If you prefer slower games with longer "tech eras," you might consider starting as TN with the admin limit on and a 25% research rate (this is my setup). This will give you an average of 10 to 20 years per tech up to the basic 5,000. However, reaching the Ion age, which is crucial for defence in Aurora space, could take around 200 years if you focus solely on propulsion tech. Beware that I do spend the TN RP bonuses, so I don't start from the ground up, making this a lesser steep curve.
Now, imagine surviving this initial period only to encounter a hostile NPR 500 years into the game. You are facing an NPR with a gazillion RPs that sees your race as the apes at the end of 2001: a space odyssey*.
Overall, my feedback is that while longer tech area are nice, the whole game will still play at the same pace (mineral consumption, economy, fuel usage, NPRs generation) and limiting research rate is not as effective as you may think as there are other areas that would require proper settings for you to enjoy the game and play it on levelled field once NPR or Spoilers appear. It's true that human players always have the upper hand over NPRs, however, tech is a major factor in Aurora (and real life).
*Note: I am unsure if starting RP points receive a cut by the malus in research rate when generating a new NPR in game, so that may not be an issue. I don't think so, as while the generation accounts for your RP (which were limited by the malus) I am pretty sure that in game time is part of the generation code. Anyway, I do know that NPR research rate is the same as yours once they spawn, along with all other parameters. Overall though, the handicap will impact more the NPR faction than the player at that point, further compromising the experience.
I usually play with limited admin + 50% research speed (player race only). In my XCOM campaign I reached Ion Drive tech in about 20 years, but I had multiple extremely strong PP scientists from the start. With less powerful scientists maybe rushing to Ion Drive takes 25-30 years at these settings. Cutting research rate to only 25% would mean 50-60 years, not 200 years but still a very long time.
IIRC, if you set the research rate in the global/New Game settings, it will also affect NPR generation and research because it is a global setting. Because of this, I always set the research rate modifier for the player species, leaving the NPRs at 100% research rate - they need the help anyways. ;)
I usually play with limited admin + 50% research speed (player race only). In my XCOM campaign I reached Ion Drive tech in about 20 years, but I had multiple extremely strong PP scientists from the start. With less powerful scientists maybe rushing to Ion Drive takes 25-30 years at these settings. Cutting research rate to only 25% would mean 50-60 years, not 200 years but still a very long time.
True, however you not factoring in all the side techs along with researching components, producing ships, and so on. Yet, still not 200, perhaps. ;D
I also like to play slow starting always conventional but leaving all the other options as default when we speak about research speed.
Believe me, in the beginning you probably makes a lot of discovery because the low cost and that gives you the feeling of a fast game, but as long as you progress in the game, as long as you do not construct dozzillion of labs, the amount of researches slow down due to the increase cost and the need to reseach always new designs if you do not want be oblitered by aliens and keep your fleet in order.
Maybe Steve could reconsider the research cost in terms of wealth making it more expensive, thus avoiding the buildup of laboratories; in real life the tech research is a very expensive part of the budget expecially the basic one.
I also like to play slow starting always conventional but leaving all the other options as default when we speak about research speed.
Believe me, in the beginning you probably makes a lot of discovery because the low cost and that gives you the feeling of a fast game, but as long as you progress in the game, as long as you do not construct dozzillion of labs, the amount of researches slow down due to the increase cost and the need to reseach always new designs if you do not want be oblitered by aliens and keep your fleet in order.
Maybe Steve could reconsider the research cost in terms of wealth making it more expensive, thus avoiding the buildup of laboratories; in real life the tech research is a very expensive part of the budget expecially the basic one.
I'm always a proponent of using diminishing returns to automatically balance things. So I want to suggest something similar.
Research funding setting.
Basically you can set research funding (wealth cost of running labs) between for example 10% and 500% and it modifies your research speed acc to for example SQRT ([Research Funding %]/100)
This means you would get the following:
(https://i.imgur.com/MC09axY.jpeg)
If that is too steep impact the exponent can be changed to cube root or any other value that seems appropriate, but the main purpose is to allow you to easily scale down and up research funding as your wealth budget and priorities allows. Most player would probably want to run at higher research funding levels to speed up research so the wealth cost would naturally increase.
Another potential out of the box suggestion to make researching expensive is considering if running research facilities should consume any TN minerals in addition to wealth.
