A few weeks ago I suggested it might be useful/fun to try to develop a starter list of some of the "fixed technologies" that could form the basis of the research tree in Limit Theory.

Recently mcsven put together a nice outline of the techs seen in Josh's initial presentation (in Update #10) of his research tree for the game. I've used that outline as a starting point for a somewhat longer and more detailed list of possible fixed technologies, which I present here for your amusement.

For the most part if it's something Josh showed, I've tried to leave it as-is. But I have made a number of tweaks for several reasons:

• Organize buildable objects into functional groups
• Add more buildable objects in existing groups
• Add more kinds of functional groups in Engineering
• Add more functions beyond Engineering (for the strategic game)

This list is not meant to be any attempt at a Final Word, and I understand completely that many of the suggestions here may not fit into Josh's overall design plans. It's simply a set of starter ideas for core technologies that might be fun to see in Limit Theory (as described so far). Please feel free to extend/modify this first draft of a more complete collection of technologies -- I'm curious to see what can be made of it.

(Note: This outline doesn't cover modifiers for randomly-generated technologies. Yet. )

• Engineering
  • Vessels
    • Probes
      • Tactical Probe (short-range combat data)
      • Exploration Probe (long-range basic sector data)
      • Monitor Probe (short-range detailed planetary/civ data)
    • Stations
      • Depot
      • Orital Station
      • Mobile Station
      • Planetoid Station
      • Different approach to station classification
    • Ships
      • Fighter
      • Bomber
      • Corvette
      • Frigate
      • Destroyer
      • Cruiser
      • Battleship
      • Carrier
      • Dreadnought
  • Propulsion
    • Standard Drive
    • Afterburner
    • Cruise Drive
    • Jump Drive
    • Jump Gate
    • Warp Lane
  • Defense
    • Plating
      • Plasalloy
      • Coherent Duratan
      • Bonded Neutronium
    • Shielding
      • Gravitic Shell
      • Strange Shield
      • Subspace Orb
    • Cloaking
      • Space-colored Paint
      • Electromagnetic Masking
      • Inversion Field
  • Sensors
    • Tactical Scanner
    • Spectral Sensor
    • Data Monitor
  • Computers
    • Processors
    • Networking
    • Parallelism
  • Weapons
    • Direct-fire Weapons
      • Kinetic Weapons
        • Projectile
        • Mass Drivers
        • Railguns
      • Energy Weapons
        • Beam Lasers
        • Pulse Lasers
        • Photonic Cannon
    • Indirect-fire Weapons
      • Missiles
        • Dumb-fire Missile
        • Seeking Missile
      • Torpedoes
        • Proton Torpedo (physical damage)
        • Flash Torpedo (briefly blinds sensors)
        • Ionizing Torpedo (only damages living things)
        • Antimatter Torpedo (massive physical damage)
        • Planetbuster Torpedo
    • Mines
      • Listener Mine (quietly alerts player to intrusions)
      • Concussive Mine (physical damage)
      • Scrambler Mine (briefly blinds sensors)
• Social
  • Education
    • Training
    • Academics
    • Teaching
  • Medicine
  • Mass Media
• Economy
  • Agriculture
    • Fertilization
    • Hydroponics
    • Weather Control
    • Terraforming
  • Manufacturing
    • Extraction
    • Refining
    • Production
  • Financial
    • Advanced Banking
    • Sector Exchanges
    • Integrated Value Web
• Political
  • Diplomacy
    • Negotiation Techniques
    • Treaties
    • Galactic Council
  • Organization
    • World Management
    • System Management
    • Sector Management
    • Synaptic Union
• Science
  • Engineering Research
  • Social Research
  • Economic Research
  • Political Research

Computers

• Microprocessors
• Quantum Processors
• Quark Field Computational Matter
• Tachyon Vortex Processors

Some notes:

There is no such thing as a "dumb fire missile". Missiles are per definition guided, an unguided "missile" is called a rocket.
There is however room for a difference between how the guidance is achieved inside the missile group. Some are guided by the launching craft (require a maintained active lock until impact and normally limited to one missile in flight per launcher), some are "fire and forget" which means the missile has sensors of it own and can remain guiding itself even if lock is lost.

Personally I also prefer to consider space torpedoes just as bigger shorter range missiles (if they are guided) or rockets (for unguided). The payload should Imho not be magically different because technically they are the same thing with just a bit modified stats for size and speed.


Mass Driver and Railgun is also the same thing.

A station is per definition stationary, a "movable" station would be a ship I think?
Actually the category above "vessels" I think assumes something is moving as well. A station could be in another category for bases or installations that might also include potential planet-side buildings.


