THE PROBLEM

So after playing a few hours of ES2 this week, many of the changes compared ES1 have shown great fun and potential so far, save for one: Research and Techs. Coming here on the forums, it was clear I wasn't alone. For me, the EL-like tech tree carrying over to Space 2 doesn't feel right for a few reasons, mainly:

• Era divisions of technologies contradicts the idea of galactic empires. An organized society of the far-flung future could easily devote large amount of human and material resources to innovation in a specific field as needed. My empire's top scientists telling me I need to discover more political theories or robotic factories before they can keep pushing in fundamental science should swiftly earn them a trip to 'Sophon Re-education Camp'. In short, Eras prevent scientific specialization of empires and that opposes ES1-style science play.
• Many features of the game need techs to simply be available. Similarly, to EL, those technologies become unavoidable during play, except for certain factions; think Mercenary Market or Alchemist's Furnace, skipping those crippled many game mechanics. In ES2, the problem has become worse (looking at you, 20 billions colonization techs) and works more to limit diversity in research than to delay significant actions, especially given the next point.
• Awkward Tech Limits imposed by progressing Era and science cost creeping prevent diversity in Research paths. Most players will not research earlier eras' techs since they make the science cost of better technologies go up and do not necessarily provide benefits of the same magnitude. Thus, you get 10 techs per Era and 8 of them will be 'required' techs that you can't expect to make do without.

OPINIONS (if you dislike walls of texts, skip ahead)

These three hindrances make, in my opinion, research more like an automated to-do list than significant decision making and diminishes the game as a whole. Moreover, some strategic choices that were available at start in ES1 have been turned into techs: Industry to Dust/Science conversion, Planetary Specializations. This means that, during the first part of the game, the player is doing a lot less of thinking and deciding than before. To quote Sid Meier: ''A game is a series of interesting decisions''. Right now, ES2 might be interesting, but it's lacking decisions.

Think also of the current research scheme: most players will likely pick the techs that benefit their current playstyle most and, by doing so, will lock-out meaningful possibilities in other areas. Can’t have big weapons AND change governments AND colonize Oceans. In order to mitigate this EL (and ES2 currently) allow ‘’improvements’’ over earlier tech to be researched without needing their earlier iteration, EL’s Imperial Highways and Highway Outposts for example. In my opinion, this makes little sense in ES2’s context; it was forgivable in EL because you could attribute it to a more empiric approach to technology in early civilizations or cultural exchanges or whatever. For a space-faring people, using tech without mastering the related basics seems out of place however.

In EL, those things were balanced by the need to manage armies and cities much more closely; the land and map itself was a big part of Legend and those mechanics made the game feel complete. In ES however, the galaxy is less of a character and more just a map. You don't need to spend much time deciding where to colonize first in a system or in which part of your system to station your fleet and this is ok! It makes sense in the general design of the game which focuses more on large-scale management and long term decision making. This design philosophy should be reflected in the tech tree. But right now, that very tree is dominated by the EL philosophy, incompatible with Space's aim.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

We therefore need to change or replace the current research design with something more aligned to ES2's personality, broad and far-reaching. As I see it, the devs have 3 paths laid before them.

1. Go Classic: Return to ES1's research scheme, leaving behind Eras but keeping most of the currents techs untouched. Tech costs increase only with distance from the 'center' of the tech tree so all basic 'mandatory' research can be easily accessed by everyone at some point in the game. On the Pro side, players can specialize, go back to older tech and adapt your playstyle with ease. On the Con side, all techs that are upgrades of previous ones need to gain prerequisites so you can't just skip the early ones completely. This also means that the flow of the game is less predictable for new players and you need to manage more things. For example, not having auto-upgrading weapons through eras means having once again Weapon-Tier techs that too often become urgent and mandatory in ES1.
2. Fine Tuning: Keep EL's research scheme while reworking many techs. Mandatory ones need to be scrapped in favor of just more upgrades. Things like Planetary Specialization, Industry conversion and basic diplomacy should be available either right away or unlocked simply through Era progression. On the Pro side, this makes tech easier to balance and players more likely to be on the same tech level later in the game (so you don’t get caught pants down with Tier 1 weapons on turn 223). On the Con side, missing the mark here means all the aforementioned problems remain just as severe (if not worse).
3. Make something new: Create a new mechanic or overhaul an existing one to negate the current problems. For example,
   • Minor and Major Techs: There are now ‘two’ tech tracks, one containing all the standard ones (Minor) and another containing all the techs deemed mandatory (Major), like new hulls, critical diplomacy actions or system improvements. You research Minor techs normally; instead of researching Major techs, you unlock a new one of your choosing every X (let’s say 3) minor techs OR each one has 3-4 parent Minor techs, you unlock the Major one once 2 of those are researched. Eras can be controlled either by the number of Minor techs (similar to current state) or the number of Major techs (so people will unlock them). In either choice, no more than 25% of Major should be left undiscovered at the end of an Era.
   • Great Discoveries: Starting with a tech tree similar to ES1, you make later technologies unavailable or pricier until your empire can make a ‘Great Discovery’, a massive forward leap in technology or science similar in importance to the emergence of the printing press or the computer which makes all later science much more accessible, as well as potentially unlocking ‘mandatory’ techs. Great Discoveries would be special researches that basically move you up an era, possibly with a gigantic science cost that gets cheaper with every other research to prevent era rushing. Great Discoveries could also be unlocked or made cheaper by specific wonder-like system improvements (grand scientific devices or experiments comparable in scope to the LHC or the Manhattan Project-related research).

