WYRDYSM GAMES

As I said somewhere else, I'd like there to be at least some sort of framework tech tree for people to dig their way into before we get into making all sorts of crazy custom guns.

Obviously it should focus on ship stuff, but I'm sure there's plenty of room for expansion in places. I'm just going to throw down some basic techs that everyone will probably have to start with, and some developments of those.

Don't worry too much about stats for weapons and stuff now. Just focus on ideas for stuff that can fit within the existing weapons.

OhgodthisisamessI'llfillitoutasmoreideascomeinokay.

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Propulsion:

Sublight

Standard Ion Drive - Starter Tech
The standard means of "sublight" propulsion within the Empire. It's not very fancy, but it's efficient in both terms of fuel use and size requirements.

Impeller Drive - Late Game
A powerful and still as yet improperly understood system, Impeller Drives do not require standard exhausts and whatnot like other sublight drives. This means a ship with an Impeller Drive is not hindered by loss of drive systems. Impeller drives allow a ship to essentially move in any direction without turning, with or without inertia at the operator's discretion. Unfortunately their maximum speed is rather low, especially on very very large ships, but they have very good acceleration. Best used on small and medium ships, which are not too hindered by lower move speed.

FTL

Standard Jump Drive - Starter Tech
Jump Drives work on a similar principle to the Node system albiet much more crudely and inefficiently. Instead of making a large, stable and essentially permanent connection between two systems, Jump Drives violently rip open a passage over short interstellar distances. Whilst the enemy don't know where you're going until you get there, just jumping out expends a lot of energy, and the act of reentering normal space is just as energetic, so you better hope you have a fast recharge time or plenty of friends nearby. They are the primary means for moving within a system, and as the energy and space requirements scale exceedingly well, even the smallest personal shuttles and military strikecraft can afford to fit them.

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Weaponry:

Energy Projectiles
Zappy zappy laser bolts.

Energy Beams
Don't cross the beams!

Kinetic Projectile
Usually cannons. No, really.

Seeking Projectile
Not all seekers are necessarily kinetic. Some might be energy, somehow. This is for seeking projectiles of all types.

Exotic
Stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Why not have types and allow players to spend research points upon upgrades to the existing weaponry, or bringing in new stuff, meaning that spending a large number of points upon the refire rate research for you auto cannons would mean that all auto cannons of refitted ships for your faction would have increased stats. Allowing for infinite, or theoretically infinite research into areas, so players could choose to specialize in certain areas of tech, and not end up with a tech tree basically identical to their neighbor, meaning that weapon selection would become faction specific rather quickly, allowing for fleets that will drift towards looking and feeling unified even if they have Hulls that are barely similar.

This may prove a pain in the ass rather quickly though. As you would end up with many generations and refit branches of the same ship.

I agree with silverware. Factions progressing more or less linearly to the same technological ends is not interesting at all and that it is extremely important for the research system and technology tree to promote technological divergence between factions.

Unlike Silverware I wouldn't go about that by allowing players to continually refine existing technologies (though it isn't a bad idea).

What I would do is have to have a research tree that branches often and in unexpected ways, with research intended to yield certain types of technological advancement enabling other, unexpected innovations.

Because I don't feel that I am articulating this concept particularly well I will give an example.

Say a faction decides that it really, really needs a new weapons technology and they feel that particle cannons are the way forward, so they start researching Particle Accelerator technology. When they complete the research they are successful in developing weaponised particle accelerators, but the technological advancements that made particle weapons possible also enable the development of Advanced Ion Drives. So when the time comes when they need a new type of engine they have an option that another faction who decided to go with laser weapons instead of particle weapons does not have. Perhaps later the advancements in magnetic field theory that allowed for the implementation of Advanced Ion drives prove to be the basis of a new shield technology.

Stop me if you're already thinking this.

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You're both massively overshooting the point, really. The point is not to have a massively detailed and complicated tech tree - it's to have a largely basic framework that people can follow at the beginning of the game before they branch off into independent projects.

The tech tree would basically be there to get you on your feet and give you some basic ideas and options, but the rest, from there, is largely up to the player's own ingenuity and creativity.

So basically the tech tree will shift from being a fairly static one in the early game to being whatever the player wants in the mid late game.

That's fine, but I have a few questions?

Taking into account that metagame 2.0 is going to be primarily player versus player affair, how do you intend to handle balance? When someone proposes a research project that will yield a new technology, like magnetic accelerator refinements did in the current metagame, is some metagame official going to have to examine the proposal, determine if it is balanced, how long it should take to complete and if it isn't balanced, what should be done to make it balanced?

Or are you going to handle it a different way?

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An idea could be that each weapon that your faction can use has to be researched
so lets say you want a missile mk2, then you tell the GM the stats you want every missile mk2 to be set to, and then from those stats with exponential ratio the research points required for that tech to be researched and made available is calculated.

