Research exploit?

[TulsaCorp]

Something I've noticed is that you can get to "super advanced" tech in about a year and a half if you don't use any priorities, until the desired tech has 5 months left, then put on the priority and finish it instantly. Then just take it off until the next tech gets to 5 months. Doing it this way doesn't set back your other tech at all and you still get your research done in far less time. Am I insane or is this not incredibly broken?

[redhongkong]

this doesnt work for 1890 where u wanna push certain research ahead of eveyrthing

such as range finder taskforce size funnel (boiler?)

maybe its ok for 1900+ where all ur basic need is already available

[TulsaCorp]

Originally posted by redhongkong:

this doesnt work for 1890 where u wanna push certain research ahead of eveyrthing

such as range finder taskforce size funnel (boiler?)

maybe its ok for 1900+ where all ur basic need is already available

I can sort of understand this. Usually if I do a 1890 start I wait about two years before going to war anyways.

[hottomo]

Perhaps it needs tuning but I don't really see the point : isn't obtaining a bonus the purpose of micromanaging vs standard behavior ?

[munroburton]

It does slow down your other tech progress. You just don't really notice it because the number of months left isn't revealed until enough progress has been made in that area to know what's coming up - and perhaps because you only have the vials assigned for 1 or 2 turns at a time.

I lowered my tech budget until Armor Forging's next item takes 106 months to complete. I then put vials somewhere else and the number of months increases to:
1 vial = 156 months remaining
2 vials = 205 months remaining
3 vials = 255 months remaining

So we can see from this that using 1 vial comes at the expense of ~50% extra time in ALL other areas, increasing to 100% and 150% as long as those vials are assigned.

Oh and putting a vial on that Armor Forging takes it down to 26 months. That's an one-item reduction of 75% in exchange for 50% penalty in the other 29 areas. Might as well, this is what happens to AF's times when it has one vial and the other vials are allocated:
1+1 vials = 35 months remaining
1+2 vials = 43 months remaining

[Anti-Bully Ranger Ricotta]

Originally posted by munroburton:

It does slow down your other tech progress. You just don't really notice it because the number of months left isn't revealed until enough progress has been made in that area to know what's coming up - and perhaps because you only have the vials assigned for 1 or 2 turns at a time.

I lowered my tech budget until Armor Forging's next item takes 106 months to complete. I then put vials somewhere else and the number of months increases to:
1 vial = 156 months remaining
2 vials = 205 months remaining
3 vials = 255 months remaining

So we can see from this that using 1 vial comes at the expense of ~50% extra time in ALL other areas, increasing to 100% and 150% as long as those vials are assigned.

Oh and putting a vial on that Armor Forging takes it down to 26 months. That's an one-item reduction of 75% in exchange for 50% penalty in the other 29 areas. Might as well, this is what happens to AF's times when it has one vial and the other vials are allocated:
1+1 vials = 35 months remaining
1+2 vials = 43 months remaining

If all tech were equally valuable then the math would say that focusing your research would be horribly disadvantageous. But that's not the case, because most of the techs are of far less importance than a small handful of the others. Like, it doesn't really matter if your submarine, communications, and mine tech is lagging behind everyone else if you're running around with geared turbines, oil fired engines, and twin turrets on your 33kt cruisers while everyone else is still using coal-fired multi-expansion steam engines and single turrets on their 23kt cruisers.

[TulsaCorp]

Originally posted by munroburton:

It does slow down your other tech progress. You just don't really notice it because the number of months left isn't revealed until enough progress has been made in that area to know what's coming up - and perhaps because you only have the vials assigned for 1 or 2 turns at a time.

I lowered my tech budget until Armor Forging's next item takes 106 months to complete. I then put vials somewhere else and the number of months increases to:
1 vial = 156 months remaining
2 vials = 205 months remaining
3 vials = 255 months remaining

So we can see from this that using 1 vial comes at the expense of ~50% extra time in ALL other areas, increasing to 100% and 150% as long as those vials are assigned.

Oh and putting a vial on that Armor Forging takes it down to 26 months. That's an one-item reduction of 75% in exchange for 50% penalty in the other 29 areas. Might as well, this is what happens to AF's times when it has one vial and the other vials are allocated:
1+1 vials = 35 months remaining
1+2 vials = 43 months remaining

This is true, but that's not the actual amount of time it would take because I would only have it assigned for a single turn. In reality it only sets it back a month or two, as long as you are still investing in tech at least.

Take my current campaign for example. It's 1907 as Japan and I'm investing $33,583,450 in tech. Coincidence Rangefinder III has four months left, Tube Mechanisms II has five months.

Once you put the priority on rangefinders the torps go up to seven months. But once you take off the priority on the next turn it still shows five months, meaning only a single month was lost. Yes that might be a month from a range of tech, but it still evens out when you can just do the same thing for those as well.

[munroburton]

Sure. You've lost that month on torpedo tubes(and everything else) in order to speed up rangefinders. That's the tradeoff which makes this not an exploit. 1 month lost from 29 trees for... 3 months off rangefinders? That's a net loss of 26 tech-months.

Then you move the vial to tube mechanisms, maybe get 4 months off for a net loss of 25 tech-months. Now your overall deficit is about 51 months. And so on.

Eventually, your diesel 100,000ton super BB with radar is sunk by mines or submarines because you lost a lot of research from mines(has mine detecting and sweeping techs), your recon and such sucks from lack of communications, your ASW is poor and so on. Or because you don't have advanced enough triple turrets, you've slapped 15 twin turrets on it and it goes up in a flash fire... because you also don't have enough internals techs.

"Free" vials, it turns out, are not free. They're one of the most costliest things to use in the game. :D

[TulsaCorp]

Ahhh I see. I was thinking it wasn't taking research from every tree. But going in the game and testing shows it is. So that means I've actually been slowing down my research.