I would be against research costing TN minerals. Labs already require quite an intensive effort to build as they are expensive and require a large population to run. The fact that planets have population limits and that research bonus constructs exist drive the dispersions of labs from Earth (or the starting homeworld), which is also a significant cargo lift operation. Plus, research usually is the single most expensive item in your budget. Adding the need to bring in TN-minerals to your research colonies would be bit too punishing, IMHO.
I would not object, but as Steve noted it should be a lesser-used mineral and I can't think of one offhand that makes sense. For example Tritanium is a little-used mineral even if you go hard on missiles, but does it make any sense in lore to be used for research? I guess maybe mercassium would be okay, maybe at 0.1 tons per RP?
I would not object, but as Steve noted it should be a lesser-used mineral and I can't think of one offhand that makes sense. For example Tritanium is a little-used mineral even if you go hard on missiles, but does it make any sense in lore to be used for research? I guess maybe mercassium would be okay, maybe at 0.1 tons per RP?
I was considering Corbomite or maybe a mix of Mercassium and Corbomite, but another option is to switch missiles to another mineral (maybe Vendarite as it is also used for ground forces and that combination sort of makes sense) and make Tritanium the 'research mineral'. I'm still not definitely doing this, but at the moment I see more positives than negatives - I am prepared to be convinced otherwise.
I would not object, but as Steve noted it should be a lesser-used mineral and I can't think of one offhand that makes sense. For example Tritanium is a little-used mineral even if you go hard on missiles, but does it make any sense in lore to be used for research? I guess maybe mercassium would be okay, maybe at 0.1 tons per RP?
I was considering Corbomite or maybe a mix of Mercassium and Corbomite, but another option is to switch missiles to another mineral (maybe Vendarite as it is also used for ground forces and that combination sort of makes sense) and make Tritanium the 'research mineral'. I'm still not definitely doing this, but at the moment I see more positives than negatives - I am prepared to be convinced otherwise.
If missile warheads and ground forces use the same mineral that would be a good excuse and opportunity to make missile warhead research also boost ground unit attack - currently it does not which feels like an unnecessary malus for a missile doctrine as it forces research of a beam weapon (besides Gauss PD).
Regarding using minerals as consumables for labs,Ah, but if you're using it for research, suddenly you will not have it in excess, and finding sources of it will (potentially) become even more important than finding Corundium.
if it's a rarely used mineral that players have in excess, then adding it as a mandatory consumable for labs has little effect on the game. And if you have to think hard to give a reason for using the mineral, don't bother.
I would not object, but as Steve noted it should be a lesser-used mineral and I can't think of one offhand that makes sense. For example Tritanium is a little-used mineral even if you go hard on missiles, but does it make any sense in lore to be used for research? I guess maybe mercassium would be okay, maybe at 0.1 tons per RP?
...like retiring/dying senior researchers, for example...I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but setting your researchers to story characters will stop them from dying or retiring naturally.
I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but setting your researchers to story characters will stop them from dying or retiring naturally.
*shrug* It just means that when you feel that the characters are old enough, you turn off the tag and they'll die/retire, or you can just remove them from the post at a time more convenient to your narrative.I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but setting your researchers to story characters will stop them from dying or retiring naturally.
Not very much helping with story-telling intentions, unless it's very specific setting with immortal elites.
The most disbelieving thing that can be easily fixed with diminishing returns is that the game currently incentivises endlessly switching between mega-projects: as much labs as it's possible to finish the most urgent project, then "flood" the next urgent one, and so on. It's hard, though, to feel this like a story. Home rules to save the story-telling are quite tedious to implement, because there are several factors (like retiring/dying senior researchers, for example) that are changing the sequences abruptly and it's just hard to track things on without making additional programmed tools.
The Limited Research Administration option made it a bit better, yet it's actually just a half-way stop.
I think the best possible mechanics (and still very simple) in this regard would be just to make every project having diminishing returns from the very start, regardless of if there's labs flooding or fundings flooding.
This will incentivise dividing labs between as much useful parallel projects as it's possible, barring real urgency, and then leave these projects to their natural paces - with both the best sence of historical process and the less micromanagement needed.
*shrug* It just means that when you feel that the characters are old enough, you turn off the tag and they'll die/retire, or you can just remove them from the post at a time more convenient to your narrative.
Just because story-marked characters don't die/retire naturally doesn't mean you have to play a narrative where all your characters are immortal cyborgs or something.
