Hi everyone! After a short break during the holidays we’re back on to releasing more dev diaries for Project Space Sector! This time we propose to discuss Research. Motivation and Rationale We believe that a solid tech system is the backbone of a good 4X game. The number of technologies available in the game, the order at which they are picked and the pace at which they are unlocked are all crucial factors for a fun and fluid 4X gaming experience. So, above all, we want the research system to offer a lot of choices, but also to be clear, easy to use and offer some surprises! The Tech Tree Technologies are organized into contexual fields of study. These fields can be considered different branches on a single tech tree. For example, a tech that unlocks a weapon will be found within the "Weapons" research field, while a building that influences the economy will belong to the "Economics" field. The tech fields are (subject to change): Weapons, Defenses, Propulsion, Economics, Planetary Engineering and Construction. Techs are organized into levels, usually with 2 to 4 techs each. To research techs in the next level, the player must first unlock at least one tech from the level before. The level of a given technology may vary slightly from game to game. The tech tree is randomly generated from game to game and even between races within a particular game. So, different races will have different techs in each game. The frequency at which certain techs appear will vary. Certain key techs (a significant amount) will always be present. Other important techs will appear quite often, but some techs will appear far less often. This system aims to increase replayability and enjoyment without introducing frustration due to the lack of a key progression tech. The game will allow players the option to hide or reveal what their future tech choices will be, from no future techs shown (player sees only the techs they can research at the moment), to a restricted amount of levels ahead they may see, or to seeing the entire tech tree. This would be configurable at game start. To make the tech tree even more interesting from a strategic standpoint, the game will present four big research decisions (or paths) to the player throughout the game, linked to when the game’s strategic resources are revealed. These will be major decisions, almost like different choices for a particular era, that will have a significant effect on how the game is played. Acquiring New Techs Each tech will unlock a single achievement, ability, building or gameplay feature. While many techs will be available through standard research, there will also be exotic super techs that can only be found while exploring ancient ruins and possibly on an unique world. Artifacts can be found while exploring ancient ruins that can provide a number of benefits to research among other things. Leaders can enhance the speed in which techs are acquired in a few ways. Some can provide an early breakthrough chance. Also, as suggested by our community, some leaders will be able to unlock new techs and/or provide certain “blueprints”, to boost certain techs’ research. In addition to research, techs can also be obtained in a number of alternative and non standard ways. They can be traded via diplomacy (with limitations), obtained while invading a rival’s world, stolen through espionage, or even snatched while boarding and salvaging an enemy ship. Where we are now Everything is already implemented to a good degree apart from the artifacts, the leader blueprints and the acquiring of techs via invasion and espionage, pending on ground combat and espionage mechanics further definition and implementation. Now please let us know your impressions, as for what your ideas and suggestions for improvement may be Thank you all!
So will artifacts be applied to field or specific tech and what is to keep an artifact (if applied to a specific tech) from becoming non applicable if we did not choose that tree?
Quite solid reasoning and well thought out, your experience as a reviewer certainly shows. On first impression it seems that you have addressed the fun factors while attempting to minimize any frustration that arises from a non-static tech tree. A very strong basis that could be presented as is or refined further. I particularly like the option to hide the tech tree progression and the role of leaders in this. The only minor concern is with the Exotic super Techs, the implementation here needs to be near perfect so the game does not get thrown off balance by something random.
I'm glad to hear there will be an element of randomization in technologies between races. There is nothing more boring to me than a game where everyone has access to all the same technologies all the time. That being said, are there any plans for race-specific techs to further diversify play styles?
Good point Thrangar. The exact applications of artifacts are not decided yet. Let us know if you have any ideas on how you'd like the artifacts to work on the research context, or another area of the game. Yes, that needs to be implemented with care. Investing in exploration and ruins investigation can be a viable path to obtain an early or mid game advantage. I know how you feel about randomness and the frustration it may cause on the player, especially if the random outcome is bad. We'll keep that in mind when dealing with pure random events. Having race-specific techs is something we're considering, pending on fleshing out the races a bit more to understand if we need it, and if so which particular techs (and amount) would make sense to have.
