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Posted by: liveware
« on: May 15, 2020, 06:12:03 PM »

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.
Posted by: Ri0Rdian
« on: May 15, 2020, 05:02:55 PM »

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.  8)


Posted by: Father Tim
« on: May 15, 2020, 01:38:28 PM »

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
Posted by: vorpal+5
« on: May 14, 2020, 03:27:25 AM »

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.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 13, 2020, 07:43:44 PM »

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).
Posted by: Steelpoint
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:25:26 PM »

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.   
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 13, 2020, 01:07:37 PM »

Quote from: Ri0Rdian on May 13, 2020, 12:07:35 PM
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?!?
Posted by: Ri0Rdian
« on: May 13, 2020, 12:07:35 PM »

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).
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 13, 2020, 11:08:34 AM »

The absolutely more easy solution is of course to reduce the number of labs that you can assign to scientists. If the amount of labs is reduced by 2/3 or so you would be forced to use more scientists.

If you feel science are moving along too slowly as it takes longer to research stuff there is always the option to raise the research rate... or lower it if you feel it is moving too fast anyway. I always now reduce the science rate significantly in my games, but also start with more population as well. As I get allot more academies I actually hit the roof for many scientists in the process and I think that lowering the number of labs or at least add it as an option in conjunction with the science rate could be good.

So... an additional option of how many labs scientists can use... so I could set it to 50%, then each scientist can now use half the number of labs from normal. Another interesting thing with this is that you can change it over time in the game as you advance the campaign and you feel that adding more labs to the scientists make sense for the pace of the game.

I also feel that when a scientist switch field they should regain some of that lost experience over time... let's say they gain double the chance to increase their skill over the next 10 years or so.
Posted by: liveware
« on: May 12, 2020, 02:16:26 PM »

Quote from: skoormit on May 09, 2020, 10:21:30 AM
I would love to be able to do *something* with my b-list scientists.

Allowing scientists to man ship- or station- borne science labs seems a straightforward implementation concept to me. I admit I was disappointed when I discovered that I could not assign my useless biological scientists to man science departments on my survey ships.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: May 12, 2020, 09:33:30 AM »

Quote from: Nori on May 12, 2020, 09:26:10 AM
Quote from: Pedroig on May 12, 2020, 09:07:31 AM
Quote from: froggiest1982 on May 12, 2020, 12:40:38 AM
Quote from: Nori on May 11, 2020, 11:47:18 PM
I'd love to see something to do with excess scientists. I rarely use more than 2 scientists per field and most of the time only use one. Yet you need more academies because you'll need a lot more naval/ground officers (and possibly civ admins). My current game is 108 years in and I have hundreds of scientists. I don't expect to use all of them, but being able to use more than 1-2 per field would be nice.

Personally I retire many of them when I am in your position. I havent built the science department yet so no sure you can use your scientist there. Mainly because I dont know what to use the science department for I guess

Science department directly effects survey speeds.
Which isn't all that useful unless you reduce survey speed IMO... But even so, how many science modules are you really going to use? 5?
I'd probably retire them, except there are too many and you have to do it one at a time..

They are cheaper and smaller than a survey module... so why not... but I do agree that it makes more sense of you reduce survey times as an option... I only run with 5% in my games so there it definitely make sense...  ;)
Posted by: Nori
« on: May 12, 2020, 09:26:10 AM »

Quote from: Pedroig on May 12, 2020, 09:07:31 AM
Quote from: froggiest1982 on May 12, 2020, 12:40:38 AM
Quote from: Nori on May 11, 2020, 11:47:18 PM
I'd love to see something to do with excess scientists. I rarely use more than 2 scientists per field and most of the time only use one. Yet you need more academies because you'll need a lot more naval/ground officers (and possibly civ admins). My current game is 108 years in and I have hundreds of scientists. I don't expect to use all of them, but being able to use more than 1-2 per field would be nice.

Personally I retire many of them when I am in your position. I havent built the science department yet so no sure you can use your scientist there. Mainly because I dont know what to use the science department for I guess

Science department directly effects survey speeds.
Which isn't all that useful unless you reduce survey speed IMO... But even so, how many science modules are you really going to use? 5?
I'd probably retire them, except there are too many and you have to do it one at a time..
Posted by: Pedroig
« on: May 12, 2020, 09:07:31 AM »

Quote from: froggiest1982 on May 12, 2020, 12:40:38 AM
Quote from: Nori on May 11, 2020, 11:47:18 PM
I'd love to see something to do with excess scientists. I rarely use more than 2 scientists per field and most of the time only use one. Yet you need more academies because you'll need a lot more naval/ground officers (and possibly civ admins). My current game is 108 years in and I have hundreds of scientists. I don't expect to use all of them, but being able to use more than 1-2 per field would be nice.

Personally I retire many of them when I am in your position. I havent built the science department yet so no sure you can use your scientist there. Mainly because I dont know what to use the science department for I guess

Science department directly effects survey speeds.
Posted by: Froggiest1982
« on: May 12, 2020, 12:40:38 AM »

Quote from: Nori on May 11, 2020, 11:47:18 PM
I'd love to see something to do with excess scientists. I rarely use more than 2 scientists per field and most of the time only use one. Yet you need more academies because you'll need a lot more naval/ground officers (and possibly civ admins). My current game is 108 years in and I have hundreds of scientists. I don't expect to use all of them, but being able to use more than 1-2 per field would be nice.

Personally I retire many of them when I am in your position. I havent built the science department yet so no sure you can use your scientist there. Mainly because I dont know what to use the science department for I guess
Posted by: Nori
« on: May 11, 2020, 11:47:18 PM »

I'd love to see something to do with excess scientists. I rarely use more than 2 scientists per field and most of the time only use one. Yet you need more academies because you'll need a lot more naval/ground officers (and possibly civ admins). My current game is 108 years in and I have hundreds of scientists. I don't expect to use all of them, but being able to use more than 1-2 per field would be nice.