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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#271
Personally, I am against research.
It just does not fit - it is a long term activity with unpredictable outcomes and highly cooperative/large scale in a short term flying around trading game. So this may have place in the universe generation (to have heterogeneous tech in regions of space) but should not have a dramatic effect during gameplay (think during your life, with a full world of researchers, how many life changing technological revolutions? A few at most assuming forum members are 2-4 decades old (internet, perhaps robotics). Now scale down to your small research lab and wait a couple centuries to get something interesting).

Now Josh was more speaking of develpment/specialization: improve some stats at the cost of others, ultimately allowing a progression because players can select more appropriate building blocks for their creations and hence have more effective units for the design purpose. This is fine - we have this kind of stuff happening in most companies with a research lab all the time. This can be at late game a component of the game, could even lead to a real progression if one of the characteristics is cost (so something may be better in all dimentions, but more expensive). Add some inflation and you get a slow (inflation, e.g. Economic model, controlled) progression in absolute terms compared to the universe physics.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#272
I think Bfett and Cornflakes have sufficiently argued my point that Research is only 1 aspect among many in LT, Research can be stolen, labs can be blown up, materials to conduct research can be made scarce, internal strife can splinter great powers, and there won't be a sudden superpower or two who can overnight dominate everyone. Research can be unbounded so long as it is balanced with other aspects in the game. Yes numbers go up forever if you play forever, but if you've been playing a single game nonstop 24/7 for 2 years, would lasers with DPS of 9,234,690,214 be terribly strange? dunno, you're an edge case, clearly it's not a problem if you've been playing that long... and I await the day someone comes in saying they got tired of having to read a 10 digit number when shopping in a game they've played forever.
So why implement it? This is the heart of my argument that research progression and unbounded play are incompatible.
What's the alternative? As far as I can tell it just a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors then. Games feature research so that players can gain an advantage in quality rather than in quantity. If you have no research, the player will eventually figure out that rock beats scissors but not paper, so the enemy has a lot of paper, let's build lots of scissors and not a lot of rock... and the AI will even come to this eventually, if by nothing other than natural selection.
Hmm. I may be entering my dotage, but I'm not seeing how this isn't another way of saying "unbounded research." In which case, all my prior whatabouts apply.

Maybe I need a chart? Some kind of visual aid that shows how research gameplay value can remain constant throughout an open-ended game?
but as global ticks are always at the same rate the value of research doesnt decline over macroscopic time scales.
it may decreases temporarily when you reach your desired breadth of research between the vertical ticks and you dont have anything to do until the next tick.
Corn described what I'm saying perfectly :thumbup: . Research progression rates occurs in global ticks. The tick rate of different research branches are different, meaning that research in armor is particularly valuable at a given time because it's advancing quickly, while at another time, you're better off researching shields because no one is getting anywhere with armor but some progress is being made in shields.
CSE wrote: Personally, I am against research.
It just does not fit - it is a long term activity with unpredictable outcomes and highly cooperative/large scale in a short term flying around trading game.
That's just like your opinion man 8-) . LT is more than just a short term flying around trading game, flying around and being a space trucker is just one of the many many ways to play. And unpredictable outcomes are interesting and fun. and because the universe is infinite, if you don't like the outcome of what happened in one area of space, just fly on over to somewhere else and try again.
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Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#273
Hyperion wrote:
Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:23 pm
Corn described what I'm saying perfectly :thumbup: . Research progression rates occurs in global ticks. The tick rate of different research branches are different, meaning that research in armor is particularly valuable at a given time because it's advancing quickly, while at another time, you're better off researching shields because no one is getting anywhere with armor but some progress is being made in shields.
to be fair i was elaborating my own variation of global research ticks :ghost:

