About that blind research prediction tool!

[Dis]

I'm not sure if I buy that in modern (and of course future) times.

We have scientists working on the cure for cancer. They aren't going to come up with something else. Granted, there have been times discoveries have been made when researching for something else. But the fact is we are directing our reserach right now. In 2005.

I don't play with blind research on. I don't like it.

[binTravkin]

Well, yeah they're researhing cure.

But do they now what will the cure be?
At the late stages of research they could know that the cure will be e.g. "a substance consisting of materials X, Y, Z in certain, but yet unknown proportions" or something like that.
But when they started the research, did they know it?
And did they know what path the cure will take?

Maybe the cure will be some ill-cell killing virus (which is rather believable) which in a occasion will mutate in the T-Virus or something (if you get the reference), therefore they will end up having retroviral engineering not as peaceful, but military tech enabling genetic warfare..

In the short term you know what you're researching, but you can't say what the entire research of e.g. US military labs will come up to..

Research consists of discoveries and whether they're small or big - decides: is the research a monotone, step by step motion to desired goal, or an unexpected invention.
20 years ago, it was hard to guess that today we will have 4GHz CPUs and Quantum computers waiting just out there, on the doorsteps.

That's the difference. You live now, you know what's going on now, but 10 years ago - did you knew?

In SMACX time advances by years and usually research time is something between 5-15 years. It is not so easy to predict such results as to say "when playing UNI I can have IA around 2115" or even more "when playing Believers I usually get to IA only in 2140's".

Do you remember anyone saying that "in 20 years we will have 4GHz CPUs" and all the people believing that it's possible?

[Mr. Harley]

You can also have the amazing result of finding out that what you are looking for isn't possible. To take cancer, they have now discovered "cancer" is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases, which can be viral, environmental, or genetic. In addition some of the genetic diseases are not a result of a simple "mutation", as in a change in the DNA sequence, but are actually an alteration in the number of times a gene is replicated, in seqence, on the chromosone.

In addition we are discovering that while all of these cancers are caused by some sort of underlying problem in the cells genetic structure, the actual way in which cancers work can vary wildly. Even worse is the fact that they are discovering that in some cancers not only are there mutilple cell types, only specific ones can metastisize, i.e. spread the cancer.

They do it different ways, and they are now finding ways to test for what cellular metabolic/enzymatic pathway is bollixed up, determine which one applies to your cancer, and choose a drug that that targets that specific mechanism. They also are making sure they now not only shrink the cancer, but get the metastisizing cells (which are very similar to stem cells, and it was that research which helped with this discovery) specifically.

So now we know that the directed research goal, curing cancer per se is not possible. We have discovered Advanced Cellular Metabolism, Intermediate Viral Effects, and Intermediate Genetic Coding. That is the point of Blind Research. You choose an area to focus research and then you make discoveries that are not quite what you planned.

It's sort of like Eisnstein and Heisenberg. At that time the focus was Physics, but they came out with wildly different results. One led to the Atom Bomb, the other to computers (to oversimplify). That again is the point of Blind Research.

[Dis]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Well, yeah they're researhing cure.

But do they now what will the cure be?
At the late stages of research they could know that the cure will be e.g. "a substance consisting of materials X, Y, Z in certain, but yet unknown proportions" or something like that.
But when they started the research, did they know it?
And did they know what path the cure will take?

Maybe the cure will be some ill-cell killing virus (which is rather believable) which in a occasion will mutate in the T-Virus or something (if you get the reference), therefore they will end up having retroviral engineering not as peaceful, but military tech enabling genetic warfare..

In the short term you know what you're researching, but you can't say what the entire research of e.g. US military labs will come up to..

Research consists of discoveries and whether they're small or big - decides: is the research a monotone, step by step motion to desired goal, or an unexpected invention.
20 years ago, it was hard to guess that today we will have 4GHz CPUs and Quantum computers waiting just out there, on the doorsteps.

That's the difference. You live now, you know what's going on now, but 10 years ago - did you knew?

In SMACX time advances by years and usually research time is something between 5-15 years. It is not so easy to predict such results as to say "when playing UNI I can have IA around 2115" or even more "when playing Believers I usually get to IA only in 2140's".

Do you remember anyone saying that "in 20 years we will have 4GHz CPUs" and all the people believing that it's possible?

It was not hard to predict we would have 4 gig processors out there. Especially by those in the computer industry.

This is my point. They were researching that very same thing! They set out a goal, and they achieved it. They weren't researching "discover" and just happened to develop a 4 ghz processor. They had a specific goal to develop faster and faster processors.

[binTravkin]

yep. they had a goal, they knew what they're doing, but they never knew what solutions they'd develop for that

Did you notice my remark that 20 yrs ago noone knew there will be 4Ghz CPUs now?

I think it's quite true as I've been reading people saying "who'd knew it'd turn out this way" And not simple people, but scientists.

Also read shawns post.

And remember that if all things where researched like - we now want that, we research that we get that in X years, we would be living among the stars right now.
Pretty much researches had gone awry due to lack of choice to predict the results and pretty much things have been researched suddenly, experimenting on some crazy ideas..

[Mr. Harley]

Dissident, you are confusing research with engineering. If you had asked someone in the early days of eletronic computing, let's say through the 1960's, to predict the microprocessor, then only a few visionaries would have. I can almost guarantee you that modern hard drive technology, with both highly predictive, advanced statistical algorithms - for reading the densely packed info - and essentially what has become applied Quantum mechanics, were nowhere on anyone's radar.

Once the microprocessor was invented, it has become a matter of engineering, and programming (modern processors are not designed by hand). Understand, it takes many years, often several decades, for a new technology to become mature, i.e. fully engineered, close to potential, and seeing widespread use. The silicon microprocessor is now approaching this.

