Since I am not fond of the current research tree, I recreated it with another logic base. I would like to show you the new mechanical engineering to give you an example. Don't let the number of new researches scare you though; that research tree implies changes to the game itself. Since in fiction there're no restrictions, I had the liberty to add some new vehicleS. Don't argue about them or the lack of AI. You can see I have added a category to research projectiles. This is why I would like to be able to choose bullets, shells and their enrichments for my weapons. I have included upgrades that can be added on tanks or weapons on the vehicle construction menu. I have renamed the name of some weapons to make them more realistic and accurate. And practically added every weapon in mechanical engineering because engineers do everything. Trust them. Note that some of these researches are dependent on other researches either in mechanical engineering or in the other sectors. For example you cannot research the 50cal Gatling gun without 50cal bullets. By the way, I am aware that it is not possible to make a research depend on two researches for the time being, but it is not hard to change. I have also thought of making heavies starting with only one cannon and perhaps getting a second one with a research, this includes NF heavies too of course. I have severely change how propelled projectiles work. There are three parts to take care of: the projectile (rocket or missile), the launching pod (where it is fired from), and the firing mode and its upgrades. I don't want to briefly explain what everything does so if you want to learn I will copy paste the wall of text I wrote time ago to keep my ideas organized. Sorry for the wall of text. You don't need to read all of it to get the idea. As far propelled projectiles are concerned, things get more complicated. First of all, rockets replace missiles with no homing or guiding capabilities. There are three types of rockes: Light Rockets, Rockets and the HIT Rockets. Then, there are two types of missiles, Light Missiles and Missiles. There are many weapon systems regarding rockets and missiles. Rockets excel in power but do not support advanced electrical systems, hence their lower cost. Rockets, Homing Missiles and Guided Missiles are fired by Launching Pods. There is only one availale at start. Further research will unlock different pods and firing modes. 1. Launcher Tube. It is an additional weapon of vehicles as it can fire a single rocket, homing or guided missile. (1 slot) 2. Launcher Pod. 8 tubes for rockets, homing or guided missiles. It can be Electronically modified to switch between different firing modes. (2 slots) [Firing modes in Electrical Engineering] 3. Heavy Launcher Tube. Designed to fire destructive rockets manually in a trajectory. (3 slot) [For High-Impulse Thermobaric Rockets HIT. (In my tests, I failed to make rockets be affected by gravity)] The possible weapons are the following. Note that damage, accuracy imporvements etc do not modify the name of the weapon. Light Rocket Launcher. Fires a single light rocket. (Standard) [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Light Rocket Launcher. A large stock of rockets that can be fired rapidly one after the other. Salvo Light Rocket Launcher. A large stock of rockets that is fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Light Rocket Launcher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. Rocket Launcher. Fires a single medium rocket. [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Rocket Launcher. A stock of rockets that can be fired rapidly one after the other. Salvo Rocket Lancher. A stock of rockets that is fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Rocket Lancher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. High-Impulse Thermobaric Rocket. A rockets that upon impact uses the surrounding air to cause an high heat shockwave. Light Missile Launcher. Fires a single light missile with homing capabilities. [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Light Missile Launcher. A large stock of missiles with homing capabilities that can be fired quickly one after the other. Salvo Light Missile Launcher. A large stock of missiles with homing capabilities fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Light Missile Launcher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. Missile Launcher. Fires a single missile with homing capabilities. [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Missile Launcher. A stock of missile with homing capabilities that can be fired rapidly one after the other. Salvo Missile Launcher. A stock of missile with homing capabilities fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Missile Launcher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. Guided Light Missile Launcher. Fires a single guided light missile. [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Guided