Research... Anything else aside from teleportation?

[RAVEN.myst]

The true game-mechanic inducing tech that provides the player with new ways to play the game or new tools to use in gameplay is what the gamer really wants. Like you stated, research feels more rewarding when you can decide what sorts of tools you want to use, like further-farthering guns that might be slightly weaker than others or short-range, powerful guns, that lose their accuracy over long distances.

In SotS, there are some things you can't do that with. Tough, you'll just have to learn how to do without or learn to live with. Luckily, SotS has enough different routes to viability that this isn't a problem. Instead, it's a wonderful opportunity to play a slightly different sort of game, every time you play, making most playthroughs pretty unique.

This is a paradigm that I favour greatly - with difficult (at times agonizingly so) choices to be made, sometimes even mutually exclusive choices. Players who like to end up having/being able to do *everything* dislike this, but role-play invested players are already inured to the downsides/restrictiveness and used to making tough choices and getting the most out of them. Also, I don't see why not both camps couldn't be satisfied to some extent: choosing to pursue a particular path might make its alternative unavailable, but need not be so forever - upon sufficient overall advancement, and/or contingent on specific technologies, one may be able to transcend those limitations, and then be able to learn contradictory technologies, too. In this fashion, a player who had "maxed out" his/her chosen path, could now go back and enjoy the earlier phases of development of alternative paths, on his/her way to becoming a technological polymath. This way, even though ultimately one can perhaps still achieve apotheosis, individual playthroughs can be unique along the way (for me, it's all about the journey, not the destination - in any game, once I reach a certain degree of "uberness", I quit and restart or quit and go do/play something else.)

...I thing I'll be playing [SotS] later, just because I've been reminded...

I've in fact been playing some SoaSE for a couple of days, in part similarly motivated (and in part simply for a change of scenery - while remaining "spaced out" )

It's a combo, tying into the Moore's Law comment made earlier, but applicable to the idea of "exponential" progress. It's a reference to Kurzweil's idea of a logarithmic progression of critical advances, which will only be accelerated more by Artificial Intelligence as we approach the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity . (I think I first read about that in "The Singularity is Near", but it could have been in another author's book, not sure. But, this logarithmic progression idea that is applicable, here, is his, regardless of where I first read about it.)

Ah, right, in the context of the technological singularity concept (one I have held with for a while - I first came across it in a TV documentary about it, back before I stopped watching TV - hell's bells, that WAS a while ago!) I now understand what you meant there. Thanks

[ezra-r]

I'd like to have a research to acquire goals.

For instance, do something specific to get a blueprint of... reinforced metal plating, it is scarce, but if you get a hold of a blueprint (which is not supposed to be easy), you can get to manufacture minimum quantities of it with time and be self-sufficient in that sense until the typical factories get to build enough, something that gives you a small edge.

* Or to acquire improvements for X ship, or for better Manuvering in this Y capital ship.
* Or to make this other station manufacture a small % more items in each batch at the cost of a certain plus amount of x ingredient.
* Or to be able to manufacture Z station that is of pirate/xenon/origin which gives X benefits or allows you to do this which was not possible.

Research, if well implemented can be a great joy for a space game like this. I just hope it is not just used as a marketting word to say "you can get this device".

[RainerPrem]

I'd like to have a research to acquire goals.

For instance, do something specific to get a blueprint of... reinforced metal plating, it is scarce, but if you get a hold of a blueprint (which is not supposed to be easy), you can get to manufacture minimum quantities of it with time and be self-sufficient in that sense until the typical factories get to build enough, something that gives you a small edge.

* Or to acquire improvements for X ship, or for better Manuvering in this Y capital ship.
* Or to make this other station manufacture a small % more items in each batch at the cost of a certain plus amount of x ingredient.
* Or to be able to manufacture Z station that is of pirate/xenon/origin which gives X benefits or allows you to do this which was not possible.

Research, if well implemented can be a great joy for a space game like this. I just hope it is not just used as a marketting word to say "you can get this device".

Hi,

Note: "doing something special to obtain a blueprint" is not called "research", but "espionage".

Not that I'd reject that alternative

cu
Rainer

[RAVEN.myst]

Note: "doing something special to obtain a blueprint" is not called "research", but "espionage".

