Alternate Realities > Endless Stars

Technology

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Legion:
what about if each technology costs a certain amount of points.  Now to do the bear minimum you will only get like a 1% chance of getting the research, but the more points you through at it the higher the % you have to complete.  So if x points is need to have a 1% chance of doing it then 2X would give you 2% and 3X would give you 3%.  All you would need is the person running it have access to a random number generator that can utilize persent chances.

Entsuropi:
I'm bringing some strategy I learned from the Alpha Centauri unoffical strat guide in here.

The author said that one of the biggest things you could do was be fast. If you get that tech 5 turns earlier, it doesn't seem like much. Your playing a game with 1000 turns or so after all, right?

Wrong.

Take the example of former technology. One of the most important, yes, but a good example. That 5 turns is 5 turns earlier that you have formers in the field. That means you will have 5 whole turns extra of the bumper crop of minerals, roads, and such that those formers will give you. For this reason when you build a new colony in AC, and get the free 10 minerals, he said to spend it on a former (rather than a garrison, which was the default), because you will swiftly be able to get another 10 extra from it's efforts in the turns that would have normally been spent slowly building it.

This may not seem like much of a benefit, but add it up over the course of a game, and those few turns combined with other small advantages a good player can eke out of simply being first really add up to a major benefit. In this way a player can dominate his rivals.

That is why there is strategy inherent in getting tech faster, and that is why you should make ways to make that strategy balanced. A random roll makes it open to the vagaries of the dice, which is not strategy - it's just random.

My $166.

Entsuropi:
Sorry if that seemed oppressive, by the way - I was just making sure you guys doing tech realised how important turn advantage actually is :)

GorgonlaVacaTremendo:
What we should do is make a tech tree, I believe.  Make lesser techs cost less with less risk, and you have to build your way up.  What is cool about this is you and your rival could take different routes in the technology trail, once you research a tech you can't research the other techs adjacent to it.

For example, if I made a tech tree as follows ("1's" would be the top of the tree, "2s" the next part, etc.):

1)Stem Cell Research
 2) Organic Industry
    3) Carbon Freezing
    3) Organic Re-engineering
 2) Bioengineering
    3) Cloning
    3) Artificial Lifeforms (requires "AI")

1)Global Connection and Internet Research
 2)Instant Communication
    3) Hive Mind (Requires "Organic Re-engineering")
    3) Instant Transportation (Requires "Nuclear Power")
 2)Virtual Reality
    3) Virtual Matrix (Requires "Nuclear Power")
    3) Sentient Programming (Requires "AI")

1)Robotics
 2) Organic Replacement
    3) Cyborg Technology (Requires "Organic Re-engineering")
    3) Super Mind (Requires "Sentient Programming")
 2) Artificial Intelligence
    3) A.I. Robots
    3) Brain Reconstruction [brain propoganda] (Requires "Bio-engineering")


1)Nuclear Science
 2) Nuclear Fission
     3) Nuclear Power
     3) Nuclear Bombs
 2) Nuclear Fusion
      3) Artificial Sun
      3) Hyper-Space (Requires "Carbon Freezing")

I just made that up off the top of my head, there are errors.  Now, I could research all of the origional techs, everything labelled "1."  But I could only choose one "2" and one "3" in each path, making the technology each civilization origionally gets distinct.  We give each technology a benefit and players choose with Social, Science, etc path they take.  Will you be a robot-harboring fascist state or a super-brain society of democrats?

Now, to get OTHER technologies you need to either trade technologies with another player, giving both of you the right to research the technology traded, or you can steal technologies using spies.  Either way, you still have to pay the origional cost in addition to trading or stealing technology secrets.

Finally, I think that there should be a risk in technology, but not in researching it directly, but having it.  For example, if you have robotic AI in your society, you need to pass a roll for every system, if you fail that roll, your robots are rebelling in a sector of your habitable planet.  If you researched nuclear power, pass a roll to make sure that there aren't meltdowns.  We can comeup with a tree like the one above pretty easily, with descripitions of benefits and risks.

I guess that wasn't finally.  I think that each technology should take a certain amount of time to research.  If you stole or traded for the technology ability, this time should be cut in half because you already know the secrets to success.  This put quick players at the disadvantage of the real world--the first people to develope something always take the longest to do so.

Mr_Pleasington:

--- Quote ---what about if each technology costs a certain amount of points.  Now to do the bear minimum you will only get like a 1% chance of getting the research, but the more points you through at it the higher the % you have to complete.  So if x points is need to have a 1% chance of doing it then 2X would give you 2% and 3X would give you 3%.  All you would need is the person running it have access to a random number generator that can utilize persent chances.
--- End quote ---


That's what I was suggesting in the first post here.  I just didn't lay it out as thoroughly as you have here.  I like the idea, but I think d100 is too large.  We'll work on it.

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