Research Tree Ideas

I personally think this thread is premature. I guarantee they have flushed out more complete ideas for how they want their tree to work, and that what we see now is a placeholder. I'd rather them show us some interesting, unique tech tree ideas than us try to steer them in a typical RTS tech direction.

I think it is very important not to have silly upgrades that just add +% to damage or HP. Those things make it impossible to assess the enemy's actual effective strength.

More research to unlock units and structures would be just fine though. It might also be a good idea to have research to increase available power and/or logistics, either by increasing the yield of existing sources, or by unlocking larger structures that yield larger amounts.

Very important and good point. 

I also think there should be multiple research buildings. One per research area. So you can scout your opponent, see the made a drone research center and react to that.

As it is now you can only scout "he made a research building", but you won't know what he is actually researching.

I think that this is a fair point. My vote is with a similar set-up to Sins, but I think it's too early to tell what the Devs have in mid for research trees.

I'm pretty sure that the main focus of this game was single player, but to address the PvP issue I don't think that anyone will just start playing multiplayer without first playing the single player for some time. The first time that I played Sins I read each research item individually to give myself some idea of what I wanted to get done and then queued a few things up until I had time to examine it later. After playing several times you know what you want to research and where it is and it's a useful tool to have a separate UI for the research so that big beautiful icons are used with labels instead of trying to cram it on a screen (I admit that I haven't played Supreme Commander more than a few times so I'm not very familiar with their research tree, but I like having research be something separate from just building things)

How many research buildings were you thinking? Sins only had two types of research buildings, but they had several more types of research. I think the logistics building could research more logistics (instead of needing to build a million of them) and then one for materials/economy and another for military development.

Another possible approach for research that might work well for a more macro-focused strategy game would be just having facilities research automatically (for free), with a very specific progression of techs for a particular facility.

For example, a drone research center might have a few different techs which must always be researched in order; first Tech 1, then Tech 2, then Tech 3, and so on. That drone research facility unlocks the next tech when it finishes the one before it.

Then you have several different research facilities for different applications. The timing of when you choose to build these facilities will largely control what techs you acquire. Building more facilities will make those facilities' research go faster. I think a good approach might be that higher tech research will take much, much more time to complete unless you add additional facilities.

Additionally, I think research needs to be somehow related to territory control. This could be a restriction that you can only build one research facility in each region, and it must be built in that region (in any location in that region). This forces players to spread out their research infrastructure, and creates targets you might want to hunt down. Destroying an enemy's research infrastructure could be an important strategic consideration.

But it does not necessarily need to be extremely rigid. For example, in AI War: Fleet Command, a mobile research unit collects research up to a certain amount in each sector. There is a certain amount of research that a science unit can collect in every sector, and when you have hit the maximum you should relocate to a different sector. This approach makes research decisions quite tense because there is a finite amount of research available in sectors you directly control. And it also creates the tactic of "knowledge raiding" of deliberately sending science units into hostile areas to gather research.

They should add a new resource for research. Computronium (I like the name) should be the only resource, which is requierd to research. After reading the law it does not make sense to have labs (these could be replaced by Quantum Communications Areas). The amount of computronium should set the time needed in order to research a technology (maybe limiting the tiers with that like a computing limit).

My suggestion would be that ALL units should be researched and that the player should not be able to research everything. You would have to commit to your decisions.

Having research cost computronium is an interesting idea. However as currently implemented computronium goes directly to VP's and this would need to be changed.

Perhaps computronium would be collected from VP points, and the player's stockpile of computronium is converted into VP's at a certain proportion. Say, 10% of a player's computronium every specified number of seconds becomes victory points. This will mean that your computronium reserves will increase until your income equals 10% of your reserves (income = expenditure).

This would mean if you spent computronium on something else you would be decreasing the rate at which you are generating VP's. However, if your computronium income is stable, your reserves will gradually increase until once again you are converting as much as you are earning.

This thread is not premature and i will not or no one should tell Stardock/Oxide how to create the research tree, i made this topic for all of us to write what is our opinion and what we like to have in the research tree, to put some ideas to the table so the Dev's can read them and maybe take some ideas from our ideas and opinion. Each one of us here think different and want something different.

Of course i will love that the Dev's can show us something Unique and interesting for the research tree, who doesn't want that? but at the same time i don't want the research tree to be a basic one, i want it complex with a lot of options for a long term gameplay, that if you want to research everything it may take you hours to do for Hardcore players and not having only 10 research and your done.

