Research and Surplus Scientists

[Jorgen_CAB]

Less labs don't sound that appealing to me, though I absolutely agree it is the easiest solution. On the other hand it would also fundamentally alter the way the game is played as well as its pace.


Edit:
@Jorgen_CAB

What pop levels do you use? I got for +- RL ones (so usually 8b) and the game is definitely not intended for this (The scaling gets worse the more you deviate from the standard 500-1000m bracket), though this is my strong feeling, I am too bad at math and too lazy to prove this.

Like I have to reduce research rate to about 15% (still slightly above the default rate given the number of labs I get), but the scientist % bonus as well as lab bonus (is there a max? I have no idea what it is and how hard it is to get there) sure must have a ceiling. Minerals are the biggest problem though, I can burn through my heavily % increased minerals on Earth in less than 20 years from game start (all of them, the least numerous ones much sooner) and there is no setting for galaxy mineral generation, only Earth. Though this probably requires its own topic, I might start one once I am done with my latest game (first real pop game in C).

In my last I only started with about 2 billion on my faction and 2 billion as a neutral faction... I go by the reasoning that population levels are the working population so exclude children and academy students as well as elderly people... only the actual work force. So I reason that actual population can be about twice as many... especially in an advanced society such as Aurora as people will tend to enter the workforce allot later than would be more likely today.

But there is no problem with resources in my opinion... you can slow down research to such a degree that you research VERY slow... in my current game I'm at 15% research, 5% survey and 50% terraforming. Most big worlds usually have millions of tons of ore so strip-mining them is not that easy... especially if you reduce the research rate to be very low so you gain tech allot slower than a normal game. Asteroid will of course be mined allot quicker... but again your mining tech will be lower than in a normal game too. So even if you have allot of population it will be much slower to expand so you increase your labour force much slower per capita and through technology you gain less too.

For the most part it can be pretty well balanced.

I suppose you would not be against reducing OR increasing labs if it was an option just like tech rate... right?!?

[Steelpoint]

If you are looking to find somewhere for your B and C list scientists to go to work without dismissing them.    I'd suggest an alternate take where you can assign excess scientists to work as assistants/co-workers/etc alongside the main scientist who is leading the research.   

I'd suggest that the first assistant scientist only contributes a maximum of 10% bonus to the research (assuming they have a minimum of 10% or more bonus), the second contributes an extra 5%, and every other scientist after can only contribute an extra 1%.   

So you have a Power and Propulsion researcher working on a PP project with a 40% bonus.    You add the first assistant scientist with a PP bonus of 15% which is capped to 10%, a second assistant scientist with a bonus of 10% which is capped at 5%, you then add two more assistant scientists which get capped at 1% bonus each.    So in the end you have 57% bonus to PP research.   

I'd also make a condition a scientist can only assist with a project that they are specialised in.    Or suffer a malus to their bonus if they are working on a project they are not speced into.   

E: A bonus to this system would be that if the main scientist dies or retires then the system should automatically assign the most senior assistant to take over, would cut down on the micro a bit.   

[liveware]

I recently discovered that it is possible to change a particular scientist's specialty. Go to the characters window, select the applicable scientist, and click 'change field'. Voila, new specialty (with a slight malus).

[vorpal+5]

I would like also to see the 'Assistant' route taken ...

Like, each assistant provides his rating as a fraction of supplementary lab (so a Scientist with 10% in Propulsion is worth 0.1 extra lab). You could not get more "virtual labs" this way than you have "real labs" ...

extra embedded feature: with this rule, assistants work best if the lead scientist is good, as an assistant increases the base value which is then modified by the skill of the main scientist.

[Father Tim]

I would like to see each scientist only able to oversee one lab (just as each naval officer can only command one ship) as well as multiple scientist/labs able to cooperate on a research project.

Rather than 1.4 x (5) my latest project would be 1.4 + 1.2 + 1.1 + 1.1 + 1.0

[Ri0Rdian]

Of course, an OPTION to have it affect the number of labs is ok. As long as one does not have to use it I am always up for more options. 

[liveware]

FWIW, I have found that I tend utilize scientists differently depending on the state of my empire.

Case 1: War. Many unemployed scientists. Few employed scientists each utilizing multiple labs to research war critical technology.

Case 2: Peace. Many employed scientists. Few unemployed scientists. Each scientist has at most 2 labs under their purview.