Scientific Specialization

[Hyomoto]

After playing AlphaMod for a while I noticed something that sort of bothers me now about the base game. Not in a "I can't play it kind of way" but more just why? So let's talk about science.

Need science? Plunk down a science building and generate some. The only buildings in the base game that produces science produces all three. I get that you can turn some into a specific kind of research laboratory, but unless you make a significant, concentrated effort, it's pretty hard to end up notably top heavy in a single type of research. Similarly, we're required to assign research to each branch. Doesn't this come off as sort of 'safe'? The game holding our hand and making us diversify our research, even if we don't want to. There's a lot of potential to go crazy with ideas, but Stellaris is also trying to be simple to play. That I can respect. Still being simple to play doesn't mean the game has to be simple, and there are places like the ship creator or government where the game gives you more control. It's largely fire-and-forget, you have a lot of choices but once you've made it you don't have to micromanage: so why not a little bit more for science?

Specifically, we have ascension paths coming with bio, mind and machine paths. So, why can't my culture be more selective about our tech? If I want to be engineering, physics or socially heavy, wouldn't it be nice to be able to choose multiple techs from the same branch or even to assign more scientists to a single one? Sometimes you just want a push on a particular tech or branch. You'd already be giving up research on other technology and if the game is even lightly balanced that should be enough. You might lose out on total techs, but if that's what you want to do, well? Why not? Hell, being heavy in a single type of research is largely a late game 'advantage' anyways so it's probably unwise to try to rush it from the start.

The point is: we are deciding the paths of our cultures, and I'd love to see the care that is coming spread even future. I love what Utopia is bringing to the table, and I'm super excited to see what other changes we'll see beyond that. There's all this emphasis on factions, ethics and government types but technologically speaking we're pretty similar. I think breaking that up to let us make more decisions about the types of research to do would better let us define our cultures, the same way our ethics are supposed to. Heck, limiting some rare techs to cultures with significant progress in various branches could make specialization more worthwhile. This is just a brief thought here at the end, but we're encouraged to research throwaway techs because there's no reason not to. It would be nice to have a bit more control and choice.

 

[Drowe]

There is a mechanic that allows you to create an imbalance in your research, and it is easy to use and flexible. Just activate one of the research grants, you can leave it active all the time or switch whenever you care to do so.

 

[Roddo]

Or you could just pick the speciality bonus research traits.

 

[Hyomoto]

@Roddo - While those are useful, they are hardly the same thing. Check all your tech trees, I'm willing to bet regardless of how you've used those edicts, you probably have just about if not exactly the same number of techs. Being able to research one tech more quickly while also researching the other two is not the same as researching two techs from the same tree or devoting all your resources to one or two.

@Drowe - That doesn't really create much of an imbalance anyways because I'm speaking more of science coming in. While research stations can create an imbalance, such as finding a damaged ringworld and taking a sweet 25 boost to engineering, that's in the minority. Generally speaking all your research is probably within around 10% of each other. Maybe that's just my tendency to balance the ledger, but without tier V science buildings that produce a significant advantage, the early game at least is definitely much more closely spaced. It would be more interesting to see those edicts convert a portion of those types of science into the ones you wanted. ie: take 50% of the other two types and give a 50% boost to the one you want. That way if you were researching multiple social technologies, the bonus would be more useful than simply applying it to a single tech. Then again, doing that, plus assigning multiple researchers might get you that thing you wanted at cost to other technologies and influence.

My suggestion really just comes down to letting you make more decisions about how and what you research. Right now you are forced to pursue it a certain way, and while you might think you have decisions to make, they are highly limited and focused on ensuring you pursue all three paths somewhat evenly.

 

[Grubsnik]

Right now I would rather focus on making going science heavy a valid strategy. In my experience whenever I go for heavy early warring and expansion, I will end up with a huge fleet, tonnes of minerals and energy and horrible science. If I focus on science, I can have 3 times the effective tech-rate, with about a third of the fleet capacity. Heck, I'll even target advanced races with my warring nation since my huge fleet will crush them with ease and I can get all sorts of expensive techs from their wreckage.

With regards to the unbalanced science, I have a liking to focusing society techs and only building biolabs in the early game, that will often result in me getting twice the society research as physics and engineering and ~30-50% more completed techs. So it is possible to go all lopsided on techs, the question then becomes if it's a good idea or not.

 

[Hyomoto]

I think some of what Stellaris does is acknowledge that being a blunt club works best and try to deny that fact. It's like trying to balance out being rich with being poor. One side has every advantage, and the other has none. I think balancing out science with expansion is already there to some extent, perhaps making technologies a little more expensive and a little more powerful is the route to go. That way a larger fleet with tier one weapons and shields doesn't just completely dominate a smaller tier 2 fleet.