If I understand correctly, the suggestion by "diminishing returns" is that the more labs a project uses the fewer RPs each lab contributes to the project?
I don't think this actually reflects how large scientific collaborations work at all, so I don't think there is a realism aspect to this.
On the other hand, this creates an optimal gameplay path of using only very few labs per project and I don't think this is good for gameplay; forcing a single strategy to be optimal does not create interesting decisions for the player.
A better solution would be to have some amount of time when a new project starts or is resumed during which research efficiency ramps up to 100%. However, this would be complicated to implement
In my games I don't think of the RP numbers as research production, rather as funding allocated to projects by government grant agencies which happens to return the desired results after 5k or 10k or however much investment. It is not a complete, perfect reflection of the game mechanics but I think it works well enough.
You're suggesting to make another tedious-to-implement home rule to negate one of the factors that are making a game mechanics awkward.You specifically called out characters dying or retiring as being disruptive to your narrative process; so I pointed out how to stop your character from dying or retiring when you don't want them to.
Sure, it's possible to pile up one home rule onto another, you can even make some entirely another game by making enough of these home rule epicycles. I just think there are more efficient solutions.
Diminishing return of investment is clearly realistic as that is how things work in the real world. You generally have more of an S curve when it comes to funding research. You will get faster results up to a point and then diminishing returns in the investment.
If such a method was implemented it has to be in such a way you feel that investing more is worth it even if it is less efficient. Some project just are important timewise, more so than others. In times of peace and general stability you want to maximize the efficiency. For example the admin would be more of a soft cap rather than a hard cap. You gain full efficiency up to the cap and then diminishing return of you add more.
Now you have the option to hurry some specific technology but at higher cost and something else taking longer.
Now this is something that I could get behind - I like the idea that you could "overload" a scientist beyond their abilities for an extra push; although I'll admit I can't think of any time in my playthroughs where I specifically thought "if only I could finish this project a couple months faster, I'd really help" - generally the build times on warships are far enough out that your current fleet is mostly playing with the last generation's toys.
You specifically called out characters dying or retiring as being disruptive to your narrative process
Old 4x space game called "Sword of the Stars" handled research very nicely; you selected research project, you allocated funds and it presented you estimated completion time. However the actual completion time varied and if you just poured money into it, it suffered a very realistic and close to real life fate; after initial burst the progress starts to rapidly slow down until eventually it will take longer than if you'd just given 20-40% of what you allocated in the first place.I also like to play slow starting always conventional but leaving all the other options as default when we speak about research speed.
Believe me, in the beginning you probably makes a lot of discovery because the low cost and that gives you the feeling of a fast game, but as long as you progress in the game, as long as you do not construct dozzillion of labs, the amount of researches slow down due to the increase cost and the need to reseach always new designs if you do not want be oblitered by aliens and keep your fleet in order.
Maybe Steve could reconsider the research cost in terms of wealth making it more expensive, thus avoiding the buildup of laboratories; in real life the tech research is a very expensive part of the budget expecially the basic one.
I'm always a proponent of using diminishing returns to automatically balance things. So I want to suggest something similar.
Research funding setting.
Basically you can set research funding (wealth cost of running labs) between for example 10% and 500% and it modifies your research speed acc to for example SQRT ([Research Funding %]/100)
This means you would get the following:
(https://i.imgur.com/MC09axY.jpeg)
If that is too steep impact the exponent can be changed to cube root or any other value that seems appropriate, but the main purpose is to allow you to easily scale down and up research funding as your wealth budget and priorities allows. Most player would probably want to run at higher research funding levels to speed up research so the wealth cost would naturally increase.
Another potential outside the box suggestion to make researching expensive is considering if running research facilities should consume any TN minerals in addition to wealth.
A small suggestion from inside the current real war:
Make ECM and ECCM techs affecting accuracy / fortification modifiers of the GF.
It became real, and more so - it became ubiquitous and obligatory. There's just no attack or strike any more without drone spotting and fire control here. EW in not anymore focused on air and naval operations, the ground forces became completely involved and dependent on the radio bands warfare.
I think that should belong to the suggestion thread? It kind of looks off-topic in here.
I think that should belong to the suggestion thread? It kind of looks off-topic in here.
Ermm. This thread is in Suggestions subboard actually.
...
