Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => Development Discussions => Topic started by: vorpal+5 on January 10, 2018, 11:57:01 PM
-
I'm wondering if there are some plans to change how research actually works for Aurora C#. There are a few things that stand out for me that I dislike:
- That a scientist with even a single lab can gain experience as if he had 20 under his command. It leads to exploit, constant reshuffling or an iron mind to set up a sound house rule yourself.
- That a project is not shared across several planets
- That you can change around lab allocation with them being at full efficiency as soon they are relocated.
-
- That a project is not shared across several planets
I find this in particular to be pretty key, since comms are basically meant to be faster than light.
-
As a counterpoint, research should be shared amongst planets, but maybe there should either be some lag as you travel further form the homeworld (measured by jump chain) particularly if a project is picked up by a different world. Sure research data can be sent around instantaneously, but the research facilities, staff availability, training, education, even the culture of a world would have an impact on it's ability to pick up and continue research done elsewhere.
Perhaps research specialization should take time to get into gear. A Power and propulsion researcher with a 25% bonus working on a P&P project on a world that hasn't done P&P research before should only get the 25% bonus at start, over time this bonus increases until finally getting the full x4 effect.
At the start when you just have a homeworld and haven't researched anywhere this specialization should be fairly fast, maybe only taking a year or something to get the full bonus. But later if you move labs elsewhere and decide for instance to make mars your power and propulsion research world it will take longer to get full specialization bonus. The length of time needed should be the one year base time, then increased by distance from home world, and perhaps also increased as your total P&P tech level increases.
-
I actually really like that idea, although I think the homeworld's research bonus modifiers should start at full for whatever fields you've started the game with research in.
"Start the game with" would include techs you gave yourself with starting research points, if you chose to manually spend those points via the space master.
-
While I do think that research facilities should be able to work together in different places I don't feel this is a huge issue in the game since most research should not be a linear endeavor anyway. You can't just throw double the resources on a project and expect twice the result.
The more pressing matter with research is that new technologies are instantaneously available and integrated into society as soon as you discover it, this is not how it works. Technology need to be slowly integrated and for a price and should usually require some form of industrial production and resources to make a reality.
I think this process should be automatic but new technology should need investment in both discovery and implementation as you do with ship technology. You don't see your ships instantly getting better when you discover new technology.
-
While I do think that research facilities should be able to work together in different places I don't feel this is a huge issue in the game since most research should not be a linear endeavor anyway. You can't just through double the resources on a project and expect twice the result.
I also think this is a weakness in the system atm - it just invites to rush 1 project after an other instead of distributing the labs on more than 1 project - some kind of (small but counting) decreasing efficiency with every 5 or 10 labs you add to a project may be much more realistic AND give the player a reason to research more projects at the same time (even in the "same school of research") (other than the 1-lab-to-train-a-researcher)...
I don't like the "rush one single project at a time" system - but it IS the best to do now.. so a decreasing efficiency might chance that a tiny bit (but not too much)
---
what I also would like to see would be some kind of "penalty" for chancing labs from one "school of research" to an other again and again - something like a "10 day retool-time" would be nice and honestly, you just can't use a bio-lab for physic engineer research without SOME time to retool it...
but as always.. for me first priority would always be to get C# out and running before chancing more stuff
-
I find this in particular to be pretty key, since comms are basically meant to be faster than light.
They aren't. There just is no feasible way to implement light-speed lag into the game as it currently stands. In most of Steve's games, and many other games, you'll see players emulate light-speed lag to some extent.
I'm actually against the idea of multiple planets participating in the same research project. Coordination and collaboration is a major issue as a project grows larger. In fact, there should be diminishing returns after the number of research labs grows big enough to simulate the friction and waste that happens in big organizations.
-
My understanding was sensors are speed-of-light? If so, that would imply speed of light comms.
