Tech cost

[joer]

Does anybody know what the cost of researching the next tech is based upon?
I know it depends on how many other techs you already know, but it seems there are other factors that are unknown to me.

Reason of complaint? In my current game, I was one tech behind the other human player. My tech cost was 48, his was 92. I researched that tech, so we were both at 6 techs. My cost for the next tech is now 212, while his is still 92! This means an increase of over 300%, which will take me over 50 years at my current research level. I feel seriously screwed, since I can only hope to expand like mad to eventually make it, or hope to find some stupid AI trading partners. However, my research program is right now completely stalled. And this is only a level 1 technology.

So what's up with that? I know that Network nodes and SE Research bonuses calculate directly into the tech per turn, so it shouldn't affect the tech cost.
What could be the other factors? Does it matter if you have a tech lead or not? If you're the biggest on the power chart? What tech you are researching? If somebody else has got that tech already?
Anybody out there who's got a clue?
-joer.

[joer]

Ok, so I am the first person replying to my own post. So what?

I just cycled through a few turns of my own hotseat game. After seeing that the UoP had a much lower tech cost at the same tech level than all other factions, Icame up with a theory:
Is it possible that trading techs (or possibly even gaining techs from other factions in general) increases your tech cost much more than researching the same tech yourself does?
It seemed to me that way, but I would like to hear somebody else's experiences on this.
-joer.

[Basil]

There's two things that I'm aware of.

First, according to the Official Strategy Guide, the research costs do depend on your faction's research setting as well as everything else. So the University needs to pay fewer research points in addition to their 20% bonus. This adjustment to the research cost apparently becomes smaller as the game goes on.

Secondly, I've noticed that the research cost is not recalculated when a faction obtains tech by trade. So if you had 4 techs when you started researching, and have since traded for two more, your cost is still as if you only had 4 techs. As far as I know, when you finish researching your next tech's cost depends on how many techs you have and not how you got them, but I am just guessing there.

According to the Guide, the main factors in research cost are the difficulty of the game, the number of techs you already have (more increases the cost of the next tech), the number of turns into the game (reduces the cost of the next tech), how far ahead of you the tech leader is (decreases the cost of your next tech), and the size of the world.

[RoadRash]

I've noticed that, at the beginning, tech costs start very low, then dramatically increase. This is how tech costs go from 100's to 1000's.
And it's true that your tech cost is based on your total techs. It doesn't matter how you got the techs. Many times I've noticed my research drag after I traded techs with my neighbors.

[joer]

Basil:
Thanks, that helps quite a bit, and makes me understand some things. So how is the tech cost deduction of each faction calculated? Is it based on the research rating of the faction only? Does that mean that the Drones have an abysmally higher tech cost (in addition to 20% deduction)? What about self-designed factions, or the CC? That undocumented feature would make the UoP (especially at lower difficulty levels) much stronger than I thought.

Where did you get that official strategy guide? Is it possible to get it online?

RoadRash: Did you read my initial post? I was having the same number of techs as the UoP in a multiplayer (I play PK), yet his tech cost was less than half as low.

I would really like to see the official formula for calculating the tech cost. And I still think that 212 is horrible for researching the your seventh tech on huge Librarian map.
-joer.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Joer,

This is the way I believe it works or at least is supposed to.

Research rating of +2 for UoP or CC will reduce the amount of lab points required to gain a given tech by 20% conversely Drones and Believers with tech penalty -2 require 20% more lab points to gain the same given tech, both vs a player that has a nuetral research rating. So say for example all things equal the next tech is figured to cost 100 for a research (ie. research rating = 0 )nuetral faction if that player were UoP he would have to pay but 80 lab points while beleivers/drones would pay 120 lab points.

Nodes multiply energy allocated to labs after inefficiency (and lab specialist equivalent energy w/o efficiecny loss) by 50%.

Therefore given the same amount of energy in the beginning game a UoP faction with free nodes gains a whopping 50% bonus to lab output from the nodes and has to only achieve 80% of the required lab points to gain the next tech.

Again using the same example say 20 energy goes to labs after efficiency loss a nuetral player needs 100 lab points and would take 5 turns to achieve a tech. UoP would have 20 lab allocated energy *1.5 or 30 and would require only 80 lab points to achieve next tech and it would take 2.666 turns while the Drones/Believers would bring 20 lab points in and need 120 lab points or 6 turns until next tech breakthrough.

I am puzzled as to how the required lab points required though were almost double what the UoP player needed. Perhaps the UoP player traded some techs during the time he was working on tech number 6. I don't think the game recalculates the amount of lab points required if you gain other techs while researching a given tech. I think the calcualtion is done upon completing research and then researching a new tech.

If this is true (big if) then when considering tech trades it almost always behooves you to trade for a tech that you are not working on. If you trade for the tech you are currently researching then I would assume the game will recalculate lab points required and it will be a higher than the previous tech while if you trade for other techs you still research the tech you are working on at a lower lab point requirement.

I do know th following affects amount of lab points required. Number of techs you have, world size, research rating (a multiple of 10% per research rating point), tech stag, difficulty level, whether you are AI or human (AI gets a bonus on more difficult levels). I've seen the formula before either in these forums or in the datalinks but for the life of me can't remember the details.

