Make Research Work As Advertised
Posted: Feb 08 2006
I'm really peeved that there seems to be some idiotic cap on research spending for tech. The manual tells me that the sliders that control how much of my research funds goes to tech level, techs, or efficiency are supposed to allow me, the player, the ability to change how I fund each. Thanks to that idiotic research tech cap those sliders are worthless excercises in frustration.
First and foremost BG needs to ditch the cap. The first thing to fix is to make research projects subject to inflation the same way that unit and facility costs adjust for inflation up or down. One of the biggest reasons players were able to blitz through techs in earlier versions was their ability to run up inflation and then with those inflated dollars they could blitz through researching techs ever quicker as the tech costs stayed stable.
Next BG needs to fix how to make research more realistic as far as getting players to research multiple projects the way it's done in real life. It's extremely unrealistic to only research one project at a time yet that is what the game now forces players to do. Even the Manhatten Project during WW2 was not the only research project the US did during that time. It might be a nice touch if there was the ability to rush a project along with increased funding but at the expense of other projects and ofcourse subject to greater cost ineffciency.
BG needs to apply the bell-curve approach to researching techs. At one end with one research project going players would pay extra to get faster research on just one project. Any excess spent upon researching techs would not be shunted to efficiency or tech level, it would go down the drain so that researching one project at a time would get faster results but the cost would skyrocket as duplicative efforts waste cost efficiency. At the other end would be trying to fill up every research slot. There players would experience extended research times because not enough would be spent upon each project. In the middle should be the sweet spot zone where researching tech would be most cost effective as each project gets proper funding. Something like 1.5 projects per research center plus the freebie ought to be the best. If I have 28 research centers then I should be able to research 43 projects at a time and get good cost and time efficiency.
Allow the whole amount devoted to researching techs to get spent on researching techs. Certainly it should be modified by research efficiency and whatever other factors that would be pertinent like inflation.
I've also noticed that weapons techs seem to take longer to research than other items. I've seen items with the same cost take different amounts of time to research and these differences are not due to inflation or other factors. I've seen the stated number of days almost double when the tech actually gets placed into research from what the tech page tells me. If the cost is the same then it should take the same amount of time to research regardless of what that tech is. Cost is cost and cost should rule how long it takes.
A real improvement would be to add some variability into the research tech times beyond what's currently done. Research just does not have a fixed cost and a fixed time budget. One can't just say oh, we'll research project X and it will take 50 days and cost exactly $4 billion. Real life, replete with Murphy's Law, says oops someone dropped a volatile flask and the project will now take 53 days and cost $4.1 billion or Research Breakthrough and now it will only take 45 days and cost $3.8 billion. There should be some variability in research to make it more realistic. With Murphy's Law and Research Breakthroughs research would be less of a formula and more like real life and players would feel the joys of research breakthroughs while bumming a little when Murphy's Law strikes. There should be a small chance either way that would be applied to each project each day so that some projects may speed up or may slow down or may not get affected at all.
I certainly hope that BG will fix research so that it's fun again and not such a source of frustration. It certainly has to be one of the biggest draws to the game. Hopefully soon it will be fun again and more realistic.
Thanks,
Eric Larsen
First and foremost BG needs to ditch the cap. The first thing to fix is to make research projects subject to inflation the same way that unit and facility costs adjust for inflation up or down. One of the biggest reasons players were able to blitz through techs in earlier versions was their ability to run up inflation and then with those inflated dollars they could blitz through researching techs ever quicker as the tech costs stayed stable.
Next BG needs to fix how to make research more realistic as far as getting players to research multiple projects the way it's done in real life. It's extremely unrealistic to only research one project at a time yet that is what the game now forces players to do. Even the Manhatten Project during WW2 was not the only research project the US did during that time. It might be a nice touch if there was the ability to rush a project along with increased funding but at the expense of other projects and ofcourse subject to greater cost ineffciency.
BG needs to apply the bell-curve approach to researching techs. At one end with one research project going players would pay extra to get faster research on just one project. Any excess spent upon researching techs would not be shunted to efficiency or tech level, it would go down the drain so that researching one project at a time would get faster results but the cost would skyrocket as duplicative efforts waste cost efficiency. At the other end would be trying to fill up every research slot. There players would experience extended research times because not enough would be spent upon each project. In the middle should be the sweet spot zone where researching tech would be most cost effective as each project gets proper funding. Something like 1.5 projects per research center plus the freebie ought to be the best. If I have 28 research centers then I should be able to research 43 projects at a time and get good cost and time efficiency.
Allow the whole amount devoted to researching techs to get spent on researching techs. Certainly it should be modified by research efficiency and whatever other factors that would be pertinent like inflation.
I've also noticed that weapons techs seem to take longer to research than other items. I've seen items with the same cost take different amounts of time to research and these differences are not due to inflation or other factors. I've seen the stated number of days almost double when the tech actually gets placed into research from what the tech page tells me. If the cost is the same then it should take the same amount of time to research regardless of what that tech is. Cost is cost and cost should rule how long it takes.
A real improvement would be to add some variability into the research tech times beyond what's currently done. Research just does not have a fixed cost and a fixed time budget. One can't just say oh, we'll research project X and it will take 50 days and cost exactly $4 billion. Real life, replete with Murphy's Law, says oops someone dropped a volatile flask and the project will now take 53 days and cost $4.1 billion or Research Breakthrough and now it will only take 45 days and cost $3.8 billion. There should be some variability in research to make it more realistic. With Murphy's Law and Research Breakthroughs research would be less of a formula and more like real life and players would feel the joys of research breakthroughs while bumming a little when Murphy's Law strikes. There should be a small chance either way that would be applied to each project each day so that some projects may speed up or may slow down or may not get affected at all.
I certainly hope that BG will fix research so that it's fun again and not such a source of frustration. It certainly has to be one of the biggest draws to the game. Hopefully soon it will be fun again and more realistic.
Thanks,
Eric Larsen