-
About multiple planets on the same project. My main problem here is not about realism etc. it is about the RP that are not transferred at all. Say you conquer a planet with 5 labs, the tech you research there have their research points *locked* on this planet...
I don't mind if you can research a given project on a single planet at a time, but at least, the research points should be stored at the tech level, not at the planet level.
And sound remark about the most efficient (but boring, unrealistic) strategy of researching only a single project at a time (baring the exploit of attributing 1 lab per fairly decent researcher so they build up their skill).
Now, if the chance to build up your skill is lower if you don't have say at least your admin level as allocated lab, you counter partially the behavior above.
If you 'top that' with 'reduced efficiency' when you reallocate labs, then that would be perfect.
-
Steve's already considering a global research modifier, if you want it to take you a hundred years to go from ion to magnetoplasma, you'll be able to, no need to make it all even slower.
-
Uh, I'm going to note I had meant to say I thought sensors were faster than light (star wars and the whole 'going to lightspeed' thing screwed me over). FTL sensors imply FTL comms.
-
Uh, I'm going to note I had meant to say I thought sensors were faster than light (star wars and the whole 'going to lightspeed' thing screwed me over). FTL sensors imply FTL comms.
Locally (within a system) yes. As Garfunkel said, trying to code up light-speed sensors would be a nightmare so IIRC there's some technobabble about TN giving access to superluminal information. But across jump points, I believe Garfunkel's statement about emulating the lag (i.e. actually requiring a ship to transit a jump point before the message can be "passed along the chain") to be the case. So I'd say you should think Honorverse - instantaneous within a system, but requiring couriers between systems.
John
-
Steve's already considering a global research modifier, if you want it to take you a hundred years to go from ion to magnetoplasma, you'll be able to, no need to make it all even slower.
What about making it global but give the option to the player to chose the pace of the game with a slow, normal or fast option? Games like Gal Civ or Civilization already do that. This will give you less hustle while researching but still impact on "earning" the tech edge on rivals with the consequent gratification.
-
Steve's already considering a global research modifier, if you want it to take you a hundred years to go from ion to magnetoplasma, you'll be able to, no need to make it all even slower.
I don't see how this is related to countering the induced exploits or micro-management of the current system?
-
I don't like a global research system because first of all it is unrealistic and not fun.
To increase decision making I would instead propose that each area have dedicated labs and the more points you put into one project it will have diminishing return. You could allow labs over several planets to cooperate at some penalty.
You should then have just one page which have all your labs (with locations) so you easily could assign them, you should not do it per planet.
This could also be coupled with a system of research needing to get into society as well and not just instantly upgrade everything which just allow for the snowball effect to grow larger which is contradictory to how technology distribute through a real society.
-
I don't like a global research system because first of all it is unrealistic and not fun.
To increase decision making I would instead propose that each area have dedicated labs and the more points you put into one project it will have diminishing return. You could allow labs over several planets to cooperate at some penalty.
You should then have just one page which have all your labs (with locations) so you easily could assign them, you should not do it per planet.
This could also be coupled with a system of research needing to get into society as well and not just instantly upgrade everything which just allow for the snowball effect to grow larger which is contradictory to how technology distribute through a real society.
For some things the global research makes sense, like Military technology where all the steps of distribution are pretty accurately modeled in game ( need to make racial techs + design ships + retool shipyards + build actual ships ) before the new tech is out in the field.
I also think it makes fairly decent sense in situations like Civilian liners that won't put new tech into production until it's replacing decommissioned ships ( might need a few tweaks to be perfect ).
But I do agree that it doesn't make a whole lot sense how all your mines and factories even in the fringe systems instantly upgrade overnight after completing research.
Diminishing returns I think would be a great idea to give smaller empires a better chance to be high tech too, and prevent massive empires being able to brute force research by just throwing hundreds of labs at all problems at once.
It would also be interesting to be able to pick some quality vs quantity approach to your academies ( either crank out more low quality leaders or fewer high quality leaders ) in the same spirit.
