Clarste wrote:

I made a quick mockup of what I was talking about (I assume it would have more lines, I just got lazy):

The darker colored sections are where the tech tiers have been unlocked, in this case they've gone heavily into Science/Colonization.

And that's the system I would like to see! Typical tech tree/web can be a little confusing at the first time, while era system causes illogical situations and syndrome of ,,only-right-choice''. Here is something between-there is a sense of progress and an encouragement for balanced research. Very good idea!

Clarste wrote:

I made a quick mockup of what I was talking about (I assume it would have more lines, I just got lazy):

The darker colored sections are where the tech tiers have been unlocked, in this case they've gone heavily into Science/Colonization.

I came to the forums specifically because the technology progression felt very weird.  EL's method just doesn't work well in ES and I think this is a good hybrid system.  A space could be set aside in each era ring for faction or quest specific techs as well.  

I would probably go further for personal preference and decouple most of the tech bundles, increase techs needed per era and reduce costs per.  Would give a lot more choice.  

I can understand how the escalating technology costs seems a bit arbitrary - and I'm not sure how to resolve that.  From a purely game design standpoint it is an elegant solution to making more interesting trade-offs in your technology progression.  E.G., at some point it's just as cheap to research the latest cutting edge tech as it is to go back and research something earlier.  It gives you the flexibility to go back and get something you might really need and didn't plan - while nevertheless encouraging you to continue pressing forward into more advanced technologies.

Suggestion #1 - Game should provide more feedback on how the rising costs work.

This would help make the mechanic more transparent feeling for players instead of arbitrarily feeling like "why are my costs going up!"  I feel like the game could use a mechanical "metaphor" to help explain this.  For example, the costs of researching technology go up because you have a "research upkeep cost" associated with completed technologies.  Frankly, maybe instead of rising the costs of the technology you simply have a research "upkeep" penalty that affects your research speed

mezmorki wrote:
From a purely game design standpoint it is an elegant solution to making more interesting trade-offs in your technology progression.  E.G., at some point it's just as cheap to research the latest cutting edge tech as it is to go back and research something earlier.  It gives you the flexibility to go back and get something you might really need and didn't plan - while nevertheless encouraging you to continue pressing forward into more advanced technologies.

Uh... what? Aside from not being elegant at all, and I don't see how actively removing flexibility can be described as "giving you flexibility."

You already have encouragement to research better techs. Because they're better techs, and you can research them. Every turn you spend researching an old tech is already a turn you're spending not researching a new tech. That's already encouraging you to press forward. That's already an elegant solution.

Clarste wrote:

I made a quick mockup of what I was talking about (I assume it would have more lines, I just got lazy):

The darker colored sections are where the tech tiers have been unlocked, in this case they've gone heavily into Science/Colonization.

I think this is a really good idea with mini trees within each quadrant for certain techs such as weapons. still i think the idea of having some kind of gate tech at the end of each era that leads to the next could be good too i feel a bit like this idea could be a good balance between the two systems.

Hopefully we'll get some answers from a dev soon anyway

I also like the idea Clarste came up with.

I only see a problem in getting up to six technologies into the tiny inner ring. 

LordVaxx wrote:

I also like the idea Clarste came up with.

I only see a problem in getting up to six technologies into the tiny inner ring. 

Just think of the ES1 tech tree and include the rings for different eras (tiers) and you will have clarste's version. I am pretty sure you can make it work with a bit on tinkering.

LordVaxx wrote:

I also like the idea Clarste came up with.

I only see a problem in getting up to six technologies into the tiny inner ring. 

As NeroRAWr states, ES1 model.  Base view will be zoomed in on the center with early techs available and look like a 4 section view of the hero skill trees.  Allow users to zoom out for an overarching view of tech progress as needed.  In ES1 you could scroll around the tech menu and even in ES2 already, you have to scroll right to see the next eras.  If it was made more like the hero skill tree as suggested, then it'd match the look and feel of other mechanics and fit right in with the current style as well.