Light Missile Launcher. A stock of guided light missiles that can be fired rapidly one after the other. Salvo Guided Missile Light Launcher. A stock of guided light missiles that can be fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Guided Missile Light Launcher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. Guided Missile Launcher. Fires a single guided missile. [Uses Launcher Tube] Upgraded Guided Missile Launcher. A stock of guided missiles that can be fired rapidly one after the other. Salvo Guided Missile Launcher. A stock of guided missiles that can be fired at once. Upgraded Salvo Guided Missile Launcher. This launcher can switch between two firing modes. [-Light Rockets must be modeled after the MK4 Might Mouse rocket. It's 1.2m (4ft) in length, weight 8.4kg (18.5lb) from which 2.7kg (6lb) is the warhead. The Light Rocket should be 0.5m (1.6ft), weight 4.0kg (8.8lb), from which 1.3kg (2.9lb)is the warhead. -Rockets must be modeled after the MK40, which unlike its predecessor excels in accuracy, speed and spin rate and effectively counters gravity drop, cross winds and dispersion. The Rocket should be 0.8m (2.6lb), weight 6.0kg (13.0lb) from which 2.0kg (4.4lb) is the warhead. All rockets have a 70mm diameter. -The tactical rocket must be modeled after the Zuni rocket. It's 2000mm (77in) in lenght, weight 36.1kg (79.5lb) without the warhead. It has a 130mm (5in) diameter. The in-game rocket should be absolutely notably bigger than the other propelled projectiles.] I believe that a realistic approach, while keeping in mind factors such as engine capabilities, fun and balance, is the best thing to do. I believe it would make Empires a realistic arcade game, since you're free to develop however you like and make your faction's combat style different in every battle according to what the map requires more. Perhaps the only part that would be differ is the Advanced vehicles part. Prism cannon for BE and Tesla tank for NF. Would you like to have a research tree of this type? -I post this on the occasion of Candle's post "Research Tree Overhaul"
I do like a lot of the ideas posted here. It really would be nice if we had more vehicles again, the MKIIs were interesting in their own right and I don't think the idea was explored enough into other kinds of vehicles. Posthumous and I had talked a little about tank destroyerz, I think there is a lot to be said about this kind of gameplay. The difficulty is keeping infantry relevant, but I think if late game infantry aren't as relevant it's not too bad. Esp if we add in a resource multiplier mechanic later in the game, make tanks more obtainable. Unfortunately I think all these things just aren't possible in small map gameplay, and our community can't afford a departure from that
1:Why do you put two armors under Advanced Machining? Unless one of them have very unique functionality, otherwise people will just research the better one. In fact you really shouldn't put two armor/engine/weapons under the same category, unless each of them have unique functionality. 2:You might wanna delete some of the researches. For example, remove two of the four machineguns. The main reason is that the game will be very complicated and that means there will be more rage because of shitty research. Another reason is that this would be a nightmare to balance. Furthermore, the game usually ends pretty quick, which means some of the researches will be completely omitted for games that don't last for 50 minutes and longer because it is very important to research your heavier tanks ASAP. Lastly, unless the technology will be automatically applied to your vehicles, it can be really annoying to visit repair pad for that many times even when your vehicle is not damaged. I would like to try it, but I don't think this will most likely be implemented, for technical reasons and stuff.
Because Composite Armor requires armors of other sectors done in order to be researched and it it expensive, while aluminum is a light and cheap early-mid game armor. There reason I have this number of machine guns is because their caliber determines their size. These would be the only mgs in the game. If you wanted bio or depleted uranium mgs you would have to research the enrichments in their corresponding categories. Except Plasma. Plasma is a standalone mg. It does not fire bullets. It fires ionized air ... supposedly. Just like the cannon. I always keep in mind a possible port to Source 2 in the future. BTW I have designed some of the vehicles I named in the Picture. I have thought of this. The solution I found would be to make the upgrades be applied automatically but have an option to disable them in case you cannot afford them. Namely, default is on, thereafter you can customize as you see fit. It could be a separate menu next to Armor Weapons and Engine. And most researches are left aside currently because of OP equipment anyway.
