~Academician Voltaire for Director of Science~

[Method]

^bump^

[Lemmy]

Question for both candidates:
Assuming we meet no other factions for 30 turns, and our home base is on the coast (which i think is default, but not sure), and the land is pretty normal (no jungle/craters etc..) what would be your first 5 techs to research?

[Crisler]

I would like to ask a questrion on the order you choice. Doctrone of mobility allow for us to rapidly explore and thus expand the area around our colony. Should it not be a near top priority early on?

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

[Method]

centauri ecology, social psych, secrets of the human brain, ethical calculus, information networks OR industrial base.

Doctrine Mobility or applied physics if one is not available. (that happens sometimes)

[Lemmy]

why the secrets?
wouldn't someone else discover them first?
And why not one explore tech?

[Method]

no, as the peacekeepers, we start with 1 prerequisite already.

look again, i have 2 explore techs there (though not in the sense you mean)

[Lemmy]

yes, but the University got that research advantage, and they got one tech for free

[Method]

well we'll have polls i guess.

[Voltaire]

Well I’ve been away for a while, and it looks as though everyone has been busy.

Assuming we meet no other factions for 30 turns, and our home base is on the coast (which i think is default, but not sure), and the land is pretty normal (no jungle/craters etc..) what would be your first 5 techs to research?

Centauri Ecology (E1); it gives us access to Formers as early thus allowing for the exploitation of the resources available to us to their full extent, also it makes the important Secret Project of the Weather Paradigm available for construction (it also opens the doors of research towards Ecological Engineering (E4) and Centauri Empathy (E3) later on);

Social Psych (B1); the reason for researching this next is to allow research of Secrets of the Human Brain (D2), it also allows for research towards Ethical Calculus (E2) which gives us the SE choice of Democracy, as well as Doctine: Loyalty (C2) which would give us the Command Nexus secret project alongside allowing for research towards Intellectual Integrity (E3);

Secrets of the Human Brain (D2); if discovered first it gives us a free technology alongside itself, as well as allowing for the Fundamentalist SE choice, and allowing for research towards Centauri Empathy (E3) (giving us the ability to build the Empath Guild);

Ethical Calculus (E2) (which would be received free due to the discovery of Secrets of the Human Brain (D2), assuming we get it first, though that is what this research path is intended to ensure); allows for the Democracy SE choice, also allowing research towards Gene Splicing (B3) and Intellectual Integrity (E3) (I do consider this to be a free tech so I will not count it among the 1st we that are actually researched);

Industrial Base (B1) seeing as it gives us Synthmetal Armor (2), as well as opening the doors to research in Superconductors (C4), High Energy Chemistry (C2), Polymorphic Software (D2), & Industrial Economics (B2);

And lastly Informatio Networks (D1) giving us the all important Network Nodes, as well as allowing for research into Planetary Networks (D2) (allowing the construction of the Virtual World), Polymorphic Software (D2), & Nonlinear Mathematics (C2).

I would like to ask a questrion on the order you choice. Doctrone of mobility allow for us to rapidly explore and thus expand the area around our colony. Should it not be a near top priority early on?

Doctrine: Mobility (E1) is rather important, but there are a number of early technologies which I would consider more crucial than Doctrine: Mobility (E1); though seeing as it does eventually enable research in Doctrine: Initiative (E5) and Doctrine: Air Power (E5) (the later allowing for Orbital Spaceflight (E7)) though Doctrine: Flexibility (E2) I would consider researching it after the initial 5 (6 if you count the free-tech).

This is all pending of course input from the various directories as well as the people.

[Zakharov VII]

What would you, as Director of Research, do if we did NOT get Secrets first? I don't know how good/how cheating the AI is on Thinker, but it definately seems a possibility. For example, getting two research pods (Industrial Base and Applied Physics then) would slow us down considerably at these early techs, though it would please some other directors. In any case, there are a number of things that could go wrong.

So, say you're halfway through researching Secrets (maybe, 6 turns left) and you get a message "University (most likely) has discovered Secrets!". What do you do? Change to a different tech, or finish up Secrets to avoid inefficiency? Would this change any plans on what to research next?

Anothing question (perhaps not totally for D of R)...why is Ethical Calculus such an important priority? Gene Splicing/Intellectual Integrity will probably not be reached until after going toward Automation (at least, I assume that is an important goal?), and with expansion at such a high priority, Democracy's growth seems meaningless with bases' colony pod production usually limited by the minerals, and the efficiency is rather pointless with little energy production. Children's Creches don't seem to be such a high priority to put expansion on hold...so why get Ethical Calculus so early?

