What's your research strategy?

[Ray F]

@Ray F
You can say that about everygame.. its nto a matter of the game designer intende it but all games are based on math so calculation it will always give more precise answerd thna just going by feeling

I wasn't suggesting it was bad at all, but it is the kind of min/maxing that expert players need to do in order to give them a chance at the most difficult levels where the AI cheats heavily. I was just saying that I can't put it in ROTP. If I did, the AI would use the same strategy meaning that players would HAVE to do this just to stay even.

I have little doubt that players will find ways like this to outsmart the ROTP AI at the most difficult levels as well. That's part of the fun!

[Psillycyber]

So wait, am I understanding you correctly, Ray F, that there will be no research interest accumulation in ROTP?

Tech costs will need some rebalancing then. One effect of the interest mechanic is that it makes researching higher-tier techs more attractive than they otherwise would be, since more of the tech cost for those techs usually ends up being shouldered by interest rather than down-payment, so to speak. In other words, a tech that costs twice as much does not take twice as long to research.

This sort of thing often influences my decision-making towards the middle-game about whether I should research a higher-tier tech, or whether it would pay to backtrack and research a cheap low-tier tech just to boost my tech level the fastest. The research interest makes me lean more towards continuing up into the higher tier techs than I would otherwise.

I would be hesitant to remove this core mechanic just because it seems micro-heavy to you. Surely there has to be a way to improve the interface to make it less cumbersome...? For example, some ideas:
*A keyboard shortcut that automatically puts a tech's research ratio at whatever tick is needed to put it just over the edge of the interest limit.
*An interface that lets you assign priority rankings to your tech fields and assign a threshold (such as 30% of tech cost) to each field, up to which the game will assign whatever ratio of tech spending you give it, but after which the game will automatically re-assign tech spending from that tech to the other highest-priority tech such that the former tech's spending is automatically set at the interest limit.

In other words, you set research on planetology at 10 ticks and set the threshold at 30%. Several turns go by. When that tech hits 30% of its cost completed, it automatically takes away most of the ticks from planetology down to the level of the interest limit and automatically re-assigns those ticks to whichever (other) tech has the highest priority rating.

That way, you only need to do two things for each tech that you research: specify an initial ratio of spending, and specify a "seed threshold," after which you want the interest-boosted research to shoulder the load. (Note that you could manually still change tech ratios after this seed threshold was met if you changed your mind).

But you would not have to fiddle with the tech sliders on each turn in order to optimize your tech progress (unless you plan on drastically changing your empire-wide research output each turn, in which case trying to automatically optimize things would get waaay too complicated).

[Ray F]

So wait, am I understanding you correctly, Ray F, that there will be no research interest accumulation in ROTP?

No, there is a research interest accumulation in ROTP. The difference is that there isn't a minimum investment required to get it. That was always the "gamey" micro part of the feature. You'll get the same interest based on current RP accumulation whether you invest 0% or 100% into a field.

There's also no "shelving the project" penalty for dropping research allocation to 0%

[RefSteel]

\No, there is a research interest accumulation in ROTP. The difference is that there isn't a minimum investment required to get it. That was always the "gamey" micro part of the feature. You'll get the same interest based on current RP accumulation whether you invest 0% or 100% into a field.

There's also no "shelving the project" penalty for dropping research allocation to 0%

All this does is to move the sharp discontinuity in research efficiency from 7.5% of previous spending to 0. In other words, under this system, the correct research strategy is to maximize spending on each project on its first turn (and the second and in extreme cases third turn only if you really want the tech quickly) and then cut spending on the project to 0 until it comes in.

If you want sane research spending patterns to make sense, you need the interest accumulation bonus per RP to follow a smoother curve with tech spending. The original game's bonus research, where this turn's spending was x, was:
0 < x < 7.5% of total investment: 2x spending bonus
x > 7.5%: As for x=7.5%; no additional bonus.

Your proposed bonus research would yield:
x = 0: +15% of total investment for free!
x > 0: As for x=0; no additional bonus.

I would propose something like:
0 < x < 7.5% of total investment: 4x * (1 - 20x/[3 * total investment]) spending bonus
x > 7.5%: As for x= 7.5%; no additional bonus.

At 7.5% spending and above, all three offer the same total yield; at lower spending levels, my proposal is a compromise between your proposed system and the base game's, with larger percentages bonuses for smaller expenditures but greater total bonuses for larger expenditures. Since the interest bonus decreases smoothly, the difference in efficiency between an optimal spending pattern and a merely-good spending pattern should be small, reducing the need for careful micro while preserving the spirit of the original game's rules.

[Ray F]

I would propose something like:
0 < x < 7.5% of total investment: 4x * (1 - 20x/[3 * total investment]) spending bonus
x > 7.5%: As for x= 7.5%; no additional bonus.

That's definitely better, but it still doesn't address my primary concern.

From a game design standpoint, I don't understand why we want to create a system that coerces a player to allocate his research spending in a particular way.

