Research Ideas

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Possibility, Jun 18, 2017.

  1. Possibility

    Possibility Ensign

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    Here is an idea for expanding research and giving it more dynamic fun and surprise elements. When another empire researches a new tech (military related) it initially has a bigger bonus against your empire until you research a counter measure. The counter measure research only appears in your que once you have encountered the enemy tech. I got this idea from XCOM where when you encounter a new enemy in combat it opens up new research opportunities. Here are 2 examples of what I mean:

    1) Its mid game and your enemy has warp speed 4 and you have warp interdictor tech and if you build a warp interdictor structure on your planet it reduces their speed to by 2 when they are in range. The enemy researches warp speed 5, now all of your warp interdictors no longer work or only half work, they reduce speed by 1 instead of 2. The first time an enemy fleet enters range of one of your warp interdictors you get a notification stating that the enemy has researched new warp technology and your warp interdictors are no longer tuned to the correct warp signature, would you like to start research on a counter measure? This counter measure tech will have a low cost and once researched, all of your interdictors will start working again, and you won’t have to build new ones. If you have already researched warp speed 5 then the counter measure research will be even cheaper. Now you encounter enemy C they have also researched warp speed 5 and again your interdictors don’t work for them because their warp tech is slightly different, again you get to research a counter measure but this one will be very cheap (maybe only 1 turn) because you have already research 1 counter measure. Once you research 2 counter measures it now works for all enemies, or if you research warp speed 5 and research 1 counter measure it will work for all enemies.

    2) The enemy researches phasors, which are not shield piercing (normally) but you haven’t researched phasors yet so your shields have no experience with this tech and on first encounter in a battle your shields don’t work (or are only half effective) against the new phasors. You get a new research project to adjust the shield frequencies and make them work again. If you capture an enemy ship with phasors the research cost of the counter measure is significantly reduced (or free/instant), or if you had a research ship in the combat it would generate a lot of research toward the counter measure. Upon research completion all of you ships are instantly updated with the new frequencies and your shields start working again.
     
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  2. Possibility

    Possibility Ensign

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    My second idea for research, is to have the choice of where you want to conduct the research, such as a specific colony or research station. You could then have multiple research projects going simultaneously. If a place has been set to do a specific research, then its output is doubled or tripled, on the other hand if it’s not doing specific research then its research production is put into the general pool but it doesn’t get the 2X or 3X bonus. Research can be assigned to the general pool where you can complete something quickly because of the pooling effect, or it can be assigned to specific location and you get a 2X or 3X bonus but loose the pooling effect.

    This could then play in further to my ideas above about the counter measure research. Maybe all counter measure research must be assigned to a specific place instead of the general pool. For my example #2 above, say you are the empire that researched phasors first and you want to keep your tech advantage, you have a spy network going and they inform you that the enemy has now started work on a counter measure research project located at planet X. You could then attempt to use your spy network to sabotage the research project or you could attack that planet and disrupt the research that way.

    My goal is to add some dynamic fun to research based on what other empires are doing. It would also create specific military targets that you would want to attack to disrupt specific research.
     
  3. Konstantine

    Konstantine Grand Admiral

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    I like a lot of the ideas presented here, they could add some more fun and innovation to the game and that would be very welcome.
    I am particularly intrigued by how technology would be tied into familiarity and could see this approach acting as a speed bump in the game, not knowing how effective your tech would be on "first contact" may result in some new strategies being developed.

    There is also a certain sense of "feeling right" with such a concept. MoO2 had nothing like this but it can be forgiven as the genre was in its infancy at the time.

    Caution is advised with specific research. Armada gold had a similar concept here which was a blessing and a curse. Dedicated research buildings did provide increased research rates for specific fields but often saw the player demolishing one type of research building in order to build another. Rather than this song and dance it would have been better if the devs there had a allowed the player to re-configure buildings instead.

    Oh, I almost forgot, anything that gives me specific targets to consider is a plus, nothing like doing a surgical strike to eliminate some potentially dangerous installations. If a way is offered whereby these strikes could be covert, (meaning you can do them without all out war being automatically declared), so much the better.
     

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