CLOSING REMARKS (mostly personnal ramblings)

In any case, two tendencies in the current tech design need to be eliminated: overpackaging and spreading it too thin.

By overpackaging, I mean the techs that bundle together two things that may go well but don’t absolutely belong in the same tech. Take Fluid Nanodynamics for example: this Era 1 tech unlocks Hardened Probe and Colonize Atoll. Sure, better probes will enhance my ability to colonize, but I could want either part of that tech without the other. Then, if I want better expeditions to use my probes, I need Baryonic Shielding, which also unlocks Colonize Boreal. So I get both exploration and colonization, but I can’t focus on one of those two. The same goes for Era 1 strategic resources and industrial improvements: they are always combined in techs. That sort of design pushes players into playstyles they may not want or makes them spread their science in order to get a full aspect of play.

Which brings us to the second idea that needs to be abducted out of the tech tree by the Vodyani: Spreading it too thin. Complementing the first point, it is currently hard to get a complete gimmick without foregoing everything else in that Era. Focusing on colonization, for example, will require nearly half of your techs every Era. Similarly, wanting Hunter-type hulls requires access to Titanium which, let’s face it, you need to exploit yourself to have sufficient quantities, requiring Xenology tech. You then need planets sporting a deposit, requiring colonization tech and, now that you’re here, you’d be silly not to throw in current Era Titanium modules. But these babies require 3 command points, limiting fleet composition. You’re already researching extra hull types, so why not take Improved Fleet Management while you’re here and… well, that was 5 techs, just for getting a decent use out of my Hunter-class ships.

I agree on most (if not all, after a little thought) accounts.

I greatly enjoyed the  tech model, as it allowed me to exploit my favourite playstyle to the fullest - double down on tech, only research colonisation/science techs just so I can snowball my empire into greatness, go into military/economy/food/approval only as necessary. At the same time, I can see a few of its shortcomings: there is no penalty for abandoning early techs, which still have the same dirt cheap cost in late game - with 20k  I can get the bottom third of the entire military tech tree in a single turn (give or take, don't quote me on the numbers). That, however, can probably be fixed with a touch of cost scaling.

A number of tech choices in  made sense in the context, to some extent. You were one of the fledgling civilisations on a dying world, each possibly entirely foreign to another, thus it sort of made sense to require you to research things like hiring Heroes or trading commodities. But I agree that it doesn't work very well in ES2, at least not with the current system. My Era researches tend to be split between "Techs I absolutely need to get to grow" and "Techs I need to grab to get the next Era because Scientists have been voted out for the third term in spite of overwhelming support."

Trentius wrote:

Things like Planetary Specialization, Industry conversion and basic diplomacy should be available either right away or unlocked simply through Era progression.

Some basic Planetary Specialisations, yes; -> and ->, yes, perhaps with more upgrades (although I remember this being a thing in  for some factions, improving the conversion rate - might have been Sowers?), but at the same time stockpiles as a researchable way of sinking idle  were decent too, so I'm not too miffed about this particular aspect; basic diplomacy was never available from early game, you always had to research even such things as peace treaties. Which worked nice enough in  for aforementioned reasons, and a lot less nice in  because that was another harsh choice you had to make ("do I want to give up , , or  to make peace"); then again,  is about making a lot of harsh choices, so it kinda fit anyway.

As for the last bit, bundling various aspects together, I feel that it sort of makes sense, so long as they are all within constraints of the same tech zone; in fact it's interesting that focusing on economy would also make you more productive, or that breakthroughs required to colonise a specific planet type also yield other useful applications. Then again, I see your point about forcing specific playstyles - haven't felt that myself, as mine aligns with the tech tree tendencies pretty well.

