How are research points calculated?

[Zeraan]

I thought it was 1 BC = 1 RP as per OSG. But when I looked, the numbers seems to be off.

Currently, I have a planet with 100 pop and 200 factories, as psilons. It says my production is 253 (253) - I have no expenses, so all production are available. I set the tech bar to 100%. If it was 1 BC = 1 RP, then it should create 127ish RPs. If it was 1 production = 1 RP, then it should create 253 RPs. But what I'm seeing is that it's generating 379 RP! Nearly 1.5 ratio to production!

How is the actual research points calculated? Does Psilons get bonuses to research?

I decided to try again as Humans, and got a planet up to 100 pop and 200 factories. I then set tech to 100%. The production on the planet is 253 again, but it now generates exactly 253 research points.

So apparently Psilons not only get the "Good" bonus in every tech field, they also get 1.5 research point per 1 BC. No wonder they're such a runaway race

Can others confirm that non-Psilons get 1 RP per 1 Production, and Psilons get 1.5 RP per 1 Production?

[Zeraan]

Studying the OSG, it confirms that Psilons have 1.5 RP to 1 production. Not only that, instead of the regular 50% chance of a tech showing up in its tech field, Psilons gets 75% chance of a tech showing up.

I wonder if giving Psilons the same 50% chance of having tech show up will help balance the playing field?

[Catwalk]

Psilons do get a 50% bonus, but I don't remember if it's correct that they get more techs available. I vaguely recall it being wrong.

[Zeraan]

Psilons do get a 50% bonus, but I don't remember if it's correct that they get more techs available. I vaguely recall it being wrong.

I do remember when playing as Psilons, they seem to have more available technologies to research compared to other races. Note that 75% chance does not always mean 75% of the technologies. They can still have less technologies than other races due to die rolls, but are less likely to have this happen.

[Catwalk]

I believe there's no Psilon effect at all, and I'm pretty sure that the number of techs you get is fixed. The chance it refers to is not a single dice roll, just the probability of a particular tech being in the 50% group that is awarded to you.

[Zeraan]

I believe there's no Psilon effect at all, and I'm pretty sure that the number of techs you get is fixed. The chance it refers to is not a single dice roll, just the probability of a particular tech being in the 50% group that is awarded to you.

You sure about that? In Official Strategy Guide, it says that each tech has 50% chance of showing up in a race's tech list. But Psilons gets 75% chance instead for each tech showing up. Let me quote the OSG:

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
As it is with combat, the Psilons have no economic advantages that they do not have to discover for themselves. However, because they have a triple research bonus, technological advances come quickly for them, and in large numbers. Specifically, when their Limited Research List (see Chapter 10) is made up, they have a base 75 percent chance of having an item on their list (whereas others have only a 50 percent chance). Not only is their Limited Research List longer because they are good at researching every technology sector, but they will require only 80 percent of the normal effort to discover anything they research. If that weren't enough of an advantage, every planetary RP committed to its technology sector produces 1.5 BCs' worth of technology research spending. This means that they get triple research value on artifact planets and Orion multiplies their research efforts by six!

From what I understood, each technology is rolled separately, if it passes the 50% chance, it is added, otherwise it don't get added. So one game, you may have 30 technologies, but in another, you have 20 technologies. There's also rules that if not met, the whole list is re-rolled, such as if no range 4 or 5 tech, no missile tech, etc, then re-roll the list.

I'm aiming to try and match the gameplay of MoO as exact as possible for Beyond Beyaan, so I want to make sure I got all the nuances correct.

[RefSteel]

I believe there's no Psilon effect at all, and I'm pretty sure that the number of techs you get is fixed. The chance it refers to is not a single dice roll, just the probability of a particular tech being in the 50% group that is awarded to you.

I think you're confusing this with something else: There's no bonus to the chance of getting a tech for Excellence or Goodness (nor penalty for Poorness) in the relevant field (in spite of many players' assumptions to the contrary). The Psilons do receive the bonus chance to receive techs as Zeraan describes ... mostly.

From what I understood, each technology is rolled separately, if it passes the 50% chance, it is added, otherwise it don't get added. So one game, you may have 30 technologies, but in another, you have 20 technologies. There's also rules that if not met, the whole list is re-rolled, such as if no range 4 or 5 tech, no missile tech, etc, then re-roll the list.

I'm aiming to try and match the gameplay of MoO as exact as possible for Beyond Beyaan, so I want to make sure I got all the nuances correct.

The chances are not actually quite 50% or 75% for each tech, as it depends on what other techs are available in the tier they are in. In effect, the game behaves as you described (with 75% for Psilons instead of 50%) except that each tier of each tech tree is rerolled if that tier fails to contain at least one tech. Thus, High Energy Focus, as the only tech in its tier, has a de-facto 100% chance of appearing, whereas Fusion Bomb, as one of five techs in its tier has 16 chances in 31 (a little under 53%) of appearing in a non-Psilon tree ... or (I think it's...) 768 chances in 1023 (technically over 75% but you'd need a microscope to see the difference) of appearing for the Psilons.

[Catwalk]

That makes sense, thanks for the clarification Ref. The rerolling mechanism is interesting, I half suspected that it worked that way but had no clue really.