-
Diminishing returns and research penalties would just cause there to be a tipping point where making more labs isn't worth it. This is, admittedly, exactly the point... However, it wouldn't "increase decision making", because the decision you'd make there is a no brainer. If it's more efficient to research 10 things at once with 10 labs each, than it is to research 1 thing with 100 labs, you would research the 10 things at once instead.
It wouldn't even hurt large empires unless you added some arbitrary "size penalty" like in certain bad games like Stellaris. I'd still be spamming labs with a huge empire, I just wouldn't be power-researching a handful of things. I'd be researching 200 things at once with 10 labs each and my labs would be in more places.
Tech spread though does introduce a way in for the concept of Tall VS. Sprawl in empire building.
As @alex_brunius said, military stuff would/should work as it does now, as would civilian stuff for the most part. You'd probably still cluster most of your industry together in the core, just to make sure all of your industry improvements spread to the places actually using them quicker. The difference between tall/sprawl empires is mostly when it comes to defence and development.
A Sprawl empire's older frontier military facilities aren't going to be up-to-date as fast as a Tall empire, and so the Tall empire has more efficient border garrisons defending slightly better developed worlds. The Tall empire is also logistically easier to manage, although has less overall resources long-term than the Sprawl empire unless they start to expand more.
The developmental effects of going Sprawl over Tall, would be that all the frontier colonies building money-printers around the clock won't be "up to speed" as fast, and neither will your terraformers/miners. The Tall empire would play in the sense of their entire territory except the very edges being effectively their core worlds (or damn near it) as far as development, whereas the Sprawling empire would have a smaller core and a wider periphery with better resource availability (although lower exploitability).
If internal politics came into it, that'd also add another layer, but I don't really like the idea of internal politics in this game. It'd just make for more goddamn numbers to track. I think rebellions would feel more like they do in Distant Worlds (stupid RNG crap that is annoying) as opposed to feeling the way they do most of the time in CK2 ("damn I got out-manoeuvred")
I guess you'd have more internal unity as a smaller empire, and thus less ambitious frontier garrison commanders to keep track of.
-
Diminishing returns and research penalties would just cause there to be a tipping point where making more labs isn't worth it. This is, admittedly, exactly the point... However, it wouldn't "increase decision making", because the decision you'd make there is a no brainer. If it's more efficient to research 10 things at once with 10 labs each, than it is to research 1 thing with 100 labs, you would research the 10 things at once instead.
I think your missing the real trade-off here though.
What your decision is all about is how quickly you can progress down a specific key field, for example engines.
Sure putting your 100 labs at 100 different things might be optimal from a making the most out of the RP standpoint, but it still means your progressing 20 times slower in the field of engines then if you put 40 labs on that ( with diminishing returns for example halving your speed ).
It also requires 100 different scientists, which you might not have available, and it also means you get less out of the higher scientist bonuses.
How important each key field will be for you ofcourse depends ( with engines most of the time being the top priority ) on a sliding scale, and that's where the diminishing returns come in. It will shift the focus so that it's a bit more worth it to spread out your labs instead of the current no brainer approach of always putting as many labs as possible and go through your list of priorities one at a time ( with a few 1 lab projects to train new scientists ). But I still have no doubt that there would be some situations where you want the max labs a scientist can handle to rush techs ( at less efficiency ), and finish them ASAP.
With diminishing returns there is a point to assign 3-5 labs to projects even if you can assign 20.
-
I don't believe empires should be punished for growing big, especially in a game with "Expand" in its name. (that's what one of the 4Xes stands for, remember?) Especially, especially in a solo game where balance doesn't matter.
Currently Aurora supports all kinds of play styles, and in regards to research too. You can put all of your labs on three-four scientists and go forward fast in a field of research (or three-four), you can spread your labs over all your scientists, you can slowly attribute your labs because the technicians need time for retraining or whatever else, you can give all your leftover scientists a lab each, you can give them zero and let them train on the cheap, you can have a civilization with superbly advanced engines but terrible industrial capacity or weapons, one that grows slowly and evenly in all fields, one that has very advanced technology but is going through a mineral crunch since they never developed jump point theory, etc. You can do anything, nothing forces you into one playstyle.
