I always loved the MOO2 approach to technology which consisted of following aspects:


-simple math and population icons as scientists. 1 scientist produces 2 science points and 4 scientists produce 8 points which is a simple and very intuitive formula.

-choices, choices, choices - technology is divided in groups of three techs per group. you can choose only 1 technology per group, and the other 2 are lost. (you can get, maybe anytime later in the game, those lost techs per espionage and tech trades) This very elegant system allows races with a really unique profile which produces an instant ingame narrative by the inclusion of techs AND the exclusion from techs. It provides also great stategical choices in which direction you want to develope your empire.


Maybe its me but I never found this MOO2 system in another game. I hope SiS will use it, but I dont play in the sis beta, so maybe its already there.

enpi wrote:I always loved the MOO2 approach to technology which consisted of following aspects:

The SiS tech tree leans more towards a Sword of the Stars or Alpha Centauri model than MOO2 -- it's big, sprawling, and interconnected, though there are branches that you will need to choose between, the question is always what to research first, not what to use, and what to discard.

I'll admit that as a game mechanic, choosing from between a set of techs at each level of progression creates some interesting strategic choices. But from a world-building perspective, it always bothered me a bit. Why should a civilization that's mastered the ability to construct artificial worlds need to send armies of spies to steal basic industrial automation techniques from a more primitive culture? I think working with a variable set of technologies creates interesting challenges -- but, my plan has always been to introduce that kind of variability by means of special encounters -- relic worlds or diplomatic encounters that unlock branches of the tech tree that might not be accessible otherwise.

These relic worlds (and the tech possibilities that they'll unlock) aren't yet in the beta builds. But, we're certainly working towards them.

I liked the "drag population to different boxes" method of MOO2 and the "drag population to different map squares" method of Civ for specializing production. However, the primary drawback for each is the amount of micromanagement that it requires in large empires. Reducing late-game bloat has always been a high priority for Sven. Micromanagement can be mitigated with automation, but if the AI is good enough (which is a difficult programming task) at auto-specializing, then there's rarely any need to override it, and it becomes a largely empty feature. That's the other drawback; that it really doesn't offer all that much of a choice... the vast majority of the time you'll want to specialize 100% for one type of output, so all you'd end up doing most of the time is pressing one of the AI target buttons.

The current system in SIS is a bit simpler: you build different types of infrastructure on each planet to improve its efficiency at a certain type of output, and then you can change its production target (from shipbuilding to research or trade or growth) to specialize on the fly.

We intend to add some more complexity to the production model, so it's possible that the final system may incorporate more of the visual "drag population to specialize" model, but we do want to keep colony management as streamlined as possible.

enpi wrote:-choices, choices, choices - technology is divided in groups of three techs per group. you can choose only 1 technology per group, and the other 2 are lost. (you can get, maybe anytime later in the game, those lost techs per espionage and tech trades) This very elegant system allows races with a really unique profile which produces an instant ingame narrative by the inclusion of techs AND the exclusion from techs. It provides also great stategical choices in which direction you want to develope your empire.

As for the MOO research model in which the techs in the same group are mutually exclusive, I think you haven't seen it in other games for two main reasons. First, it doesn't make logical sense, and seems like a very artificial choice: why should researching Neutron Blasters make it impossible for you to later research Neutron Scanners? It seems like the reverse should be true: knowing one tech in a field should make the others easier to research, not harder. Second, because the techs are mutually exclusive, that means you're going to miss out on most of the techs, and therefore none can be critical for you to have, and that means there have to be far more technologies in each category so that you can be sure of getting the kinds of techs that you need. The technologies lose their uniqueness, and the number of them explodes. MOO2 has 9 types of beam weapons and 10 types of shields, all of which are virtually identical in function with exception of each being more powerful than the last.

Rather than having 10 technology tiers, SIS has 4, but we try to add interesting choices within each tier between weapons that are functionally different. In tier 2, for example, you have a choice between turbolasers, ion cannons and disruptors; each does comparable damage, but has different special characteristics: one is better against shields, another better against armor, and a third causes additional crew casualties. There are also non-beam alternatives in the same tier: kinetic weapons, missiles, and shorter-ranged plasma weapons. And they aren't mutually exclusive; it's probably not an effective use of your science resources to research all of the options, but there's no need to prevent the player from doing so if that's what he wants.

What about the some what randomized tree of MOO1 where you advance tech in levels to unlock various things? It was linear as well and not mutually exclusive as far as I remember


With the different weapons you have to make sure that not one is better than all the other options. In my first playthrough Disruptors were the best choice even for heavy slots for example.

rattle wrote:What about the some what randomized tree of MOO1 where you advance tech in levels to unlock various things? It was linear as well and not mutually exclusive as far as I remember

MOO1 had individual sliders for six different research categories, and techs were unlocked not by prerequisites but by a "tech level", which increased as you researched techs in that field. This meant that you could research multiple techs simultaneously, but it also meant that if you wanted to prioritize which tech you'd research next, you had to rejigger the sliders after every single completed research.



