[REVISION] Logical (Compressed) Research Tree

Going off of:

http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=8071

I made some revisions to the research tree that I believe to be more logical. For instance, what is the purpose of having a category with only one item in it? It is redundant. I can see one reason but I'll leave that for someone else to bring up.

The logic behind the chemistry branch is: if Absorbent Materials was combined with Absorbent Armor, why shouldn't all of the chemistry branch be like this? Either have the entire branch in categories or none of it in categories.

There should never be one research item inside a category unless the two are intrinsically linked, for instance Level 3s in Level 2s, Level 3s cannot be removed because then Level 2s could be surpassed.

If I get past research I plan on attempted to buff Reflective Armor, Reactive Armor, and Regenerative Armor. Absorbent should not be nerfed.

I love emp_sv_research_complete 1.

Changelog:
v0.1
-Renamed "Improved Flagration Compounds" to "Improved Conflagration Compounds".
-Combined Advanced Chassis with Heavy Tank Chassis.
-Combined Advanced Machining and Composite Armor.
-Combined Improved Flagration Compounds with Explosive Tipped Bullets.
-Removed Upgraded Grenades from Improved Detonation Compounds and changed its price to accommodate the move (it would not be fair to add the prices of the category + Upgraded Grenades because Explosive Shells also had to do this, so I set the cost to that of the category).
-Combined Improved Detonation Compounds with Explosive Shells.
-Combined Improved Warhead Compounds with Upgraded Missile Warhead.
-Combined Improved Heat Transfer Fluids with Advanced Coolant Engine.
-Fixed typo in "Absorbant Materials" (it's spelled Absorbent") [1] [2].
-Fixed grammar "3 Phase Electric Motor" to "Three-phase Electric Motor".
-Fixed grammar "fission reactor based" to "fission reactor-based" in the Physics description.
-Fixed grammar "plasma like" to "plasma-like" in "Superheated Material Physics".
-Fixed grammar "steam based" to "steam-based" in "Fission Reactor".
-Fixed typo "severly" in Reflective Armor.
-Fixed typo "quanity" in Biological Warhead and Biological Projectile.
-Renamed key for Absorbent Armor to Absorbent Armor (prev "Absorbant Materials". Yes, I know this will break code, but renaming Biodiesel will as well anyway).
-Renamed Bio Diesel Engine to Biodiesel Engine.
-Renamed "Upgraded Turrets Lvl 2" to "Upgrade Turrets to Level 2" (alternatively change the current title to "Upgraded Turrets - Lvl 2".
-Renamed Level 3 Turrets by the same convention.
-Capitalized armor, engine, and specific weapon names in descriptions.
-Removed copypasta comments not necessary more than once.
-Fixed indentation to align with "Unresearched Icon".

 

Research Tree:
-Physics
--Superheated Material Physics
---Plasma Cannon Projectile
---Plasma Bullet Projectile

--Projectile Physics
---Reflective Armor
---Extended Range Cannon
---Heavy Caliber Machine Gun

--Nuclear Fission
---Fission Reactor
---HIT Warhead



-Chemistry
--Explosive Tipped Bullets
--Upgraded Grenades
--Explosive Shells
--Upgraded Missile Warhead
--Advanced Coolant Engine
--Absorbent Armor



-Mechanical Engineering
--Upgraded Chassis
---Medium Tank Chassis
---Artillery Tank Chassis
---Heavy Tank Chassis

--Composite Armor
--Gas Turbine Engine
--Advanced Personnel Deployment



-Electrical Engineering
--Advanced Magnet Research
---Rail Gun
---Three-phase Electric Motor

--Reactive Armor
--Tracking Systems
---Homing Missiles
---Guided Missiles

--Upgrade Turrets to Level 2
---Convert Current Turrets to Level 2
---Upgrade Turrets to Level 3
----Convert Current Turrets to Level 3
--Improved Detonators

-Biology
--Regenerative Armor
--Biodiesel Engine
--Biological Weaponry
---Biological Warhead
---Biological Projectile



-Infantry
--Engineer
---Upgraded Seismic Grenade Capacity

--Grenadier
---Upgraded RPG

--Rifleman
---Upgraded Explosive Grenade Capacity

--Scout
---Upgraded Scoped Rifle

 

Reserved.

 

Just an FYI, a lot of the linear ones were leftovers. Improved warhead compounds used to contain both UML and Upgraded/Advanced RPG. Advanced Machining used to contain both Composite and Gas Turbine. There were a few redundancies, HEMG/Flagration, Absorbent/Materials, Cooling/Coolant, but I did plan to add other stuff into the gaps.

We even used to have a research called Improved detonators in Electrical. It got you absolutely nothing.

Either way, the effort is appreciated but mostly wasted, given that it's pretty widely established that the current tree has to be redone to make it more interesting (and no, I won't discuss that currently, because it's not happening currently.), so we're really just putting up with the tree as is.

But I probably will use the spelling fixes if I get chance to add them. I don't believe I've ever actually looked at them, given that they were done about 6 years ago and never touched since.

 

Yeah, I remember the whole (whole pertaining to integrity, not to quantity) chemistry branch from 2.24d.

I mainly did it for fun, I knew most of the changes wouldn't be put through. I would, however, like it if things like the misspelling of Absorbent Armor, Biodiesel Engine, and Three-phase Electric went through. The other spelling and grammatical errors are at your jurisdiction.

