I miss tech tree or totally focused reseach

this is why the "focus research" button, in the upper right corner of the tech screen, exists.

Which a lot of new players won't notice.

Also, in order to intelligently use it you have to know which branch of the tech tree the tech(s) you want are in. To find that out you have to go to the Tech Library, use the focus buttons there to show only the techs within one of the four branches, and then search to see if your tech is there.  Many many players won't figure this out.

The Tech Tree screenshots that Old Spider did last summer were useful, for seeing how techs were related to each other, and are still reasonably accurate as to which of the 4 branches to choose when doing a reroll (they are the same as the Focus buttons in the Tech Library, allowing for changes since then).

Most player are used to using Tech Trees from other games, the Tech Library can confuse them, until someone explains how it works.

What confuses people is Techs whose color does not match the filter color, mostly a number of brown engineering techs that appear in the green filter and branch of the Tech Tree.

Personally I would like to see many Techs require two different Techs to be opened up to be researched.

The other thing that confuses them is how the choice of techs that get offered to you to research works. This is very none obvious even to experienced Players who have gotten used to it, and recently (relatively for those of us who started last summer) use the Tech Library.

To me it seems that there is a very strong historical influence on what choices you get offered, i.e. you tend to get offered what you have been researching recently, and not much from areas that you not been doing recently.

True, Old-Spider's screen shots were useful, but how many new players will even know about them?

I agree that the new tech can be confusing to new players.  The colors of the tech cards would really help a lot, or at least a noticeable icon that shows its path.

Personally, I really do like the new tech model (since I know about the focus button, and it has become more obvious in the latest update).  It makes each game a little bit different.

The current colonization techs are brown, blue, and green, with one red and two yellow (at the very end, look like capstone techs). 

Engineering techs are mostly browns, with a few blue and red and one green.

An icon is a good idea.

Thanks for the info. Still, it would be cool to have a end-goal option for research where one sets a final goal and the game auto-queues the relevant techs.

The only reason I do not use Old Spider's screenshots more, is because I remember where things are on them, i.e. I have them enbedded in my memory already.
Also I now realize that going to the Tech Library and then using the Colored filters is the updated version of the same information that was in those Screenshots, only I can get a lot more info about what is in each of those Techs by using the Tech Library plus colored filters. While the Old Spider screenshots have no internal information about the Techs.

Except I do not get Tree type diagrams this way, that people are used to working with from most of the other games with researching technologies.

Still, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Old Spider for those screenshots last summer. They were a big help, when we needed it.

PS, I still have an Icon on my computer desk top that takes me directly to the file on my computer that has those 4 screenshots in it. I used it a lot (or other ways to get to that file on my computer).

Exactly. I think Brad showed a screen shot of a tech tree in one of his recent forum posts, so I'm still hopeful that they will come back.

Without a Tree type diagram, some/many people can overlook checking out what some Techs do,
like missing the Strong AI Tech that makes the Bob Wonder/Achievement available. I get the impression that many Players were unaware of it and how useful it was. (It just got changed from +300% to +100% to research, which is still pretty good, just not as much).

I'm a relative newcomer to the Alpha (~1 month) and have never heard of Old Spider before this thread. While a having tech tree diagram is fine, I think its importance is overstated for two reasons.

1. Until you've played the game a bunch of times, you really don't know what techs are good and why.
2. I think having dominant strategies is a bad thing for replayability and that there is something to be said for having to adapt for the choices that are available. (Peruse the Humankind boards if you doubt this.)

The thing about historical focused research is that it is as much about being opportunistic as it is about having foresight. For every moon shot, there is a complete blind spot like controlled medical experiments, which could have been devised centuries before they were. I'm fine with being at the mercy of RNG here, and even having rare instances where a tech jump is possible, where a tech can be researched without meeting all of the prerequisites.

You ask for a tree and due to Frogboy's  ability to code at hyper speed or that it was already in the works, you shall receive.

Coming tomorrow in a Beta download near you.

wee! came here looking for a reason to have another crack :)