I am re-posting the comments I made about tech elsewhere in the forums, adjusting a little to what was announced. Please let us know if you guys need a list of technologies and/or sciences to furbish your lists. My suggestions for game mechanics below. I think the tech part should be divided in two: Pure Science (or research fields) and Engineering(or Tech or applied science). Research fields could be: Energy generation/dissipation/containment Social sciences (including economics?) Planetary engineering Psychic powers Propulsion Defenses Construction Anything that leads to new abilities in the game Researching the fields themselves could provide some sort of numerical bonus right of the bat (more revenue, x percent more shielding or research or growth...) and in turn allows the development of practical application or technologies Engineering provides the optimization or practical uses of those scientific discoveries such as: A weapon that neutralizes shields or computers Shielding to protect from armor piercing weapons Virtual reality dome to improve morale Miniaturization Weapons specialization (MIRV, shield piercing, faster whatever, etc...) Cost reduction and production optimization etc... To make it even more interesting, certain type of science should be available only to certain races and certain type of tech only works with certain type of strategic resources. When it come to stealing tech, if you steal a tech from an alien race without having the base science behind, you could use it, but at a much higher production cost if not at all. For example, you have plain lasers as weapon. Your neighbor has Photonic cannons which required the Optical Physics discipline to develop. You could steal the blueprint for that and reproduce it on your ship, but they would cost a lot to produce and you could never specialize them or make them smaller, since you do not understand the science behind. That could open up interesting diplomatic and strategic options, you could steal tech, but not the science behind. In order to get the science behind, you would need to have some sort of diplomatic agreement or capture the scientific center or minds or planets behind this. You could even make some sciences impossible to comprehend or implement among different species. For instance, if you develop some sort of super-soldier serum, it would be possible to adapt to other biological races, but impossible to give to mineral based lifeforms or robotic ones. Psychic training developed by humans would work for Mammalian/humanoid species but not other races/biology type. Finally some suggestions for science building or gameplay elements Tech labs or training academies Can be captured or spied upon in order to obtain blueprints. Tech lab (or labs) must be built on planets in order to build any kind of restricted technologies. To make it interesting strategy wise, it could tech could be assigned to specific or all labs in order to allow the construction of a related technology. The capture or destruction of a lab, would hinder or stop the construction of of aforementioned tech Universities or learning academies This is where research fields are being developed Spying or diplomacy could generate more research points toward the progress of a research fields, but not outright stealing Capturing the planet where the university is built, give access to the research fields developed there but not necessarly the techs if no tech labs are on that planets. Again, it could be possible to assign research fields to one or many universities allowing more research points by project but with more risk on the security side if the planet gets capture. Other random thoughts There could be imperial doctrines (getting ahead on gameplay government) that would modify the way technologies and research are implemented A paranoid doctrine would fragment the tech production amongst labs increasing security at an increased production cost and time. An open source type research doctrine would allow faster research, at reduced or no security Some religious doctrine could forbid the use of certain tech Already mentioned, but to be thorough, racial restrictions on certain type of Research fields or techs I think it was mentioned elsewhere in the forum, incuding it here, depending on the situation certain type of tech improvements could pop up Example: The evil mushroom people empire are using a new kind of biological weapon to mind control our population. A research option could be made available in order to counteract this weapon. It would give you the option to totally counteract the weapon at a high political (ie human experiments) and resources cost or give you a scaled down version that slows down or mitigate the effect at a reduce cost without political risk.