Not really. I can actually see most of the research tree nowadays. I see Bio ML, I see all engines, I see rail/HE/ER/Plasma, I see lvl 3 turrets, I see nuke, I see Homing ML, and of course I see all chassis. The only exception is some armors and even so you still see bad comms research them. My main points will hold, unless you already have a balance plan(which will need to be intensively tested of course), this whole stuff can easily take a lot of effort to implement. The game would also be even more complex than it is now. If you delete a few researches, the difficulty/complexity would drop exponentially. Again, I really would like to see this, but the difficulty of implementation might be a little too high.
You said you feared that most of the researches would not be done in games that end too quickly. The same thing happens today. What is your point? If some games are due to end quickly then it's obvious there won't be as many researched items. Yes keeping things balanced would take great effort. I hope my effort can inspire at least slightly some one to implement more customizability. If you noticed I quite changed the logic of researching. I don't much care about complexity by the time I do all the work as far as scripting is concerned. I do change Empire's scripts for my personal pleasure and nirvana. I do like this complexity sadly I cannot fully implement it. But that is not even important; I really hope to give ideas to devs and see things work better as time goes.
I believe the current dev team is kinda running the "no major plans" policy. Dev team members can slap my face, of course, but I honestly don't think this whole thing will make it into the game, unless you really cut the amount of work. Once again, complexity is the last thing we need in Empires, this game is unfriendly enough for new players. I may look like a bitch who's pouring cold water at you, but this is just how it is. I still like this suggestion.
I know what you mean, but I do believe there are ways of overcoming the problems of complexity and taming of the beasts (newbies). You only have to look at other games to improve Empires. How many gamemodes does Empires have? commander maps, capture the flag, timers, tickets and like. Probably the Dev team should learn to try how to make people interested and not feel like stupid noobs and give them bad impression about the game. There is nothing in the game that explains the simpliest tiniest mechanic in the game. Players are not really supposed to train new comers yet I find myself and other people dealing with them on daily basis when the server is low populated. I'm not talking about tactics; some literally can't figure out how to spawn. We all know it yet we ignore it. Where is the Tutorial? Besides the tutorials, maps should be categorized and have description, if not for all of them, at least a description on the gamemode and what they're supposed to do when playing it. I don't think complexity of my research tree would prove a problem if matters such as this are taken care of. You said you don't think this whole thing will make it into the game, well neither do I. What is important to me is that people like you like it.
I've been working on something vaguely similar, I really should finish it due to how close I am. You say you've done some work on scripts already, so you should know that what you want done is nearly impossible in what's currently available. You can get close in some regards, it's easy enough to add all the armor and engines you want to a point. The hard part is that when you do incremental upgrades or 20 versions of a weapon you are forced to see every single one in the vf menu, which is a pain to look through. I also don't really like the design of weapon+1, I like my choices to feel significant and not just some mandatory upgrade. That's just me though, lots of people like that design for some reason. Now about that balance, the way empire is currently working you actually have to base all your damage on buildings and infantry I say. There is no way to change building/infantry hp during a match, nor resistances. So you have some hard limits on how many unique weapons you can actually make when it comes to scaling damage up. The idea of making unique chassis with their own super weapons is a way of kinda bypassing this problem, but for the most part you could only scale that damage in regards to tanks because tanks are the only thing we can scale up research wise. Blowing up a rax in a few seconds is never a good idea, same thing about demolishing large amounts of infantry in a second. It just isn't fun to play against. Someone mentioned just more tanks, forget about infantry with such an escalating weapon ideas. That's no good, there is a small handful of maps that work in with a large number of vehicles. Most maps tanks get stuck in these small choke points which don't allow much movement, that's a death sentence. Not to mention a bunch of people don't like tanks, so it's bad to just disinclude these players in such changes. Infantry have to stay relevant. I do like the idea of prerequisites though, but the main argument I hear against it is that it's hard to communicate what you need to unlock whatever it is you wanted to get. I never thought reading was hard, but not everyone does it apparently. Or can't, there's a few non english speaking people playing empires. That's that for what's actually possible in empires and what these kinda scripts do for it. You mentioned about future empire plans right? Well in that new game I hope there's some way for commanders to drop completely built buildings, no one wants to spend the entire time building buildings that get lost in 2 seconds, assuming they could even get upgrades to build faster then tanks can destroy it while actively building it. That's my main concerns with a huge tree of more of everything, you hit these points where you make the game crap for half the players when it gets researched.
