(October 3rd, 2015, 23:41)Ianus Wrote: So Ref, is your thought that IT+10 was the wrong tech to choose in Planetology? My thinking was that it is so cheap and gets us in range of Dead tech the fastest, or if that's not available we can hold for IER as needed. I admit that I don't understand the mechanics of miniaturization very well.
I don't open tech that early either but I wanted to know about Planetology and Propulsion and for the cost of a single factory I thought that I would see all fields, even though We were nowhere near ready to start researching.
IT+10 is pretty great actually! I think IER is better, especially with the large size of our early worlds (which makes the fractional bonus of +10 a bit smaller) and with no special worlds to boost, but IT+10 is still very good. The key thing is to actually spend the early BCs necessary to research the chosen tech though; even though it initially delays factory construction, if you make a small investment early (say 40 BC) and then trickle research in just enough to keep your investment multiplying, you can end up speeding up your colony ships - even the first one - relative to just building factories. IER in particular provides good miniaturization for the colbase, a ~16% increase in the productivity of each factory, and a small bonus to production per pop unit. IT+10 provides a little miniaturization, a tiny boost to per-pop production, faster pop growth and a higher ceiling for pop and factories for a small investment, and is dirt cheap.
I probably like IER too much, and you're definitely right that Controlled Dead looks critical to our success here, but we're not guaranteed to have it, and choosing IT+10 only gets there faster if we actually research the tech!
So, no, I don't think IT+10 was the wrong tech to choose, even though I'd have chosen differently. When I said it was "in the way," I just meant I couldn't tech IER or Controlled-Dead-if-present without getting IT+10 first, which is fine, since it's a good tech and a cheap one as well as necessary.
If you want to see wrong decisions, you'll have to look at my turns when I'm done! (Nothing egregious I hope, but I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of my choices when I finish playing and reporting them!)