"Space colored paint" does not seem very advanced cloaking
How about "adaptive hull-painting" instead that can work as a camouflage?

In reality the most important signature that will reveal a spacecraft will be heat/radiation due to massive energy requirements. So I would suggest that the core cloaking is about reducing your heat signature / merged with more energy efficient engines.

What about waste reclamation in the different fields?

Ixos wrote:There is no such thing as a "dumb fire missile". Missiles are per definition guided, an unguided "missile" is called a rocket.

I agree and fully support your military nerd rage.

Ixos wrote:There is however room for a difference between how the guidance is achieved inside the missile group. Some are guided by the launching craft (require a maintained active lock until impact and normally limited to one missile in flight per launcher), some are "fire and forget" which means the missile has sensors of it own and can remain guiding itself even if lock is lost.

I created a topic for Missiles and general Weapon Mechanics but they are far more specific than "all research fields".

Superb list, thanks Flat! Definitely some cool ideas in there

One important note that I would like to make about how tech works (that also influences the way the tech tree will be designed) is: all applied technology corresponds directly to a type of game object. This is both a conceptual as well as an implementation simplification.

So, for example, "concepts" as leaf nodes won't work - "networking" and "parallelism," for example. However we can trivially convert those to "network processors" or "parallel processors," for example. But since they're distinct technologies, the implication is that the objects are distinct as well, so it means we would need to carefully define what makes a network processor different from a parallel processor, again just for example.

Things under the Social, Political, and Science categories will be more challenging, and perhaps not applicable. A lot of the economy techs can translate directly, i.e. "extraction module," "refining module," "production module," and maybe "bank" for planets (although we haven't talked much about planet building mechanics yet ). But something like "medicine," for example, ...well, you could call it "hospitals," but I'm not sure that's really within the scope of the game - we don't need this to become the next Sim City

So everyone feel free to keep rolling out ideas, but try to keep them tied to a concrete type of object whose function you can justify

Ancient/Alien technologies (opened only by exploration)
- Quantum meterial construction/reorganization
- Illuminate super-conductors
- Dark-matter tehnology (shileds, weapons)
- Self-consciousness AI

JoshParnell wrote:But something like "medicine," for example, ...well, you could call it "hospitals," but I'm not sure that's really within the scope of the game - we don't need this to become the next Sim City

Since we want the AI/NPC personalities to matter a lot however it could be used for them. A ship being destroyed could potentially lead to the NPC(npcs) aboard becoming injured, and depending on you having a ship with a hospital module with x sickbeds free nearby also automatically rescued and soon to be recovered.

This was actually surprisingly important in the real World war II where USA gained a significant advantage in always striving to rescue and care for down carrier pilots as opposed to the Japanese that looked at them as dishonorable failures deserving of their fate drowning in the oceans.

The US Navy was practical and regarded a pilot with hundreds of hours of training and combat experience as an invaluable asset that should be rescued at almost any costs. And it paid of, before long the experienced US carrier pilots was shooting down the Japanese at 10:1 or better ratios, so good ratios the Japanese had to resort to kamikaze attacks since they knew they were dead anyways when going close to the US carriers... So why even bother planning to return?


And for LT, it would be awesome being able to rescue your experienced pilots or other crew into a hospital module so they recover ( and become even more loyal since they owe your their life). This could be a great tool for storytelling. In the non hardcore modes when you get shot down yourself you might be stranded in space and rescued by the next passing hospital ship yourself and be given the option to join whatever faction saved you (or if your faction has ships with hospital modules, be saved by them).

Thanks for the comments, all! Some quick notes:

1. On the "dumb-fire missile" terminology, you're technically correct (and I will only say I have professional reasons for knowing distinctions like this). "Dumb-fire" was a reference to Wing Commander as a quick way to express to this community the idea of a small unguided payload delivery system.

2. Mass Driver and Railgun was me quoting mcsven documenting the sample tech tree in Josh's video. Take that one up with the developer!

3. "Space-colored paint" -- just checking to see if anyone was actually reading the list. You win. Again, the intention was just to suggest possibilities for improvement; I like the refinements you suggest here.

4. On techs needing to be instantiable as objects... that's a bit disappointing as it implies research is for more/better dogfighting rather than also supporting strategic-level play (where empire-affecting "concept" techs are important/valuable).

If that thinking changes, great; otherwise OK, expectations (and future suggestions) adjusted.

Flatfingers wrote:4. On techs needing to be instantiable as objects... that's a bit disappointing as it implies research is for more/better dogfighting rather than also supporting strategic-level play (where empire-affecting "concept" techs are important/valuable).

