Also I'm tempted to say that weapon upgrades come too quickly. Often with only a handful of turns for an upgrade, I spend an awful lot of time modifying and retrofitting during a single military campaign. I'll keep an open mind though.



edit: Actually I just read the tooltip on the Auto Upgrade button, makes modifying ships MUCH easier. TY UI.

/#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13242-suggestion-tech-tree-without-leaves.



I suppose this relates.

davea wrote:
You know that you can build a queue with shift-click, correct? I don't see much need for a separate queue display. A notification on the end of turn button is a good idea, which is covered in the suggestion thread: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13096-updated-summary-of-suggestions-ideas

Well yeah I did find that, however more often than not I would accidentally break the queue by clicking somewhere else. Even while holding SHIFT+Click the queue would clear itself if I clicked wrong.

You know that you can build a queue with shift-click, correct? I don't see much need for a separate queue display. A notification on the end of turn button is a good idea, which is covered in the suggestion thread: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13096-updated-summary-of-suggestions-ideas

Two things I'd like to see with the Research Area: A Queue List like for buildings/ships (with drag and drop functionality) and better notification that I'm not researching anything. That little scroller that says "no research" is really easy to overlook at 1920x1200 resolution...

One thing that bugs me about the techs is the Terraforming ones. They seem to cost very little so that you can easily transform planets in one turn fairly early in the game.

I agree with the issues stated regarding the weapons tech trees. I feel like the really could stand to give greater differences at longer research times, because if I can research the next weapon tech in question in a single turn, why bother refitting or changing my current ships - they'll be obsolete next year.



Also, MORE CARDS, and put them in the weapon tech tree.

I've played exactly three games and even I know that Titanium-70 is needed to manufacture Cruisers!



What's weird is that it isn't needed at all to make Battleships - and I got Battleships pretty quickly after I got Cruisers, so I didn't really feel the pain at not having Titanium-70.

davea wrote:
Excellent point, but there may be another way to do it. In other games (Civ IV for example) there is separate documentation about the resources. So instead of jamming information about a resource into the tech, there should be a separate class of mouseover help for resources. This can have things like "Required for missiles" or "Grants +2 gears/pop", as well as "Unlocked by".

That's what's missing... wheres the civlopedia...erm...endlopedia?



Civ is a good example although the tech tree is much less complicated so it's easier to scan with everything being arranged along a nice little timeline in effect. The way Civ techs display the units/buildings/etc they unlock is handy and while Endless Space also displays the unlocks in a similar fashion it's much harder to keep track of what the unlocks unlock

davea wrote:
Good point. MOO and other games have a wider variety of weapon effects and side effects. The doubling/halving you suggest would make room in the tree for more interesting things.

MOO is an excellent example too, it was really such a simple game but it had just enough variety in the right places to at least give you the impression of having more choice than you really did.

davea wrote:
Not sure what you mean here. Do you mean the "Wonders of the World" in games like Civ IV? For example, being the first to build the Pyramids grants a tech bonus which other players cannot get. Civ has these all throughout the tech tree. I'm not sure that is what you mean since these are pretty long term bonuses.

Ok, using a Civ example it would be like the choice of an early Iron Working beeline giving you access to and knowledge of a valuable resource as well as units that have a real advantage over the warriors everybody else is still using. A more extreme example would be a deeper beeline to Currency, Civil Service or Fuedalism (in cIV anyway). I don't think there's an equivalent of wonders in Endless Space and I wouldn't necessarily want them but they are also an example of an advantage you can aim for, another example are the "first to discover" bonuses which may be much easier to impliment.

VieuxChat wrote:
I would like to be able to see exactly what will be the purpose of new resources "Yeah Titanium 70. Hum. How will I use that ?"

Yeah, what he said

I would like to be able to see exactly what will be the purpose of new resources "Yeah Titanium 70. Hum. How will I use that ?"

EvilVictor wrote:
For example a tech that unlocks a resource does not tell you what that resource is used for, to figure that out you have to search the other trees for the items inside other techs that require the resource mentioned in the first tech. The help tips could stand to have a little more information in them, you could poke the brains of the more experienced players and add a "tech tip" to each tech explaining some of the strategic or tactical benefits of selecting it rather than just the technical & flavor explanation there currently.