with vertical research progress being tied to something global/regional that defines the current "state of the art" for everyone.
independent of your variable research rate thing :ghost:
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#274
Hyperion wrote:
Sun Jul 16, 2017 11:23 pm
CSE wrote: Personally, I am against research.
It just does not fit - it is a long term activity with unpredictable outcomes and highly cooperative/large scale in a short term flying around trading game.
That's just like your opinion man 8-) . LT is more than just a short term flying around trading game, flying around and being a space trucker is just one of the many many ways to play. And unpredictable outcomes are interesting and fun. and because the universe is infinite, if you don't like the outcome of what happened in one area of space, just fly on over to somewhere else and try again.
Indeed my opinion hence "personally"...
You misunderstand my point, though. Research can (should, at least in the generation phase) happen in the backdrop of the universe. But as a player, you can only make a difference when you are at the head of a multi-world empire (in which case you don't build research labs, because you indirectly owns many universities on each world). As long as you are only so big as a corporation, you statistically won't make a difference, the more so if you have only a few ships.
What corporation do well is development - and there the concept of Josh fits quite well, with basically specialization and trade-offs.
Still an opinion, obviously :mrgreen:
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#275
Well yeah, the bigger a player you are, the more effect you have on the world. i wouldnt expect some mom-and-pop lab to be doing much in the way of real advancement. You could just have it so that 8 times out of 10, you're just trading stats around, and 1 in 10 times you actually make it better in absolute terms and 1 in 10 times it makes it objectively worse. And only from then on will you have more or less "tech points" in an object to shuffle around. If you're a small corporation doing 100 research projects an hour, you'll make some headway, which might be significant if you're really specializing in one area, but you obviously are a pretty small fish and your headway is quaint compared to that of the Imperial Research Association... but you're also making that lone research ship, even if they're exceptionally lucky in their advancement rate look pretty quaint too.
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Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#277
I am late to this party, but what I'm going to say I've said before (in this very thread), though perhaps in a different way. I think the best way to handle research and advancement is actually obsolescence.

My proposal is that all items are only ever ranked on a relative scale, and they move down the scale as research continues on more powerful items. The scale could simply be 1-10, or it could be mapped to the colour spectrum (i.e. red are the best of that kind of item at that time, and blue are the worst). To me this conveys all the gameplay we could all want, solves all other problems and sacrifices only scientific accuracy which is of dubious utility in a game like this.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#279
Well there clearly could be a version of the game in which the entire population of guns/ships/shields/armour/etc. is created at the start and is then static forever more. This version also has... no research, for anyone. This would make the game virtually identical to all other space games on the market today. Only in this game would you not need to "fiddle around with every single piece of equipment" because it is actually possible to reach the top. There is a parallel in this scenario to having a fixed map, whereby it's also possible to explore the entire universe. I suspect that quite a few players would choose to the play the game this way to allow the feeling of "completeness".

If, on the other hand, research is included, then by default it you will have to upgrade periodically, or suffer the consequences.

Now, in terms of the rate of change, clearly this needs to be kept under check. A straightforward S-curve should do it, which allows only very slight increments at the very top and bottom. This would also have the benefit of allowing the incredible shield you just bought to stay at the top of the tree of longer.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#280
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:55 pm
Only in this game would you not need to "fiddle around with every single piece of equipment" because it is actually possible to reach the top.
reading hard?
i said
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:46 pm
fiddle around with every single piece of equipment thats already constructed
(emphasis added)

if you add a random scale to it (and maybe even adapt the equipment's capabilities according to that scale if i recall the rest of the discussion correctly) that you have to update you have to iterate over all existing equipment to build that scale.
for no gain but that you can attach a number to it as to how good it is.
which is literally pointless beyond being a nice interface piece for informing the player.


and again i ask you: what would the scale actually do but inform the player and how would it solve any problems at all?
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#281
So... what exactly is the objection? That the game has to adjust a stat when the player comes near an item created a while ago? :think: I'm going to go out on a limb and say... I reckon that's doable.

There are several benefits of simply ratings items on a relative scale with built in obsolescence. Firstly, it's easy to understand and solves the silly number problem. Secondly, it allows the player to very quickly judge if the thing they are about to buy - or salvage - is powerful or not in comparison to the items they already have. Lastly it drives players to update their kit. The last point would be true for any research system, but this one would allow a version of the game to be released before the research system has been fully written. In other words, you get the benefits of ongoing research - that there is always new kit to buy - without having to flesh out and balance a super complex system that may not actually appeal to a large number of players.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#282
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:37 pm
There are several benefits of simply ratings items on a relative scale with built in obsolescence.
which is different to a research system without your coloring.... how?
better stuff gets researched, old stuff gets obsolete
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:37 pm
Firstly, it's easy to understand and solves the silly number problem.
how?
the numbers are still there
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:37 pm
Secondly, it allows the player to very quickly judge if the thing they are about to buy - or salvage - is powerful or not in comparison to the items they already have.
which is the only thing it does at all as far as i can see.
which doesnt need a global scale but just a delta at the time when you look at equipment at all. which is like 15 lines with 0 overhead.
and about as much effect on the overall game as the number of lines suggests.
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:37 pm
Lastly it drives players to update their kit. The last point would be true for any research system, but this one would allow a version of the game to be released before the research system has been fully written.
how?
how would that remove the need for a fully developed research system?
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 1:37 pm
So... what exactly is the objection? That the game has to adjust a stat when the player comes near an item created a while ago? :think: I'm going to go out on a limb and say... I reckon that's doable.
from what i read out of the rest of the post ("solves the silly numbers problem") you think to change the actual stats of all equipment in existence everytime anyone does any tiny piece of research (regardless of the actual change you have to reevaluate all the values).
not just the player's, everyone's. every single thing that rumbles around has to recalculate its statistics every five minutes.
which is a useless waste of processing power.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#283
If all in-game items are mapped to colours, then you don't need to show the player any numbers. Difficult to have a silly number problem... when there are no numbers to see. Or if the number is simply a relative 1-10.

