For science!

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Hello everyone

A lot of times I have been reading through posts here claiming that during the course of the play the person who is playing faces a problem - before he even manages to finish building a ship it is already outdated. With the introduction of NPC countdown I myself think of running a second campaign simulating the current state of affairs. However how to do this? If I gave the states the capacity they have now the research would be extremely fast (quite a lot of labs at start and even if not, very easy to build) and would lead to severe "obsoleteness" of the ships that are yet to be even finished.

For this I ask for a simple tool - Steve, would it be possible to introduce something that we saw in many other space 4x games, so called research setting? Think of Civilization or Space Empires or maybe Galactic Civilizations II. In all of these you can decide how fast (costly) the research will be. For Aurora I imagine a simple box (like many others already) that would say: Research cost: 10. If you increase this number to say 50 the research would be 5x slower (the technology costs would go up by a number of 5), if to 100, then it would be ten times slower. If you decreased it to 1, they would be 10 times cheaper (no idea why anyone would do it but say that you may need it). Or just make it 1 as basic with the possibility to increase the costs and thus slow down the technological progress in the game.

I for one would really love this. It would give us the possibility to play with bigger empires while creating fleets that are not obsolete but top of the line and not having to refit them every five months when the empire is not capable of supporting so many ships.

I have no idea if it's easy to implement or not but please consider this. No idea how many users would use this but I certainly would and I think that it could give us a tool to further shape the campaigns to our liking.

Would this be possible? Please?

[JacenHan]

I really like this idea, having ships remain top of the line for longer than a year would be nice.

It would also cut down on the number of obsolete fleets I have lying around.

[Erik L]

Part of my SOP is to set a design breakpoint. Like I won't redesign a ship until I have a new engine. Then any components that have been updated since get incorporated into the new ship. I'll also occasionally do "electronic" updates. This gives me something like a Tribal, Tribal A (engine refit), Tribal A+ (electronic refit), Tribal B (new engine on a A+), etc.

[Hydrofoil]

I think this would be a great addition +1 from me!

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Part of my SOP is to set a design breakpoint. Like I won't redesign a ship until I have a new engine. Then any components that have been updated since get incorporated into the new ship. I'll also occasionally do "electronic" updates. This gives me something like a Tribal, Tribal A (engine refit), Tribal A+ (electronic refit), Tribal B (new engine on a A+), etc.

I use this as well. But the fact is that if you increase the size of the starting population and resources (which is likely with multiple NPR's) you will face a period of rapid developement. I always play at marathon/crawl speed so being able to set the research speed would give me (and I think many others too) the ability to better immerse themselves in the game.

[Charlie Beeler]

Functionally this already exists.  The tech 'Research Rate' controls the base number of research points that each lab produces.  Initial value is 200, and it caps out at 1500. 

Now if you really want to slow things down, and have database access, just change the table values.  Just be aware that the base value of 200 is fixed and not controlled from the table.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Functionally this already exists.  The tech 'Research Rate' controls the base number of research points that each lab produces.  Initial value is 200, and it caps out at 1500. 

Now if you really want to slow things down, and have database access, just change the table values.  Just be aware that the base value of 200 is fixed and not controlled from the table.

Well then it can not be lowered by us at this point, correct? Not to mention that I don't have the database access.

Again, no idea how hard it would be to implement this but it wouldn't be bad for anyone and it would be only positive for those who want this (me i.e.).

[Bremen]

In my experience ships being outdated before they're built is mostly a problem in the early game; once you have the early techs and the remainder are more expensive, it can be years before a major update is developed.

[Theodidactus]

I just RP this.
During periods with stronger central government, or really visionary leaders, research laboratories might get nationalized or all rally behind truly useful projects, working at breakneck speed.

During most periods, research slowly fractures off...important projects get only 1 or 2 labs, "expand civilian economy" and corporate gene sequencing become a priority, and research into mightier particle accelerators or stronger AIs languishes.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Any more ideas? Almost everyone said they are already doing this so I think it might be viable.

Steve, would it be hard to implement?

[Charlie Beeler]

Again, this is already in the game.  Don't advance your "research rate" tech and don't build additional research labs and your rate of advancement will be very slow after you've acquired the first few levels of tech.  Keep your start population down will limit your start research points and research labs.  Use a convention start with a small population and things really slow down. 

Sorry, no need in my eyes for a mechanic to cripple research any further. 

[SteelChicken]

Research does not need to be any slower.  Like Charlie says, dont build labs, dont increase the research rate and give yourself less starting techs....or start convential if you want to stay in the lower techs longer.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Guys, you are missing the point. I am not trying to cripple research but to have a tool that I could use for certain scenarios.

I can of course hack a database but I am not that good to avoid cripling it + as you mentioned the game has parametres hardcoded now.

I can't slow myself via research because that would leave every other race at normal pace. The tool I am pleading for would make it harder for every race in the universe to research and thus keep the balance it has now.

[Black]

Well NPR research is already crippled althought there should be some improvements in 6.4 i think.

[Charlie Beeler]

The issue you're running into isn't that the AI NPR's are advancing thier tech as fast or faster than you are.  At present the AI NPR's don't do much research.  Steve is working to change this.  

What you are seeing is the result of something different that he did do though.  AI NPR's start with something like 3x the RPs the player race has.  Steve has discussed this elsewhere as something he's looking at changing once the he irons out how the AI does research.