Research Teams

[Jumpp (OP)]

You want most/all of your scientists to be working, so they can skill up. (I'm not 100% certain that working is correlated with skilling up, but it ought to be.)

You also want your most effective researchers driving most of your labs, so that you get the most effect from their bonuses.

You want to avoid tedious keeping-the-researchers busy operations, and needless clutter on the research page.

There's some important decision-making involved with your pool of researchers, and you want to preserve that because it's good gameplay. You might have excellent researchers in some fields and poor researchers in others and that's going to inform the strategic decisions you make.

Broadly speaking, you'd like to get about the same results you get now, with the same strategic tradeoffs you get now, but with less micromanagement and a cleaner interface.

So: How about having research carried out by teams rather than individuals?

The bonus from a research team could be that of the individual on the team who's got the best relevant bonus. And every member of team gets whatever chance to skill up that they'd get under the present rules running that project with those labs as an individual.

Benefits:

It's easier to keep all your researchers busy.  When new ones appear, you can just join them to an appropriate existing team.

It gives roughly the same results you get now, but with less micromanagement.

You don't get busy-work researchers cluttering up the projects pane.

When a researcher on a team dies, there's no interrupt necessary, and probably no action necessary. The next-best researcher on that team just slides into their shoes.

[MarcAFK]

It's an interesting idea, but possibly creates a balance issue, either your teams take full advantage of the researchers skill and allow you to absolutely speed through 1 or 2 research projects in lightning speed, or you could make additional researchers added to a team only add a minor bonus, in which case there's an issue where you'll have researcher shortages.   
I'm of the opinion that if this was added additional researchers should only add 10% of their bonus to the project, and total number of labs should be limited by what the leader can handle.
It does add extra micro management though, for limited advantage, but you'll get greater training if researchers.

[Thundercraft]

Hmm... Having teams of scientists makes more sense. And cutting down on micromanagement does sound appealing. We already have teams for Espionage, Diplomacy, Xenology, and Geology surveys, so why not research?

But, would this affect NPRs in any way? I worry about how it may affect research rates. If this makes research go faster - if players can routinely research faster than NPRs - wouldn't that upset game balance?

BTW: You listed benefits. But I thought of one more: Teams of scientists have more potential for roleplaying.

[Jumpp (OP)]

It's an interesting idea, but possibly creates a balance issue, either your teams take full advantage of the researchers skill and allow you to absolutely speed through 1 or 2 research projects in lightning speed, or you could make additional researchers added to a team only add a minor bonus, in which case there's an issue where you'll have researcher shortages.   
I'm of the opinion that if this was added additional researchers should only add 10% of their bonus to the project, and total number of labs should be limited by what the leader can handle.
It does add extra micro management though, for limited advantage, but you'll get greater training if researchers.

There's lots of ways to go with this, but the way I had in mind would have no balance impact at all.  To illustrate the point, here's a typical situation from one of my games:

Alice Jones, 35% DS, with 20 labs working on Armor
Bob Smith, 20% MK, with 20 labs working on Warhead
Carol Davis, 20% DS, with 0 labs working on Genetic Mod +20C
Dave Smith, 15% MK, with 0 labs working on some kind of railgun project I don't care about
Ed Jones, 40% CP, with 0 labs working on some kind of particle beams project I don't care about
[20 other researchers, of varying skills, all with 0 labs, working on projects that I don't care about]

- If Alice dies, I cancel Carol's project, then restart the Armor project with Carol running it, since she's my next-best DS researcher.
- If a new researcher shows up, I take a lab away from Bob, look around for some project that doesn't interest me, assign it to New Researcher with 1 lab, then take that lab away and give it back to Bob.
- From time to time I look over the researchers to see if anyone's overtaken my current leaders as the best available.

Here's how I imagine it might go instead.
The DS Team [Alice 35% DS, Carol 20% DS, and two other DS researchers] working on armor with 20 labs. Team effectiveness is 35%, the bonus for the best researcher on the team.
The MK Team [Bob 20% MK, Dave 15% MK, and one other MK researcher] working on warhead with 20 labs. Team effectiveness is 20%.
[several other teams, none doing anything interesting.]

- If Alice dies, nothing happens. There's a message, but no interrupt. I do nothing. The project continues with Carol's bonus of 20%.
- If a new researcher shows up, I just join them to one of the existing teams.
- I never review the projects to make sure that the best researchers are on the job. The nature of the teams is such that if one of the researchers overtakes the previous best, they'll naturally slide into the leadership role.

The net result of all this is the same bonuses applied to the same labs on the same projects. It just minimizes the busywork involved with keeping all your researchers busy so that they skill up properly.

This cat might not even need skinning, if idle researchers skill up the same way that working researchers do.

[Thundercraft]

Thing is, when I think of a research team, I think there should be a team leader. Whether it's a team of engineers or a research staff, there's usually a team leader.

But then, I'm not sure how such a position would hold significance in-game. Perhaps a leader's bonuses count extra or something? Or maybe a leader gives a small bonus based on their "Administration" rating or a team bonus or something?

Then I think about how such a team leader would be selected. Perhaps they'd be auto-selected based on how the current project matches his/her field of expertise? Or maybe based on their Political Bonus?

[MarcAFK]

I like jumpp's idea, it gives you somewhere to put random extra researchers without changing research speed or anything.