I thought Improved Detonators forced vehicle grenades to explode faster, interesting that it was just completely broke. I also definitely didn't put any Easter Eggs in my actual file.

Didn't like my top-level Infantry Tree Trickster ?

 

Improved detonators was before your time I believe, the intention I believe was to allow upgraded grenades to be researched from 2 different locations to make it easier to acquire.

Also, I don't particularly know why you consider adding pointless shit in the file with "infantry research" to be funny, because it's just stupid.

 

Just a quick question Trickster. How hard is it to move items around the research tree, without changing anything other than position?

 

They're on a printout of the Empires 2.23 tech tree (with Advanced Personnel Deployment), so no.

, where's your sense of humor Trickster? Well, at least the rumors that Empires was shifting towards an infantry-centric game aren't true.

According to what I surmised from editing the research tree myself, Empires grants research outcomes based on the name of the research acquired (for instance, researching Chemistry gives nothing tangible whereas researching Absorbant Armor gives itself).

Therefore, changing the name of research items would require changes in the weapon/armor/engine scripts, but moving things around can be localized to research_items.txt.

If I'm wrong Trickster can correct me.

 

30 seconds to change 2 lines of code, unless you screw up something up due to the mass amount of comments.

 

I removed those comments as well, you should download and look at how clean my file looks.

And technically wouldn't it be one line of code ("Parent") and then moving the research item block accordingly?

 

It's piss easy.

I stand corrected. They were up for being removed during 2.2 testing though, it must have just been overlooked. Also, I don't particularly know what rumours you've heard, but we don't particularly do anything that we don't tell the community out, so whoever has been feeding you that shit is a bit of a bobby bullshitter by the sound of it.

 

Note:
Res1(600res,60sec)->Res2(600res,60sec)
is VERY VERY different to
Res2(1200res,120sec)

That massive boost in initial resource allocation requires SAVING resources for TWICE as long to start the research, it seems exactly the same but keep in mind this will actually slow the FUCK out of game tempo.

Neither is right or wrong, but they behave very differently, be VERY careful when messing with research, something that might seem identical might end up breaking the game.

For example, rushing nukes is a bad idea not just because it's expensive and takes a long time (you could get 2 more generalistic weapons in the same time and for the same cost) but because you have to save up a shitload of res to start nukes, and then it takes ages, meanwhile the enemy is steadily unlocking highly superior weapons to your plain weapons/armor the whole time.

 

Do we have consensus that the current "road to victory" in research sucks?

what both teams do:
Get Absorbant, get coolant, HE/UML, mediums.... BORING.

 

The problem is this:

When this version came out, every research path was viable, it was balanced, or so we thought. Then over time everyone found the best paths, and it degenerated into Absorbent (I still think Absorbant is a nicer looking spelling) every round.

But the fact is, this happens every version. We have a month or so with varied research paths, then eventually, people find the best options and take that. It's impossible to prevent that unless we can get some seriously intensive testing in before a release. It's all very well and good saying "I'll test, I'll test", but the honest truth is, when we did have testing, we were lucky to get 10 people per test, 20 with huge spamming, but the fact of the matter is, to get that high level of balance, you need 40 player tests every single night, i.e. virtually playing the test version instead of the pub version.

Which would be nice, because every game would essentially be a vet pug, and it would be like (from what I've heard, given I wasn't there) the old 1.08 testing pugs. But we have a slight problem this time. A couple in fact.

Firstly, we don't have the players for that. We barely have enough to fill a server on the main game, let alone 40 vets every night. Secondly, we don't actually have a testing solution right now, given that steam messes that up pretty badly. SVN isn't steam testing because then we end up with problems like we have now, maps broken, custom content not working, both things we didn't detect in SVN testing.

And testing on Steam would require making your client unable to play regular Empires, unless you chop and change GCFs and stuff every time. It's a pain in the arse. So unless we could get another appID from Valve or something, it's really difficult to get any testing done. And that's not that easy to arrange either, but it probably is the only long term option.

Point being, I've found it really hard to balance to a really fine level (i.e. one that will still seem balanced 2 months after release) by just doing it blind. And I don't know how I can improve on that. I'll nerf absorbant next release, and it'll seem balanced, and then 2 months later it'll be 1 tree again.

 

I hope it's electrical this time.
Superlights and railguns are the funnest guns in the game :D

 

can't we just "steal" an AppID?

I tried playing a pirated version of Dead Island lately and the way to go was abusing an unused AppID for the game among other stuff like VPN and smartsteam.

--> Use custom content server as before, change UnreleasedPires' AppID, spread the word, win/get sued.

 

the illness is inherent to the type of research tree

you chose for it by prefering the "packages" tree

 

I'm not entirely sure, but that probably breaks the steamworks ToS and I doubt valve would like us doing that.

 

I actually didn't read the thread I quoted until I made the research tree.

This would be my requested change instead of making Heavy Tanks one research:

Advanced Chassis => Heavy Tank Tracks
Heavy Tank Chassis => Heavy Tank Hull

That way, it makes it seem like you have to research actual parts of the heavy tank before getting the final product.

How often does Steam let you patch? I would do a major update every few months, but do balancing weekly. Unless it's really that hard to update the gcfs.