On that note, these days "research" all too often (particularly in the context of "Internet research") actually means "thinly veiled plagiarism"...

[ezra-r]

Note: "doing something special to obtain a blueprint" is not called "research", but "espionage".

Not that I'd reject that alternative

cu
Rainer

Yes, I probably didn't express myself very well when I said something "specific" to obtain a blueprint.

The point in any case is keep the player entertained to do something in his/her own interest, keep the thing going and the options open.

Doing something specific could mean, do a mission for a friendly faction, hack the info from a pirate base, do a series of errands for certain faction in exchange for info and finally use lab or whatever to research blueprint of X, then that X is any of the above options and more, imagination is the limit.

@Killjaeden

It doesn't have to end in "player has something nobody else has" but rather. Player, through her effords has managed to get X argon military module, or Y pirate modified factory section. The tech is there, the player needs to manage to get access to the best of it depending on the player needs.

[Vandragorax]

I am not a fan of the research thing either.[...]
It is like an overused trope in scifi games. You are the player, and because you are the player you get all the prototypes and every super-scientist-genius (who in 90% is always alone and independant of every faction, broke on cash and without any help) somehow needs your help in completing research on never seen before technology.

It just crashes the suspension of disbelief wall at this point for me, because pretty much every scifi game seems to have it.

Erm, I don't see it as crashing the suspension of disbelief at all. There are myriad ways they could approach this and have it perfectly believeable and workable in the game-world.

e.g. "You explore uncharted deep-space and find alien artifacts nobody has ever seen before. You take them back to your HQ and hire a dedicated, very well paid (read: expensive), R&D team to analyse it and they come up with the technology breakthrough. You choose to use this yourself to further your empire across the galaxy instead of sharing it with every species in existence and thus your empire gains a new tool in its growth and expansion."

See it wasn't that hard to come up with a convincing story-driven way to find this technology, it isn't going to just materialise out of thin air I hope lol

Oh and finally, I disagree with whoever was posting saying it's interesting to have "shields mk2", "shields mk3" etc. as upgrades through research. This sort of thing is very boring in a game, like having "+5% shield strength" or "+10% laser power" it's just a boring power-creep that does nothing interesting. Real interesting technologies like Teleportation, which add a new dynamic to your interaction with the game, your fleets, and your empire are interesting

[UniTrader]

Oh and finally, I disagree with whoever was posting saying it's interesting to have "shields mk2", "shields mk3" etc. as upgrades through research. This sort of thing is very boring in a game, like having "+5% shield strength" or "+10% laser power" it's just a boring power-creep that does nothing interesting. Real interesting technologies like Teleportation, which add a new dynamic to your interaction with the game, your fleets, and your empire are interesting

the problem with that is that the interesting new stuff is inevitably exhausted at some point. or can you come up with enough unique Ideas to fill a total gameplay time of lets say 100 hours? (which is not that much in X).

also when i described my approach (which you obviously refer to) i also said that tech levels are just used internally for the game to keep track of the progress, its not something directly exposed to the player. He will only see Infos like "Target Ship has the most modern tech available and was Upgraded just a few hors ago" versus "Target Ship uses outdated Tech and was never upgraded in any way". Both Infos can refer to the same Ship Class, and the capabilities of both are vastly diffrent.


Regarding your Idea: X is not an Text Adventure. (well, at least its not intended as such), so a bit more than just two sentences is needed to turn this into a really useable idea in my opinion. You have stopped before even starting with the real task...
Or would you be satisfied if you fly through empty space and at some point randomly get the message you posted written into your Logbook, a few millions from your account Vanish and you suddenly have SpacePizza in your Inventory?

[Crimsonraziel]

To boil it down:

interesting technologies [...] are interesting

All in all I'm with you, everything is fine.