It came out a bit more rambly than I expected - tl;dr version is that I broadly agree, although not on all points in their current form.

Well thought out posts guys. I hope we get a dev response soon to all those different threads about the tech system.

I really miss the ability to in full control about what I want to research and I miss the numerous unique techs for each faction.

If I recall correctly there were multiple factions with different conversion tech upgrades (sowers for food, sophons for science and probably something for dust as well).

I agree with this thread and hope we get something that continues the legacy of ES1 instead of EL (I also don't  want to write the same thing over and over again).

Yeah, I just refreshed my memory on what ES1 tech tree looked like and it was actually really good.  Not sure why they need to reinvent the wheel here when they already had that part figured out.  I'm guessing because EL was such a success, they are trying to draw in elements from that game.  But I personally don't think it fits nearly as well.

HaxtonFale wrote:

(...) but at the same time stockpiles as a researchable way of sinking idle  were decent too, so I'm not too miffed about this particular aspect; basic diplomacy was never available from early game, you always had to research even such things as peace treaties. Which worked nice enough in  for aforementioned reasons, and a lot less nice in  because that was another harsh choice you had to make ("do I want to give up , , or  to make peace"); then again,  is about making a lot of harsh choices, so it kinda fit anyway.

(...)

...I had totally forgotten about stockpiles, probably cause EL's Era 2 was so full of important stuff I rarely got them. You're quite right, I think I liked them a bit more than simple conversion as they gave you more spending options on small cities. Industry to Dust does the same thing for Industry because of the buyout option if you ask me. Either one would be fine as long as we don't have to research the first tier of it. 

I also only meant the first tier for planetary specializations. I just don't want to feel like I'm wasting useful and cheap building space on planets for not researching them, so having tier 1 at start is fine and getting better one remains a free choice.

HaxtonFale wrote:

(...)

As for the last bit, bundling various aspects together, I feel that it sort of makes sense, so long as they are all within constraints of the same tech zone; in fact it's interesting that focusing on economy would also make you more productive, or that breakthroughs required to colonise a specific planet type also yield other useful applications. Then again, I see your point about forcing specific playstyles - haven't felt that myself, as mine aligns with the tech tree tendencies pretty well.

(...)

Mostly same here, but I try to imagine how a player minded for early-to-mid game aggression feels. If he doesn't dip in Strategics, 2 out of 3 Era 1 military techs are useless, then 2 out of 5 Era 2 techs, as well as both medium hull-types. Let's be real here, no one's going to all their Titanium from trading or exploration, especially not if you're a semi-crazed militarist. Not to mention the current state of Approval for Cravers...

Cronstintein wrote:

Yeah, I just refreshed my memory on what ES1 tech tree looked like and it was actually really good.  Not sure why they need to reinvent the wheel here when they already had that part figured out.  I'm guessing because EL was such a success, they are trying to draw in elements from that game.  But I personally don't think it fits nearly as well.

I remember hearing a few players comment on how ES1's tech tree was hard to grasp and I understand a bit how they feel. While being clearer than many tree from similar games, it was still quite massive. For races lacking in science, a great amount of planning and reassessing was required so that what little research you unlock doesn't go to waste because the wind has turned. I think that's the opposition here : 

• the ES1 system rewards planning and large-scale strategic reflexion, making sure you get the most of every upgrade in the long term to not be left behind in a constantly accelerating race. 
• EL's system rewarded the ability to capitalize immediately on a new discovery, as many techs (like weapons) would eventually be rendered obsolete. You had to research something that was immediately useful and then make sure it was worth the investment. The game then allowed you to change playstyles because high-tier techs either replaced or didn't need the lower ones, the only important thing was reaching the ever-closer finish line. 

Both design are best exemplified by the games' iconic science races. ES1's Sophons were about getting more Science out of your science, putting emphasis on ensuring you had the maximum base output for a maximum bonus. Their special mechanic helped, firstly just by giving that extra X% of Science on systems when taxes were low. Secondly, it made you consider lower taxes as an objective in itself, which had the benefit or raising Approval which in turn meant more Science. Unique improvements gave Science bonus on Happy and Ecstatic, generally in % so the effect was even greater.

EL's Vaulter were not about Science at first, they were about using that Science in a powerful fashion. Their unique bonus pushed you to search for Strategic Ressources even in regions you would not have considered otherwise. Their emphasis on Strategic Ressources for weapons and armor meant that army were both powerful and very costly to build, replace and retrofit. However, the teleportation mechanic allowed you to defend large or fragmented empires with less armies so you wouldn't sink the Dust you needed for retrofits into upkeep.