I don't really care about how they will do it, if its gonna be an always onscreen or a la Sins of a Solar Empire kind of design that i like because there is so much to research and so easy to understand.

So keep your Ideas coming.

Just brainstorming some things -- some have already been said, but there's no harm in re-iterating:

• Stealth capability for bombers.
• I'm a HUGE fan of the way AoS deals with radar coverage and line of site.  As weird as it sounds, it's one of my favorite features.  I'd love devices that enable you to manipulate your radar signature for strategic purposes.  This could take the form of a unit that either masks or significantly reduces the radar signature of its meta-unit.  Something that does exactly the opposite would be fun too as a way to trick an enemy into committing its forces one way while your main force roles in from another direction.
• Defensive walls might be fun for bases, but my sense is that walls were discussed and intentionally left out.
• Cloaking units could be interesting.
• Rapid deployment devices like teleporters or drop ships could be fun.
• Structures/traps that can be built on/in/over resource gatherers/computronium deposits to slow down an opponent trying to capture them.
• A unit that can deploy mines (whether the capability is given to an existing unit or a new one).
• A mobile drone/aircraft carrier (again, whether the capability is given to an existing unit or a new one altogether).

I'm not sure if SD/Oxide have already discussed including or excluding the following concepts, but taking a page from Sins I could see:

• Weapons and buffs for capital ship units that have to be activated but only last for a short period of time.  I'm thinking along the lines of insane missile barrages for the missile boat, etc.  These could be researched or result from units gaining experience in battle a la Sins.  Good buffs like this could make the "area control" capital ship or w/e it is more useful/relevant.  The argument against them I guess is that they introduce an element of micro-management into the game.  That said, the AI should be able to use them effectively without human intervention.
• Experience levels for units that make them more effective the longer they fight/survive.  This could incentivize players to avoid killing all their units in frontal assaults. 

The tech tree currently in the game is definitely somewhat placeholder, so suggestions on tech are definitely welcome. IMHO, the best techs are ones that change capabilities or are far reaching, things like, Smarties now have a radar system on them, or such and such weapon is now also armor piercing. simple Armor buffs and weapon buffs can get into an escalation path where it turns out everything cancels itself if the game last long enough. That is, if you increase armor and they increase weapons, no real change happens. I suppose speed and weapon range buffs change don't fall into that category, however, since they change the way the game plays.

I'd certainly vote for keeping the tech tree relatively compact.

Avoid any small incremental buffs and go for things that each have a visible impact on the game - unlocking new units, new capabilities for existing units. It might be interesting to explore mutually exclusive technologies, or those that have downsides as well as a core benefit. Perhaps making the choice between a long range AOE cannon, or a more powerful point blank AOE suicide unit - both could fulfil the similar role of punishing heavily grouped armies, but in ways that play out quite differently. It'd change the choice when researching to something other than "I want everything", and allows more variation between games.

Ideally all of these unlocks would be visible on the model, for example in you unlock AA weapons for a unit that doesn't normally have them, bolt an extra turret on the top.

If the tech tree can be large and full of those techs I'd be a happy man! But given development time needed for that we're probably better off with a small tree of meaningful items .

Researchable satellites might be fun.  It seems like they could make sense for something of AoS's size/scale.  It would be cool if you could choose between deploying stationary satellites and ones that "orbit" the planet you are fighting on and move across the planet surface realistically.  This would give you a limited "window" to view locations on a map every so often.  It would also add an interesting recon element to the game.

I found the defensive/resource buff aspect of satellites in SM's Beyond Earth strange.  I could see satellites having researchable offensive capabilities, though.  A way to shoot down enemy satellites would probably be necessary too.

So maybe if you research satellites once every so many minutes everything on the map gets revealed for a say 15-20 seconds? I like that idea.

Sure -- or you could even have it so that every x minutes you have the ability to view a particular part of the map for 15-20 seconds.  Being able to direct a limited field of vision might be more realistic than being able to see the entire map.  Either way, I think being able to launch something and see the entire map for the entire rest of the game (some of the C&C games) seems unrealistic -- particularly on large maps.  It would also undermine the awesome radar component that currently exists in the game. 

I think the size of area revealed should depend on map size. Things like the current small map could have the entire map uncovered for 15-20 sec, but a map 20 times larger than the large map would have a circle that moved in a diagonal across the map every so often (and repositioning it would require satellite down time)