Tech Research

[Kody]

I've been running simulations of the cooperative tech research.

Three good options.

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1. Trade information networks for industrial economics.
Industrial automation in 16-17 turns. Assuming we get planetary networks and change to any tech. We get industrial economics afterwards and then switch to Industrial automation.

Problem with this is they might not agree letting us fast track to IA without sharing with them. Also they may believe that information networks are less useful than Industrial economics.

2. Trade information networks and applied physics with drones.
Drones research planetary networks in 6-7 turns give that and industrial economics to us. We research Industrial Automation from the saved up research on planetary networks in 1-2 more turns.

Fastest way to get Industrial Automation. However, giving the applied physics means they are 1 tech away from 4-1-1, or 1-3-1. Also we definiately need to give them Industrial Automation. They will then trade industrial base or we ask them to give us flexibility when they get it.

3. Partial tech trees. Between the drones and ourselves we minimise trading to only getting the essenital techs. That will make us research faster.

For inital goals.

The drones switch to mobility and research up to Flexibility.
We get planetary networks ask the drones to give us industrial economics in exchange for planetary networks (that they start on Flexibility). Switch to Industrial Automation at reduced costs. We trade Flexibility for Industrial Automation.

We end up with both in around 16-17 turns.

Our tech costs will always be roughly 30-40% cheaper if we continue to do this, and I think we could reach air power faster than the other factions too.

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Personally I don't know what is best. It also depends largely on what the Drones decide and our stance towards them. I'm going to withhold voting until they decide.

Kody

[Googlie]

It is generally accepted in PBEMs (after MoSe/MariOne's exhaustive research) that leapfrogging is the fastest research path, and certainly much faster then parallel researching.

In leapfrogging both factions research identical techs (having traded to each other all techs they currently have) and send the new tech the turn it is researched (preaccepted), whereupon the receiving faction then switches to the new one the giving faction has changed to, repeating the process ad inf

2 problems surface - one being the so called "useless techs" (mainly the Green and the Progenitor ones) and Sunspot activity.

The latter is usually dealt with by declaring it "Pactmate Probe Season" - you e-mail a pactmate when the tech is about due, and a probe comes scurrying along to collect it (or station a probe in the pactmate's base in advance)

The former is just a fact of life - but leapfrogging lets you get through those "at some point we need to have" techs faster than otherwise for both factions.

Of course leapfrogging presupposes a strong pactual relationship with the other faction

G.

[Kody]

I would like to aim for a combination of leapfrogging and tech skipping. One of the reasons why leapfrogging works well is because of the decreased tech cost from my experiments. Tech skipping gives a more pernament decreased tech cost.

I figure leapfrogging for techs that we both want, parallel research for techs that we don't need to share straight away. I have a feeling that MoSe/MariOne's exhaustive research didn't take into account the ability to predict available techs. Having dissimilar tech trees means we can meddle with what tech options become available by trading skipped techs. In the long run skipped techs give more benifit than straight leapfrogging.

Kody

[Snowflake]

Judging from the Drone's initial reaction, history of past and their not so supreme research ability, I believe that at this stage we should just do 1 to 1 tech change. We could do leapfrogging with another faction (eg CyCon) that mutual trust is in a higher level. I would hate to give the drones two tech that are crucial to them and then they declare treaty is void.

[Kody]

Looks like opinion is fast turning away from a pact judging from posts and discussions in MSN. I guess we have to repoll on the issue.

I'm still for it for the following reasons. We want industrial automation faster, and I still think the drones will out-tech if not at least keep up with us.

However, if we are going to war at some later date. I would have to agree we want to give them as few advantages as possible.

Kody