Could artifacts be made tradable? that would help Or maybe instead of an application to a specific tech, A race could apply it, at a loss , to any or a more general field with regards to exotic super techs, a box to tic as an option for game start is the best way to handle this, the player then has the choice to accept the late game balance change (good or bad) or to not allow it in game at all
As for realism, it could be nice implementing some sort of private sector research and contracts (as we see now, eg.: Lockheed Martin vs. Northrop Grumman rivalry). Every researched technology could be improved automatically by a military or civil sector corporations. Such approach could give many interesting decisions which kind of weapon, shield, fighter, factory is better to invest in. I am aware that such private sector semi-automation feature could be hard to implement and probably some players hate not being omnipotent in terms of research and design. But on the other hand it is also hard to contradict that we live in a time when gargantuan corporations started to hold a dominant power over the world and this phenomenon should be taken into account.
Well my feelings about the tech system are a mixed bag. At the first moment the system you proposed seems to be quite nice and useful. But at the second glance there are some questions to consider IMO: 1. I could not detect the mechanics how to aquire techs. Do I have to build labs or put population on research areas? Or does each empire just get a flat rate of tech points per turn which it can allocate to a specific tech? Is a lab a unique building like in MOO2 or can I build several ones on a planet like in Stars in Shadow? 2. Do you intend to scale tech costs for bigger galaxies in order to adress to problem of coming to early to the end of the tech ladder? 3. How do you circumvent the issue of MOO2 that the bigger empire is always the tech leader and often leads to a boring game? Most 4x games dont adress this problem except Stellaris where Paradox introduced a colony penalty to the tech costs. Thank you for your time.
An observation regarding terraforming (Planetary engineering) Moo2 had an adequate mechanic here, especially for the time but perhaps it could be refined further with the goal being to diminish the possibility of one faction running away with the game. In Moo2 once you researched this, you were allowed to terraform a planet repeatedly and in sequence. The cost escalated as you did so but perhaps it might be better to have this field researched by level. For example, first level terraforming would allow you to increase planet value by exactly one level, further terraforming would be contingent on additional research. It might also be beneficial if no leader brought this tech when hired. (as in the case of this leader showing up too early the game can be thrown off balance). There are other ways to refine this as well. Only planets with some type of atmosphere could be terraformed Gravity can play a role (Think of Mars, even if you terraform it you still have the problem of the planet not being able to hold the atmosphere) Only un-inhabited planets can be terraformed Etc. Another aspect here is the Gaia transformation found in Moo2. This I did not like the way presented, it added to late game boredom for me when virtually all my planets were Gaia. Perhaps this transformation, (If included), should be limited to certain pre-existing conditions only. In general, I think a few adjustments to Moo2 terraforming mechanics could extend the early and mid game while also creating a game flow that diminishes the chances of one faction becoming dominant too quickly.
Good observations. We decided not to put too much information on the dev diaries, otherwise it can become quite boring to read for some people (at least I got feedback that the first one was a bit dry and boring). So, I thank you for your questions, and here are the answers. 1. How research points are generated Research points are generated from several sources. One of those is through direct allocation of credits from the empire treasury to research. So, any excess credits (BC) generated per turn can be translated into research points (RP). Think of this as the budget for the empire's advanced research divisions. Buildings on colonies also contribute to research. These buildings would be analogous to MoO2's and are quite special and unique (e.g. Planetary Supercomputer) boosting local planetary research. This can be seen as the sum of all research being conducted at all the empire's colonies. Other factors like leaders, planet specials, social engineering, research treatiers and study of space phenomena also contribute to the total RPs being generated in the empire for a given turn. 2. Scale tech costs possibility for bigger maps That's an item of the CFL tagged as "Likely" for the release version. 3. Bigger empire is always the tech leader issue Well, I think it's quite reasonable to assume that bigger empires will tend to generate higher amounts of research points. This will be offsetted by race characteristics, and their culture choices, of course. However, being research such an important aspect on this type of game for achieving supremacy, and ultimately winning, I agree that there should be other fun ways to succeed in the game when you're not among the bigger empires' club. So, like the dev diary highlights, and on the context of research, there are other means to acquire tech other than from the sheer power of research points generation. That's where the exotic techs found in exploration fit in, as for finding research artifacts, having certain leaders that boost research (where some bring blueprints or possibly even complete techs). Then there's tech trading in diplomacy, stolen techs through espionage or acquired through invading enemy worlds or by capturing and salvaging from ships in battle. If after all of our thorough playtesting we find that there's still a potencial issue and a barrier for fun regarding this matter, we may look into ways to penalize bigger empires, through some kind of inefficiency system of some kind (e.g. corruption, or otherwise). From my experience, these penalizing systems don't usually work, so we'll just have to try our best to make research fun, and the game as a whole, without resorting to this sort of imposed limitations, if we can.
