A new research tree - Post your own

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I spoke to Mashav, and understand his now. It's actually really quite simple.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5125379/Noobfriendlyresearchtree.jpg

Can't possibly get any simpler than this, but I've never quite understood why should the research tree be so unnecessarily complicated when it only has a couple of options in the first place.

If the research is mostly about tanks, then why should the research tree be based on things like "mechanical, electrical, biological" etc. Instead of just "Chasis, Armor, Weapons, Engines"...

 

Exactly! Many of those techs are completely useless. You could have the same effect if you'd just increase the research duration of the other techs. For example, instead of having "Upgraded Chassis" and "Advanced Chassis", just increase the research time of "Medium Tank Chassis", "Artillery Tank Chassis" and "Heavy Tank Chassis", and have "Medium Tank Chassis" as the prerequisite for "Heavy Tank Chassis".

The difference between what we do with the present tech tree and what Trickster refers to as "cherrypicking" is that we need to click more atm.

If we look at the 2.25 tree here, which I can only assume to be not too different from what we have since I haven't commed since that version, it's obvious there is a lot of redundancy.

 

no hybrido. The techtree we have now is not cherrypicking because you have to go multiple paths to get all the vehicle loadouts which you prefere. Having multiple steps which only unlock the next step fulfill a simple role: you do not need to spend all the resources which the whole research costs at once. They would become unnecessary if the amount of resources was debited over the period of time the research takes place instead all at once in the beginning of the research.

 

I won't go so far as to say all the techs that don't give us a weapon, armour or chassis are pointless. But I'll just list those techs that I think we are better off without:

Improved Flagration Compounds
Improved Warhead Compounds
Improved Heat Transfer Liquids
Advanced Machining
Advanced Chassis
Upgraded Chassis

 

[PRKL] Werihukka:
Dropbox link is broken but I can imaging the layout of your tree.

The research tree is split into "mechanical", "electrical", ... because else you just would always pick the best armor, engine and weapons.
With the current tree you still can do this but it takes a more time and resources. So you have to decide if you want fast research or good items for your tank (not working perfectly but the idea is there).
Therefore the physics tree was a problem in 2.24d. You had a very good armor, good MG, good cannon, good 3 slot weapon and a decent engine in one tree. Of course everybody went for physics.


Senor_Hybrido:
I removed all "unnecessary" researches in this tree:
(They are not really unnecessary. You have to wait longer until you can start research if the item is not split into several items. But I think that this won't be very noticeable.)
http://i54.tinypic.com/2eb71p3.png

But Upgraded Chassis for example is not unnecessary. You can't just put all chassis under mechanical and add the research time/cost of Upgraded Chassis.
This would make it much more expensive if you want to research several chassis. And if you don't add the research time/cost of Upgraded Chassis to all other chassis the research would be too cheap.

 

advanced machining and the chassis researches fulfill not only said role but also are shared prerequisites for different researches, effectively making one of the researches along its path cheaper if you already got, or are willing to get, one of the others (or the other) too. Also implying they are effectively more expensive if you only get one.
IHTL - agreed
IFlagComp - agreed
IWarComp - isn't there a branching out too?

SIP: no need to repeat my arguments >.>

 

As I started typing your posting was not posted. You were a bit faster.

 

you need more then 20 minutes to finish a post o0

 

Actually the tree I did doesn't change anything if you just increase the cost and time of better armors, weapons and chasis etc... It makes no sense to me to have sub-researches that don't do anything. All the names just confuse new players and they ruin games for all of us just by wanting to try commanding for the first time.

Being able to navigate through the whole research tree without reading descriptions and remembering confusing research tree names would be a lot better. Having research items that do no good on their own is just kind of weird.

Of course it changes the way of researching and makes it a lot easier, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to let noobs learn a big part of this game.

At the moment, I think the research tree is just badly disordered, artificially crippled and hard to balance.

Here's the fast draft I did to demonstrate my idea.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/8990/noobfriendlyresearchtre.jpg

I mean, really.. Is there a justification for having research tree that is more complicated than that?

The thing is. This way you can't just research one tree and be done with it. Every important item is in different research tree and you just need to pick the most suitable one for the situation. Of course this means that the price and time must be redone completely. Most powerful weapons must take more time and resources, but this just makes the research tree easy to understand and remember. There's no need to "think about it". You just see what is there and nothing else.

Researches like "Improved material physics", "Improved heat transfer fluids" and so on, are not there.. but who knows what they actually mean from just looking at the names of such research items?

 

Such a research tree might be easier to learn but as commander you should already know the game.
And for all experienced commanders such a research tree will be very boring.

The current research tree is only difficult to learn because of the GUI. And I have heard that it is being currently redone.


But it is interesting to see that there are totally different opinions about the research tree. Some want even more complected trees with items that need several prerequisites while the others want very easy trees where you can research all items without prerequisites.

 

Are we more or less agreed that the tree should be all on one screen?

ie. not the way it is now but like this:

 

I agree, but on the other hand there's no more content to be learn. It just takes less time. If it needs to be more complicated, then you could just add more content that has a purpose, instead of adding content which only purpose is to make research more complicated.

There's very little content in the research tree as such, if you just remove all the prerequisites from it.. Instead, there could be more real options, like more 1-slot weapons and other new stuff that would make it have more options, but still be very clearly presented and have everything "at hand" at all times.

But of course this is just my opinion. Some people might like the way it is. Chaotic, complicated and interesting.

 

I like flasche's techtree, why should an army research the weapons again and again? A company should only adjust the weapons it has to the situation it is set in.

Hey, can someone tell me when to use the apostrophe and when to leave it out? (flasches; flasche's?)

Edit: I still disagree with Werihukka, people will figure out which weapons/armor/engine is best, only research those and all the rest will be useless.

 

Why should the research tree have useless items then?
All the research items should just be equally good in general, but they should just have clear strenghts and weaknesses.

If we want the research tree to be balanced, useless researches in the first place need be made useful. It's the exact same thing as with weapons like scout rifle, that was useless, but was still there. Useless/underpowered kind of things are just noob traps.

If you want to keep the same kind of rhythm like we have now in research, just make it so that engine and armor need to be researched before being able to research better tanks.