[Balance] Research speed

[Iscaran]

Btw. Just for the protocol: global research modifier 0.05. (1/10 of SLOW), Map type Huge, Tech Level at Start EARLY (=TL1)
Turn 59 Comp2
Turn 103 Bio2
Turn 128 Weapons2
Turn 137 Propulsion2
Turn 138 Energy2
Turn 144 Weapons 3
Turn 148 Energy 3
Turn 149 Propulsion 3

You see the incredible impact of surveyors...Propulsion 2&3, Energy 2&3 and Weapons 2, 3 were basically researched by surveyors within a few turns.

Lets see how this progresses further.

[Iceman]

(I have replied to this 3 times already, and 3 times lost the damn long post... sorry, will have to collect my thoughts again and try again later)


Part of that is the survey bug at work though.
Vladimir once reported that while producing 150 RPs on Romulus, with a bonus of +10%, and a single survey ship in an ion storm, he was getting 1045 research per turn.
Since then I have decreased the base values for survey, but the bug has still to be addressed.

Besides fixing this bug, there's still the multi-system start for Sophisticated+ starts, like in BotF. Which needs to be implemented.


For now, maybe boosting the starting conditions for Developed (TL2), namely starting population, so that an additional lab or 2 can be activated? To address specifically the TL1/TL2 issue.

Also, maybe set the default start to Early instead of Developed, and try to balance things from there?

Compare to the TL1 university = 25 RP then a parked surveyor is nearly the same as having a research building on your homeplanet.

That was exactly the goal. IIRC only the Feds and Roms get ~50-60, the others get less.

erhaps it would be more interesting if one could "research" anomalies only ONCE with surveyor ships ? And only Science stations would give a turn based return comparable to 1 University building of the same Techleve as the science station is in ONE Field ?

That's what's planned:
https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremac ... iense-ship
But then, after you survey all anomalies in range, the ships will not have much of a purpose.

The original design had each anomaly be worth a certain number of RPs, and you could collect them at any rate you wanted up until you "exhausted" the anomaly.

[Iscaran]

But then, after you survey all anomalies in range, the ships will not have much of a purpose.

Dont know how scouts function in Supremacy, yet. But in BOTF they also had a purpose in Combat - as only with a scout present in a fleet you could see which commands the enemy had issued (or was going to issue ?) in combat. Which impacted on how much boni/mali you got for selecting a specific combat command.

So perhaps there could be a "dual-purpose". To allow "something" special in combat as well. Otherwise I dont see too big an issue if this ships loose their "functionality" after one has explorer the galaxy ?

Though personally I would prefer having them impact on Combat rules "somehow" to give them this little extra something.

[Iceman]

So perhaps there could be a "dual-purpose". To allow "something" special in combat as well.

Like detecting cloaked ships in combat? Since they have strong sensors and all.


Once we implement a combat engine, I guess scouts will work the same way as in BotF.


Right now I'm testing a fix to the survey issue, will post it as a patch if you want to check it out.
I've also set Early as default.

[Iscaran]

Like detecting cloaked ships in combat?

One might be careful about such a feature - cloaking would be rendered pretty "useless" if a TL2 ship can detect it already in combat ?
But depends on how the combat enging might work, some purpose might be found.

[Iceman]

I should have said try to detect; as in, scan strength vs cloak strength.

--

I think survey is working correctly, there just seems to be a display bug with the total research value.

[Iscaran]

Update:
For the protocol: global research modifier 0.05. (1/10 of SLOW), Map type Huge, Tech Level at Start EARLY (=TL1

Turn 59 Comp2
Turn 103 Bio2
Turn 128 Weapons2 *
Turn 137 Propulsion2 *
Turn 138 Energy2 *
Turn 144 Weapons 3 *
Turn 148 Energy 3 *
Turn 149 Propulsion 3 *
Turn 160 Construction 2
Turn 168 Energy 4 *

You see the incredible impact of surveyors, * marked entries were basically entirely researched by surveyors within a few turns.

As for the impact of surveyors, what about the following mechanic:

The surveyors give a ONE TIME boost per anomaly according to a certain Percentage of research cost for the CURRENT Techlevel.
So if one is @TL2 the Surveyor gives a one time boost of lets say 10% of TL3...

That way the surveyor output is always "balanced" in terms of reserach speed - no matter how the setting / galaxy size / RP costs etc.
With such a mechanis they are neither way too strong on Low-Tech NOR way too uninteresting on High-Tech.

[Iceman]

That would make you want to survey all anomalies as late as possible.
And there would be no difference between surveying with a surveyor I or a surveyor III.
What I would like to do was you would be able to survey each anomaly once with a surveyor of each tier. You'd get some data from a surveyor I, later you could get some more from a surveyor II, and some more from a III. But that's not easy to do.

[Iceman]

If you have just 100 RP to get for a TL and such a ship churns out HALF this value EACH Turn - then its no wonder why TechGaining is so incredible fast.

There is no field that only requires 100 RPs. TL1 is not used, it's the starting TL. TL2 was 200, changed to 250 in the current release.
I'm now testing with 500/1000/2000 BTW.

The point is that on a small map your empire consist lets say of just 3 planets or so over most time of the match - while on Huge you easily might have 30 planets or more ! Therefore the output in research is scaling the same - means to get the "same" speed of progress the RP costs on huge must be much higher ! Not linearly however, since of course on huge WITH a size scaling factor for RP you will progress "slower" in the early game - but still be equally fast or even faster in the late game.

Notice that Intel is not working yet. When it is, where will you get the pop to man those PFs? From research and when will this be felt the most? The entire game except the early game. There will also be research lost due to espionage, and maybe other stuff (bombardment, invasions). So it's possible we may need to revert all of this at some point.

Btw. the building times do not scale with size at the moment - so a colony ship TL1 is built in 4 turns on Small, the same as on huge.

It's the exact same ship, why wouldn't it?


Maybe we should consider reducing the size of larger maps?




Reduced the base values of anomalies; science ships (and stations) should yield less RPs now. Uploaded a patch to BB.

[Iscaran]

It's the exact same ship, why wouldn't it?

Yes - I agree. I also dont think that the build times should change much in between Small -> Huge. However I do Think that research speed needs to be adjusted to "number of available planets" or something like that. Or roughly to "available galaxy population".

Btw 500 instead of 200 for TL2 may already be reasonable slow enough. We'll see whether a factor 2 for TL2->3->4 etc. is enought

I'll restart with a new game based on the 14 sep version with the new settings and without my 0.05 modifier and will post progress times as above.

[Iscaran]

New Game Iscaran (Research Progress will be edited here) 14Sep Version - patched to 15Sep Version on Turn 16.
Settings: Klingon Empire, Huge, Irregular, Medium, Medium, Early, Some, Canon, Slow, Default, No, No

[Iceman]

Attaching here the changes mentioned above.

[Iscaran]

Not sure what you mean ? I used the Sep14 Version from your download site: https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremacy/downloads/
I thought it was the one with the changes to research ? Should I update with this package additionally ?

[Iceman]

What's in BB is the code patch (survey values).
These are the data changes (transports, TL thresholds, initial pop, etc).

I uploaded a new version (15sep) where I disabled OB construction by the AI, to check if that's what's causing a recurring crash.

[Iscaran]

OK. So I patched up to the 15sep version in turn 16 of the game...shouldnt have too much impact on research progress I hope :-)...will report research times as they come in now.