Regarding to Gaia transformation, the creating of utopia, I dont think that it is too far fetched to allow it with each planet you own (of course provided you have an technology advanced empire) At least the SciFi literature is full of this. But I can understand that it leads to a boring game in practice when you are allowd to transform all of your planets into gaia. Why boring? IMO this is because of the underlying problem that everything in MOO2 and other 4x games is linked to a mighty economy. Want to crush others? Create a mighty economy. Want to be the leader in tech? Create a mighty economy. Economy is the central thing in a 4x game, regardless how many addtional game concepts (like culture or heroes) the devs are introducing. There is no alternative way to win the game except creating a mighty economy and having MOO2 type gaia planets is the best way to go for it. As long as the connection gaia=mighty economy remains it will lead to a somewhat one sided game with limited options. OTOH maybe limiting the options how to succed is the best way for any 4x game, I dont know. Possibly if a dev would change that it would become not fourexoid enough anymore?
There is truth in what you say JG, the problem is how to abstract this well enough. Grumman and Lockheed are indeed private companies but the direction of their research is largely dictated by the gov't in the sense that these companies aim to deign concepts that fit certain mission requirements. In other words, designing the F35 for example was directly influenced by the needs set forth by the gov't. In this sense it might be good to lump all types of research together into a single abstraction. If you play 2056 they tried to address this through Skunkworks. Research buildings that were faster but you had no control or idea what they were researching until it was almost complete. I was neutral about this concept, not favoring it or dis-liking it.
Interesting point. It has brought me to ask you the following question: do you think 4X games based in space should support the TALL method of playing like Civ does? Or do you think it should only be WIDE? I am curious to hear your thoughts on this. I think, due to the nature of space and how vast it is, it is easy to only go for wide. But tall is interesting, indeed, though trickier to pull off and pull off well IMHO.
As an alternative to, or in parallel with, terraforming there could be specific tech or buildings to help raising population cap and sustainability on certain type of planet. For instance, there could be thermal or radiation shielding developed for hot or radiated planets. There could be X amount of slots available on planets, certain could be dedicated to habitation module and other to agriculture module. Afterwards, new tech could raise available pop slots or food output. On "terran" world those modules would not be required of course.
Yes Bigmo, I agree with you. A mechanic or tech that basically paces growth and reflects on attributes within the game such as radiation, climate, gravity etc. Anything that helps should be considered.
On one hand, its good to see/hear that the project is progressing nicely. On the other, oh boy.. my head is swimming in question marks. However as with everything, I stick to the side of "wait and see" for now. Two things still worth mentioning: 1) Let me say this first and then explain. Random tech trees (what most people call random tech trees) are bastard children born out of the desire to keep the tech tree and tech choices interesting while losing sight of the purpose of the tech tree in a game. A tech tree inherently is a progression control mechanism. You do not want to make that random. If anything, you want to fine tune it to improve your game pacing and overall balance. Randomizing nodes in a fixed tech tree will inherently screw up that balance. Even if you manage to stay on top of balance, you will cause frustration for players being forced to miss out on their favorite technology, potentially only realizing this late into the game. Generally, any sort of fixed tech system, be that a tree, web or a pool suffers from this and there is no way around it in my opinion. It might not affect all, hell.. we all have different preferences and tolerances for randomness, but between this and potential game balance problems I just do not see the merit in randomizing the tree. 2) As for choices, well.. I already said it in a previous topic, I will say it again: choices for their own sake are bad. I can't shake the feeling that you guys are trying a little too hard to make the game have these important, defining choices, but in the process you make them feel forced and artificial. Suspension of disbelief is an important factor in making enjoyable games. Make it damn well sure that every choice you ask the player to make is explained and believable, otherwise the feeling of the game will fall apart real fast. Ask yourself this: can you explain why I as a rules would have to make the choice between fusion economy and fusion military? If yes, then make pretty sure you explain it to the player as well in the game, otherwise they will be like: WHAT? WHY? Also please tell me, that a choice like the example above would only decide which technologies you start researching initially and would not exclude the technologies of the other choice from later research.