Z

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by Zakharov VII
What would you, as Director of Research, do if we did NOT get Secrets first? I don't know how good/how cheating the AI is on Thinker, but it definately seems a possibility. For example, getting two research pods (Industrial Base and Applied Physics then) would slow us down considerably at these early techs, though it would please some other directors. In any case, there are a number of things that could go wrong.

So, say you're halfway through researching Secrets (maybe, 6 turns left) and you get a message "University (most likely) has discovered Secrets!". What do you do? Change to a different tech, or finish up Secrets to avoid inefficiency? Would this change any plans on what to research next?

Anothing question (perhaps not totally for D of R)...why is Ethical Calculus such an important priority? Gene Splicing/Intellectual Integrity will probably not be reached until after going toward Automation (at least, I assume that is an important goal?), and with expansion at such a high priority, Democracy's growth seems meaningless with bases' colony pod production usually limited by the minerals, and the efficiency is rather pointless with little energy production. Children's Creches don't seem to be such a high priority to put expansion on hold...so why get Ethical Calculus so early?

Z

True, there are a number of things that could go wrong. To increase our changes of getting it first perhaps it would be better to research Social Psych (B1) first and then followed directly by Secrets of the Human Brain (D2). In which case to compensate for not researching Centauri Ecology (E1) it can be acquired as the free-tech that would come with Secrets of the Human Brain (D2). This would reduce the risk of another faction discovering the secret before we do.

True, there are a number of things that could go wrong. To increase our changes of getting it first perhaps it would be better to research Social Psych (B1) first and then followed directly by Secrets of the Human Brain (D2). In which case to compensate for not researching Centauri Ecology (E1) it can be acquired as the free-tech that would come with Secrets of the Human Brain (D2). This would reduce the risk of another faction discovering the secret before we do.

In that case the continuation of research towards Secrets of the Human Brain (D2) would still be justified since it does allow for later research into Centauri Empathy (E3). And yes it would change the overall research path. Ethical Calculus (E2) would be pushed back seeing as the only reason I included it in the list was because I considered that it could be acquired through Secrets of the Human Brain (D2) thus avoiding researching it ourselves and we would be able to concentrate on more important goals.

As for Ethical Calculus (E2), it isn’t such an important priority, as I explained above if all things proceeded as planned it would be acquired through Secrets of the Human Brain (D2) to avoid having to research it ourselves and we could concentrate our research on something more important. But as you yourself stated it is a gamble if we will get Secrets (D2) at all and therefore my backup proposal reduces the risk but Ethical Calculus (E2) isn’t included on that research seeing as the free-tech would be used to acquire Centauri Ecology (E1).

Of course the initial proposal once again is pending input form the people and directors and therefore changes are bound to be made to it and certain new research priorities might be set that supersede what I have proposed.

[Maniac]

I agree with Zakharov. You shouldn't count on Secrets of the Human Brain unless we would land right next to a river or energy bonus.

[Crisler]

I am curious why the delay to get Mobility. With the plan I have seen outlined we could be 100 years into this before we have anything more mobile that foot soilders. This means we cannot effectively survey the surrounding area dnwe could there by lose out on a number of pods which could also provide free technology.

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by Crisler
I am curious why the delay to get Mobility. With the plan I have seen outlined we could be 100 years into this before we have anything more mobile that foot soilders. This means we cannot effectively survey the surrounding area dnwe could there by lose out on a number of pods which could also provide free technology.

E.L. Crisler
First Commissioner

Well in that case perhaps we could implement my second proposal for getting Secrets of the Human Brain and get Doctrine: Mobility as the free-tech.

[Method]

Originally posted by Voltaire
Doctrine: Initiative (E5)...Orbital Spaceflight (E7))

Doc: Init is E4, orbital spaceflight is D6

it seems we agree on the early research path too

as for ethical calculus, we get democracy and creches. democracy is needed to offset the -2 efficiency of planned (which most people intend to run early on) and creches are important for the effic and morale bonus (if in wealth (and i know it only counts in the base so don't bother pointing that out )). pre requisite for gene splicing which:

• removes the 2 nutrient/tile cap
• leads to synthetic fossil fuels
• leads to ecological engineering (removing the 2 mineral/tile cap).

if we did not get secrets, i'd just keep going, because centauri empathy is important for the empath guild. if somehow, someone got it before we started researching it, or we were 1 turn in, i'd just skip it.

so without the secrets, its:[list=1][*]centauri ecology[*]social psych[*]industrial base OR information networks[*]industrial base OR information networks (polls decide)[*]planetary networks OR industrial economics[/list=1]
assuming none of those are available at any given time (for some reason), doctrine: mobility.