If that thinking changes, great; otherwise OK, expectations (and future suggestions) adjusted.

Not at all! It just demands that one re-frame the concept a bit, as demonstrated. It's about tangibility of a tech, not about whether or not it can be used in war!

A new strategic concept is simply embodied in the next iteration of an item that is deployed across your empire.

The idea is to avoid having abstract "attributes" that affect everything you do, and instead have that kind of "power" manifested in real objects. Imagine it like an RPG where instead of having a strength stat, you gain "muscle" items to do more damage (I realize the translation's a bit awkward there) It's just a sweeping simplification to both the player's and the AI's understanding of the world.

PS ~ Sorry to all about the rail / mass driver thing, point conceded

domanite wrote:Computers

• Microprocessors
• Quantum Processors
• Quark Field Computational Matter
• Tachyon Vortex Processors

I'm not sure exactly how Josh would see the *function* of an object of type 'computer', so I'll throw out some ideas and see if any of them resonate:

1. A force-multiplier for other technologies - your shields get better, your accuracy increases.
2. Unlock sizes - you have to have quantum processors to effectively run a ship with more than 20 hardpoints, for example.
3. Unlock research combos: beam weapons are great, and shields will protect you - but manipulate both at the incredible speed of the Q.F.C.M. and you can create a tractor beam.
4. Scope modifiers - research stations only combine power within a system, unless you have the tachyon vortex processors that allow cross-system collaboration.
5. Enable better AI - I don't understand the AI enough to know exactly how this would work, but it seems reasonable that better computers should mean more capable subordinates and faction.

JoshParnell wrote:A new strategic concept is simply embodied in the next iteration of an item that is deployed across your empire.

Got it -- thanks for taking to time to clarify that.

It offends my theorist's sensibilities that an entire star-spanning civilization's creative output is limited to Engineering -- to mass-manufactured Things.

Then the practical "you do want a finished game someday, right?" part of me tells the theorist to go read a book or something, and that this is just One Of Those Concessions That Must Be Made. That part sees your gameplay and implementation points.

It raises an interesting question about how power will spread based on how quickly players can propagate the best production systems through the star systems and ships they control.

Let's say I have 100 far-flung starships, and one of them salvages a blueprint for a new tech. By what process can the object created by that blueprint be installed on all 100 of my ships? Does one system with production facilities need to crank out 100 copies of that object, which I must then split up and shepherd individually to every ship in my fleet? If blueprints encode knowledge, why can't I turn it into easily and quickly transmitted ones and zeroes?

Let's say new/improved objects need to be manufactured for individual use. How will modifiers work? Will they also need to be produced as a Thing to apply them to the base technology to which they correspond? Or, once fully researched, do they instantly affect all created objects of the appropriate type? (If so, how? and why doesn't that also apply to blueprints?)

Questions, questions.

To domanite's suggestions about computers -- I like those! The enhancement and research combo notions in particular sound like fun.

Excellent stuff in this thread.

Do we yet know if the fixed nodes are known when the game starts or if they need to be "unlocked"? I think the best plan would probably be that the tree is known (i.e. you can see all nodes) but each node needs to be researched to unlock and allow for procedural nodes to be created. This would mean you get the benefits of a conventional tech tree with the procedural magic thrown in.

I'm still partial to having "Hull Design" as a node (instead of "Vessels" in Flatfingers' list). Dunno why, it just strikes me as being more descriptive of what you're actually unlocking.

Depending on how Josh lands on organisational structures, we may be missing a hull type (or maybe it's just a hull type?): Colony ship. This is how you would settle a planet for your faction, or possibly create a new civilisation, if such distinctions exist.

There's also something to be said for having nodes that govern "Extraction" and "Refining" ships or facilities (akin to oil platforms today). Unless mining is simply shoot-and-collect, which is distinctly possible (and a good gameplay choice for the lone-player).

I'd like to see two additional nodes under "Extraction" (with the potential blueprint items in brackets):

• Mineral mapping (sensors, mapping computers)
• Assay (mobile lab)

Bit of thread resurrection never did any harm.

Anyway, based on the chat ongoing in this thread, perhaps there should be an "Infrastructure" fixed node? This would then allow a grouping of trade lanes, tracking stations, radar installations, etc. etc.

mcsven wrote:Bit of thread resurrection never did any harm.

Anyway, based on the chat ongoing in this thread, perhaps there should be an "Infrastructure" fixed node? This would then allow a grouping of trade lanes, tracking stations, radar installations, etc. etc.

Agreed, there's a lot of potential in this. Stations aren't vessels, so create a new class under "Engineering" called "Structures" or "Installations" and put "Stations" and "Infrastructure" under that.