In principle, I'm very much a fan of the era system. In its current iteration, I have a ton of problems with it, and part of that is that it doesn't resemble EL's enough. I'm still working on articulating my issues with it, but probably the core of my issue is the feeling of having more must-have techs than needed to advance to the next era.

In EL's tech column, there are some more-or-less mandatory techs (Empire Mint), but few of them unlock essential game mechanics (Language Square). ES2's tech tree unlocks tons of near mandatory game mechanics, and when you're making hard choices about what techs to research it's more a frustrating decision than a particularly strategic one. A good example of strategic decision making that I've done on occasion in EL is, when deciding to go tall, I've forgone Sewer System in favor of putting off happiness until I can get Central Market. I can't think of any parallel in ES2.

Put another way, I feel like the tech column/tower of ES2 isn't tech column-y enough. It feels like they took ES1's technologies and just kind of ironed them down. This means that techs that make sense to be related to each other (i.e. colonize tundra-boreal-snow) aren't linked or related, whereas EL has the linkage between T1 and T2 versions of the same weapons tech. It also means that there's a ton of fiddly-feeling colonization techs that are semi-mandatory. It doesn't really make sense to me to have Hyperium and Titanium exploitation linked to different techs, that just slows down development, especially since they compete with essential economy techs like trading companies.

Put another way, they're hamstringing the system by linking only a maximum of two features to each tech.

There's also a lack of transparency in what exactly you're unlocking. What are support modules, which weapons are you unlocking, etc.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

mezmorki wrote:
From a purely game design standpoint it is an elegant solution to making more interesting trade-offs in your technology progression.  E.G., at some point it's just as cheap to research the latest cutting edge tech as it is to go back and research something earlier.  It gives you the flexibility to go back and get something you might really need and didn't plan - while nevertheless encouraging you to continue pressing forward into more advanced technologies.

Uh... what? Aside from not being elegant at all, and I don't see how actively removing flexibility can be described as "giving you flexibility."

You already have encouragement to research better techs. Because they're better techs, and you can research them. Every turn you spend researching an old tech is already a turn you're spending not researching a new tech. That's already encouraging you to press forward. That's already an elegant solution.

The current systems gives you flexibility to go back compared to other systems like MoO2 or MoO: conquer the stars, or starbase orion, or others where you have to make a choice and there is no way to go back to the earlier tech's at all.  

tulip wrote:

In principle, I'm very much a fan of the era system. In its current iteration, I have a ton of problems with it, and part of that is that it doesn't resemble EL's enough. I'm still working on articulating my issues with it, but probably the core of my issue is the feeling of having more must-have techs than needed to advance to the next era.

In EL's tech column, there are some more-or-less mandatory techs (Empire Mint), but few of them unlock essential game mechanics (Language Square). ES2's tech tree unlocks tons of near mandatory game mechanics, and when you're making hard choices about what techs to research it's more a frustrating decision than a particularly strategic one. A good example of strategic decision making that I've done on occasion in EL is, when deciding to go tall, I've forgone Sewer System in favor of putting off happiness until I can get Central Market. I can't think of any parallel in ES2.

Put another way, I feel like the tech column/tower of ES2 isn't tech column-y enough. It feels like they took ES1's technologies and just kind of ironed them down. This means that techs that make sense to be related to each other (i.e. colonize tundra-boreal-snow) aren't linked or related, whereas EL has the linkage between T1 and T2 versions of the same weapons tech. It also means that there's a ton of fiddly-feeling colonization techs that are semi-mandatory. It doesn't really make sense to me to have Hyperium and Titanium exploitation linked to different techs, that just slows down development, especially since they compete with essential economy techs like trading companies.

Put another way, they're hamstringing the system by linking only a maximum of two features to each tech.

There's also a lack of transparency in what exactly you're unlocking. What are support modules, which weapons are you unlocking, etc.

