Yes, thank you much.

SilentMuse wrote:

I believe that what Romeo may have been going for is that while through the era system you are provided immediate access to a wider selection of researches, you have less freedom in what you want to not have. Additionally, consider the following: while if the first era contains say 5 military technologies, but those five are packed into the bottom two tiers of a tech tree (with 2 and 3 tech options respectively), if you wanted a tier two tech it could be the first research with eras and have to be the second with a tree; however, if you wanted a tier three tech the era system would still require ten prior completed researches and the tree would only take two. I do not think that with the current iteration of the era system the comparative techs are quite so dense, but even then, in order to not have a massive number of technologies available in each era, fewer total technologies exist, which decrease player options even further.

Personally, I do believe that the era system can be made much better than it is, but only by incorporating formatting distinctions to a massive degree.

Yep. It's actually surprisingly ironic that the "freedom-enhancing era system" is far more constricting in how one develops (Compared to the original tech tree).

AndreasK wrote:

I was wondering a bit about this. You wrote something similar in your other thread about the game playing it self. I do agree that the era system with its get x techs in era to unlock next era mechanic, might and often does, force you to pick tech you don't want. And the even greater issue in terms of flexibility is the exponential cost that makes it harder to go back and make meaningful corrections in previous eras. 

But I do question one thing. In a tech tree, you will encounter the issue of being forced to pick things you do not want too. Namely tech you actually don't want but need to pick because its on a node that leads to a tech you want. It is of coarse easier to make it look, as if it is logical for you to have to pick this unwanted tech lore wise in a tech tree. The elsewhere named example of having to pick optics before you can pick lasers for instance. In this case optics could be a technology you actually do not want but have to take because you want lasers.

Been AWOL for some time here, was busy IRL with some stuff (and will be for the next week at least) but I will reply to this since I got the time now.

I keep seeing this argument, and you have yourself the answer there. In a tech tree, a logicaly built one, techs do not come in arbitrary restrictions and obligations. If you want to make advanced anti-matter cannons, first you will need to understand anti-matter, learn to process and extract it, learn to control and weaponize it, then develop advanced guns. It's a logical progression based on the scientific method. Meanwhile over in the era system, not only am i forced to meet the era quota by arbitrarily selecting a random tech field I have no interest in, but this arbitrary tech field can involve me learning how to make planet busting anti-matter lasers. In the context where my civilization does not know how to properly extract and store anti-matter, it's scietific principles and has up to this point never atempted to weaponize it. Even better, I get these ultra advanced lasers, but I do not go through the scietific method of prototyping basic guns, understanding the principles of things and then getting to the advanced experimental stuff, I just magic them up. Then sudenly my scietists all cure the brain cancer that was not letting them learn more advanced methods of colonising cold biomes that they have been working on relentlessly since the dawn of our space empire.

A tech tree is inherently vastly more logical and makes more sense than an era system, in essence there are no real useless techs in it, everything builds and expands on aspects your civilization is slowly understanding, to the point of complete mastery. What a tech tree needs in this scenario is more ... independent branching. Not 4 big roots, but 4 fields of research, each with multiple roots pertaining to specific aspects and systems of increasing complexity that you will slowly master, from the more basic ones, to the advanced.

XDAvenger93 wrote:

Been AWOL for some time here, was busy IRL with some stuff (and will be for the next week at least) but I will reply to this since I got the time now.

I keep seeing this argument, and you have yourself the answer there. In a tech tree, a logicaly built one, techs do not come in arbitrary restrictions and obligations. If you want to make advanced anti-matter cannons, first you will need to understand anti-matter, learn to process and extract it, learn to control and weaponize it, then develop advanced guns. It's a logical progression based on the scientific method. Meanwhile over in the era system, not only am i forced to meet the era quota by arbitrarily selecting a random tech field I have no interest in, but this arbitrary tech field can involve me learning how to make planet busting anti-matter lasers. In the context where my civilization does not know how to properly extract and store anti-matter, it's scietific principles and has up to this point never atempted to weaponize it. Even better, I get these ultra advanced lasers, but I do not go through the scietific method of prototyping basic guns, understanding the principles of things and then getting to the advanced experimental stuff, I just magic them up. Then sudenly my scietists all cure the brain cancer that was not letting them learn more advanced methods of colonising cold biomes that they have been working on relentlessly since the dawn of our space empire.

A tech tree is inherently vastly more logical and makes more sense than an era system, in essence there are no real useless techs in it, everything builds and expands on aspects your civilization is slowly understanding, to the point of complete mastery. What a tech tree needs in this scenario is more ... independent branching. Not 4 big roots, but 4 fields of research, each with multiple roots pertaining to specific aspects and systems of increasing complexity that you will slowly master, from the more basic ones, to the advanced.

Yeah I figured hence me answering my own question for you within the question ;) Was just in a pedantic mood.

OnyxCarp wrote:

This poll has been live for 2 weeks now, and still there are good and interesting contributions being posted. Thank you all again for participating.