Mapping items to colours basically removes the need for obsolescence too, in reality. Just re-evaluate the colour scale each time a new item is invented. This would mean that the player would see his/her items slowly changing colour and let them know when they need to upgrade.

This can be accomplished without a research system that involves the player. You just have a few corps. that churn out new items every now and again, keeping the overall inventory fresh and making the player want to upgrade every now and again.

As for "waste of processing power": whatever. You break down to me exactly how LT tracks in game items and I'll give that argument the appropriate weight.
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#284
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:10 pm
If all in-game items are mapped to colours, then you don't need to show the player any numbers. Difficult to have a silly number problem... when there are no numbers to see. Or if the number is simply a relative 1-10.
and the numbers are still there in the engine and calculations.
which is the far larger problem than simply showing them.
you also just either made every minmaxer hate you (because you hide the stats of their cannons) or you dumbed down the whole equipment system into a shadow of something interesting because everything has to fit into that scale and bringing research into a system where you cant just do a +5% something because you only have those 1-10 scales.

i want to know the exact stats of my equipment and am going to get very angry and annoyed for the arbitary hiding of information.
and im very sure that im not the only one in that.
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:10 pm
Mapping items to colours basically removes the need for obsolescence too, in reality. Just re-evaluate the colour scale each time a new item is invented. This would mean that the player would see his/her items slowly changing colour and let them know when they need to upgrade.
and the statistics of every other equipment in existence. hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of ships with as many pieces of equipment.
and all of them have to recalculate their scale everytime someone researches something.
setups breaking, weapon ranges changing, sensor ranges changing, ship speed changing.
with every. single. bit. of. research.
mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:10 pm
This can be accomplished without a research system that involves the player. You just have a few corps. that churn out new items every now
and again, keeping the overall inventory fresh and making the player want to upgrade every now and again.
and remove player-NPC parity for no other reason than you not wanting to see numbers?
anything putting out equipment brings most of the problems of research on the table.
taking it out of the players hands doesnt remove the need to balance it and to keep it in check.

mcsven wrote:
Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:10 pm
As for "waste of processing power": whatever. You break down to me exactly how LT tracks in game items and I'll give that argument the appropriate weight.
not having to touch already researched and built equipment.
versus
recalculating dunnohowmany items every few minutes.
(with all the problems that come from it, "someone researched a new reactor now my ship doesnt have enough power to run anymore because my reactor got scaled down" )

as long as you dont outline anything but "i dont want to see numbers" as the gain of your system i'll continue calling it a waste of processing power.



if you have a more concrete idea on what it would do, may write it out then we'll come to at least some understanding?
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Re: Squaring the "Vertical Progression" Circle (maybe)

#285
I'm happy to concede that it's easier to see the benefit of obsolescence if there is no research system available to the player. Items simply become less powerful over time, and new items are added as power 10 (or thereabouts) from corporations that the player will never interact with. I see this as being a straight forward incremental update to the system that virtually every other space combat game uses.

I don't think it would be too hard to implement in a player-involved research world however. For example, you could implement a system whereby the initial power of an item is governed by the relative amount of research any given entity is doing compared to the other researching entities. If you are a relatively small entity, your new items won't be the most powerful, ranking at 5/6, and quickly becoming obsolete. On the other hand, if you are in charge of the entity putting out the most research, then your new stuff is rated 10, and its obsolescence rate is slowed because your research is that much greater than everyone else's.

I'm also happy to concede that you don't like what I'm saying. Fair enough. That's hardly a slam dunk argument against it though is it?

As for insisting it's a waste of processing power: once an item moves far enough away from the player it'll be absorbed into a much less granular simulation. It's only when they come close to the player that it'll really become relevant. I'm still sceptical that this would be a meaningful performance impairment.

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