Thoughts on Research

[Possibility454]

I am excited for this game and I see great potential so far, but I have some constructive criticism to offer. The technology advancement portion of the game is frankly very boring. Upon entering the technology selection screen we are presented with a list of available technologies to research, already sorted into a list by cost from lowest to highest. There is no visual reference to what technologies a particular technology will lead too, and there is not much detail presented as to what the benefits of a technology actually are. The end result was that I just chose the tech at the top of the list, since it was the cheapest, and continued to do so for the remainder of the game, only deviating from that once. The other problem is with the interface, I have to click the technology at the top of the screen, then click set in the far lower left corner, and then click the X in the opposite upper right corner.

So when new research notice appears, I do in an automated fashion:
1. click the notification button in the upper right
2. click the choose next research project link in the lower center
3. click the tech at the top of the list in the top center of the screen
4. click Set Research in the lower left
5. click the X in the upper right

It’s a whole lot of mouse moves all over the screen and I lost interest in it, it just isn’t fun. The list method is about the most boring way possible to present techs.

I would suggest presenting the technologies like Endless Legends does, all the techs for a given era are available and visible, and the same cost, you can click 1 tech or click many techs to research in order, you don’t have to click a Set Research button, and you don’t have to click an X to close the screen, you can simply Right Click on any screen to close it and be taken back to the map. Having tech eras like Endless Legends is also nice, you get about 16 techs per era but only need to research 9 to advance to the next era, so to get the higher level better techs, you will end up not researching all the lower level techs, but you can still research them later if you still want them. My suggestion is also don’t make the techs having such varying costs either, make more of them the same cost, otherwise I seem to just choose the current lowest cost one.

The other aspect of research that is lacking is the generation of research points. Planets only seem to have between 4 to 6 build slots available, and 1 is always consumed by a factory and another by a market to get trade dollars, and generally 1 is always consumed by a farm, and metals are always running low, so 2 are consumed by mines. Any remaining slots are best served by another factory or farm or mine. Labs will rarely get built then, and thus the only way to get research points is by more population or converting production to research. So there is very little involvement by the player or ability of the player to increase research point production, and the selection of what to research next becomes automated like, thus the whole research aspect of the game is rather bland.

I offer this criticism in the hope that this aspect of the game can be made more exciting. When it comes time to research a new tech, I want to actually sit there for a minute and have to ponder my next tech, or the next 5 techs and in what order. If I see myself falling behind other empires, I want to have the ability to quickly re-allocate my empires resources to research production in effort to catch up.

Endless Legend Research Screen.png (1.33 MiB) Viewed 18679 times

[nweismuller]

I'll just leave it here that both your planetary building priorities and your just 'grabbing whatever is cheapest' behaviors are not universal; there's plenty of information available on what technologies do, you can see what they lead to, and putting a factory on every world strikes me as suboptimal. (In fact, other than a very few specialised shipbuilding worlds, most of my worlds end up without factories at all.) Concentrating farms on high-fertility farming worlds also helps reduce the agricultural load. I end up with a great many labs built across my territory and am able to get a firm technical advantage (although the fact that my spaceframe options are fairly limited as the Phidi makes that less of a military advantage- not that I do all that much fighting, to be honest).

[SirDamnALot]

A techtree view would be nice, sure. The current screen is functional and sooner than later you know your favorite techs (Railguns! Woohoo).
You can click on the hyperlinks in the tech description to get overviews on what is in a certain field of science or what comes next.
No need to hit the "Set Research" button, just clicking on the tech should set the marker dot.
"Set Research" is good if you want to reach a tech that is some level deeper in the tech tree.
Then all required techs are cued automatically and you make a beeline to the selected tech.

I prefer to specialise my colonies, too. Depending on playthrough I favor to plaster my mini planets with mines or labs.
The big high pop planets become forgeworlds with 2 shipyards and an all factory layout.
Markets are nice, but the big bucks lies in tradefleets for me.

[nweismuller]

Ah, but markets let you expand your trade fleets as well. (Although perhaps I'm biased, as a sociology-happy Phidi.)

[wminsing]

So as a first point I 100% agree a better visualization of the tech tree would be welcomed. As others have said, the data is all there, you just have to dig for it. I absolutely do dives straight to middle and high tier tech that I like to use, but I've played enough I have a mental model of the tech tree.

As for the research point generation though, I don't really agree with that; I'd actually argue that the '1 factory, then 1 farm, then 1 mine, etc' is actually pretty much the worst possible strategy to pursue for planetary development. Spreading out capacity can be good, but generally I want worlds that that can crank out ships quickly, so that implies maximum factories and little of everything else. So you have farming worlds and mining worlds to feed/supply your factory planets, and then low fertility/low richness planets are perfect for research centers, and I always end up developing a few.

