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Research Tree


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Hey there, hope you all doing well! I enjoyed the first game very much. Only research tree was too smooth in my opinion. When replaying you can't jump techs, catch more advanced tech earlier, shoot down a ship with better weapons. The research tree felt that is artificially perfectly balanced. And that's fine for first time. Replaying game you looking to do something out of ordinary with prior knowledge and I couldn't do that.  Other games for example jagged alliance 1st or 2nd there is a freedom to go that other way. In original UFO: Enemy Unknown sometimes you detect landed large ships or base early you get heavy plasma or blaster from commander. I would like to see a bit of that randomness in research tree and game progress. A chance to get out of this linear advancement.

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Yeah, I think there's some merit in that. I've tried to factor some of that into the new research tree so the advanced kinetic and energy weapons don't have each other as prerequisites, so you can skip one or the other if you want. I think the original X-Com was too open in that regard but Xenonauts 1 just had the tech tree as a straight line, so hopefully X2 will land somewhere in the middle.

That said there's a lot of balancing still to be done on the research tree, and what we have right now is literally the first iteration. I suspect it'll evolve quite a lot as development starts to focus more on the gameplay rather than just adding new content / mechanics.

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Civ:BE had a technology web as opposed to a tree - this was a big breakaway from the main series. It determined your campaign and play style, much like building an RPG character. As you say, it is good for replayability. There is a difference there in that it is about branching, not skipping. I like your idea that the science you jump to is determined by encounters/captures of certain tech. That entwines the combat and research elements of the game.

One of my favourite activities in these games is to discover ways to rush a playthrough. The Slingshot expansion for XCOM1 allowed that. It exposed you to plasma tech and the loot from a battleship much earlier than you normally would find it. They were challenging missions but produced some nice spoils. I think that recovery of key assets / alien artefacts is a much better trigger than simply lining up the research projects in a sequence.

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If there's a complex research tree, I could see it having 'theory' and 'application' concepts: understanding the alien plasma systems would be 'theory', and the specific applications towards small arms, grenades, cannons, engines, power plants, and other 'plasma tier' stuff could have the 'plasma systems' research as a prerequisite.

I don't know if there's an easy way to adjust the cost of research based on other research completed, but if so you could have multiple levels of each 'theory', such that you need higher understanding of the basics of the field to produce advanced tech, but making basic tech also gave some understanding of the field, and better understanding of the field made generating basic tech easier.

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What you're describing sounds like progress through Technology Readiness Levels, or R&T vs R&D. There is stuff on the chalkboard, then there is a prototype in the lab, then there is an assembly line. For gameplay this would enable non-linearity and specialism. The research tree wouldn't just be a checklist. And you could invest in more research projects within your favoured branch and gain synergy bonuses e.g. +5% damage for researching the whole family of laser weapons. Overall, it would make research decisions more complex as you'd need to balance theory- and practical-based projects. 

Also, it would make the science in the game better reflect science in real life (as a process). That shouldn't be taken lightly. If it were to be taken further, I'd like to see dead-end projects that are randomised in each playthrough, e.g. Laser Grenades: either a sick early-game boost to your thrown weaponry, or, just a waste of time because you can't make grenades out of lasers you silly.

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