A new research tree - Post your own

I won't post a new research tree easily because I like the current one. It was working fine for many years and only needs some minor changes time by time.

What is the advantage of completely new research tree?
That the current research tree is difficult to understand for new players is because of the GUI. Every tree with the same GUI will have this problem.
New tactical options? As long the research is time based you won't be able to counter the enemy research.

Currently I only see disadvantages. For example who should balance about 16 new weapons? It will make the game boring if only one of them is overpowered.

 

Well, Sprayer, yours is a bit TOO simplistic, but it's non-linear, which I suppose makes it interesting.

As for Mashav...Holy fuck. I'm trying to decipher what's going on but I just can't understand it. From what I do understand, it has some nice aspects although I'm not so keen on infantry research in the way you did it. Then again, I've never really been a fan of infantry research, unless it was based around infantry vs tank combat (bio rpg or whatnot), not vs other infantry.

 

Well I could draw it out completly, but there are some facts hindering me:
1) People will hate
2) Like Mashav's Techtree, nobody will understand
3) Will never be implemented anyways because it's a shitload of dev work

 

It could always just not be good. But regardless, try and present it like I did in the first post, use that site or something.

 

Additional notes:

• G/H ML will unlock both missile launchers. I think it's bs to seperate them in research. UGML, UHML and SHML (If implemented, SGML too) will unlock when G/H ML as well as UML/SML are researched.
• Each of the initial Researches has 2 tiers (standard and improved?). I'll call the t1 and t2 for short.
• Black Arrows from an initial research indicate t1 is enough as prerequisite
• Green Arrows indicate the initial research needs to be at t2
• Ocher initial researches require an amory to be researched, also do all researches having it as prerequisite
• Grey initial researches require a repairpad to be researched, also do all researches having it as prerequisite

By Infantry research I mean not only improvements of values but also improving, adding and/or replacing skills.
I will not engross this thought further unless I know whether it will be considered to be implemented or not.

 

Although I was interested in a multi-tier research tree Drag proposed, I have always been very interested in armors that have unique abilities, or similarly, "add-on" slots that can give the vehicle a unique ability. Think of cloaking, regen, infantry healing beams, rocket interception weaponry, etc.

I feel it would widen up the tactical possibilities with vehicles: cloaked vehicles could hide in some trees to attack some enemies in the back, infantry-healing vehicles could be of great use when assaulting bases with infantry, etc.

 

@Mashavs, I think Terrace gate research is faaar too much to handle for especially new commanders

 

Nevertheless I also created one research tree.
As I already said, only minor changes.
Made the tree more simple and added the short range cannon:

 

I always disagreed with the idea of the ARMOUR being the part with the extra abilities, but agree with the idea of the add-on slots. Problem is, there really aren't that many addons we could add. Cloaking, regen, infantry healing beams, and that's pushing it. We'd need more ideas imo. But anyway, that shit is a while off.

I was never really a fan of Drag's tree. I always felt it to be a bit boring, a bit linear. Tiers are just too simplistic imo (for the record, I have no idea how Mashav's works, so his could be an excpetion). And anyone judging Mashav's based off that picture is kidding themselves if they think they can understand it. I'd really like the research_items.txt for it though, so I could dump it ingame and actually flick through it visually.

Honestly, I have no idea what the fuck is going on here. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense because everything is just jumbled up with tonnes of lines connecting. I would suggest trying to line up all the stars in one area, and making it more drop-down and shit.

 

this tree is incomplete, but provides many spots for weapons that result from two researches combined



basically you never research *weapons* but you research tech that combines w other research to *make weapons*

theres some bigass number of possible combos, i dunno how many exactly

 

I don't think that the individual rounds of Empires last long enough for this, but I think it can be an interesting mechanic and thus deserves some thought.

The idea comes from HoI3 and I will explain how it works in that game first. Every research project has at least one corresponding theory attached to it (infantry, armor, electronics, etc.), the higher the theory level the more efficient the research will be. You can increase theory by researching it directly but you can also increase it by researching techs that require it. For instance researching new weapons for your infantry both uses and produces infantry theory. All research only increases only one theory regardless of how many different theories it draws from and all techs, no matter what the cost, will increase the relevant theory by only one point.

The result is that while you could research nothing but, lets say, bomber tech, it would be more efficient in the long run to also research some lower tier fighter or mechanical tech, both of which contribute to theories that would speed up your bomber tech. Basically, you can specialize in your tech for a boost in the short term but it will be punishing in the long term.

To show an example adapting this to Empires, I was thinking you could make a much flatter(?) tech tree, making heavy tanks researchable at the same time as light and medium tanks, but make it obnoxiously long unless you put more research into medium and light tanks. You could get heavy tanks before the other team in this way, but had better make sure it's worth it because the other team will have a huge tech lead over you soon. The team that didn't go all in for heavy tanks will be able to get better armor and weapons sooner because of their earlier investments.

 

Actually I'm in favour of a simpler tech tree with certain high-level techs requiring multiple other techs as prerequisites.

Also, I'd remove all the redundant techs like Electrical Engineering and stuff because they serve no purpose other than being eye candy, unless they're prerequisites for those high-level techs (maybe railguns would require Mechanical engineering in addition to Advanced Magnet Research).

As for the time required to get the cool toys, there's no need to worry about it. Like Trickster implied, research costs and durations can easily be adjusted.

IMO we should just focus on making the tech tree easier to learn (but not easy to master) and basically more intuitive (eg DU being placed in Projectile Physics instead of the same category as Fission Engine and HIT is kind of counter-intuitive)

I'll probably try and make one during the weekend.

 

A working version of a new research layout I have been working on


The mixed effect weapons are the point that you attach bio and other non conventional effects to

The research_items.txt is very close to or already finished, but needs testing.
A lot more intuitive for new players, no more "but I didn't know where armor was in the research tree"

Downside is that it is based more on an RTS style research: pick research based on what you want to do, ex: early rush or slow push with heavy tanks

 

Like this?

 

Gonna say I honestly don't like that tree Nickierv. You'd end up cherrypicking whichever armour you want, whichever engine you want, and whichever weapon set you want. The point of having a "bio" tree, or "physics" tree is that they get both the strengths and weaknesses of the stuff in that. But by doing this, they can just cherrypick around the best. No amount of balancing would be able to fix that really, there's always going to be the fastest engine, the best armour, the best weapon. At most a combination of 2 (best coolant or best speed, best armour or best "cheaper" armour, best weapon for NF or best weapon for BE) but most of the tree would get ignored. Imo, Engines, armours and weapons HAVE to stick together.

@Sprayer It only has like 6 cells filled in. But anyway, I recommend using the web-based application I used in my first post. It took me 30 minutes to do that entire thing and I was really specific about stuff, your tree has less than that so it shouldn't be too difficult.

 

didn't you see the dropdown list o0

 

I did now, but it wasn't what I meant. Just use the first post app

 

Well, since the structure is in fact a little complex, no other form of diagram will make it simpler. I tried vent diagrams, but those work bad with more then 3 volumes. So the only possible forms of presentation are either a web diagram or a table showing the relationships between the single elements. I could make an expand/reduce diagram like the explorer, but that would also not make it easier to understand, since you would need to look up every single root to figure out all prerequisites of any research.

 

Kk, well I guess we'll have to rule it out then =/