There is a piece of wisdom about research rates: since tech costs in Aurora scale exponentially (roughly 2^x), there will always be a 'wall' you hit after which advancing in tech is a very slow process. Changing the research rate speed only changes the point in the tech tree where that wall is hit. With the default 100% that wall might come at, say, solid AM tech level, while on 20% research the wall may be at MP Drive or Magnetic Fusion tech levels. However, there will be a wall either way, all the tech slider decides is what tech level the wall is at. If you want to play 100 years at NPE tech, then you can set research to 5% as long as you are comfortable with the implications RE: NPRs and spoilers.
I would also support using wealth on a larger scale in the process. To elaborate, in a recent campaign's early stages, I have 48 million scientists generating 120 wealth per year per million. My research expenses during this period were approximately 8.5k. Essentially, the cost of my research labs and efforts to taxpayers was less than 3k ((48 * 120) - 8500).
Maybe it's just me, or perhaps my equation isn't correct, but it seems too inexpensive compared to how much R&D functions in the real world. Additionally, as Wealth generation technology advances, the impact of wealth on actual research efforts may become completely irrelevant, which is likely an overlooked side effect of the current wealth balance. I'm not suggesting we break the financial model, but if some are concerned about slowing down or unintended consequences from overly ambitious research, financing could be a solution, along with the already suggested mineral usage.
As far as I know, in 2.x wealth is not generated simply by pops but by installations which "produce" something. I could not find which buildings this are, the mechanics post just says "TN installations". I was under the impressions that it are mostly mines, financial centres and factories which produces wealth.
I would be quite surprised if labs large carry most of their own expenses, as research for my empires is most often the biggest wealth expenditure, taking up to 50% of wealth.
That's what marked as TaxableWorkers in the DB:
As far as I know, in 2.x wealth is not generated simply by pops but by installations which "produce" something. I could not find which buildings this are, the mechanics post just says "TN installations". I was under the impressions that it are mostly mines, financial centres and factories which produces wealth.
I would be quite surprised if labs large carry most of their own expenses, as research for my empires is most often the biggest wealth expenditure, taking up to 50% of wealth.
If you're comfortable with editing the DB, you can make conventional industry build able. I run my conventional games at 50% speed, limited administration, but turn on conventional industry.
NOTE: If you do this, you forego any ability to bug report and any errors or corrupted files you end up with are on you.
With that being said, it's very easy to download a DB editor and then you just need to change a couple numbers. I personally have them allowed and make them cost 15% of all their associated upgraded facilities' costs. Makes them less valuable but still useful until you research trans-newtonian tech. The upgraded facilities are 10x better and cost less around 8x as much this way. Still encourages development, but allows a long early game.
Any recommendation for a DB editor?
@steve
I like the ideas and discussions present already.
But I want to propose some new ideas. Maybe it can be a source of inspiration / other ideas.
To be honest, it's a larger change. And not fully defined.
Instead of having "general" research labs which are used for every field.
You could change it as follows:
* Introduction or research campus
** A research campus is one or more labs.
** A research campus is focused on a specific "field"
** A research campus can research techs not in it's field. But forgo's (or diminished) any research bonusses.
** A research campus can be "refocused" on another field. TN and wealth cost.
** A research campus is assigned a "research administrator", which determines upper research lab limit.
*** If the administrator is replaced with a lower cap, the research bonus is reduced and no new labs can be added.
** A research campus can be expanded with x labs.
*** Adding additional labs can have their own cost curve. Promoting the idea of possible multiple campuses.
** Ancient construct bonus applies to whole campus
* Researchers are assigned to "Research campuses"
** Multiple researchers can be assigned to a campus. If a campus has 10 labs, max 10 researchers.
** Each researcher can have an assigned tech to research.
** Research bonus is a combination of campus bonus + researcher bonus.
...
These suggestions do the following (game balance):
* A Wealth and TN minerals commitment to certain tech fields.
** So it becomes a conscious decision to go down a certain path.
** Same argument for "refocus" of campus. (Like retooling a shipyard)
* Protecting research colonies becomes even more important
* Losing a specific researcher with a large bonus is still hurtful, but possibly reduced by a good research campus admin.
* Slower to snowball in specific research fields without lacking in others. Currently you can move over all your labs between research fields / tasks.
* ...
Goal: Slowing down the research lab snowball we have assigned to a single research task. And being able to move labs to another research field in an instant.