At least that's how I felt the games were different. Endless Space was about expanding, conquering or negotiating until your civilization become so powerful, no enemy or catastrophe would spell its end. Your empire and people will endure for ages, its legacy would echo for eons, shaping the galaxy forever just as the Endless had before them. Its a race towards the future with no end in sight.

Endless Legend, in turn, was a struggle against time and ruin. Empires fight over ever-increasing needs and ever decreasing resources. You did not fight to rule over your opponents, you fought for the right to survive, to save Auriga or leave it forever.

I think Trentius's point most effectively highlights the design tension of using the Era system for Endless Space. Endless Legend was about a world where advancing technology was a prerequisite of survival, and one where any technological gain was something you had to capitalise on there and then. Eras were as a direct result these "big" advancements that really mattered. In space the reverse applies, you've already cracked a lot of the resource scarcity problems that plague pre-space civilisations, you're looking to consolidate, grow and develop, which means the concept of eras doesn't -really- work unless you're looking at it from the "energy usage" type of era (which this tech tree does not).

Whilst ES1's tech tree was very intimidating to look at on first blush, it was also very flexible, offering a great deal of strategic choice to the player, and never overtly punishing them for one or two "suboptimal" choices, you could generally afford to pursue a few side alley researches if you were far enough ahead and even if you weren't, there were plenty of ways to use the lower tiers as a way of bootstrapping your research in the weaker areas to help fill in gaps. There was, in effect, always a valid path for research, and a valid way to pivot your research if you felt that the current path wasn't going to work out for you at that point in time.

Endless Legend's and ES2's tech trees are designed to be "inflexible" with their escalating costs, once you've committed to specific choices, you become progressively more locked in, and your accelerating research capacity only allows you to keep pace with the ever greater technological advances that you're gearing through as you work towards the end game. This works well for Endless Legend because you are in effect in a race against time, and that "race" was part of the tech tree, so it felt symbiotic. Here the research tree works -against- the player, because there's not that persistent threat and that ever constant race to the finish line, you're forced into inflexible, optimal routes and you're punished for heading down "optional" paths that might be useful but not necessarily vital.

Now that's not to say ES1 was the ideal route of dealing with research, it's -one- solution, and it worked for ES1, but there's other options on the table such as using a semi random research deck that offers you a set of choices each time you open the research window (Stellaris), which cards in the deck you have access to depends on what research you've unlocked, so whilst the order might be not entirely under your control, you can "vaguely" control the direction of research by going for specific techs. This would play well with the government system if specific governments were linked to the probability of drawing specific research types and even in specific cases, additional research options.

Going the full shuffled approach (Sword of the Stars) would make each research run a case of "There's a core research line for each area, but outside of that the things that branch off of the line are moved around, so you may not get access to say, Tech A until you've made it to Tier 3 whereas in the last game Tech A was available at Tier 1", that could be controlled through the use of racial bonuses and again, specific races could exert influence over which trees get more benefit, but that would guarantee at least, a dynamic tech tree where you couldn't reliably work out what the optimal order was each time, you'd have to adapt.

In this case the feeling is that simply using Endless Legend's tech tree from a thematic and from a mechanical standpoint, whilst it worked for Endless Legend, it doesn't work for ES2, and that needs to be addressed, there's solutions very much available, it just needs Amplitude to decide which one they prefer.

I'm not going to be able to add much here other than a voice of agreement. Endless Space has a massive cache of fans who enjoyed the game. Stop alienating them to cater to Endless Legend fans. They can get their own sequel...

Discussions about the tech system have gotten quiet lately, guessing most people were awaiting the new content patch. Even though my UE game is currently in digital limbo because of the loading bug, I did get to play a good 45 turns on fast, which gave me time to assimilate the changes that were put forward.

The changes did alleviate my anger quite a bit, especially with colonization and system improvements. But although my intense urges to set my computer on fire have vanished, the uneasy feeling that came with the tech screen did not. It still felt like a minor element of the game, to which little attention is given (I know it certainly doesn't, but it gives me that vibe). As was previously mentioned, that's probably because it feels so out of place alongside the stars.

I know and accept what the developers have said about the topic, that Eras aren't going away and that linear dependencies must be avoided. But despite all that, I still feel a better answer lies out there somewhere, a design that will satisfy players who emphasize Science without scaring off others who are searching for a different play style. Call me a hopeless optimist, but I'm confident the community and Amplitude can work together to reach a better solution to this issue.

