Bring back the Tech Tree

[JonnyBGood]

This is an expansion off an earlier thread of mine, and caj's response and appoco's mild interest.

Basically you introduce a bunch of additional researches and tack them onto the end of the current research paths. Each of these additional research paths would disable all the others, or maybe you could do two of them or something I don't really mind. Research time would escalate as "normal".


Onto the end of the cov-ops tree: Overburn defence, Overburn attack, Stealth Attack (as explained in the above thread)


Onto the end of the core mining tree: 5% bonus on income, 10% bonus on income


Onto the end of the scans tree: Be able to build one ship belonging to other races, become able to build two ships belonging to other races.


Onto the end of the space travel tree: Two tick defences, two tick attacks.


Onto the end of the infrastructure tree: Enable new types of structures to be built (I haven't really thought this one through but salvage centres, improved types of basic structures (factories which prod twice as fast, fcs which give twice as big a bonus etc). You could have 1 or 2 or 3 of these researches each giving better bonuses


Onto the end of the hulls tree: 5% cheaper ships, 10% cheaper ships.


I didn't bother putting anything in for adding onto the end of the hct tree for obvious reasons. Maybe deathstars though!?!?!?!?!?!




I'd be interested to hear anyone's opinions on the viability of these, particularly pateam's heh. I've tried to make them as simple as possible in order to make coding viable. Nothing would happen that's particularly "new". I guess the two tick thing would require some new coding though. Suggestions on something to replace that would be welcome!

[DunkelGraf]

Do you want to keep the lenght of a round to force ppl into choosing different ways? Or having a longer round so we can almost research all of it.
I think having to choose is a great way to suit diffenernt styles of playing.

[Linkie]

YES. Give us something new to play around with. Single-targetting made this game a lot more interesting simply because it is something NEW. Anything to mix things up and force us to adapt, instead of doing the same boring shit we have been doing for 20 rounds already (or 8 for some of us). I don't even care if it's imbalanced, as long as it isn't very obvious.

[[B5]Londo]

I like the idea, and definitely want research choices back in some form. Im glad u put what i see as the most dangerous of them at the end of the probably least used cov-ops category.

This presumably would have to have a consequence on races/governments as faster research becomes more important once more (at least regaining what it lost with the new startup). I would limit it to one category as u said, or cat demo gets rather fearsome

[Mzyxptlk]

I'd rather see this expanded to a proper choice tree, as opposed to some choices tacked on the end of what is essentially a line, not a tree. I doubt it'd be much more work to implement.

[isildurx]

YES. Having choices is GOOD. One thing I would be cautious about though is that some of the tech-tree paths(f.ex hulls) is a lot shorter than the others, maybe this needs to be remedied in some way?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

I'd rather see this expanded to a proper choice tree, as opposed to some choices tacked on the end of what is essentially a line, not a tree. I doubt it'd be much more work to implement.

If it isn't then cool, go with a whole new tree. If not then this is certainly an option.

Originally Posted by isildurx

YES. Having choices is GOOD. One thing I would be cautious about though is that some of the tech-tree paths(f.ex hulls) is a lot shorter than the others, maybe this needs to be remedied in some way?

Sure, just make the research time for the options on the shorter lines longer so that most of them kick in at around about the same time.

[Alki]

Surely just balance out the tree additions with each other, as opposed to extending the research times to balance them.

[Stoom]

right THESTOOM approves!

[Light]

I would love to see a proper tech tree implemented, im just cautious on how to do it and balance it between the 5 races.

[MrLobster]

Research

Hulls
5% Armor per level

Also a level activates a shiip class

FI = LVL 1 .. BS = LVL 6

Fire Control
5% damage Increase per level (i.e guns increased).

Structures

Research Labs - 5% increase in Research Points (RP) per Structure.
Power Reactor - 1000 Power (each structure uses 100 power, but perhaps some take more than others)
Construction Yard - 5% increase in Construction Points (CU) per Structure.
Shipyard - 5% Decrease in production times per Structure (Only 1 ship yard, Light/Medium/Heavy are removed).
Security Center - 5% increase in alert status per structure (so everyone could start on 0 alert).
Covert Ops Center - 5% increase in stealth recovery per structure (this is based on the current figure).
Ore Refinery - 1000 credits per tick (M/C/E removed for single credits).

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by MrLobster

Research

Hulls
5% Armor per level

Also a level activates a shiip class

FI = LVL 1 .. BS = LVL 6

Fire Control
5% damage Increase per level (i.e guns increased).

I actually thought about exactly the same thing but I reckoned adding in things that are small % increases to armour/damage wouldn't be possible. I have now, while writing this reply, realised how utterly retarded that was of me. I'd imagine it's still slightly more awkward though.

[Zaejii]

i've been contemplating wasting time coming out with a vertical (or horizontal - really depends on layout) for a tech tree similar to other game's talent systems.

general idea would have researchers making "credits" that could work alongside the current system where each race has a different base/tick amount and each "credit" is worth say 1600 research points.

expanding the current eta tree would then result in:
jumpgate - 1 credit (1600 points total)
warpgate - 2 credits (3200 points - requires jumpgate)
stargate - 3 credits (4800 points - requires warpgate)
hypergate - 4 credits (6400 points - requires stargate)

and so on and so forth. could even make credits take less points and have skills like covert ops and scans cost less. could even split them into different groups and say you can only spend a max of Z points in each tree so that everyone can't be good at everything - or implement branch choices and combo requirements.