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Just wanted to know how unlucky i am to be able to discover high-tech industry when i would really like to discover just normal heavy industry... in all of my 3 campaigns that even got beyond 20-30 rounds

Update: I set the discovery budget of the economic council to 100% and what did i discover the very next round? High-Tesch industry. Yep, i now have high-tech before heavy

I haven't run any actual tests, but I don't *think* that any unlocked tech is more likely to be discovered than any other ? (Not even according to their costs or groups.)
(One exception : maybe I just got (un)lucky, but once I researched Propeller Engine, the Military Council suddenly seemed to start prioritizing the discoveries of Air techs over regular Military techs ?)

But yeah, you have to be careful with unlocking techs, since each new one unlocked reduces the chance of those that you already have to be discovered.
(Or you can YOLO and get some advanced techs quickly... but there are no guarantees as to what techs the sadorandomizer will saddle you with !)

(And, hey, at least, unlike High-Tech Parts, you can produce Machines artisanally !)

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
(One exception : maybe I just got (un)lucky, but once I researched Propeller Engine, the Military Council suddenly seemed to start prioritizing the discoveries of Air techs over regular Military techs ?)

Researching Propeller Engine just adds a large number of air-related techs which it is a prerequisite for to the pool of possible discoveries.

I forgot to say - prioritizing exclusively - until I ran out of unlocked non-discovered air techs - but this might just have been (bad) luck ?

ORIGINAL: Salamander_Astartes

Just wanted to know how unlucky i am to be able to discover high-tech industry when i would really like to discover just normal heavy industry... in all of my 3 campaigns that even got beyond 20-30 rounds

As I understand it from older builds anyway the more you research in a block the more likely you will discover in that block so just don't research stuff till you get what you want or need.

Are earlier Techs more probable to be discovered than Later ones?

Not to my knowledge.
Furthermore unlocking more techs that can be discovered, just makes it less likely you will discover the one tech you want.
And the thing that unlocks more techs for discovery, is reseraching technologies.

In the model council you can just not work on any model, meaning the "Reserach" Budget is spend on Discovery. However to my knowledge the proper research councils have no such feature. So if you want to have a tech, you have to manually defund research.

ORIGINAL: Soar_Slitherine

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
(One exception : maybe I just got (un)lucky, but once I researched Propeller Engine, the Military Council suddenly seemed to start prioritizing the discoveries of Air techs over regular Military techs ?)

Researching Propeller Engine just adds a large number of air-related techs which it is a prerequisite for to the pool of possible discoveries.

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

I forgot to say - prioritizing exclusively - until I ran out of unlocked non-discovered air techs - but this might just have been (bad) luck ?

Ok, I'm definitely smelling a bug here, the same thing seems to be happening to DasTactic ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxR6-Iyry6Y&t=971s

I once played an e tire game from start to finish and the power plant tech never appeared as a research option.

And yet another potential example ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwWP9LDEmBs&t=2227s

I get power plant later in that series, I'm not sure this is a bug.

I have had games where i discovered like level 2 and 3 techs before getting all the starting ones. So i dont know.

It looks like equal probability to me - and this is a nasty trap for new players.

If you don't prioritise discovering the important early techs you can find yourself stuck without solar plants or heavy industry. The discovery cost seems to increase, so you end up paying thousands just to discover some lvl 1 tech. It's much more efficient to discover the cheap stuff early on.


This is not a good design in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: KingHalford
I get power plant later in that series, I'm not sure this is a bug.

I'm not talking about the power plants/solar, but about the air techs.

The discovery cost seems to increase, so you end up paying thousands just to discover some lvl 1 tech.

Oh, does it ?
Though it's clearly not thousands, I'm late game, and I keep around 800 discovery points (so, much less BP), and techs are always getting discovered this turn (or the next, for group unlocks).

This is not a good design in my opinion.

Yes, it's quite punishing for new players with bad luck-
(also, heavy industry is not nearly as critical as power)
-but it also makes tech interesting and different from game to game.

I usually play on slow/slower tech speed, which exacerbates this problem.

My suggested fix for this is that earlier techs get a higher weighting when rolling for discovery.

ORIGINAL: bvoid

I usually play on slow/slower tech speed, which exacerbates this problem.

My suggested fix for this is that earlier techs get a higher weighting when rolling for discovery.

This is how I'd approach this issue to I think. Give earlier techs a heavier weighting for discovery. It can be pretty brutal if you've missed an early game power tech and you run out of power, a real noob-trap.

played a game for 150 turns before i finally discovered automatic rifles, I was running around with carbines for the entire game on infantry, drove me nuts.

The power trap is also the other one, that makes me sit on discovery until the entire first tree is opened up with important techs first.

No research till i get all i need.

My first 2 games i played long ago taught me how terrible it is to have zero power techs and suddenly your entire civ is collapsing.

And yet still this is a trap of your own making...

150 turns before i finally discovered automatic rifles

... unless there actually *is* an issue with air techs, does *anyone* have a counter-example ?

Reminds me of :

I have a similar situation, where my Model designer keeps discovering only aircraft types.
I have Heavy walker available for discovery, but my model designer decided to discover all 3 Helicopters, all 3 Thopters and light Aircraft all the way down except for x-heavy (6e).
That's 12 air designs without any ground model, be it the Heavy walker, Jetpack Infantry or others that are open for discovery.

Of course I could simply refrain from designing the discovered air models, but it is weird nonetheless.

Huh, interesting... and no way to offload it on the Air Research council this time ! (BTW, why ?)

ORIGINAL: KingHalford

ORIGINAL: bvoid

I usually play on slow/slower tech speed, which exacerbates this problem.

My suggested fix for this is that earlier techs get a higher weighting when rolling for discovery.

This is how I'd approach this issue to I think. Give earlier techs a heavier weighting for discovery. It can be pretty brutal if you've missed an early game power tech and you run out of power, a real noob-trap.

There's another issue with this suggestion :
It's already hard to beeline for techs due to "exponentially"(?) increasing tech (and discovery ?) costs for higher tech groups, this would make it even harder.