This is pretty close to my overall feelings as well.  

mezmorki wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

mezmorki wrote:
From a purely game design standpoint it is an elegant solution to making more interesting trade-offs in your technology progression.  E.G., at some point it's just as cheap to research the latest cutting edge tech as it is to go back and research something earlier.  It gives you the flexibility to go back and get something you might really need and didn't plan - while nevertheless encouraging you to continue pressing forward into more advanced technologies.

Uh... what? Aside from not being elegant at all, and I don't see how actively removing flexibility can be described as "giving you flexibility."

You already have encouragement to research better techs. Because they're better techs, and you can research them. Every turn you spend researching an old tech is already a turn you're spending not researching a new tech. That's already encouraging you to press forward. That's already an elegant solution.

The current systems gives you flexibility to go back compared to other systems like MoO2 or MoO: conquer the stars, or starbase orion, or others where you have to make a choice and there is no way to go back to the earlier tech's at all.  

I don't care what the mechanics of MoO games are. I care about the mechanics of Endless Space 1, where you really did have the flexibility to go back and research whatever you missed at any point, because you didn't have eras or rising tech costs.

You can't downgrade something in a sequel, and then say it's actually an improvement once you compare it to these other games we're not talking about. That's some EA level spin there, like saying microtransactions are okay because DLC were "macrotransactions" all along! No, sorry, the new system is not flexible at all once you compare it to the only game whose comparison matters.

I don't think it's that the era system is incompatible with Endless Space, I just don't think the techs are distributed particularly well right now. I usually had at least 3 or 4 techs each era in Endless Legend that I felt weren't strictly necessary but I got them for situational reasons, like the region I started in or just because of how my faction plays.

Right now I don't feel like I can pick up everything I need in an era of ES2, to the point that I seriously consider just not unlocking game features like basic diplomacy or system upgrades in favor of basic FIDSI and colonization stuff. I feel like a lot of important techs could be combined, and the secondary techs attached to something else. Era 1 is particularly crowded since you have to pick up most of the colonization techs just to secure your starting region if you want to stand a chance in the game.

I'm starting to get a bit worried that none of the dev team have made a post here yet this has been the most popular thread since early access began hopefully we'll here something soon

AdmiralAckbar wrote:

I don't think it's that the era system is incompatible with Endless Space, I just don't think the techs are distributed particularly well right now. I usually had at least 3 or 4 techs each era in Endless Legend that I felt weren't strictly necessary but I got them for situational reasons, like the region I started in or just because of how my faction plays.

Right now I don't feel like I can pick up everything I need in an era of ES2, to the point that I seriously consider just not unlocking game features like basic diplomacy or system upgrades in favor of basic FIDSI and colonization stuff. I feel like a lot of important techs could be combined, and the secondary techs attached to something else. Era 1 is particularly crowded since you have to pick up most of the colonization techs just to secure your starting region if you want to stand a chance in the game.

Yeah, I feel you here.

I think the inherent conflict is that to be competitive in the game, you need to pick tech's that are internally oriented that boost your colonization opportunities / weapons levels / FIDS output / etc.  But then there are a bunch of other tech's that unlock interesting and interactive features in the game - like diplomacy and trade.  Basically, you are asking the player to decide between doing new fun things versus just boosting the basics.  It's not a very appealing spot to be in. 

Maybe one suggestion is that more of the "basic features" in the game start off in an unlocked state - and the technologies are changed to expand the options and capabilities of those features.  For example, what if you can always engage in basic diplomatic actions, but are limited to certain size deals or certain exchanges, or certain frequencies of interaction.  The diplomatic technologies would then increase these limits or provide other perks for players that want to focus on diplomacy.  

Or scramble up the technologies in more interesting ways (since most tech's unlock two components).

ElectricArtisan wrote:

I'm starting to get a bit worried that none of the dev team have made a post here yet this has been the most popular thread since early access began hopefully we'll here something soon

This is indeed troublesome. This all pots kinda needs to be stickyed. Over 400k in points. What more do they need to reply to this.