Thanks for all you guys for your input and patience with me . I just do not have the level of experience that you guys have of strategy games or coding (the only thing I can mod in ES is the cost, fids, and operations). But at least I am understood and you guys make this the best community on the Internet.



(Poor option 2, forever alone.)

T41 wrote:


Yes, I agree, it would cause balancing issues, but perhaps all factions get the tech after X amount of turns. Because secrets don't stay secret for long, people/aliens would start trying to copy that and eventually figure that out.

I hope that makes sense (and I don't sound rude I am not trying to).

Don't worry you don't. Yea that is realistic but will cause some problems. Let's say your game has sophons, cravers and automatons in a 3 way war. They are all researching different trees trying to stay alive and develop themselves. As soon as they research that tech the timer will start up. If you're researching in a completely different direction and suddenly get a bunch of techs in other trees, the research tree will quickly become empty even at the 60th turn.

Honestly your first point IS achievable, but it's too late for this game. An example is Sword of the Stars that had a randomized tech tree every game and you can't see what you'll get until you have the proper related techs. So it's a possible feature, but it'll take too long and too much coding to change what we have now.

finaryman wrote:
2) is already true. In one game I got tech I wasn't even researching. Could have been an event, I don't remember that accurately.

The only bad thing about exploration events is that they go away when there are no more completely undiscovered systems (but that is another topic).

If you could only see 2 techs above that would not make that much difference if the tech trees aren't randomly generated, which is not possible with the current type of tech tree. And changing the tree now is way to late. This could be a viable option for a next game, but with a different type of research tree that this one.

Research right now in strategy games seems hardly 'research'. You already know and see what the technology is, you just have to implement it. That is what (slightly) annoys me. I just wanted to know if anybody else felt the same way.

for the second idea, it already happens with exploration awards or random events. but if you make it just happen without a reason it will be unfair to other player and cause serious balancing problems.

Yes, I agree, it would cause balancing issues, but perhaps all factions get the tech after X amount of turns. Because secrets don't stay secret for long, people/aliens would start trying to copy that and eventually figure that out.

I hope that makes sense (and I don't sound rude I am not trying to).

T41 wrote:
1) that you can only see 1-2 techs above what you have researched



2) you have random discoveries of techs higher than what you have researched

This logic makes complete sense but is hard to implement in a game.

If you could only see 2 techs above that would not make that much difference if the tech trees aren't randomly generated, which is not possible with the current type of tech tree. And changing the tree now is way to late. This could be a viable option for a next game, but with a different type of research tree that this one.



for the second idea, it already happens with exploration awards or random events. but if you make it just happen without a reason it will be unfair to other player and cause serious balancing problems.



Basically its this; the ideas are good and refreshing, but not implementable in the game.

2) is already true. In one game I got tech I wasn't even researching. Could have been an event, I don't remember that accurately.