ORIGINAL: mordachai
Trying to change the tech tree so that each of the initial colonization techs give you the basic colonization module, rather than getting a module first, then researching a planetary type (seems ridiculous to me that I can colonize [native] worlds without the [native] technology!)
So, if the tree was Continental Colonization, Marsh Colonization, etc., all in parallel, and any one of them offered the colonization module, then it would be logically consistent.
However, I see that if I do this, the game engine just "gives" me the first one listed in the research file (i.e. the first tech that contains the colonization module).
So, no matter what race one starts as, they end up with "marsh" as their pre-researched colonization tech (because it is listed in the tech file first)
I assume this is a well-known limitation?
I wasn't personally aware of this, but note that there is a logic behind the way the colonisation techs are structured. I understand the logic to be this:
1. All empires can automatically colonise the planet type native to their starting race, provided they have a colonisation module to transport the colonists.
2. Thus, empires do not need to research colonisation of their own planet type in order to colonise native planets; all they need is a means of transporting colonists.
3. If an empire includes other races, which have a different native planet type to the empire's starting race, those other races cannot colonise the empire's native planet type (although they can colonise their own native planet type).
4. Thus, an empire needs to research colonisation of its starting races's native planet type because the empire may consist of more than one race. The reason for researching colonisation of the native planet type of your starting race is so that you can colonise that native planet type with colonisation modules built by any non-native races in your empire.
So there is a sensible reason for the vanilla structure.
[As an aside, this partly explains the tech tree structure in Francoy's Colonisation Mod, the principles of which were adopted in my own 'Research Unleashed': if you don't have any non-native races, there is no need to research your own native planet colonisation tech. In this regard, note that the advanced version of the colonisation tech is not needed by your native race, either, because it does not improve the population growth race of your empire's native race on its native planets. The advanced tech only gives extra population growth when colonising a race's non-native planet type.]
Now it may be that you already knew this, in which case please ignore my post.
It may also be that regardless of the above, you still prefer to have the native colonisation come with the colonisation module tech, in which case please ignore my post.
I may also have misunderstood your point; another good reason to ignore my post.
Incidentally, would a workaround be to ensure that each of the initial techs has an "Allowed Races" line, so that, at the initial tech level, each empire is only allowed to research the tech which corresponds to its native planet type? That would, of course, complicate the subsequent part of the tree, but I guess it would be doable, in principle.
Osito
