Research Strategies?

[sonofliberty (OP)]

Has anybody determined a good coherent research strategy? Currently, my "strategy" has been to research techs in a category as scientists with said category come available. Unfortunately, about 20% of my researchers are bio tech researchers  This is not working. Either my missiles outclass my sensors or my fire rates are too low etc... Is there a chart anywhere matching approximate "tech levels"?

[Hawkeye]

There is no right or wrong answer to this. Ask 5 Aurora players and you will get 10 different answers 

Personally, I concentrate on civillian techs (construction and logistics mainly with some engine/sensor tech thrown in) as long as there is no perceived threat.

After that, I branch out to the different weapons techs.

As a tip, build a couple of Military Academies and you will soon have all the researchers you want and then some (well, not all you want, a lot of them will "only" have a 10 to 15% bonus)

Of course, there are a few essential techs:

Engines are a very important tech-line (ships, power plants, missile drives)
Active sensors are also important (sensors, missile fire controls)
after those, Research Rate (compound interest), construction and mining rate (obvious) are another few that are important. Personally, I leave about 10 to 20% of my labs allocated to research rate all the time. This gives a huge boost to research in the long run (don´t neglect the civilian economy tech, or what it´s name is, cause that huge research boost will cost you a hell of a lot of money)

After that, research whatever you feel you need

[TallTroll]

>> As a tip, build a couple of Military Academies

Yeah, I build one in the first year, if I can. It leaves me with several naval officers being sacked at the 6 year mark, but as far as I can tell, they are normally ones with no skills I wanted much anyway

>> (don´t neglect the civilian economy tech, or what it´s name is, cause that huge research boost will cost you a hell of a lot of money)

Excellent tip. I find Earth has a lot of free workers early on, as I can't ship people out to colonies that fast, and you have to provide seed mines / factories from Earth to get colony economies going, so I think I'll build financial centres quite quickly too

[sonofliberty (OP)]

The build strategy I have chosen is to devote 15% of industry to 1000 automines, 15% to 1000 construction factories, and 70% to short term quick builds. I have built more labs, ordnance factories, fighter factories, financial buildings, maintenance facilities and supplies etc... Research seems to be my Achilles heel. I never to seem to have the tech I need when I need it. That is why I had hoped that someone had mapped out an effective strategy from which I can diverge as/when desired.

[xeryon]

I like to allocate an even distribution of labs to my best scientist in each field and then have the second best researcher be allocated one lab and set to work on a project with no completion priority.  In this way I have a primary that is getting things done and a secondary that is leveling up to take the place of the primary should he die.  Occasionally the secondary gets a little initiative and usurps his primary and I flip them.

In my current game that entails 6 labs for each field to the primary and then 1 lab to the secondary.  If I need to prioritize a project just temporarily reallocate some labs from the other primaries to escalate the project.

I have yet to even bother with Bio research.  Thankfully, Steve is rearranging some of the techs so terraforming will be a Bio research from now on.

[jseah]

I work things by priority.  I point at a project and say "I want this", then find the best researcher (lab count vs bonus for highest possible RP) and put him on it with as many labs as I can allocate. 
Repeat for next wanted tech if I have enough leftover labs. 

Then every other researcher unassigned, I find jobs for them to do and give them 1 lab each.  The highest effective bonus (for the x4 specialization) goes to Research Rate, 2nd best to Construction rate, 3rd best to Economy; unless they are one of the focuses.  After that, whatever I feel like doing. 

Often, I maintain a task queue outside the game for the techs I want. 

Rule of thumb:
Engines tech is considered baseline
Research Rate should be baseline+1, when increasing baseline, Research Rate goes to baseline+2 before engines
ECM/ECCM is baseline+1, behind engines
Construction rate and Ordnance keeps pace with baseline, engines come first
Weapons, EM sensors are baseline-1
Active sensors are baseline-2

At game start, economy is at 0, Economy is priority until deficit is corrected.  If deficit occurs again (or projected to occur), Economy overrides everything else. 


I use the same rule for construction queues.  Enough to complete in one increment or 100% whichever is lower for first task, spilling over as needed. 
Construction factories keep pace with population, built in batches of 50-100 as required.  Goal is to have 100% employment with no penalty from overwork. 
Ordnance factories are built to keep pace with ship production.  Goal in peacetime to have ~2 complete fleet reloads of latest + TL-1 design in service (so one reload on planet, one in ships).  This goes up as reduced size launchers come online to around 5 reloads. 
Automated mines are produced as and when I require, this take priority over everything else. 

I often find a planet or moon with no useful deposits and make it my research planet.  RLab production keeps pace with population on that planet. 

All leftover BP is component production or shipyard production (if all are full). 

[madpraxis]

...my research strategy is much simpler...but I tend to start in nebulas...so I work on armour and engines as much as I can, then in the  most simple way possible of figuring out what I'm researching next: I look and see what scientist has the best combo of bonus/admin, set him up, move to the next, ad nasuem...