Honestly I think Stellaris has an issue with having a couple different perspectives on things, and so you end up with some half-measures that don't make sense. Ship combat seems to have that issue since it provides us these different weapon types but they largely do the same things. Going all armor versus all shields. That said, technology research seems to force it's hand by trying very hard to make you diversify. Honestly, I think each tech tree should be a viable playstyle in it's own right and that having to do all three sort of suggests that isn't the case. If nothing else, engineering and physics seem to mostly compliment one another where as society is clearly it's own branch.

 

[Almond_Brown]

Not sure the complexities to allow this idea but how about if we are allowed to set any of the 3 Slots for Tech to whichever tech type we want. So the idea would be, as in the picture below, clicking a Tech header, would change the type to the next Tech type of the current three available.

So clicking Physics once makes it a Society tech slot and 2 clicks makes it an Engineering Slot. That way a player can use ALL 3 slots as they see fit but Balance could be an issue if allowed that much freedom versus the AI...

 

[Hyomoto]

That is precisely what I was talking about, yes. As I said, it could be balanced by having you split your resource between them. The problem really is that the base game doesn't really do tech specialization in the broad sense. Yes you most certain can focus more heavily on one area than another, and I'm sure people do, but generally speaking the game is very adamant about balancing your research. The fact that you are required to both research one of each, and two that research producing buildings provide all three, strongly suggests that.

I'd like to see technology be as significant to a culture as it's government and ethics. After all, does a pacifist society have interest in nuclear bombs? Admitting that you need to research war tech is basically admitting the base game only rewards one style of play. Or to put it another way, you can research only war tech and win, but focusing entirely on society probably not. A federation is a much more difficult win-scenario than bludgeoning everything into submission. Having more control over your technological future and treating it less like a mandatory chore of increasing power and more of a cultural identity is good start.

 

[--Yigito123--]

The thing with expansion being so much stronger thsn science-oriented is the fact that a fleet with tier 1 weapons can completely wipe a fleet with tier 2 weapons if they have enough of a number advantage. Now, I'm not saying that they should be unable to defeat a higher tech enemy no matter the numbers, what I'm saying is that the number advantage required should be much, much higher, in order to make staying ahead in tech very important.

 

[PawnTheS]

I don't like the idea of being able to specialize sicence. The main idea behind this functionnement is that it shows how the society/biology, fundamental science and technique of your specie grows and in the same way you can't ask all biologists and engeneers of Earth to do fundamental physic for 5 years you can't ask this to the scientists of a galactic empire.

 

[Derp]

The thing with expansion being so much stronger thsn science-oriented is the fact that a fleet with tier 1 weapons can completely wipe a fleet with tier 2 weapons if they have enough of a number advantage. Now, I'm not saying that they should be unable to defeat a higher tech enemy no matter the numbers, what I'm saying is that the number advantage required should be much, much higher, in order to make staying ahead in tech very important.

It was an intentional design choice. Which is pretty smart considering you have very limited control over what you can choose to research.

 

[Maverikfreak]

Right now we have 3 random research options in each area without player intervention or decision making.

My proposition is very simple, does not alter the fundamentals of the system, nor is it difficult to implement, but increases the decision making of the player without saturating it.

Divide the science obtained in 2 areas:

1. Investigate Technology.
2. Discover new technologies

Point number 1 is the current system, simply the research points go to the current research selected.

Point number 2 is a different progress bar, every time we complete it we will have at our disposal a new random technology to investigate.





About the balance:

The discovery of new technologies should be cheaper than normal research, to be able to offer a choice every time we investigate the current technology, but should increase exponentially for each technology investigated in their respective area and should multiply X2 for each technology that you have discovered but you keep on the storage. (Thus avoiding the massive accumulation of uninteresting technologies without research)

And obviously all the actual tech cost sould be changed too because we need to split the points on 2 bar now.

Excuse for my english and the shitty Paint photos, and please if you like the idea or do you have any suggestions support them with likes or comments.

 

[Adamsrealm]

I'd prefer tech restrictions to a single path, or techs that give you a several options when you research them but can only pick one, with all options having a significant effect in both a good and bad way.

This way empire strengths appear, but weaknesses appear alongside them for you to exploit.

It's effectively a game of choose what is the lesser evil for you.

Which adds one thing this game is lacking, consequences based on the players choices (and not necessarily good ones)

I'm sick of this "everyones a winner" ethos we have these days, as far as I'm concerned, if you do not cross that finish line first you have not won, and the place that you come after first decides how badly you lost.

 

[Dr. B]

Pretty easy to go heavy in one science field from the start if you really want to. I tried once to play a race of biologists, so society expert race, society research grant, best scientist in society, and only biolabs everywhere Ended up with 3 times as much research in society as the other two put together.

So this is not a problem.
However, what would add to the flavor and uniqueness of each playthrough is mutually exclusive research paths.
Say once you get to the best or next best tiers of some interesting research, you got to choose your path, with no way of retro engineering or discovering the other possibilities.

This game could use some more hard choices, with actual consequences.