As I said above, I am aware of the limitations, I always keep in mind a future port to Source 2 or another engine. I go for my "ideal" Empires. I would like to implement the philosophy of upgrades not to make OP weapon and oppress infantry and buildings but to make some weapons less powerful after they have been researched. It's like nerfing weapons then upgrading them to the default properties or something slightly better or worse, depends. As far as tanks are concerned, they give another taste to the game. You said they might not work in some maps because of tanks. Did you mean that some one suggested to disregard infantry completely? I don't agree with that. I only want more variety with some support tanks and other advanced vehicles. I think it would be a cool refreshing addition. That's what Empires needs to attract players I think. And by the way, Empires has more weapons than I have. The difference is that my weapons are supposed to fire projectiles of your choice. For example the three shell calibers are 45mm 80mm and 120mm. (no arty shells) default shells are called Blast Shells, then you could get High Blast Shells and Armor Piercing Shells; each with its own pros and cons. I am going to list the mg in Empires and the ones I made so you can compare. Empires: Bio Machinegun(1 slot) Chaingun(1 slot) Medium machine gun(2 slots) Medium .50cal(2 slots)Heavy .50cal(3slots) HEMG(2 slots) DUMG(2 slots) DUMG(3 slots) Plasma MG (2 slots) My version Auto-Cannon 20mm Gatling Gun 5.56 (1 slot) Default Machine Gun 5.56 (1 slot) Default Machine Gun 7.62 (2 slots) Default Gatling Gun 7.62 (2 slots) 50cal Machine gun (2 or 3 slots idk) 50cal Gatling Gun (2 or 3 slots idk) Plasma Gun (2 or 3 slots) I've got 1 less, not a big difference, but I feel like I've done a better job at categorizing them. In my opinion only 50cal and 20mm should be able to get different type of ammo because they are the only "mg" projectiles big enough. Even though I do not care to remove the "Bullet Projectiles" to make weapons be researchable without requirements, I feel as if there should be a research in physic, chemistry and biology to get certain ammo type and just add a new weapons. I don't get what you mean. I have reduced weapon variety but increased other things? Do you refer the propelled projectile mechanism? I think it's good change because it requires some specialization. And it's actually more practical. I have even designed the launching pods. There wouldn't be a huge list of ML weapons. you would only choose projectile type (4 types) and then the launching pod which can be quickly modified in a new menu in vehicle construction. I also believe vehicle construction could be redesigned for faster vehicle construction. You piratically mention problems that my changes are supposed to amplify because there are already in the game... but those things are not changed..? I mean, I don't get how this could be bad if problems are taken care of. Fun fact: In Valve's Team Fortress 2 Gamemode Mann vs Machine where players must survive hordes of robots, the players were both Blu and Red. It was later removed because players failing to see the difference of the gamemode tried to kill each other. WELL LET'S JUST AIM FOR FAIRLY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE AND NOT JUST TF2 KIDS OK...?