Results (so far):

35,80% (40,32% week 1) - ES2 should carry on developing the ERA Research systematics as currently designed (boxes)

19,75% (22,58% week 1) - ES2 should carry on developing the ERA Research systematics redesigned as in EL (pie slices)

44,44% (37,10% week 1) - ES2 should abandon ERAs and reinstall the ES1 Tech Tree (path dependencies)

The votes in favor of the third option are starting to gain weight. Does this trend persist? 

Unfortunately there is still radiosilence from the devs if (and how) the suggestions in these posts are being taken into account (or a clear statement that the current roadmap will not be altered). Lots of Amplitude, but on the wrong Frequency?

It is interesting to see the divisiveness. I posted a Steam review naming the tech system as my biggest personal issue with recommending it, and with 24 hours had six people vote it down. And this thread too started with support for the system, yet seems to have gotten progressively more negative towards it as time goes on.

Would still love to see a reply about it at some point, Amplitude...

It's due to update 3, like the update road suggests.

So not less than 3 month+ from now.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

It's due to update 3, like the update road suggests.

So not less than 3 month+ from now.

Yes, the roadmap is quite clear, I was somewhat impatient.

It was very interesting and useful to read the various interpretations of how the tech systematics in ES2 should be implemented according to the community.

I guess that many points have been made clear about this subject and that these issues have been thoroughly brought under the attention of Amplitude.

Now there has been some feedback I suppose this thread has served its purpose - I consider it finished.

Thanks to all who participated!

What is the difference between pie and box apart from the visuals? They seem to be the same choice.

At first I didn't like the tech tree but after playing for 20 hours or so it's grown on me, it really does force you to make important choices that can differ in every game rather than a pretty predictable climb up the same old tree.

Thaeos wrote:

What is the difference between pie and box apart from the visuals? They seem to be the same choice.

At first I didn't like the tech tree but after playing for 20 hours or so it's grown on me, it really does force you to make important choices that can differ in every game rather than a pretty predictable climb up the same old tree.

Thanks for your reaction. You have understood my first two poll options in contrast to the third.

- the first two options are cosmetic/design. Inherently they both focus on further developing the ERA systematic. //personally I dislike the current boxes

- the third option considers a more 'logical' tech development as was implemented in ES1, as opposed to the 'fill your basket and move on to the next room' systematic of eras. //personally I tend to consider that the Tree has more depth when it comes to planning ahead; you don't have to fill you basket first before you can beeline towards a certain hard wanted tech

Does it have to be one OR the other?

You could have both options as in

- after 5 technologies you unlock the next era but the sience cost there is still doubled (200%)

- after the next 5 techs that cost is set back to 100%

That way you could still beeline to a higher tech (but it would be cheaper to stay in your era for the whole 10 techs)

Calavera wrote:

Does it have to be one OR the other?

You could have both options as in

- after 5 technologies you unlock the next era but the sience cost there is still doubled (200%)

- after the next 5 techs that cost is set back to 100%

That way you could still beeline to a higher tech (but it would be cheaper to stay in your era for the whole 10 techs)

Thanks Calavera, I see what you mean.

The thing about 'filling your basket to proceed to the next shopping mall' could imply that a player ends up with a basket half full of techs he doesn't (yet) need, also triggering political repercussions.

The era system can stay but the boxes system is just awful in my opinion.

Just do it like the hero skill tree and it would look much more informative and you could see multiple eras at once.

Some connections between the techs would be nice as well but I guess that wouldn't really work with the increased cost.

Overall I vastly prefer the ES1 tech system to EL or ES2 right now. In case this won't be changed I hope we can at least get a visually cleaner look.

NeroRAWr wrote:

...

Overall I vastly prefer the ES1 tech system to EL or ES2 right now. In case this won't be changed I hope we can at least get a visually cleaner look.

Basically the reason I setup this poll

I think UI-wise, the current system is fine.  But mechanically it gets a bit weird the way the military techs work.  Once you're in era 2, you are penalized for having taken era 1 weapon tech.  You lose a reasearch slot, and now you can build equivalent weapons for straight gold instead of spending strategic resources.

I think it would make more sense if the basic era-based weaponry only had one attack range while the researched tech would have two (one optimal range, and one average).  Or some other system where you would have long term benefits from teching into weapons/defenses.

Cronstintein wrote:

(1) But mechanically it gets a bit weird the way the military techs work.  Once you're in era 2, you are penalized for having taken era 1 weapon tech.  You lose a reasearch slot, and now you can build equivalent weapons for straight gold instead of spending strategic resources.

(2) I think it would make more sense if the basic era-based weaponry only had one attack range while the researched tech would have two (one optimal range, and one average).  Or some other system where you would have long term benefits from teching into weapons/defenses.

1- Agree. The time you spend in era 1 is too short to profit from the enhanced weapons/defenses, when in era 2 the stats of basic weapons/defenses level out. Waste of research in our opinion.

2- Good idea!

Personally, I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the research choices. A flat research structure (and starting as Sophons allows gives you assess to Age II as well!) just gives too much choice, which is nice for an advanced player but very intimidating for a newcomer. I'd prefer to have more dependencies between different technologies, this would make the gameplay a bit more streamlined but also more strategic at the same time. ES1 research graph wasn't half bad! I do like how Stellaris does research, with its random element.