All the suggestions I've seen on the forums lately only do one thing, restrict what can be done in the game, which is very dumb since Aurora was made to support/play out Steve's fictions. The more restrictions there are, the less difference there'll be in all fiction until we're all playing the same games and desperately going against gameplay to introduce differences in our stories instead of having the stories supported by the game. Aurora needs to be open and generic so it can support all kinds of fiction, not to be a closed system that only enables one genre, one playstyle; I doubt many people would still be playing if we were locked into playing Steve's empires and unable to create new games or ship designs. We should be able to make up all kinds of scenarios, actually play them out inside Aurora and see how and where it all goes (as we can right now) instead of playing the game and later writing fiction that's completely removed from the gameplay and game's events.
-
I don't believe empires should be punished for growing big, especially in a game with "Expand" in its name. (that's what one of the 4Xes stands for, remember?) Especially, especially in a solo game where balance doesn't matter.
So, do you think that transport and logistics should be simplified to a single global pool that automatically teleports everything around as well?
Or that population restrictions on planets (infrastructure or size based) should be removed?
Or that warships should be able to teleport to all controlled colonies you got?
Because if not we are already punishing larger empires big time, right?
Punishing large empires by making spreading of knowledge and know how be just as difficult as spreading of resources, supplies and warships makes sense both logically and based on history/game balance. It's not an arbitrary restriction anymore then a larger empire needing more time for warships to patrol from one end to the other is.
-
I think he means more in the sense of stuff that literally is just an arbitrary game balance decision, like the flat research penalty in Stellaris.
-
For some things the global research makes sense, like Military technology where all the steps of distribution are pretty accurately modeled in game ( need to make racial techs + design ships + retool shipyards + build actual ships ) before the new tech is out in the field.
I also think it makes fairly decent sense in situations like Civilian liners that won't put new tech into production until it's replacing decommissioned ships ( might need a few tweaks to be perfect ).
But I do agree that it doesn't make a whole lot sense how all your mines and factories even in the fringe systems instantly upgrade overnight after completing research.
Diminishing returns I think would be a great idea to give smaller empires a better chance to be high tech too, and prevent massive empires being able to brute force research by just throwing hundreds of labs at all problems at once.
It would also be interesting to be able to pick some quality vs quantity approach to your academies ( either crank out more low quality leaders or fewer high quality leaders ) in the same spirit.
Yes, the way military technology is researched and implemented is realistic and my main concern was exactly what you also pointed to, the ones that have en immediate effect on game-play. These technologies should have a similar system to military just a bit more automated because it is not part of the core game-play.
-
I think he means more in the sense of stuff that literally is just an arbitrary game balance decision, like the flat research penalty in Stellaris.
You can view such mechanics as an abstracted way of penalize a bigger empire from having technologies reach out to all of their colonies everywhere.
A smaller empire will need much less effort to implement new technologies from a logistical and infrastructure standpoint. Then there is also the fact that the larger a bureaucracy become the more resources it need to support by even more bureaucracy.
-
I think he means more in the sense of stuff that literally is just an arbitrary game balance decision, like the flat research penalty in Stellaris.
To be honest, in stellaris it is mostly justified. The rationalization is that the cost of research also include the cost of adoption throughout the empire. Keep in mind that a lot of the Tech in stellaris (most of them in fact) give immediate bonuses, or cost very little to implement.
A lot of techs give flat bonuses or unlock new possibilities instantly. Once you research better weapons, the cost to retrofit old ships is negligible. And the like. In this scenario, making tech cost more for larger empires is justified, because you're also paying the cost to spread the usage of the technology throughout the nation.
