Conventional Start, slow research

[Jorgen_CAB]

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 already bring minerals to all my colonies as they always tend to be self sufficient outside the very early development, so that really does not bother me much at least.

I even wanted populations to require some mineral consumption or it's production efficiency should go down.

[nuclearslurpee]

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?

[Steve Walmsley]

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.

[nuclearslurpee]

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).

[Noriad]

Regarding using minerals as consumables for labs,

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.

There are two reasons to add mechanics to strategy games:
1) to increase immersion.
2) to make choices harder and/or more interesting.
Unless it makes choices harder or adds to the story, there is no point in adding the mechanic.

[Steve Walmsley]

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).

Yes, that is a good point - or I finally get around to having a separate ground weapon tech line.

[Garfunkel]

Separate ground weapon research line would be the best thing.

[AlStar]

Regarding using minerals as consumables for labs,

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.

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.

[gpt3]

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 think that you could definitely justify a "research mineral" in the lore.

• C# lore: https://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10239.0
• Wiki lore: https://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Trans_Newtonian_Elements

All you need to do is to explain why the mineral is useful for research and why it can't be used in lieu of other materials for construction. For example:

• $MINERAL is used for advanced lab equipment (e.g. supercomputers), which are needed to simulate various hypotheses and prototypes as they evolve into theories and practical hardware. Unfortunately, these simulations require bespoke hardware (e.g. custom ASIC chips), which is why research consumes minerals in a nonrecyclable manner.
• $MINERAL can be coaxed to temporarily simulate the properties of other TN minerals. Unfortunately, this requires kilotons of supporting hardware, which is why a prototype made out of $MINERAL works fine in the lab but is totally impractical for spaceflight.

[serger]

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.

[AlStar]

...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.

[serger]

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.

[AlStar]

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.

*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.

[nuclearslurpee]

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.

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?

If so, I am not in favor of this idea. On one hand, 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 and I don't think it is a problem as it currently is (not compared to the same situation for factories, at least). It is easy enough to fluff the first part of the RPs required as the early theoretical work, preliminary studies, etc. leading to the latter part of the RPs which represent the high-impact stuff that headlines a dozen publications in top journals, etc. I don't think we need a complicated model of research to represent what amounts to a different view of the process.

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.

[serger]

*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.

You're suggesting to make another tedious-to-implement home rule to negate one of the factors that are making a game mechanics awkward.
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.