Excellent point, but there may be another way to do it. In other games (Civ IV for example) there is separate documentation about the resources. So instead of jamming information about a resource into the tech, there should be a separate class of mouseover help for resources. This can have things like "Required for missiles" or "Grants +2 gears/pop", as well as "Unlocked by".

Right now advancing up the weapon techs just makes retrofitting your ships more frequent and in many cases it's best to just skip upgrades until you've made 2-3 advancements so you could achieve the same results by cutting the number of techs in half (roughly) and doubling (roughly) their cost and the effectiveness of the upgraded module.

Good point. MOO and other games have a wider variety of weapon effects and side effects. The doubling/halving you suggest would make room in the tree for more interesting things.

One thing that feels like it's missing are the obvious "beeline" techs found in other strategy games. Those techs that are valuable enough to make you expend tremendous resources and completely neglect other beneficial aspects of the tech tree just to gain a potentially brief but significant advantage.

Not sure what you mean here. Do you mean the "Wonders of the World" in games like Civ IV? For example, being the first to build the Pyramids grants a tech bonus which other players cannot get. Civ has these all throughout the tech tree. I'm not sure that is what you mean since these are pretty long term bonuses.

They need more diverse technologies for each races. Currently, all of them has 3-6 unique stuff, which is not much. There should be 10-15 different technologies to make the game more dynamic between each race in my opinion.

davea wrote:
I think the help is very clear. When you zoom in a little to the tech tree, you can see the icons underneath it. Each icon is either a new ship module or system improvement you can buy, or (in purple) a new resource which is revealed. Hovering over each icon tells you exactly what it will do. Can you give an example of one specific tech which is not clear?

There are a many that aren't clear as to what they do, especially to a new player, because although you can see what it unlocks it's not always clear why that unlock may or may not be useful. Most of this comes from the fact that the information is there but it's spread out, some of it is spread out clear out of the tech UI. For example a tech that unlocks a resource does not tell you what that resource is used for, to figure that out you have to search the other trees for the items inside other techs that require the resource mentioned in the first tech. The help tips could stand to have a little more information in them, you could poke the brains of the more experienced players and add a "tech tip" to each tech explaining some of the strategic or tactical benefits of selecting it rather than just the technical & flavor explanation there currently. Putting something like that right in the tech description will put that information right at your fingertips and not make you search for it so you can worry more about what you're doing in the game and spend less time trying to remember which tech unlocks the resource needed by the module unlocked by another tech. The existing connections aren't complicated (e.g. missiles need titanium) so there's really no reason to hide them.

davea wrote:
Which techs seem dull? The weapon tree, for example, unlocks weapons/defenses with new names, but they always fall into the three categories of missile, beam, kinetic. This fits in with the combat organization, which is an interesting but separate topic. With specific feedback/suggestions, we can make the game better.

The weapon tree is a good example of techs that feel dull. All of the kinetic weapons are simply the same as the previous version with a little more damage, great for balance, not so great for variety. The most interesting aspects of combat (new ship hulls & cards/tactics) aren't in the weapon tree. It's definately functional but with so many techs that are really little more than "the last tech +1" it is very dull. Shifting a few of the cards/tactics over into weapon tree could add some spice to the tree without messing with combat itself but to really kill the dullness of the combat tree you'd have to make some additions to combat like adding missile packs that fire multiple missiles per salvo or heavy kinetic weapons that fire fewer shots per salvo with more damage per shot. Right now advancing up the weapon techs just makes retrofitting your ships more frequent and in many cases it's best to just skip upgrades until you've made 2-3 advancements so you could achieve the same results by cutting the number of techs in half (roughly) and doubling (roughly) their cost and the effectiveness of the upgraded module.



