Matrix Games Forums

On some worlds (plenty of water and metal) you really do not need a lot of techs like Hydroponics, Soil Filtration etc., but you still need to research them in order to further progress down the tree to more powerful things.

It feels a bit bad, having to research a worthless tech. I would like it if something could be done to solve this.

For example the Chemistry Tech Group (has 3 military that should be almost always (RPG arguable if there is no fuel resulting in no one fielding hard targets) useful but no Economics), Advanced Chemistry and Machinery Tech Group.

Also Gas Powered Small Arms is a weird one: less powerful than what you had.. is a bit of a sad surprise.

I noticed that too. Right now the Techtree is basically earth-centric, but with some "non-earth-nessesities" thrown in. A good example are motors and power generation:
On earth we had plenty of fossile fuel, so we just focussed on fuel burning motors and fuel burning power plants.

But a moon with barely any fuel? Both the original colonisation and the Shadow Empires there should go for electrical motors and solar power ASAP. It should not be hidden in propulsion, 4 tech groups away from eartly tech. It should be basic tech! It actually is 18th century technology, but we stopped development because fuel was so much more convenient.

Similar to Rad technology:
Radiation Filters came late, because we had plenty of non-iradiated real estate on earth.
On a iradaited planet? Anything that can provied radiation protection will be highly sought after!
For example, Gas Masks were quickly developed, once there was exposure to the need

Meanwhile stuff like the Envirosuits and Padded Enviroshuits really make no sense on a planet that has filter-breathable atmosphere - or just breathable atmosphere. We developed (and re-developed) combat armor, long before we developed space suits.

Maybe some technology disovery and research could get a slowly building passive bonus, on having exposure to the need?
- If your people or your soldiers live in radiation hotzones, that would expose them to a need for radaiation filters. So the tech should develop, even with no active reasearch going into the field. Even without the field being unlocked
- if they find fissible material, the idea for nuclear weapons and power generation should creep up on them.
- a low population moon has more examples/need for robots
- a forrested planet has more need for walkers then for tanks
- if units run into combat where they suffer the calliber modifier, the idea of the idea of high-volecity guns and RPG's should creep up on them
- gas powered small arms and lasers would be the result of being exposed to poor-metal environment. Same with the "generate from soil/nothing" technologies (there also needs to be more layers to resources in general). In particular Gas Guns are another 18th Century technology.

You can use stirling engines on planets with big temperature differences to get cheap energy.