Science Breakthroughs, Pre-Warp (Empire Age)?

[Captain_Brian]

Are these going to be added?

Empire Age was a New Game option in Moo2 that allowed you to specify how all the players started. Pre-Warp meant that you started with nothing and had to build your whole empire from scratch (including researching basic propulsion and fuel tech). It was great, and I really miss it in Moo4!

Alao, I hadn't noticed it when playing so far, so maybe breakthroughs are already in. Hopefully they are, because it helped make the early game nicely variable so you couldn't just plan on x happening after y turns since you never knew exactly how long anything took to research.

[FiretronP75]

Yes, the science breakthrough percent chance system of MoO1 and MoO2 need to be in this MoO as well!

The empire starting age option, I'm sure they are already planning on doing.

[Surtial]

Science breakthrough has happened for me at least twice.

[FiretronP75]

Originally posted by Surtial:

Science breakthrough has happened for me at least twice.

I believe you are referring to the random event? Brian and I are referring to a game mechanic that applies to every research project, where every turn you have a percent chance of getting the tech, and the percent goes up as you put more research into it.

[Draco]

Moreover in Moo 2 I believe if a tech required 100 research points you could spend anywhere from 100-200 to actually tech up. Drove me nuts seeing 90%, 95% then 99% before finally getting my much needed engines! Loved it.

I find in this game starting with 3 and especially a colony ship is too much. Maybe start with 1 scout and force the player to build the rest.

[NetPCDoc]

I think someone (might be me?) is mis-remembering ...

On tech break throughs - this was actually a research un-certain-ity - where that actual time of research could just as easily be that much longer as it could be that much shorter; so in the end the research tended to average out to the specified amount of time? (unless the lucky trait weighed in and made the shorter research times more likely?)

Personally, as long as the variance does actually average out, I don't really care whether research always happens in a set amount of time -or- a slightly variable amount of time; I would OBJECT to being the one who ALWAYS ended up spending extra time on EVERY research project.

On the starting resources - if a starting age/advancement option is implemented, that would be where one would alter the number of ships one started with, based on just how advanced (or otherwise) the starting age actually is.

A age/advancement option, based on star-drive tech, suggestion:

• pre-warp = no ships, must research to build them.
  
• nuclear-warp = enough research for a ship class or two.
• fusion-warp = enough research for an out system colony or two.
• ion-warp = enough research for five to ten out system colonies.
• etc.

[worthlesstangent]

I think it is highly unlikely this feature will be added to the game, though I personally like it as well. It doesn't fit the modern game style new MoO is going for. Many gamers understand how tech trees work in games like Civ and would be frustrated with the old MoO system.

[Surtial]

Originally posted by FiretronP75:

Originally posted by Surtial:

Science breakthrough has happened for me at least twice.

I believe you are referring to the random event? Brian and I are referring to a game mechanic that applies to every research project, where every turn you have a percent chance of getting the tech, and the percent goes up as you put more research into it.

I think your right, It was a random event and not the same tech advances that could occur in the earlier game. I always liked that little bit. It was very cool, and emulated the way scientific discovery could, in reality, sometimes take a surprising leap forward unexpectedly. Yeah, I would like to see that come back as well.

[Captain_Brian]

Originally posted by worthlesstangent:

I think it is highly unlikely this feature will be added to the game, though I personally like it as well. It doesn't fit the modern game style new MoO is going for. Many gamers understand how tech trees work in games like Civ and would be frustrated with the old MoO system.

Yeah but, this is Master of Orion, not Civilization. It's one of the many things that made it unique from civ 2 back in the day. Civilization is one game, there's no reason for the father of all space 4x games (Master of Orion) to have to copy Civilization to please Civilization players.

It's not hard to understand and it adds variance to the game play to make it a bit more unpredictable.

It's a sad state of affairs if you're saying 4x strategy games need to duplicate Civilization or the players wont understand it.

[FiretronP75]

Originally posted by Captain_Brian:

It's a sad state of affairs if you're saying 4x strategy games need to duplicate Civilization or the players won understand it.

Yeah, if the next generation of players is too stupid to understand this feature, the world is in a really bad place!

[worthlesstangent]

Originally posted by Captain_Brian:

Originally posted by worthlesstangent:

I think it is highly unlikely this feature will be added to the game, though I personally like it as well. It doesn't fit the modern game style new MoO is going for. Many gamers understand how tech trees work in games like Civ and would be frustrated with the old MoO system.

Yeah but, this is Master of Orion, not Civilization. It's one of the many things that made it unique from civ 2 back in the day. Civilization is one game, there's no reason for the father of all space 4x games (Master of Orion) to have to copy Civilization to please Civilization players.

It's not hard to understand and it adds variance to the game play to make it a bit more unpredictable.

It's a sad state of affairs if you're saying 4x strategy games need to duplicate Civilization or the players wont understand it.

Thing is I TOTALLY agree with you on every point. My point is the developers seem to have gone 95% Civ style for the tech in this game, and I don't know why.

They actually added a progress bar on your research so you can know down to the single scientist how much you need to get the next tech. They spent time implementing that feature.

[worthlesstangent]

I mean at least there are some "pick one" choices on the tree. Even though the tree is clearly a Civ tree.

(Side note: I find the whole Civ series pretty boring, not a fan)

[Captain_Brian]

I really wish they'd just totally ditch the tech tree and go back to how it was in Moo2 or even Moo1.

[FiretronP75]

I love the Civ series. But I REALLY LOVED how the tech tree worked in MoO1! I think every game would be better with MoO1 style science. Would be even better if you had no idea what you were getting next. You just pump research into a general category and you get what you get. Strategy should be about figuring out how to make do with what you got, not about picking the right stuff. Eventually everyone ends up picking the same stuff.

In Civ, the tech tree is supposed to be a history lesson, not just a fun feature, so it has tight restrictions on what can be done with it. But in Sci-Fi games, the future of history is unknown, and so it can be changed every game. In one game cleaning up a toxic planet might be a scientific impossibility. In another game, nobody in the galaxy can figure out how to stabilize phased energy into a beam weapon.

MYSTERY is a key ingredient to making things fun. Rather than galaxy exploration being the only mystery, science exploration should be too.

[Captain_Brian]

Originally posted by FiretronP75:

I love the Civ series. But I REALLY LOVED how the tech tree worked in MoO1! I think every game would be better with MoO1 style science. Would be even better if you had no idea what you were getting next. You just pump research into a general category and you get what you get. Strategy should be about figuring out how to make do with what you got, not about picking the right stuff. Eventually everyone ends up picking the same stuff.

In Civ, the tech tree is supposed to be a history lesson, not just a fun feature, so it has tight restrictions on what can be done with it. But in Sci-Fi games, the future of history is unknown, and so it can be changed every game. In one game cleaning up a toxic planet might be a scientific impossibility. In another game, nobody in the galaxy can figure out how to stabilize phased energy into a beam weapon.

MYSTERY is a key ingredient to making things fun. Rather than galaxy exploration being the only mystery, science exploration should be too.

This is a great point, the civ style tech trees where really a product of being basically a history lesson.

It wouldn't make sense for example to have the English not be able to research longbows.

But in Master of Orion, stuff like that is what made the game so great. You never knew who would have what tech, and each game played differently because you might end up with completely different techs by the end each time.