Replace Instant Research with Points Based System

[Zundy]

Now this may be a '''tad''' controversial but how about instead of having R&D research up the chain every round, instead have a points based persistent system in which scientists generate points in round which after a certain threshold has been hit (staff discretion) items at said threshold can now be produced at any time and, if the mappers are feeling frisky, may become standard equipment throughout the station.

For example, enough points are gathered in X tree to produce better power cells. These can now be produced anytime by R&D and come as standard in APCs, equipment etc.

Thoughts?

[Mofo1995]

There are a lot of suggestions that come around to spice up R&D, and a lot of them would be better than what we have now. I think a persistent system like this would be cool, but, I think it'd be too easy to cap out. And then, once capped, there's the issue of having to come up with new technologies that become progressively more powerful and potent in their respective fields, and I think it could create issues by removing challenge from the game. Though, at the same time, it'd be nice to remove the feeling of senselessly treading water that R&D gives after while of doing it.

[Zundy]

I get your reservations but I see this as giving more freedom to the dev/lore team to produce more super cool technologies. Maybe even technologies that have no real effect mechanically, but effect the overall setting (clinical immortality, psy-ops, fast growing uber-animals etc).

It would require technological progression on the dev/lore side though but I wouldn't worry too much about that as new tech would need more power. New 'depleted photon tipped blue space bullets' may well teleport past personal shields and pierce armour, but it still damages a person as much as any other bullet.

It doesn't necessarily have to be the product of the scientists on station either. Like the antag contests certain research could be tied in with the overarching setting (this new product is the result.of the entire NT science division etc).

It also doesn't have to be the objects mechanically IG. People.could submit ideas for technologies that could be researched and the devs/lore could approve/reject them. If approved they can be super secretly added.to the thresholds.

[Arrow768]

I like this idea, but sooner or later you will reach the point where you max out the tech tree.

Therefore I would support resetting it every x days be it 30 days or 180 days doesnt matter now.

If we do this we should allow them to research into different fields.

So they have to decide if they want to spend the next x days trying to get the tech for that rare gun or that cool mech. Both shouldnt be possible (or only if you have a very dedicated research team)

Also pulling stats would be interesting.

So you can see a trend what gets researched and graduately change the tech requirements to steer them in one direction or another.

[Mofo1995]

I like this idea, but sooner or later you will reach the point where you max out the tech tree.

Therefore I would support resetting it every x days be it 30 days or 180 days doesnt matter now.

If we do this we should allow them to research into different fields.

So they have to decide if they want to spend the next x days trying to get the tech for that rare gun or that cool mech. Both shouldnt be possible (or only if you have a very dedicated research team)

Also pulling stats would be interesting.

So you can see a trend what gets researched and graduately change the tech requirements to steer them in one direction or another.

 

I think this is a nice solution, combined with Zundy's general idea of this encouraging new techs to be made. It gives devs time to work with any new item ideas they can think of in addition to preventing the crash in the in-game high tech item economy. Either way, there are a lot of fantastic propositions to remake research into something great, and I really like the originality of this one bringing persistent technologies to the table, even if just for a time frame.

[icy_dew]

I've always had a problem with the whole "everything you created dissapears" stuff. This'd create some nice evolution in the station.

[Nanako]

I've reread this thread five times without paying attention, now looking more closely:

Yea arrow is right, and to add. We developers cannot possibly keep up with the pace of player research, and cannot feasibly provide a new stream of content to keep that system goingwithout getting a fulltime staffmember dedicated to it

Persistent research is a nice idea, but the eventual result will be continually pushing things to pointlessly overpowered levels until we run out of ideas

Periodic resetting...could work. I guess it would allow you to carry something over. but that might lead to problems unforeseen.

I don't know, this is a difficult design decision

[Zundy]

Why would you set the research thresholds so low they require new content/resetting so often?

You could argue that having an IC newspaper is impossible as you'd have to update them daily. As we can see we got around that but NOT updating it daily.

Just make sure the threshold isn't unnecessarily low so you don't have to update as often.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Currently we have one rp-centric research field and that is xenoarchaeology. I believe that a combination of it being immensely finicky and technical, and its focus on fluff benefits, all combine to turn it into one of the 'dead' jobs of the station. Similar to the psychologist role there's no real pay-off or mechanical incentive. You spend all round doing xenoarch work and all you got was a lousy fossil.

I had this thread in my head for a few days and I've been wondering if we would not benefit by turning RnD's non-mechanical research into a long-term collaborative effort. Yes, we may end up maxing out the tech tree, but we can still create our tech tree in such a way that it is fun to drive it forward. When you play an RTS you max out the tech tree 'Eventually" but you still spend an entire game getting there. And we may also immensely benefit if we expand research generation to the entire station and turned RnD into a place where they determine how to spend research points we generate.

Implementing such a system would look like....

 

• 1) Add a fractional value to all feasibly trackable actions in the game.
  
  2) Add these 'raw' values to the RnD database when done.
  
  3) Ability for science to turn raw values into 'refined' values that add to tech tree, and make persistent.
  
  4) Watch the raw results for a week or so.
  
  5) Use the information gained to determine how much each level of tree should cost, hopefully making each level take a week or two on average.
  
  6) Launch formal system from level 0.
  
  7) Watch as station slowly unlocks new, permanent techs and see what happens,\.
  
  8) Decide what to do when we max out our tech tree.

 

I don't know if it would be more beneficial to just automatically upload the raw values from actions or make them have to upload them via their own PDA's or something.

"I DON'T CARE IF HE WAS SPACED HE FIXED THE ENGINE LIKE FOUR TIMES WE NEED HIS PDA TO UNLOCK THE NEXT LEVEL OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH"

But even in the innate form I feel the benefits would heavily encourage RnD involvement with other departments, and give most everyone the feeling that they're participating in research, which is the point of our station.

[LordFowl]

As Nanako is no longer on the dev-team, I will be moving this project back to the general subforum.

[ben10083]

This is a good idea, but maybe to counter the eventual cap have more incentive for antags to wipe research, causing the servers to be MUCH more important than usual.

[Zundy]

This is a good idea, but maybe to counter the eventual cap have more incentive for antags to wipe research, causing the servers to be MUCH more important than usual.

 

I like that, makes targeting research an actual thing. I still stand by the overall suggestion.