Research system and resources kind of suck

[Firedust]

Anyone else think the research trees are hard to read and get a handle on? It was so much easier to understand FP1 research trees and figure out what to do. Now it's so much less readable.

There's also too many resources to worry about now, that don't really add anything except busy work. Like goods, materials, stamps, etc. More is not always better, and having a few resources made it much more fun and impact. Now it's all just kind of muddy...

[Roadie]

My main complaint is that once you get the gist of it, you realize that most research choices are just tiny trade-offs of "increase either Disease or Squalor" or "do you want higher workforce cost or higher heat cost" or stuff like that. There aren't enough things that really change gameplay rather than just shifting numbers around a little.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by Roadie:

My main complaint is that once you get the gist of it, you realize that most research choices are just tiny trade-offs of "increase either Disease or Squalor" or "do you want higher workforce cost or higher heat cost" or stuff like that. There aren't enough things that really change gameplay rather than just shifting numbers around a little.

You are both right and wrong, at least in my opinion after extensive time with the game.

You are right, a majority of first and second tier choices are just boosts and/or tradeoffs.

But you are wrong in that there aren't enough things that change gameplay. A few factions in and of themselves completely change things. And beyond that second tier of research, into the third and some that have even more...you'll find things that completely alter gameplay.

Like the Algorithm.
Having a complete group of people that are in indentured servitude to the city.
Sterilization.
Turning your dead into food.

I mean this is just a small list of things that directly change and impact the game and how you interact with it. Mostly categorized by being either Radical research or Cornerstone abilities at the highest levels of a zeitgeist affinity. I think there's plenty to go around for various play styles.

[3dlab]

At the end of the day, city builders like these usually boil down to number shifting, both with raw numbers, multipliers and buffs/debufs. What stands out to me however is how some of the tech changes the narrative, even if you think it doesn't change much at surface lvl.

This is one of the reasons I really like what they did with the faction system. Now they just need to build on top of it: add more narrative options and flavorful gameplay elements.

Regarding the readability, I agree sometimes its a head scratcher.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by 3dlab:

At the end of the day, city builders like these usually boil down to number shifting, both with raw numbers, multipliers and buffs/debufs. What stands out to me however is how some of the tech changes the narrative, even if you think it doesn't change much at surface lvl.

This is one of the reasons I really like what they did with the faction system. Now they just need to build on top of it: add more narrative options and flavorful gameplay elements.

Regarding the readability, I agree sometimes its a head scratcher.

I am STILL trying to wrap my head around how the story/narrative changes...dynamically and in response to...all your research and law decisions. There's even hidden combinations of things that just 🤯

[adrien_perleflamme]

There's literally two more resources, namely heatstamp and luxury goods, if you don't consider prosthesis as resources in FP1. And luxury goods are mostly used to increase heatstamp production and lower crime anyway.

In FP1, there is steam cores, food, fuel, wood, steel and prosthesis.

In FP2, there is steam cores, food, fuel, material (similar to FP1 wood), prefab (similar to FP1 steel), luxury goods and heatstamps.

In FP1, there even were DLCs with a lot more resources (Last Autumn, with generator construction materials).

But I agree the research screen UX is quite complex.