Aurora is a mixed bag. Components and weapons are hard to improve, because retrofitting is harsh in Aurora, and as such you'll most likely have to build new ships. Not a cheap option.
General tech instead is immediately available when researched, like factory production and so on. So, frankly speaking Aurora is not simulating very well this particular scenario.
And yes, the cost of adoption is actually SIGNIFICANT. It took decades or centuries for a lot of technological discoveries to be applied in the real world.
-
While I would applaud the realism of having a time/cost to roll out new tech, there is a danger of horrible micro-management. I imagine we all remember the tedium in other 4x games of researching "Mining 3" and then having to click on every planet in the empire to upgrade their level 2 mines to level 3 mines. No thank you.
So any suggestions here would need to be automatic for me. I can't think of an easy to way to do that without adding a whole load of extra calculations and mechanics for Steve to have to implement.
As a simple example, if you have a time lag for implementation of a new tech is that centered on your capital, or where the tech is researched? Is implementation solely based on distance? If so is it modified by engine speed? Are new facilities automatically going to be built with the new tech or the local tech?
-
While I would applaud the realism of having a time/cost to roll out new tech, there is a danger of horrible micro-management. I imagine we all remember the tedium in other 4x games of researching "Mining 3" and then having to click on every planet in the empire to upgrade their level 2 mines to level 3 mines. No thank you.
So any suggestions here would need to be automatic for me. I can't think of an easy to way to do that without adding a whole load of extra calculations and mechanics for Steve to have to implement.
As a simple example, if you have a time lag for implementation of a new tech is that centered on your capital, or where the tech is researched? Is implementation solely based on distance? If so is it modified by engine speed? Are new facilities automatically going to be built with the new tech or the local tech?
Steve have commented on this before and he would not want to have something complicated or something that cause micromanagement.
Something simple would be a tech level on each category for the empire and when you increase to a new level the time for implementation would scale with some algorithm based on number of colonies and population that carry installation of that technology, or some such mechanic. Then that would decide the time it take to implement the new technology. Under this time you first start with a penalty of -15% and then end up with the +20% you get for the new tech (if that is the increase) slowly over time.
This would produce a more costly implementation for larger empires and less costly for smaller empires. It would be automatic and easy to implement since the end result is an empire wide modifier to all colonies.
You could make the modifiers time stamp individual for each colony based on an algorithm which would only add one extra parameter per colony.
-
Steve have commented on this before and he would not want to have something complicated or something that cause micromanagement.
Something simple would be a tech level on each category for the empire and when you increase to a new level the time for implementation would scale with some algorithm based on number of colonies and population that carry installation of that technology, or some such mechanic. Then that would decide the time it take to implement the new technology. Under this time you first start with a penalty of -15% and then end up with the +20% you get for the new tech (if that is the increase) slowly over time.
This would produce a more costly implementation for larger empires and less costly for smaller empires. It would be automatic and easy to implement since the end result is an empire wide modifier to all colonies.
You could make the modifiers time stamp individual for each colony based on an algorithm which would only add one extra parameter per colony.
I'm not sure I see why it would take longer to upgrade mines or factories in a large but compact empire rather than a small sprawling empire? But you did inspire me to think about an alternative, that each such change has a fixed implementation time (lets say 3 months) irrespective of empire size, before the gain happens. And during that implementation time wealth is consumed based on total number of facilities being upgraded?
So the time to implement for a large empire is the same as for a small empire, but it costs a lot more wealth.
-
I'm not sure I see why it would take longer to upgrade mines or factories in a large but compact empire rather than a small sprawling empire? But you did inspire me to think about an alternative, that each such change has a fixed implementation time (lets say 3 months) irrespective of empire size, before the gain happens. And during that implementation time wealth is consumed based on total number of facilities being upgraded?
So the time to implement for a large empire is the same as for a small empire, but it costs a lot more wealth.
