Need Help With 1.0.4.9 Technology

[vengen]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but it's certainly frustrating me immensely. I'm playing a game with the starting tech level set to basic and the research speed set to normal. I'm playing Quemano with a Technocracy government, so my research capacity should be 200% of normal. However, I'm 14 game years in, and SY-200 has 15k credits of research and will take another 76K to complete. At this rate it will take another 80+ years to complete it:

The more I think about this, the more I think it has to be a bug. Has anyone else experienced tech this slow? Am I doing something wrong with research?

[Tyranicus]

I think they scaled back the speed of reseach as of 1.04.5 also you only have 41k of output and thats spread over all the topics. Crash the program to speed it up.

[Astax]

Not sure how ppl research without crashing! 

Also there is some crash exploits, which probably should be looked at. I was crashing a program, but while it was in progress I traded for a tech 1 level better than the one I was teching (I think it was the space yard tech) as a result I automatically was crashing the next higher tech in the same field for no cost. This is 1.4.5 so Im not sure if they got around to fixing this.

[Shark7]

I would generally advise to crash research the shipyard tree up to Standard SY300. That should allow you to build cruisers with no problems. Then work on your other tech.

[vengen]

I generally don't crash tech, but I do get your point about having to do it if you want the tech faster.

But, I do think that there is a problem here - either with 1.0.4.9 or how I loaded it. This screenshot is from 3 years later in the game and SY-200 has not progressed at all. In fact, there seem to be three areas that have not moved at all:



Reactor is still at 21K, Extractor is still at 56K, and Construction is still at 15K. Every other area has made progress. Eight areas have completed a technology and moved on to the next tech - Beam Weapon, Torpedo Weapon, Shields, Engine, Manufacturer, Storage, Computer and Habitation.

Can this be AI spies sabotaging the research for these three areas that have not moved?

Otherwise its either a bug or an incorrect install on my part.

[lordxorn]

Ok,

Here is how Research works, (I kindly recommend people use the search features of these forums, as this topic has been covered in depth.)

Your Total Empire Potential= Your max research output based on the size of your empire. I don't know the exact the formula, however the bigger your empire the higher this number is. Yours in this case is 166K.
You are getting a 100% boost from your government style and racial bonus.

Your Maximum Potential of 86k in each of the fields ie Energy, High Tech, etc. This equals the capacity your empire has for research with your existing facilities like star base, or your space ports listed in the window above like Yiturus 1 Space Port.

Your Actual Output of 41K in each of the fields of 41K is Your Empire Potential of 166K divided by the four research fields which yields the 41K actual output.

Elliot has stated that this limitation was built in so that super large empires with hundreds of research stations wouldn't totally eclipse other empires. However I don't think that would ever be the problem because the tech tree is so small.

Some recommendation for you obviously increase the size of your empire, and design a special research station with 10 labs in each of the four fields. You will only need one of these stations built on a Black Hole for most of the game.

Then as others have suggested crash research the important fields, and use diplomacy and espionage for the other techs.

[vengen]

lordxorn - thanks for your help and advise. I think my fundamental issue is that I have three areas of tech that have not moved 1K in three years, while other areas have moved as much as 10K in that same time frame.

[lordxorn]

This may be a bug, that I have kind of noticed as well. Just never bothered to verify it.

[vengen]

Tyranicus, Astax, Shark7, and lordxorn - thanks for your help on this. I just reported it in the tech support section, we'll see what Erik has to say about it.

[the1sean]

hopefully the Galactopedia will get more updates on game mechanics when some of the more pressing bugs/issues have been patched.

[Erik Rutins]

I discussed this with Elliot to make sure there was nothing wrong here.

Progress in each research area is random - every time research is updated an area is chosen for each industry (energy, high-tech, weapons, industrial) and progressed by the amount of research power the empire has in that industry. Because the area selection within each industry is random, sometimes an area can be neglected (in his case construction) while others progress faster.

The way around this is to crash research the area you're interested in.