-Will

[Possibility454]

The 1 farm 1 mine 1 factory was a general sense, as in an average across many planets. Once those items are built, its probably rare to go back and demolish them and build something new. Thus your research production is generally static, but slowly increasing. In Moo2 you could move population from production to research. If you are at peace you can stop building ships and switch to massive research production in a heart beat. In SiS, your high factory production world cant ever switch to research, and your high research world cant ever switch to production. These 2 worlds are kind of forever stuck at there specialty. Maybe that is more realistic and not necessarily bad, but it does seem to limit strategy and simplifies (i.e. dumbs down) the game.

There is also the general optimization of each planet and that does generally lead to planets being jack of all trades. For example:

Markets: a planet needs a market for moral/happiness boost, so all planets get a market.

Farms: If you don't have a farm, then you have to use transports, and you run the major risk of a blockade cutting off your transports and the planet starving. Farm output also varies very little between planet types, they generally always seem to make 6 or 7 food, so it makes more sense to have a farm on each planet because specializing in food production on a planet doesn't really confer much extra boost.

Mines: This one does make a massive difference and thus does lead to specialization. Rich planets should be pure mines. Poor planets should not have any mines. Normal planets will have occasional mines because you need a ton or minerals in this game and rich planets are rare.

Research Labs: Labs are expensive to build, if you find the rare artifact planet you should build pure research labs, but that will take forever, thus you will still probably need a factory so you can build those research labs before the game ends, and you may still need a market on the planet.

Factories: Factories are handy on all planets if you ever want to produce anything in a reasonable time, the only exception being mineral rich planets which only need cheap mines. These will be all over the place on your general run of the mill planets, but these planets will also generally have a market and a farm, and like 1 or 2 mines if you haven't found any good mineral rich planets yet.

Maybe i am wrong on this and not doing it the most optimal, but what i generally see are planets that are 50% generalized and 50% specialized, basically a farm and a market and then all mines, or a farm and a market and then all factories.

[wminsing]

So this has not been my general experience, for a couple of reasons:
1) There is a major difference between a 3-4 food planet and a 6-7 food planet when multiplied over 5 or 6 farms, which is why it's best to concentrate farming onto the most fertile worlds. Particularly super-grain worlds.
2) The key to preventing Blockades is to smash enemy fleets so they can't create blockades. Build the biggest fleet to ensure space superiority.
3) The key to producing any specialized world is purchasing improvements; I usually just buy 4 labs (for example) rather than build them.
4) I can't recall ever actually building a market, and never for the morale improvement. That's what troops are for!

That said, this is only my play experience, and certainly may not be universal.

One thing that might be useful would to allow a 'conversion' project to turn one improvement type into another, paying a fee + the production difference. So you could convert a factory into a lab cheaper than building a lab (or a factory) from scratch. That could be an interesting idea.

-Will

[Possibility454]

I haven't seen any 3-4 food planets, they all seem to be 6-7, unless i am encountering a bug. I've only encountered a super grain world once and it wasnt mine

[wminsing]

Most of the Arid worlds are 3 or 4 food IIRC; those end up being farm sites so the better worlds can get more factories!

-Will

[zolobolo]

I find the research tree to be acceptable - it individual techs should just be finished
Visualization is fine - sure I also liked Endless Legend, and Galciv ha a neat tree and all but I do not find myself missing them. They are nice eye candy, but what you need to find, you can in the already existing system of hyperlinks. Is it elegant? No, but it works.

The planetary building system already implemented I find very good. Hope it will net get changed considerably (some playing around with values, sure but no changes to the overall concept or dynamic)
The restricted building slots serve a purpose and they serve it well: They cut down tedious planetary building and force decisions on what the planet should concentrate on. The brilliant part of this is that it directly interacts with the pop system. The player can combine various pop types with buildings to get a planet fit for purpose. Creating one building of each is an option but not effective even if that is the median building ensemble.

Personally I only build factories for ship producing worlds (max 2-3 in an average game)
Farms on only planets with high fertility + I spread a food production efficient pop to around half of the planets
Markets, I build everywhere, as they increase the maximum size of the trade pool and also give moral bonus for each planet. More trade-ships=more money to instantly buy buildings (that is why factories are not needed everywhere for rapid expansion)
Mines only go to planets with normal or high mineral resource
Research facilities go everywhere else meaning: Not a factory, nor farming or mining worlds

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

I think one major issue with research as it is, is that it is too easy too just aim for the honeypot straight out the gate, overfocusing on a particular technology chain to get there as soon as possible. Some obfuscation or uncertainty could probably be added to the tech development.