In regards to the devs, it seems to me that Amplitude has a real knack in creating new features or putting creative spins on old ones. It was that creativity that made Endless Space a critically acclaimed game despite its limited visibility, and that made Endless Legend a major success 2 years later. Now, for the first time, Amplitude is making a 'real' sequel (not an ideological one) and it seems to me like it isn't going smoothly since most of the issues the community have brought up are, as far as I know of, things carried over (or not) from previous games . Few truly new features, like new races or trade companies, were met with disappointment or frustration. With this in mind, I tried to come up with new design proposals that would carry the game away from previous titles and into new territories were, apparently, the developers work best.

These are the criteria I'm hoping these proposals will meet :

• As previously mentioned, they will stray from classic design philosophies
• They will be fully compatible with Eras as they are currently defined
• They will limit direct, 'tree-like' dependencies
• They will reward players specializing in science and who carefully plan their technologies
• They will never penalize players who don't feel like planning their technologies 50+ turns ahead
• They will feel appropriate for the ambiance of the game

FIRST PROPOSAL : WEB

Inspired by ability trees from certain RPGs, this design places all unlockables technologies on a large 'web'. Players start at the center with the first technology researched and can research any adjacent technology. An example lies below; the hexagonal shape is arbitrary. In this picture and all following, researched nodes will be colored blue and available nodes will be colored green.

When the player researches a new technology, all neighboring nodes become available. For example, taking the first one up from the center results in :

Only a single neighbor is ever required to make a tech researchable, whatever the direction. This means that you can access techs in the 3rd 'row' by having a neighbor in the 4th, and so on. You are totally free to create your own path, and it could result in strange things like :

On this web, technologies should generally be placed close to similar ones, but out-of-place techs could be used to spice up the 'paths' a bit. One could also envision having technologies in different positions for each race, or assigned a semi-random spot from a bank of 3 or 4 possible locations. 

The cost of technologies increases with distance from the center. Eras impose borders at certain distances (for example, E2 starts on the 3rd 'row', E3 on the 4th, ...). Tech from further Eras can be researched like other but cost more with each passing Era. Era progress is made in the same fashion as the current design, that is researching 10 techs per Era (or any other number).

In regards to the 6 criteria,

• It is dissimilar from ES1, EL and common tech trees in similar games (that I know of)
• It integrates fully and easily with Eras
• Being able to 'move' backwards and sideways means there are many ways to reach each tech
• Planning ahead means you will get critical technologies right when you need them
• Correcting course around your research path is easy, you can get all the late-game techs without researching their 'predecessors'
• It makes for a more coherent and logical technological progress; while you can research late tech in fields your empire knows little about, it does so by using the progress made in related fields.

SECOND PROPOSAL : BUBBLES

Technologies are embedded in larger 'bubbles', which group a certain number of related technologies together (I arbitrarily chose 4). Bubbles are linked togheter through linear dependancies; you can however move sideways and backwards like in the Web proposal. When a bubble becomes available, all the technologies it contains can be researched. A bubble becomes available when a linked one becomes 'complete', that is when a certain threshold of researched techs is met (here arbitrarily chosen as 50%, which I consider to be an upper limit). Below is an example : researched techs are grayed out while 'complete' bubbles are blue and available ones are green.

In my opinion, all technologies within a bubble should cost the same amount of Science, but not obeying that rule could bring about interesting decisions. When a bubble is considered complete, the techs left in it benefit from a reduced science cost. The players starts with a single researched tech in the center and access to all neighboring bubbles. Disposition of bubbles can be pretty much anything, for example :

Eras can progress either through total number of researched technologies or through total number of completed bubbles. Cost of technologies in bubbles increase with distance from the center. With regards to Eras, a penalty could be applied either at fixed distances from the center.

How this meets the 6 criteria :

• Despite relying on a more common disposition of bubbles, how it progresses certainly doesn't feel conventionnal
• It's compatible with Eras
• Techs are not directly dependent on any single other tech, only groups to other groups
• It brings back a bit of the tree structure, rewarding those who know what they want ahead of time
• Freedom to chose techs in bubbles means you can change ideas often whitout repercusions,  as long as you don't suddenly make a 180 in your planning. There will be a lot less bubbles than techs, so it's easier to keep track of dependencies.
• You can research alongside what already is mastered, but not directly in the heart of unknown fields, so progress feels logical.

Thanks for reading, I hope I've inspired a few of you to create your own proposals.