So if its to have lets say 5 dmg above base and 60 reload, then it would come out to be like.

5^2 * ((slowest reload)-60)^2

If the slowest reload is 120 the the total research points required for this missile launcher would be 90,000


So weapons with more damage would cost more and ones with a higher rate of fire would too.
Meaning that you could choose to research a great big weapon early on, but seeing as you would have very few research points per turn early in, it would be impractical.

A similar method could be applied to ship prototypes.

Don't forget your exponent doesn't have to be an integer, especially if modifiers are used. For example, if your race is really really good at researching weapons and building missile launchers, its exponent in your formula could be 1.5 instead of 2 to reflect this, cutting the points needed drastically to around ~5000 using your equation. I'd imagine this would need a lot of work and probably needs to be calibrated down to tens of basis points due to the extreme changes that can happen when one manipulates exponential variables.

Another thing that we can do is to have the damage exponent reduced by research in warhead technology and the firerate exponent reduced by research in gun/launcher design.

But those researched would require research points too. So why bother with them?
Of course the equations would have to be played with, and based off of a standard tech 1 weapon of each type, so that there's a baseline.

What about something like a homeworld approach? Each faction will have these major bases right? So why not allow each a limited number of research expansions. To research say, missiles, to their full potential requires that expansion being built and then upgraded maybe three times. Each upgrade eats up one of those expansions, blame it on resources maybe. So each faction can build low level research for missiles, shields, beams, propulsion, etc, or only fully research one or two of them. If they dabble in all, they are good jack-of-all-trades, but if they full research say, beams, then those beams should be truly terrifying in comparison to those still using low level ones.

This has the advantage of being simple for Arcalane to manage, and us to use in balancing. If its decided to allow random technology offshoots, those would really only be when someone fully researches something anyway, but you would be avoiding the large numbers. Likewise, if one faction attacks another's base and destroys those expansions but not the base, that might have negative effects on the faction's ability to use that technology.

Seems like propulsion could be a big player in 2.0 if used right; I'm thinking strategically for who can move their forces to a critical area first, maybe earning some sort of modifier for the battle.

Ambush bonuses?
But how would that work in the simulation?

So like a research base that can support so many research modules? or do you mean something different by this?

After reading more, I realized much of what I said is already covered to varying degrees under the orbital structures thread. So yes, modular research bases since those were already thought of apparently.

The speed bonus could be played several ways probably. It could speed up the 'supply line', allowing ships to repair faster after winning a round, as repair ships did in 1.0. It could allow more units to be in place, either additional ships or static defenses such as platforms or mine fields. It could affect the positioning of units, such as the first to arrive being able to surround the point where the enemy would 'jump' in, allowing for a concentration of fire. Just some ideas.

Or maybe that incoming ships have to be deployed in waves, according to jump speed and whatnot, so being there early allows for better chances at taking things out.

but back to the research ideas. theres only a few ways it can be structured.

Rigid-finite : where every tech avaliable leads to another and you can't go outside of that tree, and once you have researched everything your at a loss for research points.
Most RTS's use this formand it fails for late game play.

Rigid-semi-finite: basically the same as above but some key techs can be researched more than once allowing for extra bonuses in cirtain feilds.
Civ4 has this with the future techs.

Rigid-Infinite : only a few techs are usually avaliable, but researching them allows for improved variations of the origonal object provided by the tech.
Lost Empire:Immortals uses a tree liks this, and it works well. However much of the rest of that game doesn't.

Flexi : this type would require alot of input from a tech game master, who would provide research items to the players dependant upon what they had already researched, but as players went in one direction, say to engines, then other sections would get restricted, while the ones they research most would open up further. Meaning that over time you wouldnt be able to research say missiles, but your engines tech could have many many extra paths to choose from.
No game I know uses this idea, as it would require a specialist tech designer.

Freeform : the variation i mentuioned above this post, where players select an item and then choose its power levels and such and get given a quote for research time.
Also no games i know of use this method.

Basically your looking at a static tech tree, or one that you, or players control.

How about a tech tree that, through starter techs, you get ideas, and can branch out from there?

You have one tech, say the standard jump drive. Now that jump drive can branch off to say, Improved Jump Drive, and Lane Gateway. Say you decide to follow Lane Gateway. So on and so forth, until you reach Inter-Dimensional Drives.

Now, a player-designed tech tree will take a lot of input from the GM, but it will pay off in cool techs that no one had thought of.

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It's not my fault I can't take your post seriously.

Thats basically a two step tech tree. and then when do players move away from the set ones into freeform or flexi ones?
I think it may be an idea to go with a flexi one, and each player is given so many research points to start with and has to name and come up with their basics techs and work out the bonuses they want with the Tech Master.

It would require another game master, but he would only be interested in the techs, and keeping them ballanced.