Energy Tech - Can we has a tweak?

[hellcat23]

So I've gone 85 turns without any kind of energy tech.

I'm amazed I have gone that far but I can't build bigger production buildings without losing the very fine equilibrium I have. I have to sell all my metal, oil, water to buy 800 food per turn, every turn because my food production only runs at 9% energy.

I can't buy new units because of the food problem. I have taken other cities but the private sector can't fix this. I need energy production.

The research being so random hasn't given me any energy tech.

Can we get a fix that energy tech of some kind (solar etc) is pushed into the research queue as turn times increase? So players don't go past 30 turns with nothing. Or at least energy production gets fed in somehow.

Or how about something like the basic level wind traps but wind farm for entry level energy generation.

85 turns and a major declares war on me. All that time will be wasted because I will not be able to fight a major power without energy and food and I cannot stockpile metal and oil because I have to sell it all to buy food.

[Laiders]

ORIGINAL: hellcat23

So I've gone 85 turns without any kind of energy tech.

I'm amazed I have gone that far but I can't build bigger production buildings without losing the very fine equilibrium I have. I have to sell all my metal, oil, water to buy 800 food per turn, every turn because my food production only runs at 9% energy.

I can't buy new units because of the food problem. I have taken other cities but the private sector can't fix this. I need energy production.

The research being so random hasn't given me any energy tech.

Can we get a fix that energy tech of some kind (solar etc) is pushed into the research queue as turn times increase? So players don't go past 30 turns with nothing. Or at least energy production gets fed in somehow.

Or how about something like the basic level wind traps but wind farm for entry level energy generation.

85 turns and a major declares war on me. All that time will be wasted because I will not be able to fight a major power without energy and food and I cannot stockpile metal and oil because I have to sell it all to buy food.

You can artificially force the game to give you all economic techs quite easily. You chose to open up your research tree.

If you want just start EC and set it to 100% BP and 100% discovery. Wait until power tech discovered. Found MC or other second council and normalise BP. Problem solved.

That said, I swear someone, either Vic in a post or maybe Das/Tortuga in a vid, mentioned that a T0 energy building, like wind traps or biorefineries, is being considered.

[hellcat23]

Won't that slow down actual research production to zero though? By setting it to 100%?

It would be nice if there was a way of getting there without slowing down or gimping the vital early game. Getting off to a good start seems so important due to how unforgiving it can become.

[Falke]

You gimp yourself possibly more by not going discovery heavy at first. Once you have the tech, just call the EC to change priorities

[DTurtle]

Yes this is what I do too. It just costs 2 PP to change the percentages. At the beginning: Full Discovery, maybe switch to full research if a very good tech is discovered (combat armor for example) and then full discovery again. After you have everything important discovered, you can start going for a mix.

[hellcat23]

Thanks guys I will try this on my next run. Really appreciate the insights.

[Laiders]

In case you do not know how to manually adjust the sliders:

1. Open the reports menu
2. Select the organisation tab
3. Select the relevant organisation
4. Up in the top right corner you should see a portrait of the director and a 'Call' button somewhere nearby. Click that button and you will have an option to spent PPs to either change sliders or change the research target, if it is a research council.

You can change your overall sliders the same way by calling your secretary instead. His portrait and 'Call' button are all over the place. I'm pretty certain you can find them on the Empire Dashboard, which is the default report when opening the reports screen. This costs relations as well as PP as I'm sure you are already aware.

You can also call governors etc. in a similar manner either through reports or by selecting their zone and looking in the bottom left.

[Krisam]

ORIGINAL: hellcat23

Thanks guys I will try this on my next run. Really appreciate the insights.

Putting all your BP's into discovery will only work at the beginning though, when technologies are much cheaper, since you start to get penalties if you put more than 100 BP's in one single slider, 150 BP's will result in 127 effective points, and 300 will result in an efective investment of 190.

So if you are in turn 85, even if you have 3000 BP's and put them all to discovery things won't change that much.

This is explained in the manual in pag 220.

[BlackRain]

Don't you have to keep calling up the EC every turn to change his focus to 100%? Mine keep changing each turn

[Laiders]

ORIGINAL: BlackRain

Don't you have to keep calling up the EC every turn to change his focus to 100%? Mine keep changing each turn

There is an inherent natural drift to simulate a lot of bureaucratic factors from organisational inertia to outright insubordination. You do not need to force things to exactly 100%. Over 90% will do early game as 90% of BP will be almost all of it when you have sub 100 to work with and your SCC taking some too.

Get sliders to the right ballpark and leave them. You really do not have to min-max them to the exact target value, though you can if you are willing to pay both in wasting your leisure time (I suppose not in short supply at the moment depending on job and region) and PP.