@csebal Thank you for your comments csebal. I agree that a tech tree is an important progression control mechanism of a 4X game, and I understand that the lack of key technologies could be an issue for some people. We believe that having random elements in the tech tree is a good thing to increase suspense, surprise and replayability. However, and as explained in the dev diary, we'll analyse carefully which techs should always be in, so not to frustrate the player by not having access to a particular key technology. Random elements in the tech tree are easier to accept and achieve in a sci-fi 4X game than on a historical one, because there are no firm expectations of what techs should or not be in. It has been done in the past and proven that it can be done well. I believe the benefits should outweigh the perils on this one. Regarding choices, I acknowledge that people have different preferences on what's available in the game and what is presented as a choice, especially when they're mutually exclusive, since it can lead the player to think "why can I not research the other techs later if the choice is presented to me now?". So, we thought that always asking the player to decide between one tech from three possibilities over and over again was perhaps a bit too much for some people (although personally I don't have a problem with that). Now, regarding research choices, why would certain techs not be available to research while others would, and wouldn't that be a major issue for players with respect to suspension of disbelief? The idea is that apart from the normal tech progression, there are a few key technology path decisions that are linked to how a race decides to exploit a particular strategic resource in the game. These are major decisions players make in the game which allows them to exploit the benefits of persuing a specific path. Think of it like ideologies, or simply political decisions on how to exploit these resources with huge potential. Or, perhaps you can only adapt your infrastructure to one way of exploiting these resources. In this particular decision it would be a choice between militarizing fusion by revealing the Helium-3 strategic resource, or to adapt the infrastructure to apply it to the economy instead. The idea is that these decisions have a major impact in the society. Will this work and not be an immersion breaker or major suspension of disbelief issue? Not from our playtesting so far, but we don't know yet for sure. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Soon, you'll have the opportunity to play for yourself, and if you do I look forward to hear your feedback on these features as for what any suggestions for improvement may be.
Thanks for the added insight Adam. It is not a problem if you have to choose, but there needs to be a reasoning behind the choice. Say - and I'm just making some BS up here - if you decide to focus on the economic use of fusion, your development of plasma containment technology moves into a direction which is totally unsuitable for zero-G or low-G environments, meaning you cannot really use this tech on space ships. Also worth noting, that you must be consistent here, so this explanation would bring with it the added consequence of the technologies not being suitable for asteroids or space stations either, regardless of their intended purpose, whereas ground based weaponry or ground forces armament would still be a potential option. So there has to be an explanation on why your infrastructure cannot weaponize something that you can build power plants from. It will likely be wonky, but that is where suspension of disbelief comes into play. As long as it is explained, players will be okay with it. If you just say: you can build either power plants or missiles, because.. hmm.. infrastructural reasons, they will be like: WHAT? WHY? HOW? WHAT ARE THOSE REASONS? I would be. Though I realize I am not your average gamer by any measure, still... I also have learned a long time ago, that where there is one, there are countless others on the internet. That's just the gist of it. If you make choices for whatever reason, explain the reasoning behind them. Make up some good sounding reasoning, and if you cannot for whatever reason come up with a good explanation, then maybe it would be worth reconsidering that particular choice.