One thing that feels like it's missing are the obvious "beeline" techs found in other strategy games. Those techs that are valuable enough to make you expend tremendous resources and completely neglect other beneficial aspects of the tech tree just to gain a potentially brief but significant advantage. That's the kind of choice that makes for different strategies, maybe such techs do exist but I couldn't find any that made me want to really push for them, almost every tech has some advantages or at least leads to a tech that does so with the exception of skipping diplo techs if you're just going to kill everybody anyway (yay Carvers!) or passing up on unlocking colonization for planet types that aren't frequent in your space there seem to be few real choices to make and the choices you do make feel shallow, mostly revolving around what can be researched the fastest. I haven't played enough to offer any solid suggestions for this and maybe once I've played more this will seem like less of an issue, I don't know yet.



I'm having a blast by the way, so I hope I didn't sound too critical of the tech tree in this post

I picked up the game last night on steam & really loving the game so far. I love the fact that an early explosive colonization landrush seems to be discouraged in favor of building a stable empire. I know it's still alpha I couldn't find any threads mentioning this, so figured I'd post something about the tech tree that seemed to be gnawing at me a bit. Specifically, the tech tree seems to be a bit haphazardly compressed with things like ship hulls & warp drives being tacked onto the colonize X type planet techs maybe the trees could be expanded a bit by severing some of the odd bolt on to their own spots in wider tech trees?

You can safely skip at least half of the combat tree, since you can unlock all of the upper tier weapons and defenses from the middle tech path.



Additionally, if you don't have any potentially friendly AI (e.g. only Cravers), you can skip all techs that pertain to diplomacy options.

davea wrote:
Which techs seem dull?

Almost the entire military tree is simple weapon and module upgrades. Imo it's boring.



I will admit that I haven't delved too far into the numbers of each upgrade, so maybe there's something I'm missing. But just looking at the tree is like: "Blah, another +X damage on my missiles and flak, yawn."

davea wrote:
Which techs seem dull?

Well if you look at other games, like researching boats or airplanes in Civ. There is a HUGE difference between an empire that can fly and one that can't, or one that can go across the sea and one that can't.



I'd like to see more research options that open up more types of gameplay, or more things that you can do, instead of just "+20% food production" or something else dull.

Which techs seem dull? The weapon tree, for example, unlocks weapons/defenses with new names, but they always fall into the three categories of missile, beam, kinetic. This fits in with the combat organization, which is an interesting but separate topic. With specific feedback/suggestions, we can make the game better.

If anything, the tree is spread a little thin imo. Techs often seem like very minor upgrades; and only a few of them feel like "gold-medal" techs (i.e. significant empire boosters). I like techs that give me a new mechanic or ability, i.e. new diplo options, new combat cards to play, etc.



Sooooo many of the techs feel like simple boosts to existing weapons and eco improvements, which is rather dull.

Jaccubin wrote:
I think it would be neat if the tech trees allowed for deeper specialization. Higher tier techs are so expensive you are pretty much forced to be a generalist because in the time it takes you to research a tech that is to you advanced you can unlock 20 different lower tier things.

Most of the early game techs are necessarily to win (thinking mostly resource and colonize ones)... You'd probably lose if you didn't get them. I like that theyre not so cheap you can't get em all early, but cheap enough that by turn 100-150 you should have them all.

That's as usual in 4x games with tech tree. The low tier techs aren't as usefull as the later ones. And I like the fact you really have to choose in the end because it costs so much. You can't have everything.

I think it would be neat if the tech trees allowed for deeper specialization. Higher tier techs are so expensive you are pretty much forced to be a generalist because in the time it takes you to research a tech that is to you advanced you can unlock 20 different lower tier things.

I think the help is very clear. When you zoom in a little to the tech tree, you can see the icons underneath it. Each icon is either a new ship module or system improvement you can buy, or (in purple) a new resource which is revealed. Hovering over each icon tells you exactly what it will do. Can you give an example of one specific tech which is not clear?

I like the basic idea of the tech tree, but to me it's a bit of a shot in the dark. It's not clear what exactly you are researching, and once you have researched it id does not seem to relate in the game. This however could be because it might yet just not be implemented or that I am a total idiot and I am missing something. But I feel they should give a little more info as to what the research will actually produce.

Actually, I think the tech tree is kind of neat. It forces you to make decisions and tradeoffs. There is a good organization into the four quadrants, but you can't (or "shouldn't") ignore any one of them. After you have played a little bit more, it will be interesting to see if you find any specific points which could be improved. That feedback would be great.