[Sikander]

I think the game generates a cost for next researched tech variable, and goes with that until it is researched. In games where I have built the Empath Guild, I see this happen all of the time. I am working on a tech, which comes in 4 turns. Then I contact enemy factions and start horsetrading techs. I come away with a lot of tech, but my research objective is still the old tech in 4 turns rate. Then on the last tech haggle, a faction offers me only the tech that I am researching. I accept the tech, and am awarded a new choice for tech. When I check the research rate on the new tech, I find that all of the labs accumulated by the old tech have applied to the new one, and the new tech costs the same as the old one did. When I have finished researching the tech, my tech rate is readjusted to fit the higher number of techs I possess. If I am not imagining things, or otherwise mistaken, then trading for the tech you are working on confers the same advantages as other tech trades.

[joer]

Thanks for all the help and input
Checking the whole slew out once more in a hotseat game against myself, I came to very strange results.

First off, the research bonus is automatically added to the lab output in each round. So if all your bases have an accumulated output of 5 lab points (including that of network nodes), a +2 research yields 6 lab points per round.

However, in addition to that, factions with a research bonus get a much much lower tech cost at the start.
The CC and UoP have the same tech cost with two techs as the normal factions with one. And Domai has doubled(!) tech cost with one starting tech. As the game progresses, there always seems to be a significant price advantage for research bonus factions when they are at the same tech level as 'normal' factions.

Both Aki and Zak need 36 research points to research their next tech after they have researched 5 techs already. Dee and Lal need 54 research points for the next after their fourth tech.
And I have sometimes seen the numbers change after trading a new tech in the middle of the research, sometimes not. I could not find a pattern in it.

Also, Domai accumulated 0 research points after the first 8 years or so, even if the game tells me he's supposed to get a few every turn (base lab output * 0.8).

Curiouser and curiouser...
(Librarian difficulty level, map of Planet)

Ogie: Right now, in the mp game, UoP's player is 3 techs in front of me (ouch!) and his tech cost is at 160-something, while mine is at 212. And he still gets 20% added to whatever his labs produce. Baaaah!

-joer.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Re; the Domai no research for some initial period.

I believe the -2 research inherent factional penalty is in some way hard coded. Miriam is prevented from researching anything for the first (20?) years and I beleive the same holds true for Drones.

Curiouser and curiouser the effects you describe regarding lab points required.

[Tau Ceti]

If you trade techs before you have made your very first breakthrough in that game, your tech cost will be recalculated immediately. Otherwise, it waits until you finish your current research as described by several posters above.

joer: Domai will not accumulate any research points for the first 10 years, just like Miriam. That is in fact a feature of having a negative research rating - you do not get any lab points for the first 5 * (negative research rating) years.

[joer]

Thanks, Tau Ceti.
Both statements fit with my own experience. Very helpful.

Now...it would be even more helpful if they were documented somewhere, so they're accessible to folks who don't read these forums for at least a month.

I know that Miri's lack of start research is documented in the manual, but Domai's is not (at least not in the German version).

And the lower cost for factions with higher research is documented nowhere as well. I've seen once again how big of a difference that makes in the last ip game: On librarian level, UoP simply kicks butt.

One of the reasons I like AC/X much better than Civ:CTP is that the documentation (especially for strategic stuff like SE/gov settings) is so much more precise. However, there seems to be a certain point where it's guesswork, asking more experienced players or fiddling it out in endless trial-and-error sessions.
Grummel.
-joer.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Joer,

Members over at ACOL are having a similar discussion. Folks over there know there stuff by and large. Check out what Aredhran and Dilithium Dad have to say on the subject.

HTML impaired so I don't know how to make a link but address is:
http://www.an.i-dentity.com/ubbcgi/U...i?action=intro

Well what do you know it did it on its own


[This message has been edited by Ogie Oglethorpe (edited May 10, 2000).]

[joer]

Funny, before I read your post, I stumbled accidentaly over that site and the same topic (this Forum was down, and I'm addicted, ya know? ).
Anyways, MtG confirmed my suspicions about wildly varying tech costs at the same tech level and Zak's additional bonus through lower prices.

Man...they couldn't overpower him more, could they?
Thank you for the pointer, Ogie. I appreciate it.
-joer.

[Velociryx]

My own game experiences match what Og described. And I know for a fact that the costs for research are only calculated once, so if you trade techs during the course of the research, the added cost will not be applied until you complete your research (and even if you trade for the tech you're currently researching, the program will let you pick again, carry your points over, and still not recalc. til you research *that* one). But, when you get your tech, it'll look at the total number of techs you have, and treat it as though you researched them all, calculating your research rate on that. As to how the specific numbers are arrived at, I know there's a system behind it, because the costs are pretty consistent, but I have no idea what the math might look like.

-=Vel=-

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Sik/Vel,

Thanks for straightening out the trade of tech currently worked on. So in essence one can then clearly trade with impunity and not necessarily pay a penalty even if it means you trade for a tech currently being researched. COOOL!!!

Obviously future techs will be more expensive but I'll take a bunch of free techs ASAP.