Did I say it would take longer in a more compact empire than a more spread out one. I said it would be based on some algorithm based on whatever parameter that would impact the rate it would take to upgrade. ;)
Adding an additional Wealth cost seem pretty appropriate as well as a slightly diminished capacity during the upgrade in the beginning.
-
i always heavily limit my infrastructure and usage of labs, i think the game plays better without exploding research.
particularly, the direct link between economic strength and research strength is IMO problematic, creating a never ending virtuous circle that balloons power. In terms of Aurora-as-Game, you also end up with weird incentives like turtling on Conventional Earth until you are very high tech. Anomalies were a great step away from this, but they arn't enough to really show a benefit to doing actual expansion.
My ideal looks something like having global research, and anomalies provide % bonuses to categories; scientists study anomalies via some mechanism to provide the bonuses, and act as subordinate staff on science vessels. Thus aggressive exploration results in better research than turtling, potentially with farflung outposts that are tough to effectively defend.
-
It would be quite interesting to have diminishing returns for throwing resources at a particular research line... but to some extent that is already taken care of by exponentially increasing research cost, in a mechanically simple and elegant way.
Currently, a minor annoyance is that keeping up with unimportant tech lines is annoying... researching 20 1000-RP tech isn´t much of an investment by the midgame but still interrupts your game 20 times and requires a few clicks each time.
-
Currently, a minor annoyance is that keeping up with unimportant tech lines is annoying... researching 20 1000-RP tech isn't much of an investment by the midgame but still interrupts your game 20 times and requires a few clicks each time.
Do you queue projects? That usually cuts down on the clicking, though it will still interrupt auto turns.
-
Yes, when practical. Thanks for the tip; I just have a rather low tolerance for busywork in games.
-
There's also a bug in the game where you can queue unavailable projects (in the "All Research" section) with the "Queue Top" button, which is probably supposed to gray out. You could potentially use this to cheat by, for example, researching 25cm lasers when you haven't researched 20cm, but I don't have any personal qualms with using it to queue long, low-RP lines of research in the intended order.
-
It would be quite interesting to have diminishing returns for throwing resources at a particular research line... but to some extent that is already taken care of by exponentially increasing research cost, in a mechanically simple and elegant way.
It does not work well for reducing the gap much between small and low industry empires though because you still need the same amount of research and labs increase in effect linear not according to a logarithmic scale.
With direct diminishing return you can stave of the worst kind of pure specialization and speed ahead of the opposition with raw industrial power. The current system have a huge snowball effect which is not quite a realistic model.
I thin kit would be more interesting if you had diminishing returns and the administration level could sort of change the curve a bit instead of limiting the amount of labs on each scientist. This way you both encourage spreading the science and focusing it on those with the best administrative skill. Simply allow specialization to double the science output and leave it at that, no extra fuss needed for that.
I also like the scientists on ships exploring being able to provide research bonuses somehow.
And of course, no instant upgrade of stuff, that is only perpetuating the snowball effect. The more complex and bigger a society is the more costly it will become to spread innovation to all corners of said society.
I also would no mind less huge leap in research in general, quite often one level feels very superior to the level before.
-
I don't mind the leap size personally. With engines, you are moving between fundamentally different technologies, so it makes sense that the improvements wouldn't appear iterative. With the other techs the jumps are more reasonable afaik.
-
This may be slightly off-topic (although it's still semi-related), but I've been doing some thinking on this topic lately and... Is there really even that much of a historical justification for a tall empire being capable of truly succeeding as a long-term thing? Why are people so obsessed with this idea across strategy games in general? It seems like a "tall" empire wouldn't even be an empire at all. I think of "Tall" as being more of a transitional state between fully exploiting Sol and conquering the galaxy more than I do as something I'd want to continue indefinitely.
Even if you fix science so that research rates are independent of empire size, the bigger empire should still be at an advantage even with the implementation of tech spread.