[JSDD]

Oh and finally, I disagree with whoever was posting saying it's interesting to have "shields mk2", "shields mk3" etc. as upgrades through research. This sort of thing is very boring in a game, like having "+5% shield strength" or "+10% laser power" it's just a boring power-creep that does nothing interesting. Real interesting technologies like Teleportation, which add a new dynamic to your interaction with the game, your fleets, and your empire are interesting

the problem with that is that the interesting new stuff is inevitably exhausted at some point. or can you come up with enough unique Ideas to fill a total gameplay time of lets say 100 hours? (which is not that much in X).

since unitrader's idea is very similar to my idea of R&D, i dont think its "boring" or so ... what it does is it keeps all the details dynamic. consider the 2nd step: npc R&D: your enemies do also R&D, neutral races too. your enemies could be very interested in "breaching" a certain threshhold, which gives all the laser weapons 20% heavier "impulse" or so (some hidden things within the R&D scripts allow little "jumps" in increaces of %ages at some point for ome features). now you enemy (xenon) has stronger weapons, what whould you do ? ... maybe R&D investments in shield technologies, "hull armour" that "filters" a certain "impulse" out of impacting bullets, whatever ... the key it to keep things NOT STATIC, but let each game item have its own details ... reseach stations can improve these details.

it isnt necessarily a "reseach tree" which at some point is ends wich new features. this type of R&D never really ends, it keeps improving the details (% values of items for example), if someone does the research ... teladi might be interested in best shield tech + armour tech, split might seek the strongest weapons, boron dont exist (:D), argon have a more balanced approach but mave other priorities, like radar / scanner range / intensity / camouflage hull materials %age / etc ...

this priorities can be well reflected in a script which handles all the npc R&D stuff. balancing stuff goes on while playing the game, and lies to a certain amount in your own hands (regarding your ships / stuff, the npc does its own thing)

by the way: xenon should definitely have their own economy, terraformer-"style" say ... harvesting water / minerals from roids, collecting them, processing them to metal / hull material, which is used as 1 of few resources in shipyards (which operate without personal, but fully-automated ... )

[koyuka]

I liked the idea of killjaedan's first post on this topic. I think research would provide great end game goals to work towards and it would provide decision making as to invest heavily in research to perhaps improve cargo capacity of spped of freighters or purchase more standard freighters to meet the growing demands of a players factory complexes.

Something like patrician 3 (only game I can think of) where there are AI players who develop there own factories and research and invest in certain areas of the economy themselves would be very interesting and they of course could also work on their own research. I think the best implementation of this might be that each corporation was a 'player' rather than each race.

Also I would love to see a trading dock for planets, no walking on planets or anything silly like that, just purely a base which represents the planet and the massive consumption of wares that must take place on them planets as well as production. It ruins the immersion for me that the space stations are the only production creators/consumers in the game, completely crazy when you think about it.

There's a lot of points just in this one topic and Egosoft are a small team so I think really pushing these things through expansions/large content DLC is the way to go.

[RAVEN.myst]

Also I would love to see a trading dock for planets, no walking on planets or anything silly like that, just purely a base which represents the planet and the massive consumption of wares that must take place on them planets as well as production. It ruins the immersion for me that the space stations are the only production creators/consumers in the game, completely crazy when you think about it.

In the previous Xs (I mean before Rebirth) the Trading Ports represent exactly that sort of point-of-contact with the local planetary populations. Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot, and even if not accessible to players, one ought to be able to watch those barges floating (figuratively speaking) to and fro. And because of their pretty static nature (in a moving sort of way - bear with me ), their appearance/effects could be implemented to quite a high standard, without incurring heavy system overheads.

[thrangar]

Also I would love to see a trading dock for planets, no walking on planets or anything silly like that, just purely a base which represents the planet and the massive consumption of wares that must take place on them planets as well as production. It ruins the immersion for me that the space stations are the only production creators/consumers in the game, completely crazy when you think about it.

In the previous Xs (I mean before Rebirth) the Trading Ports represent exactly that sort of point-of-contact with the local planetary populations. Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot, and even if not accessible to players, one ought to be able to watch those barges floating (figuratively speaking) to and fro. And because of their pretty static nature (in a moving sort of way - bear with me ), their appearance/effects could be implemented to quite a high standard, without incurring heavy system overheads.

wouldn't a teleportation from planet to station be more efficient

[UniTrader]

wouldn't a teleportation from planet to station be more efficient

wouldnt a teleportation directly from seller to buyer station the most efficient? why use ships anyway when you simply can teleport stuff?

