Help! Ran out of stuff to research!!

Warlord Adamus · #1 February 11th, 2001, 12:09 AM

Not saying it wouldn't have been an interesting addition, but i'll just play devils advocate for a minute..

"I think right now, you have a problem in which an advanced tech empire runs out of decent weapons to research about 70 turns into the game..."

This is entirely dependant on what path your empire chooses. Iv'e probably played hundreds of games and Iv'e never run out of weapons research by turn 70. If you're doing that then your empire is most likely being unattended in other areas.

"Right now, at some point, research goes completely away as a part of the game. "

Not really. The fruits of that research are there until the game ends.

"nmoppa, the problem never came up that much for me in MOO/MOO2 because I always wrapped up the game before it became much of a consideration. "

Most could say this about SE4..

"A final idea would be to introduce the idea of regression. "

Very interesting in theory, but what in practice ? Can you imagine being locked in a Multi-player battle and all of the sudden your tech base randomly drops to the stone age ? That wouldn't be fair. Or in single when an AI player is afflicted with the same problem. A human player would destroy that player before he could ever recover.

"Once you run out of stuff that you *want* to research or once you have *actually* researched everything, then you just have tons and tons of facilities lying around useless. "

This is why there is now a "scrap facility type" button. Not a perfect solution I know, but all of the sudden the build space your empire occupies is doubled. While you won't research a Superdreadnought, you can now build a whole lot more of them with the facility space freed up. I guess it's a glass is half empty vs. half full kinda thing.

Lloyd Heilbrunn · #2 February 11th, 2001, 12:17 AM

Speaking of research, anybody else like to see an option to start the game somewhere between the current medium and high tech?? So you get to the good stuff sooner or in a shorter game, but are not maxed out so no research is used at all?

klausD · #3 February 11th, 2001, 12:33 AM

I think its quite easy to circumvent the "research" problem.
Fact is: there are several sizes of the universe (from tiny to huge, 255 systems)fact is: the sum of research points costs is the same for every single size of the universe. This is IMO the problem.

Solution: MM has to introduce a tech cost "multiplier" which is choosen either automatically by the game and/or which you can adjust manually at the begin of the game.

some examples:
-you play a game in a medium universe. The game sets the research point multiplier to "x1" which means that the point cost is the same as it is now.

If you are playing in a 255 system universe the game assume a RP-Multiplier of "x5" for example, which means that every tech costs 5 times the amount of now.

Of course you should able to edit every multiplier in x0,1 steps manually if you want to adjust your games.

Such a system would also help in special scenarios in which techs have a limited or more important role. (ok, the scenario generator ... a long way)

by
klausD

raynor · #4 February 11th, 2001, 01:21 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Warlord Adamus:
"I think right now, you have a problem in which an advanced tech empire runs out of decent weapons to research about 70 turns into the game..."

This is entirely dependant on what path your empire chooses. Iv'e probably played hundreds of games and Iv'e never run out of weapons research by turn 70. If you're doing that then your empire is most likely being unattended in other areas.

Ahhh... go back and read what I said. I didn't say I ran out of weapons to research. Rather, I said that I ran out of 'decent' weapons to research. I'm one of those crazy PPB-loving fools who stops researching weapons after I get PPB V's.

If I had money, I'd offer a reward to the person who could design a ship using any other weapon in the game and match it up against the PPB V. (I'm talking my PPB V ship vs. an AI ship, of course. I'm sure a careful human player could make even a lousy weapon like the WMG III seem okay.)

raynor · #5 February 11th, 2001, 01:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Warlord Adamus:
"Right now, at some point, research goes completely away as a part of the game. "

Not really. The fruits of that research are there until the game ends.

Good point. You don't lose the fruits of the research. But you do lose the fruits of buiding lots and lots of research facilities.

I think my main complaint is twofold. First, the empire who heavily invests in research facilities is strongly penalized at a certain point in the game when s/he runs completely out of new tech to research. Second, this player is even more strongly penalized because s/he now has tons and tons of useless facilities lying around. Compare this to a player who builds only Intelligence facilities. These facilities have value from the start of the game to the end of the game.

Instar · #6 February 11th, 2001, 01:46 AM

What CivII did was you could reseach just to get score points.

Warlord Adamus · #7 February 11th, 2001, 02:01 AM

"Ahhh... go back and read what I said. I didn't say I ran out of weapons to research. Rather, I said that I ran out of 'decent' weapons to research. "

Thanks but I read it right the first time. Any weapon can be used effectively (except maybe the wormhole beam) if applied right. Besides, you can expect to see PPB changed eventually. Decent is subjective. If you researched through PPB and you consider it the only decent weapon then what's the solution, adding 10 more levels, copying MOO's miniaturization idea ? No, thanks.

"Good point. You don't lose the fruits of the research. But you do lose the fruits of buiding lots and lots of research facilities."

And those fruits would be ? Umm, the fruits of the research facilities ARE the techs that are derived from them, not the facilities themselves.

"I think my main complaint is twofold. First, the empire who heavily invests in research facilities is strongly penalized at a certain point in the game when s/he runs completely out of new tech to research. Second, this player is even more strongly penalized because s/he now has tons and tons of useless facilities lying around. Compare this to a player who builds only Intelligence facilities. These facilities have value from the start of the game to the end of the game."

He's not penalized, in most cases he has already out-teched everyone at the point that he no longer has anything to research. At that point he can scrap them by type with the press of a single button, so there are infact no useless facilities lying around, ever. Comparing it to intelligence isn't a good comparison, they have different outputs. And as I said, if the tech is already researched then 'research' is also effective from the beginning to the end, considering you use that tech on your ships.