Nononono, real quick, I mean to say large amounts of tanks don't work. Mobility gets incredibly limited when there's so many tanks. It isn't like they can push each other out of the way, some maps end up as backed up traffic with no one really going anywhere. This was a reply to cpatton talking about late game. He mentions as much that it doesn't work with empire's smaller map designs though, which I kinda missed. More tanks aren't inherently bad, but you'd need a design that's less generic then what we have now. That is one thing empire tanks have that's kinda hard to quantify, the amount of flexibility on a single given tanks is quite a bit, which also makes it easier to learn with in a way. More chassis would be fine though, it would make for more specialized combat and make people to learn the strengths and weakness of a given chassis, though you do have the slight problem of if each one is unique research new players will have trouble getting used to all the new tanks, tanks tend to cost which means it's painful for commanders to get specialized tanks(see below for more info), and after all that you might have some problems with people actually wanting to get them. Changes to economics side of game would be a decent remedy, or tying each chassis to either the weapon they are suppose to use or getting both a and b tanks so commanders don't force their team to use a given tank that they can't really use. In a way that's kinda like suggesting splitting up say meds, one for cannons and one for mls so players would choose which tank they want to use. If you want commanders to have a larger influence then changing economics is the way to go on that front. About the rest of it, I ran under the assumption that you'd do similar trees with multiple weapons with the other categories. While looking at the projectile prototypes, I thought it was gonna be unique weapons for each. So this is why I thought it's be tons of new weapons. I also made the assumption that some weapons would be direct upgrades after one another, because I didn't quite see from the research tree the differences in some weapons, like it seemed that some weapons would just be better then others because I don't see the reason to spend time getting a weapon that works rather similarly to another one without just being plain better. Reading what you just wrote though I think it's meant to be more of modifiers, with some unlocking new research. So you'd have a basic weapon but could modify it with different bullet types or extra stats from the other trees. Is this correct? This is something I could get behind, I like that idea. I don't think it works to have everything as a unique weapon, security mentioned a reason but one I come from is that in the end your players have to use whatever you research and some might not care for it. Like what used to happen to old fission or 3phase, some players didn't like driving with them, but they were forced to. It's a pretty big reason everyone gets safe research now, the more people that can effectively use something the better off your entire team plays. This is why soft upgrades that players can pick and choose, much like class skills, is a great way for empires to work. You no longer lock a team down with choices that may be better for the situation, but the players themselves struggle to actually use it. By ammo type here, do you mean cannons or rather tanks themselves have an inventory of sorts and they can stock x amount of shells, of any combination of types as long as it doesn't exceed the limit? Or in other words, allow tanks to basically shoot different shells right in the field? That's a great idea and would approve. If they had to go to base to swap out shells because they can only hold one type that's not much different then simply changing out weapons. Which is functionally no different then what we have now. Sorry if anything I said was a bit of a misleading or seemed ignorant. I tend to look at what can be done now, what we have now, and how it would affect the current game. So some things you said didn't quite register the first read through.
In my scripts I do include research costs, so I guess resource modifiers must be modified :p In my attempt to make a new research tree (For an Empires different from what we know) I tried to give a bit of realism. Practically all the weapons you would be using would be in Mechanical Engineering, but many of them would depend on other researches in other categories (See Plasma, Rail Guns, or even some tanks) Yet the costs of research paths would severely increase so you should be careful what you'd research and keep in mind the resources available. This adds a sweet taste of old-faggoty because this is what Empires' old research tree did; it added a bit of strategy. There are no weapons better than other, also known as OP. a 5.56 mg for an APC is not less useful than a 7.62. What matters is their efficiency according to their cost, damage, effective ranger, rate of fire, ammo, weight and like. And by the way since you mention fission and 3phase, I believe that fission should be the fastest engine(With much heat), gas the most reliable, and 3phase I don't know about the speed but it should absorb more heat. Tanks should be able to carry as many types of shells they could but not over the shell limit. (Though I believe this could easily cause balance issues and we could restrict it to one shell time per time.) Also it would complicate things even more as I plan to calculate weights of items and ammo. So having different types of ammo whose weights differ may cause some complications. Even though I plan to make weight less of a problem for tanks because they are freaking tanks and not pack mules. And no I don't dream of OP tanks don't worry. I imagine things way different. Changes such as these would not ruin the unique feel of Empires. I tend to look at what is possible. I am merely making sketches for future plans. I should have written much more things. It's just that I'm lazy. I hope you get the idea of what I mean though. Ah, also, the the other research trees are smaller than mechanical engineering. This one is 50-55 researches. Of course not all are required for a gg...
