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Research project progression


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Currently, research progression is linear. Each scientist you add to a project contributes equally to its progress, no matter how many scientists are working in the same project already. This means that the optimal strategy is always to research a single project; that way you get the benefits of each project as soon as possible. As long as things remains this way, being able to research multiple projects serves no purpose.

I think that each research project should have an optimal team size. If you are below that, research progression increases with each scientist added to a project. Each scientist added over the optimal size increases the progression marginally, but it still helps a bit. With this system, the best strategy is to assign the optimal number of scientists to each project. But in case you desperately need to complete a certain research project, adding all scientists to it still has a purpose.

What do you think?

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Thothkins: Wasn't that in the UI revamp? Terken: You prefer a geometric rather than an artimetic prgression. Do you want this extended to lab space as well? After all, some projects may require considerably more lab space than others, and there is only so much lab space required to perform any particular project.

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Terken: You prefer a geometric rather than an artimetic prgression. Do you want this extended to lab space as well?

It would be nice too, but it sounds more complicated to implement. Since the progression reduction by scientist number already fulfills the purpose that would be a nice secondary goal.

I thought there were diminishing returns on the amount of scientists you used?

If that's already the case, I did not notice it. If diminishing returns are already implemented for science project, IMO the game interface needs to be more clear about it.

Edited by Terkhen
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I think it's a nice progression on the research management form the original. Yes, it's possibly too fussy if everyone is hell bent on the Battlescape side of things, but it would make just chucking scientists at a single project a little trickier.

If the Op is correct and parallel projects are redundant, then the only time you'll use them is if you'e made a mistake going down one research path and want to back up and try something else.

Not a chance of it making the game though.

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Well, I ran a quick test or two, but nothing very thorough :)

As Gorlom says I was misled by the UI. Adding more scientists even displays "Excellent" progress messages. IMO, there should be more precise indications of how efficient your scientists are being at the interface.

Edited by Terkhen
Clarification of what I mean
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I don't think games generally have clear indications in cases like this. Hidden mechanics aren't that uncommon. A common example that has popped up on theese boards are the JA2 burst fire mechanic (which i loathe) that causes every subsequent shot to be less accurate then the first shot. There's no real indication at all of that one and most players are (supposedly) not even aware of it)

I guess it's something that keeps the minmaxers busy :P

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I like not having exact numbers on that.

If you are working with a group of people you wouldn't know that the next person to join the team was adding 1.4% faster progress to the project.

You know they are having an effect and you know the project is making good progress.

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The research progress is deliberately clouded, unlike the manufacturing where you have an exact estimate of completion time. This represents the greater element of unknown in new research compared to building something that is already planned and known. I think that's a good thing really!

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The research progress is deliberately clouded, unlike the manufacturing where you have an exact estimate of completion time. This represents the greater element of unknown in new research compared to building something that is already planned and known. I think that's a good thing really!

In that case Chris, may I suggest your coder adds a quick +/- randomised number to the time value the program grabs from the xml files if there's not one in place already?

Makes it even more obtuse and ensures people can't figure out the exact values with lots of testing and observation.

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In that case Chris, may I suggest your coder adds a quick +/- randomised number to the time value the program grabs from the xml files if there's not one in place already?

Makes it even more obtuse and ensures people can't figure out the exact values with lots of testing and observation.

Seconded.

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Thanks for your answers :)

I can understand your reasons for not making research progress obvious. I agree, some mechanics should not be obvious to avoid min-maxing. I also believe that sometimes realism is counterproductive; it should only be used when it adds immersion and it does not substract fun. Now I'm convinced that my original idea is not that great.

Having said that, the 99% efficiency implementation does not remove the original problem I mentioned. The optimal strategy is still to add all of your scientists to the same project (unless you have a huge number of scientists, but in that case you don't care about research progress anyways). This makes researching a no-brainer. I can also understand why this could have a low priority, though.

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What I've found with research is each tech requires a different amount of scientists to reach Excellent status, so they do seem to have different costs. Scientists also seem to give diminishing returns, as each level of research quality requires more and more scientists.

I like the vague research pace, too.

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Diminishing returns in Manufacturing! WHAT?

Surely then its better for you to start multiple projects using single engineers than to put many on the same project? (as long as you don't need any quickly, just a lot sometime in the future). Is this supposed to be the punishment for hurrying production?

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If you don't mind taking weeks for each and every laser rifle then that would work.

Of course then you have also paid extra for each of them because of the extra wages you have required.

Plus the first laser rifle would be ready after a week or two instead of after a day, or a few hours, if you had multiple people working on them.

If the reduction is 1% for each extra engineer then you would have to be seriously into your min/max mindset to do much of that hand crafting, as opposed to mass production.

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Nobody said anything about manufacturing having diminishing returns, did they?

And it would be optimal to spread your scientists as thinly as possible under the 99% system. If you have eleven scientists, with 10 assigned to laser rifles and none assigned to medikits, the last soldier would work at 90% efficiency on the laser rifles and 100% on the medikits.

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