Did you prefer this to system to tech trees? Why? What was it that you liked about this system?

rattle wrote:With the different weapons you have to make sure that not one is better than all the other options. In my first playthrough Disruptors were the best choice even for heavy slots for example.

We definitely have at lot more work to do in terms of balancing the weapons and techs.

Arioch wrote:

rattle wrote:What about the some what randomized tree of MOO1 where you advance tech in levels to unlock various things? It was linear as well and not mutually exclusive as far as I remember

What about it? What was it that you liked about that system?

It's progressive, linear and random nature so that each race unlocks different things in their career and are differently effective. To the worse sometimes.

I am willing to spend more time to research toward an already finished technology. I am missed the effectiveness the research in Moo1-2 and only affected the space points.

When you finished a technology you could be improve an already finished technology for polishing for an example : If you researched the laser technology then you could research the laser tech 2 which gives you more tree options and allow to improve your weapon effectiveness in some points like damage, shield breaking, armor breaking etc.

I don't know there will be after a tier an option to improve our arsenal towards almost infinitely but I would like this option rather than throw out my cheap lasers and replace them neutron blasters.

...and I kind of liked the research screen and to mess with sliders, watching percentages and the bulbs. Personal thing. Same thing with colony development / management sliders. No build queues or buildings to manage. Build as many ships as production allows.

I think this simplicity made it so good. (IMO)


As mentioned above, in MoO2 I liked the fact that weapons have four to five miniaturization levels. When you get Plasma Cannons, Phasers are not outright useless, because they become smaller, unlock traits and by putting more on a ship their damage is increased. So it takes a while until the new weapon becomes effective, limited by the miniaturization level cap. I prefer techs that scale over time to a certain point.

Yep the miniaturization rules from MOO2 was genius. It was micromanagement to refit the ships but in a good way because I had to work out a strategy if my miniaturized mass drivers are good enough for the Bulrathi and I should skip plasma guns or not. So for me thats a wonderful real strategic choice which makes the 4x game far more interesting. IMO questions about "realism" (whatever this term means in a game where I can meet space faring dogs) should always come behind the question about interesting tactical or strategic choices.

Sziklamester wrote:I don't know there will be after a tier an option to improve our arsenal towards almost infinitely but I would like this option rather than throw out my cheap lasers and replace them neutron blasters.

There are currently separate enhancement techs for particular systems; for example, after you have researched Lasers, you can choose to research further enhancements such as Heavy or Rapid Fire modifications.

rattle wrote:...and I kind of liked the research screen and to mess with sliders, watching percentages and the bulbs. Personal thing. Same thing with colony development / management sliders. No build queues or buildings to manage. Build as many ships as production allows.

That system works in MOO1 because the fleets are aggregated into class groups, and you don't have to manage individual ships, so it's not a problem if you end up building 1000 ships. In our system, that would be a problem.

enpi wrote:Yep the miniaturization rules from MOO2 was genius. It was micromanagement to refit the ships but in a good way because I had to work out a strategy if my miniaturized mass drivers are good enough for the Bulrathi and I should skip plasma guns or not. So for me thats a wonderful real strategic choice which makes the 4x game far more interesting. IMO questions about "realism" (whatever this term means in a game where I can meet space faring dogs) should always come behind the question about interesting tactical or strategic choices.

I agree that miniaturization is a potentially interesting feature, because it may make a lower technology item that you're fond of more viable to stick with longer, offering more variation in play. But it would require you to refit your ships more often. We've talked about including a "mass refit" function which would make this less of a micromanagement hassle, and I think this would be necessary if we were to introduce a miniaturization element -- not for realism, but to reduce unnecessary micromanagement.

I am not sure but in pax imperia if I remember right there is an option to mass refit all ship to the newest version if you wish and you can refit all off your ships into themes like - colony ship with rockets - roketter ship or titan type ship with mass drivers etc.

If the weapons and modifications cost so much on weapons the miniaturization is a good tool to reduce the needs. Also I would like to see further modification variation some personal decision for example if I make laser weapons then I make heavy lasers and in heavy lasers I can decide to boost the damage or add other variation and combine them. Like rapid-heavy with shield breaking boost / fire speed boost.

Yeah I like it when things "level up", leaders, crew, technology. It was one of MoO2's strongest points.

Pax Imperia 2 had quite interesting features among the mass refit, sad that this series was never continued.

rattle wrote:Pax Imperia 2 had quite interesting features among the mass refit, sad that this series was never continued.

I never played Pax 2 -- though the original was one of the first 4X games I ever got my hands on How did the Pax 2 mass refit mechanic work?

Actually I don't remember, if it had mass refit at all. I have to install the game to see.

sven wrote:How did the Pax 2 mass refit mechanic work?

It's been a few years since I played Pax 2, but I recall that you clicked a "Refit all" button and it put all of the ships of the design you were updating into drydock at the nearest base. But I never liked their RTS model, particularly where you'd set a fleet to guard the wormhole at the edge of your territory and an enemy fleet would slip past because the fleet you had orbiting the wormhole was almost always in the wrong place to intercept anything coming through.