It's kind of like how MOO4 has diminishing returns for additional workers (4-3-3-2-2-1), basically forcing players to develop colonies in a way that the game developer thinks is best (balanced).

In that sense, I don't want to punish a player for stopping spending on a category any more than I want to reward him for stopping spending except for the specific number of ticks on the research bar. That's gamey.

There's a line you cross between needing to know the game elements (which tech you need the most, for example) and the game code (the minimum number of ticks to maximize research).

Because, it that sense, you might as well just make the minimum amount of ticks you are allowed to spend to be whatever gives you the max interest. Remember, if there's ever only one correct decision to be made in a situation, that decision needs to be removed from the game because it's not really a decision.

[SvenBent]

I wasn't suggesting it was bad at all, but it is the kind of min/maxing that expert players need to do in order to give them a chance at the most difficult levels where the AI cheats heavily. I was just saying that I can't put it in ROTP. If I did, the AI would use the same strategy meaning that players would HAVE to do this just to stay even.

I have little doubt that players will find ways like this to outsmart the ROTP AI at the most difficult levels as well. That's part of the fun!

ohh I See now.
My mindset just flew back to when i was playing FFXI and people where "complaining" about the "elite" players was calculating their gear combinations for optimal performance. and a game should not required that. ( it didnt).
you can play how you want but it will always be smarter...being smarter about the game.

[Psillycyber]

So wait, am I understanding you correctly, Ray F, that there will be no research interest accumulation in ROTP?

No, there is a research interest accumulation in ROTP. The difference is that there isn't a minimum investment required to get it. That was always the "gamey" micro part of the feature. You'll get the same interest based on current RP accumulation whether you invest 0% or 100% into a field.

There's also no "shelving the project" penalty for dropping research allocation to 0%

Oooh, I like it! So, if you didn't need a tech right away, this is something you could do:
*Total tech cost: 1000 RP
*First turn of principal investment: 100 RP
*Second turn of principal investment: 100 RP (+15 RP from interest) = 215 RP
*Third turn of principal investment: 100 RP (+32 RP from interest) = 347 RP
*Fourth turn of principal investment: 0 RP (+52 RP from interest) = 399 RP
*Fifth turn of principal investment: 0 RP (+60 RP from interest) = 459 RP
*Sixth turn of principal investment: 0 RP (+69 RP from interest) = 528 RP
*Etc., just coasting off of interest:
*7th turn: 605 RP
*8th turn: 698 RP
*9th turn: 803 RP
*10th turn: 923 RP
*11th turn: 1062 RP

Sounds great! So much simpler!

[SvenBent]

Wouldn't it put you in the same situation as the current MoO interest ?

for optimal purpose its better to pile in a bunch in the starting turns and ride the interest rather than doing a little investment reach turn. the only thing different is that no investment at all is required to gain interest in a turn.

[Ray F]

Wouldn't it put you in the same situation as the current MoO interest ?

for optimal purpose its better to pile in a bunch in the starting turns and ride the interest rather than doing a little investment reach turn. the only thing different is that no investment at all is required to gain interest in a turn.

Or maybe it's better just to focus all of your research on one tech at a time? I don't know. This would require discussion and play-testing, preferably during the alpha.

The one thing I don't want is for someone to conclude that "this is the BEST way to do it", because then all I've done is create a puzzle to solve instead of a decision to make.

[Mardoc]

Wouldn't it put you in the same situation as the current MoO interest ?

for optimal purpose its better to pile in a bunch in the starting turns and ride the interest rather than doing a little investment reach turn. the only thing different is that no investment at all is required to gain interest in a turn.

Or maybe it's better just to focus all of your research on one tech at a time? I don't know. This would require discussion and play-testing, preferably during the alpha.

The one thing I don't want is for someone to conclude that "this is the BEST way to do it", because then all I've done is create a puzzle to solve instead of a decision to make.

Well, both with current MOO and with what you are proposing, the tradeoff is getting the tech right away vs. getting it with least investment. The longer you wait between spending the RP and getting the tech, the less it costs. That's the main place where there's an interesting decision: is it worth spending more in order to get the tech's benefit sooner?

The difference is the exact method for exploiting the rule. Current MOO calls for an initial investment, and then to cut back and ride the curve up until the research pops. The best you can do is to shave the cost to a third of the overall price, if you ride the curve perfectly and never cut spending to zero. In practice you won't do quite that well.

Your proposal would call for an initial investment, and then to turn tech off until the research pops. If the player is willing to wait long enough, they could have any tech in the game for 8 RP (just enough to avoid having the interest round to zero).

At the micro level, I guess your proposal does prevent any benefit from every turn adjusting spending. At the macro level, it makes things weirder, because it's possible to get so much for free. Once you get toward the end of a tech, it makes almost no sense to invest in research, because your own contributions will be swamped by interest. Every 5 turns (barring rounding) the RP doubles, with no help from the player. So investing 16 RP instead of 8 on the first turn saves you five turns, but those same 8 RP at the end of a tech will make almost no difference whatsoever.