs to/from the default tech tree.

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Tech tree per species type

#2 Post by Jaumito »

There could also be tech trees specific to metabolisms and environments. It doesn't make a lot of sense for gaseous lifeforms to invent canned meat, or for inferno dwellers to invent water sprinklers.

User avatar
em3
Vacuum Dragon
Posts: 630
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 2:51 pm

Re: Tech tree per species type

#3 Post by em3 »

How would that work in multi-species empires?

Sum of research trees?

What about research points? Can gaseous liveforms help their organic compatriots research canned meat?
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Tech tree per species type

#4 Post by Jaumito »

em3 wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 2:00 am How would that work in multi-species empires?
Tech trees you gain from conquered species would cost a lot more to research? Just like Psionics costs more if you don't have telepaths in your empire.

xahodo
Space Floater
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2012 6:49 pm

Re: Tech tree per species type

#5 Post by xahodo »

Or the different species could have its own research tree and RP. Having their own, maybe completely different, structures, ships and effects. Making it attractive to use the other species.

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Tech tree per species type

#6 Post by Ophiuchus »

I think what we really need is somebody who would rework and balance the whole tech tree. I think this needs long time commitment and a vision.

And i also if one would differentiate more by species, I think that species traits (e.g. telepathic) rather than species (e.g. george) should be the base for that.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Tech tree per species type

#7 Post by Jaumito »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:40 pmAnd i also if one would differentiate more by species, I think that species traits (e.g. telepathic) rather than species (e.g. george) should be the base for that.
You can easily do both, if you just assume that every species has its own dummy trait (e.g., George has the trait "george").

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Tech tree per species type

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

Jaumito wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:52 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:40 pmAnd i also if one would differentiate more by species, I think that species traits (e.g. telepathic) rather than species (e.g. george) should be the base for that.
You can easily do both, if you just assume that every species has its own dummy trait (e.g., George has the trait "george").
Of course you can. Just a question about the complexity of the tech tree. E.g. id think if we had species based trees for all the major species we would need a full-time developer for balancing just these... ..and at the moment we do not even somebody working part time on the single tech tree. So...
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Tech tree per species type

#9 Post by Jaumito »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 12:40 pm I think what we really need is somebody who would rework and balance the whole tech tree. I think this needs long time commitment and a vision.
Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 2:20 pm ..and at the moment we do not even somebody working part time on the single tech tree. So...
I'd happily volunteer to do the grunt work as long as it's FOCS-only. Long-term commitment shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not so sure about the "vision" part yet. Might need some input from the community to prime my mental pump.

User avatar
The Silent One
Graphics
Posts: 1129
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2003 8:27 pm

Re: Tech tree per species type

#10 Post by The Silent One »

Ophiuchus wrote:I think what we really need is somebody who would rework and balance the whole tech tree. I think this needs long time commitment and a vision.
Some of my ideas for a tech tree overhaul are here: https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... 389#p87255 - most importantly, I would suggest to switch to the originally planned Theory-Application-Refinement system. Major advantages I see with this system are that the tech tree becomes more clearly arranged, and theories can be used as intuitive barriers for tech advancement (most of the times, an application or early refinement will be cheaper than researching a new theory).

Labgnome also had some very good ideas about more meaningful tech categories (and what techs to put where).
Jaumito wrote:How about giving each species type its own tech tree, which would allow for differentiation in the species.
There could easily be individual techs or sections of the tech tree that only have an effect on specific species or metabolism types (but can be researched by anyone). Alternatively, the techs could appear only if your empire has a specific species / metabolism type, etc.. Giving each species its own tech tree seems like a crazy amount of work, like Ophiuchis said.
If I provided any images, code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5714
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Tech tree per species type

#11 Post by Oberlus »

Jaumito wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:19 pmI'd happily volunteer to do the grunt work as long as it's FOCS-only. Long-term commitment shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not so sure about the "vision" part yet. Might need some input from the community to prime my mental pump.
That would be great!
I would/could be (one of) your assistant.

I'm not sure about the "vision" part neither, but I think that can be solved in two ways (as you already point out):
- Asking the community before implementing/changing stuff. If response is negative enough, figure out something else.
- Testing stuff (widely demanded or not) before merging them (that is actually pretty obvious and the only way to do any kind of development, even for personal projects).

I've been thinking myself of applying myself to be the substitute of MatGB (until he comes back; he never resigned from the position), and so I've been thinking (probably in a too unfocussed way) of many things to improve balancing and diversity. However, most of the time I stumbled upon the fact that Influence (and Government) seems key for any rebalancing, reworking or enlargement of the tech tree (and buildings, and ship parts, etc.). And I realise that, even if oneself has plenty of spare time to do and redo and redo again all that work each time new features (such as influence) are introduced, the work requirements for other developers that are already swamped in work would increase exponentially (I'm thinking mostly of AI). And thus I thought that waiting for Influence, or trying to keep in mind what Influence will be like, is quite relevant.

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Tech tree per species type

#12 Post by Ophiuchus »

Some ideas for getting a vision

One could start proposing visions/basic properties one could test proposed tech tree structure proposals against.
E.g. the Silent One proposed a stronger split between application and basic research which would imply a different layout (also see labgnome prototypes)

One could also propose generic aims.
E.g. growth tech should level differences between planet environments (e.g. good/../hostile), completely/not completely (in the second case even in end game enivornment should still matter).
Or an empire should/should not be able to specialize in a way that it is easy for another empire to catch up.

One could simply implement tech structure prototypes and try/test those to gain insights.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Tech tree per species type

#13 Post by Vezzra »

xahodo wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 7:22 pmHow about giving each species type its own tech tree, which would allow for differentiation in the species.
In FO, bascially species != empires. As research is handled on the empire level, this makes giving each species their own tech tree impossible. For that, you need to move research to the species level (as has been suggested), but that would require a quite fundamental redesign of the game, also make things a hell lot more complex, to design, balance, implement, and last but not least to handle in a way players can reasonably keep track of.

This is not going to happen, not in this form. What has already been mentioned by others, and what can (and probably will) be done is that certain techs/sections of the tech tree require to have a certain species within your empire, or having certain species make certain techs cheaper/faster to research, or certain techs giving you things you can only make use of with certain species.

There are already a few things in the tech tree that work that way: The Robotic Interface Shield only works on ships with a robotic crew (IIRC), Psionics is much cheaper to research if you have a telepathic species. I expect more of that in the future.

Jaumito
Space Kraken
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 3:42 am
Location: Catalonia, France, Europe, Earth, Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way, Virgo Cluster

Re: Tech tree per species type

#14 Post by Jaumito »

First I'd need to know what the community thinks is the most pressing issue (or issues) to address.

When I volunteered, I thought (perhaps naively) that what was needed first was enriching/balancing the whole tech tree on an atomic basis, without changing the interface. I think I've now learned FOCS enough to do that (and what I don't know yet I'm confident I'll learn soo enough.)

Now, if I understood The Silent One correctly, the most pressing issue seems to be an higher-level overhaul than what I had in mind: that is, enforcing the T/A/R research model more strictly through the interface. I'd be happy to oblige, but I must confess that at the moment, I haven't the slightest idea on how to do that, technically.

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5714
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Tech tree per species type

#15 Post by Oberlus »

Jaumito wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:39 pmFirst I'd need to know what the community thinks is the most pressing issue (or issues) to address.
Let's do that on a different thread.
Jaumito wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:39 pmthe T/A/R research model
Wat?

Post Reply