Regards,

- Erik

[taltamir]

Total empire potential: Maximum amount of research produced by your people, based on your your population, AFTER the addition of racial and government bonuses (so that +60% technocracy and +40% quomono are already calculated into it).

Maximum Potential: Your lab capacity (based on how many research labs you have built and what tech level they are)... this should REALLY be renamed to lab capacity to be less confusing.

Actual output: how much of your total empire potential goes to each field, based on the ratio of your lab capacity... your lab capacity ration is 1:1:1:1 for all fields... thus each field gets 1/4th the "total empire potential"... if you had more labs of a certain kind, then it would be divided up differently. Note that a bonus from a ruin or from working on world annihilator simple doubles the actual output of one field. and does not stack (if you have two planets giving +100% to weapon research, you only get it once).

The only effective way to research is to PAY for research via crashing it. you choose one research item, pay the money, and ALL your empire output goes towards it... without it you have sporadic randomly distributed research that leads to practically nothing... but its free.
Serious research is a crashed research.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Because the area selection within each industry is random, sometimes an area can be neglected (in his case construction) while others progress faster.

Translation: A sophisticated algorithm is used to determine the research you want most and the research you want least. Then, all of the points are placed in the latter.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Because the area selection within each industry is random, sometimes an area can be neglected (in his case construction) while others progress faster.

Translation: A sophisticated algorithm is used to determine the research you want most and the research you want least. Then, all of the points are placed in the latter.

You must be a pessimist... since it is truly random you would have seen an equal amounts of "just the tech you needed" and "just the tech you didn't care about" get researched. but you chose to recall the half empty glass instead of the half full.

(technically the glass is completely full.. 50% of it is dihydrogen monoxide and solutes, and 50% is a mixture of gases commonly known as "air")

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Fishman

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Because the area selection within each industry is random, sometimes an area can be neglected (in his case construction) while others progress faster.

Translation: A sophisticated algorithm is used to determine the research you want most and the research you want least. Then, all of the points are placed in the latter.

You must be a pessimist

Fishman? Say it isn't so [:D]

[vengen]

OK Erik and everyone else, thanks for the answers. So I should just crash research the tech that I really want and let the rest of the techs complete in a more or less irregular manner. I'm always short of money in this game, so I'm not very enthusiastic about having another item that needs money. But if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.

Are the AI empires crashing research also?

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: vengen

OK Erik and everyone else, thanks for the answers. So I should just crash research the tech that I really want and let the rest of the techs complete in a more or less irregular manner. I'm always short of money in this game, so I'm not very enthusiastic about having another item that needs money. But if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.

Are the AI empires crashing research also?

I believe they do. only a developer like erik can confirm this though.

[gargoil]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I discussed this with Elliot to make sure there was nothing wrong here.

Progress in each research area is random - every time research is updated an area is chosen for each industry (energy, high-tech, weapons, industrial) and progressed by the amount of research power the empire has in that industry. Because the area selection within each industry is random, sometimes an area can be neglected (in his case construction) while others progress faster.

The way around this is to crash research the area you're interested in.

Regards,

- Erik

I'll tell you one thing though. I seem to never get progress in shipyards either. And now I see a few others saying the same thing. Just maybe you should check this?

[Astax]

I had progress in Shipyards. But it's so slow i usually crash it anyways.

A good trick I developed is to build labs ONLY of one field. When playing Boskara I only  build Energy labs for example.  Any weapon research would have been wasted anyway, since their torpedo is so good.  This gives me natural progress in all the Energy techs, while I crash every other area.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Astax

I had progress in Shipyards. But it's so slow i usually crash it anyways.

A good trick I developed is to build labs ONLY of one field. When playing Boskara I only  build Energy labs for example.  Any weapon research would have been wasted anyway, since their torpedo is so good.  This gives me natural progress in all the Energy techs, while I crash every other area.

their torpedo is quite bad actually... its got the worse range in the game, and its DPS is average for a torpedo (that is, a full half of the torpedoes have greater DPS than it)