 

[Hyomoto]

@Dr. B @Adamsrealm I know it's not a popular sentiment but Stellaris is very ... hand-holding. Much like you must diversify your technology, the buildings you build and the technologies you research are all generically useful. I agree wholly that being allowed to make interesting decisions and trade-offs is the way to go. It's why AlphaMod appeals to me, you can actually build interesting supply chains and such that can backfire. Should you be forced to play this way? There are always going to be middle of the road buildings and technologies, but having more 'dangerous techs' that actually have consequences or being able to build more powerful, but more specialized buildings would be nice, or hell even just having technologies that have positives AND negatives. Perhaps some research paths close off others, perhaps some technologies cause issues. It's a largely untapped well that, while mods can definitely deal with, it would be nice to see a bit more in the base game.

Which is why I think having three distinct and viable technology paths that you can pick and choose through would be a good addition.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

No. Each of the disciplines contains technologies that are essentially mandatory. You might want to go all-in on engineering to get super strong armour and kinetics on your advanced ship chassis, but that's all but useless without the advanced reactor designs from physics. Likewise, powerful shields and energy weapons are useless without advances in shipbuilding. And furthermore, all of these things are useless without the capacity to colonise and develop other planets and keep your society in order.

What you are proposing would be terrible, without a huge and fundamental overhaul of the entire technology tree. Falling far behind in any single research area is almost guaranteed to be disastrous in stellaris. Any mechanic that encourages players to stop researching in a field altogether would essentially be encouraging them to fail.

 

[sr999]

...

[USER=750338]@Drowe - That doesn't really create much of an imbalance anyways because I'm speaking more of science coming in. While research stations can create an imbalance, such as finding a damaged ringworld and taking a sweet 25 boost to engineering, that's in the minority. Generally speaking all your research is probably within around 10% of each other. Maybe that's just my tendency to balance the ledger, but without tier V science buildings that produce a significant advantage, the early game at least is definitely much more closely spaced. It would be more interesting to see those edicts convert a portion of those types of science into the ones you wanted. ie: take 50% of the other two types and give a 50% boost to the one you want. That way if you were researching multiple social technologies, the bonus would be more useful than simply applying it to a single tech. Then again, doing that, plus assigning multiple researchers might get you that thing you wanted at cost to other technologies and influence.
...
[/USER]

On the imbalance options, the edict ALREADY does almost the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale. So what you're really asking for is the edict be buffed, right? Perhaps a double-strength edict for 2 influence, giving +60% / -20% - 20% would do the trick for you? Assuming the devs agreed etc.

Otherwise, I take your (separate) point about researching multiple techs in a single branch at the same time. Which is something much more comp;licated for the devs to think about - mainly balance/testing, I suppose.

 

[Adamsrealm]

I'd like research progress to be % based and not static number, that way when debris give you 10% progress, you stay at 10% progress.

The time taken will still fluctuate like it does now as the underlying values of amount of research required based on planers and pops vs the amount you produce will still function the same.

 

[Hyomoto]

No. Each of the disciplines contains technologies that are essentially mandatory. You might want to go all-in on engineering to get super strong armour and kinetics on your advanced ship chassis, but that's all but useless without the advanced reactor designs from physics. Likewise, powerful shields and energy weapons are useless without advances in shipbuilding. And furthermore, all of these things are useless without the capacity to colonise and develop other planets and keep your society in order.

What you are proposing would be terrible, without a huge and fundamental overhaul of the entire technology tree. Falling far behind in any single research area is almost guaranteed to be disastrous in stellaris. Any mechanic that encourages players to stop researching in a field altogether would essentially be encouraging them to fail.

This is hardly a fundamental overhaul of the game: it's simply allowing you to pick two techs from the same tree instead of one. The fact that Stellaris allows you to keep unused research practically begs for this type of implementation. From the user's perspective, all you are doing is adding the same three tabs you have under 'researched' to 'research'. Allowing two scientists to work on the same tech is basically allowing you to add two sets of bonuses. I mean, please, explain how this is really such a revolutionary idea?

If you want to research better shields and a bigger reactor at the same time, you most certainly should be allowed. If that means you build a fleet of battleships but with early reactors and weaponry, well, you already CAN do that. So no, it would hardly be an overhaul. What you are saying makes no sense. As for letting the player fail, well, god forbid you be allowed to make decisions that lead to your eventual downfall. Wait, you can already do that too?

 

[Grubsnik]

How would you expect this to work. If I'm assigning 2 scientists to society research, would you then just get a second skill-bonus (2% per level of scientist) to your current society tech with an optional +5/10% from skills? Or did you imagine that you'd get a second draw of society techs to choose from? If so, would your society research be split between both or applied in full for both? What happens to your tertiary tech pool, that is no longer seeing progress?

Regarding the failing things. Good game design is about giving people valid choices, some of those may be high risk/high reward choices while other are most certain to be beneficial. Offering people options that are simply a mistake to pick is horrible game design, even if you had a different intention when you made it initially.