research

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by moomin
My main beef with research in any 4x game was that it was all know. Even in Moo, you knew what existed in the game and how useful it would be - just not if it existed as a choice in this particular game.

I'm still looking for a game where techs you are researching for will be real unknowns in every game. Moo3 won't be it, I understand.

Unfortunately, that will be the case for all the games. There aren't infinite number of techs, so over a number of games all the choices will be exhausted.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I like the idea that you can research everything. It appeals to me that the laws of physics ought to be the same for everyone.

Sure, the laws of physics are all the same, but techs are about how the laws are applied.

Originally posted by Grumbold
The difficulty lies in making a much larger pool of potential technologies to research that remain balanced and useful when a significant number of them will not be used in many games.

It's really silly to have a large number of technologies while most of them are just evolutionary improvements, not revolutionary breakthroughs.

For example, in MoO, there are just a limited categories of weapons: projectiles, energy weapons, missiles, bombs, and torpedoes. Mass Driver is just an improved version of the Neutron Pallet Gun, for example.

So, as I posted on the Civ 3 forum a long time ago, a sensible approach might include these three phases: discovery, invention, improvement.

Discovery involves finding the underlying scientific principles, so it makes sense that all the races will be able to make all the discoveries available.

Invention is making devices based on certain scientific principles. This can be made random, with what I call "signular tech" as exceptions. As an example, Atmospheric Terraforming in MoO is a singular tech, because there is no other tech that does the same or similar thing. On the other hand, if you miss Shield III, there are always Shield IV, Shield V, etc. So all races must be able to invent these singular techs.

Improvement is making devices better: smaller, more powerful, etc.

The reason why improvements should be a separate research goal is players then are forced to make diffcult decisions. For example, should I continue to spend money on conventional processors to make them faster, or should I try to invent massively parallel computers?

[Grumbold]

Thats intersting, because I would have pointed to Shields I-X and Warp Engines I-X as examples of improvements. I don't think it makes sense that a race can develop warp I and then be incapable of developing warp II or warp III before getting warp IV unless it is because they accidentally or deliberately avoided the precursor techs that would make II or III possible and those precursor techs are not needed for IV. If they don't get the opportunity to research shield II it means that there is some fundamental and permanent blind spot in their scientific knowledge.

I can't think of a single example in our history where that has happened or would be possible. Where a key technology has been undiscovered or ignored the civilisation has missed out on every further discovery in that field until confronted by a neighbour who possesses one. At that point they may be able to leap a gap and jump straight to the level their neighbour exhibits. I can think of the Egyptians adopting and improving chariots once they encountered the Hittites.

The closest I can come to your idea of missing techs is that 'Eureka' moment when someone suddenly realises that something may be possible. So perhaps researching shield III and physics III and engineering III does not automatically permit you to move to the next step and research shield IV although that is a permitted next move. Each race might have a 'eureka' threshold for each science, so a meklar might have 100% engineering aptitude, instantly seeing the next step in any engineering field. The Elerians might only have a 4% aptitude, meaning that it may take them many turns to even realise that something new could be researched in that area.

The Elerian can slowly equal the Meklar in engineering knowledge, but it is far more efficient for them to persue their own stronger fields and trade, steal or conquer to rectify their weak spots.

[Llama]

Originally posted by Grumbold
The Elerian can slowly equal the Meklar in engineering knowledge, but it is far more efficient for them to persue their own stronger fields and trade, steal or conquer to rectify their weak spots.

And that's basically what's happening (although we don't know if the racial/empire tech school aptitudes are hardcoded or random each game). The elerians would (eventually) be able to research everything the Meklars can in engineering, but it would take such a long time that it'd be far easier for them to trade/steal any important applications, which they would then be able to put in their ships/colonies immediately even if they haven't reached the required theory level to research it themselves.

Urban Ranger: That's funny, 'cause I would have described all of the eco-engineering techs like atmospheric terraforming (can't remember what the other ones were called) as improvements on the first eco tech, because they all basically do the same thing (increase the liveable area on a planet by X).

[vmxa1]

One way to see the reasonableness of skip shield IV and still getting VI, is with computers. Sometimes the next boost is just a bit faster and other times they come out with a x86 or a new architecture altogether. Tech is obtainable to other countries and they could jump in any place, or go in a new direction. Intel makes 1.7G, AMD may match it or jump past with a tweak or come out with a bigger jump by a new process and smaller chips or improved materials.
Urban, Pax2 has the concept of a research that is the fundamental knowledge that permits follow on techs.

[Mahdimael]

I definitely can see how great jumps in technology can occur. For example, say you're talking about production. Going from a hand drill to a power drill would be an incremental improvement, while moving to mass production techniques (from older industrial techniques) would be a large jump. So it happens in real life.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Me, I'm all for the idea of only researching some things after discovery or experimentation.

For an example of discovery, it appears silly that you can research barren planet colonisation/terraforming if you have never even encountered a barren planet. I say, only after you discover a new type of planet can then you then research colonisation/terraforming techniques for it. Perhaps you need to have a ship stay over the new type of planet and "scout" it for a while.

As an example of experimentation, perhaps you need to build a ship with a laser and fire it a few times before you are allowed to begin improving the laser. How can you improve something if you've never tested it?

Even further, it is perhaps only after encountering another race with a certain shield that you have never seen before that you can start to either research that shield or find a way to fire through it or start thinking about that new hull design. Perhaps you even need to capture the alien ship first.

This kind of thing would be more interesting that just abstract research that magically discovers things you have never had any experiential reality with.

[vmxa1]

One way is to observe the universe. You could have the means to detect a barren planet, with out visiting it. You could improve a laser without building a ship with one mounted. It could be tested in a lab, you could improve the laser from another field altogether. It very possible to concieve of something without ever having encountered it. It could all be done in computer modeling as we do today. We have designed theories for the universe that postulated things we could not detect or create at the time. Some we have since managed to prove.