[RAVEN.myst]

Also I would love to see a trading dock for planets, no walking on planets or anything silly like that, just purely a base which represents the planet and the massive consumption of wares that must take place on them planets as well as production. It ruins the immersion for me that the space stations are the only production creators/consumers in the game, completely crazy when you think about it.

In the previous Xs (I mean before Rebirth) the Trading Ports represent exactly that sort of point-of-contact with the local planetary populations. Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot, and even if not accessible to players, one ought to be able to watch those barges floating (figuratively speaking) to and fro. And because of their pretty static nature (in a moving sort of way - bear with me ), their appearance/effects could be implemented to quite a high standard, without incurring heavy system overheads.

wouldn't a teleportation from planet to station be more efficient

Sure - assuming teleportation (of sufficient range and capable of sufficient throughout, cost-effectively) exists. I don't assume that - but if the tech/concept becomes integral to the X-universe lore then I would certainly expect to see those antiquated shuttles getting phased out and replaced - the more backward or poor the colony perhaps the less likely to upgrade, while brand-new frontier colonies, if high-profile and well funded, would get it from the start. (You make me think of an old Doctor Who, Troughton-era, episode where the Transmat base on the Moon gets taken over...)

[ADMNtek]

the reason why transporters arent uses for everything might be energy. beaming 1 person is one thing beaming several thousand or million tons of cargo is something completely different. its like asking why are we still using cargo ships if planes are a thing.

personally i think having a the ability to research things like product updates could be interesting. like having a research station that you can order to research improvements to products or the production.things like production speed and resource requirements. they could work similar to the weapon mods from XR. and the AI should do the same.

[Nanook]

...Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot....

You mean something like the Atmospheric Lifters?

[RAVEN.myst]

...Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot....

You mean something like the Atmospheric Lifters?

Precisely - but not JUST in Terran space, but everywhere

[Morkonan]

...Of course, according to that rationale, there's something missing: there ought to be large transports or orbital lifts or something shuttling up and down to a planet-side import/export depot....

You mean something like the Atmospheric Lifters?

Precisely - but not JUST in Terran space, but everywhere

OOOooooh...

How about making a topical tech statement?

So, each major race has a preferred method of ground-to-orbit technology? Terrans have massive atmo-lifters, like giant Orion ships, nuclear-blasting their way to orbit, heedless of the environmental damage, since Terrans are all a subspecies of 'Muricans.

But, Borons (since they should definitely be in the game) traditionally use Space Elevator tech.

Paranids would probably be more suitable for Orion-like tech, but they could just use some massive super-reactive standard Newtonian tech. Some sort of highly volatile chem reaction or something. (Maybe some sort of shielding-like tech that "pushes" payloads away from some sort of field generator?)

Split would shoot stuff into space using a giant rail-gun...

Xenon just don't deal much with massive bodies, so they don't have such tech, relying on asteroids and the like for needed resources. A Xenon ship would have difficulty in such a gravity well, perhaps.

Khaak... Who knows?

IOW - Continue making major races unique. Plus, seeing tether tech or space-elevators in the game would be really cool.

[RAVEN.myst]

@Morkonan: Heh, so after my last post, I went (back) to bed, and thought that later (ie. upon reemerging from the pit) I would add on something about maybe a couple of races using space elevators instead of shuttles/ferries - and here I come back and you've saved me the trouble (and, in fact, done a better job of it!)

(Since pondering space elevators was serving a sheep-counting sort of function of sorts, I ended up thinking that sectors served by a space elevator would need to be in the equivalent of geosynchronous orbit, and thus the planet below would not appear to rotate. Also, I considered how Terrans would be among SE users in this case, given how they had had the Torus, which would employ (much more) of same/relevant techs. Then I started thinking of the "Dyson ring" that was the Torus station, and just how... well, that took me completely off-topic, and I think it was shortly after that I finally greeted Morpheus. )

[RainerPrem]

...

But, Borons (since they should definitely be in the game) traditionally use Space Elevator tech.

??? Sorry, but in X2 there was a TL-class-cargolifter taking me down to Tethys...

And the Earth Torus definitely used elevators fro transfer...

cu
Rainer