They have discovered that upping the speed of a microprocessor now doesn't make that much of a difference in processing power. Instead they are going to dual core technologies that generate less heat. That's a pretty good indication we have reached a mature industry. Ditto for the fact the microprocessors are now often sold on a comodity pricing and scale system, rather than who has the best technology.

Optical computers? We are in the baby stages right now, we haven't even finished researching the basics yet. Which may be a case in point for blind research. We have had Physics and computing as a primary research goal, and with the full development of Advanced Silicon Computing, as it were, we are now starting on the next step. Of course you could argue against the categories of blind research, but that is nitpicking. The concept is sound, it just isn't as fun for those of us who want a more controled game. It's like arguing blonds versus brunettes. Nobody's right, it's just a matter of taste. And then there's always Ted Stryker.

[Kody]

"talking about that advanced formula, but as I understood it was never fully formulated, there were just sightings and guessings.."

In my opinion all the little quirks of the formula have been figured out. Including the joker tech and tech trading flag. Minute Mirage was saying that he couldn't figure out some strange happenings with the university starting techs in one of his PBEMs. So he said that might be something that hasn't been figured out. Other than that I'm unaware of other cases where the formula doesn't work.

The formula can be found in the tech choices spreadsheet that Minute Mirage made. I think Illuminatus gave you the download at the start of the thread. The tricky part in using the spreadsheet is remembering that way the CMN sets up the game can change the starting techs by inadvertently setting the trade tech flag.

[Ka Plewy]

Is the starting tech in a normal game considered acquired or researched?

[Kody]

Starting tech doesn't set the tech trade flag unless the CMN does something to accidently set it. For research cost calculations the starting tech doesn't count. For research availablility calculations the number of starting techs are removed from the calculations. That means it adjusts the formula to compensate for faction startings techs, but if the starting techs are edited the editing isn't compensated for.

In the spreadsheet you'll need to set starting techs for the faction you are using.

[Ka Plewy]

No, I asked about research/acquire, not setting the trading option on the spreadsheet.
I imagine acquiring tech happens 3 different ways, trading, popping, and linking an AA. So, when I've been getting tech by means other than trading, before I've traded, I "acquire" it.
Also, I can't find where to set the starting techs, only the # of starting techs. Any clues here? Or is there a howto that explains more?
Thanks!

[Archaic]

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but it seems more appropriate to post this here than make a new thread.

Does anyone have a copy of this sheet, or might be willing to help make one, that's compatible with OpenOffice? I can open the spreadsheet fine in OpenOffice Calc in the latest beta version, but the scripting just refuses to work.

[Senethro]

And does anyone have that forumula for determining what techs you can choose to research when playing directed research? Whenever I choose Cent Eco it seems to remove Ind Base from my choices next time.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Senethro
And does anyone have that forumula for determining what techs you can choose to research when playing directed research?

That's what the tool posted in this thread is all about - see second post by Illuminatus.

[binTravkin]

Does anyone have a copy of this sheet, or might be willing to help make one, that's compatible with OpenOffice? I can open the spreadsheet fine in OpenOffice Calc in the latest beta version, but the scripting just refuses to work.

I've both MS Office and OpenOffice but I'm not sure what should I do to convert the file..

[johndmuller]

As for converting the spreadsheet, I don't know whether that is reasonably do-able or not - it is a moderately complicated spreadsheet and seems to be a bit on the fancy side w/r layout and so forth, so it is probably tough to convert.

OTOH, (and most of you probably know this already) the basic principle is that the techs are broken up into 3 groups - (A) #s 1,4,7,10, ...; (B) #s 2,5,8,11,...; and (C) #s 3,6,9,12,... - as they are listed in the #TECHNOLOGY in Alpha(x).txt. The general rule is that each time you are offered a tech choice, the techs from one group will not be offered; the groups rotating A,B,C among themselves once each time you add a tech. Notwithstanding that general rule, the so-called 'joker' will be offered even if it is in the hot group - IIRC, the joker is the tech you are eligble to research that is closest to the top of the table. Nearly all of MM's spreadsheet involves setting up the initial conditions, which involve your faction, the number of starting techs, whether you have traded techs or not and perhaps some other stuff.

Once you are well into the game, all you have to know is what group was the hot group last time and you can figure out what will be withheld with just a table of the techs, broken down into the three subgroups. Of course, the spreadsheet makes it easier to do, but if you have a bunch of pbems going, it is still a PIA to keep track of what you've been doing and to keep a copy of the spreadsheet up to date for the techs you have in that particular game. I find that it is most useful up until the early mid-game, like getting to IndAuto and/or Doc:AP, etc. Once you are getting techs in only a couple of turns, and especially if you have a trading partner who can give you an extra tech occasionally to let you rechoose, once you get there, the PIA factor seems too high for just saving a turn every now or then.

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As for the blind research, it hasn't really been nailed down, AKAIK, although something along the lines mentioned above by binTravkin is likely the mechanism. I wouldn't think the game goes very deep into the tree (in fact I would guess it only looks at the very first level of techs you can get, rather than going into their successors), as the game's algorithms do not generally get that complicated.

I've only played 1 PBEM with blind research, and it is still going on - into 2269 - and while we have had planes for a while, choppers and drop units have been delayed considerably. I think my problem has been with NeuralGraftilng, which I have been trying to get for 5 or 10 cycles now. It has parameters of 3,1,1,1 and that seems to be problematic. Among other techs which were not NG, I've gotten UnifiedField & PhotonWave with only conquer, and NanoMin & AdvEcoEng & MonoMags when I had both build and conquer going and AdvSpaceFlight with discover also. Apparently, one has to be tenacious and very singleminded to get this one.