Aside from some geopolitical factors (e.g a coalition attacking the large empire on several fronts) and geographical factors (e.g tall empire has nothing but bottleneck systems bordering you), I don't see a scenario in which the sprawl empire doesn't roll over the tall one every single time or at least win the long game. People seem to have this fantasy where that's not the case, or that it shouldn't be "in the name of realism".
-
This may be slightly off-topic (although it's still semi-related), but I've been doing some thinking on this topic lately and... Is there really even that much of a historical justification for a tall empire being capable of truly succeeding as a long-term thing? Why are people so obsessed with this idea across strategy games in general? It seems like a "tall" empire wouldn't even be an empire at all. I think of "Tall" as being more of a transitional state between fully exploiting Sol and conquering the galaxy more than I do as something I'd want to continue indefinitely.
Even if you fix science so that research rates are independent of empire size, the bigger empire should still be at an advantage even with the implementation of tech spread.
Aside from some geopolitical factors (e.g a coalition attacking the large empire on several fronts) and geographical factors (e.g tall empire has nothing but bottleneck systems bordering you), I don't see a scenario in which the sprawl empire doesn't roll over the tall one every single time or at least win the long game. People seem to have this fantasy where that's not the case, or that it shouldn't be "in the name of realism".
Large doesn't necessarily equal powerful, at least not in a linear way. In real life there are lots of bureaucratic inefficiencies in trying to administrate a large sprawling empire, let alone unrest problems. Japan slapped China around pretty good at times in history and there are plenty of other historical instances of smaller more developed nations punching above their weight. All other things being equal then yes, obviously a large empire will be able to take down a small nation, but all other things are rarely equal.
I don't necessarily want technology to "spread" and I don't really think there's much of a problem with Aurora in this regard, but history does not show that the bigger nation always wins and I think games should make an effort to simulate this. It also provides good gameplay with numerous playstyles and decisions and doesn't screw someone over just because they didn't get lots of nice planets so it's good as game design.
-
This may be slightly off-topic (although it's still semi-related), but I've been doing some thinking on this topic lately and... Is there really even that much of a historical justification for a tall empire being capable of truly succeeding as a long-term thing? Why are people so obsessed with this idea across strategy games in general? It seems like a "tall" empire wouldn't even be an empire at all. I think of "Tall" as being more of a transitional state between fully exploiting Sol and conquering the galaxy more than I do as something I'd want to continue indefinitely.
Even if you fix science so that research rates are independent of empire size, the bigger empire should still be at an advantage even with the implementation of tech spread.
Aside from some geopolitical factors (e.g a coalition attacking the large empire on several fronts) and geographical factors (e.g tall empire has nothing but bottleneck systems bordering you), I don't see a scenario in which the sprawl empire doesn't roll over the tall one every single time or at least win the long game. People seem to have this fantasy where that's not the case, or that it shouldn't be "in the name of realism".
This is not how things actually work in reality, if it did then Earth would be governed by one super power by now. No... nothing is really binary and games such as Aurora do not model most of the things that impact any nations ability to influence another. Those you have to do with RP in this game.
The condition you ascribe to any power only exist in games. In real life no one would aspire to be either tall or wide, that would be a state one would be in for some reason or another in comparison with something else.
You sometimes need abstract mechanics to sort of simulate the more dynamic and complex part of life that is difficult to represent in details in a game. Things like politics, philosophies, social factors and the like. There always is a balance between what is fun and what is realistic. In most cases this is due to games allowing the player to simply control too many things and allowing the player to be too many functions at the same time that would otherwise not be able to cooperate as efficiently in reality, thus producing rather binary results that are not even remotely realistic.
Aurora is no exemption from this but the difference between Aurora and most other games is that it is a framework for RP which is why it allow you that freedom to decide when you want to restrict certain part of the game or introduce real life politics, unrest or even revolutions into your games.
This does not mean we can improve om some of the basic ideas such as a changing research or economy to make them less binary by nature but still retain allot of freedom.