Nerfing Research further

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Ian_W
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Nerfing Research further

Post by Ian_W »

"Nerfed Research Campus, costs an MC now and has 200 crew. we will designate a hate zone somewhere for this change, but producing 1000/research a day in the mid-30s is far too much"

This is a good start, but I'd have Research add to alien Hate as well.

If Humanity building spaceships, mining bases and stations makes the Aliens nervous, then Humans rolling out new discoveries every couple of months should do it as well.

If the hate mechanic was tweaked so Human ship losses relaxed the aliens more, then strategies involving more Human aggression with early game ships and less turtling would be buffed as well.

The Alien command might well go 'Our kill:death ratio is insane. There is no need to panic at the desperate flailing of the Earthlings against our asteroid mining colonies. Just build some more Defense Arrays !'.
neilwilkes
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by neilwilkes »

But it never did produce 1,000 a day - it is 100 according to the blurb in the game.
I am in total disagreement about research in general should add to Xeno hate levels, as it would be covert research.
The hate levels seem okay at this point to me...but who knows.
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johnnylump
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by johnnylump »

To clarify the patch note:

I've seeing lots of saves where players have built up Mercury Dyson with the scads of Research Campuses and being entirely unconstrained in research.

We certainly intend to make the AI contest Mercury more but in the meantime trying to rein in the growth curve.
anonusername
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by anonusername »

Ian_W wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 6:51 am "Nerfed Research Campus, costs an MC now and has 200 crew. we will designate a hate zone somewhere for this change, but producing 1000/research a day in the mid-30s is far too much"

This is a good start, but I'd have Research add to alien Hate as well.

If Humanity building spaceships, mining bases and stations makes the Aliens nervous, then Humans rolling out new discoveries every couple of months should do it as well.

If the hate mechanic was tweaked so Human ship losses relaxed the aliens more, then strategies involving more Human aggression with early game ships and less turtling would be buffed as well.

The Alien command might well go 'Our kill:death ratio is insane. There is no need to panic at the desperate flailing of the Earthlings against our asteroid mining colonies. Just build some more Defense Arrays !'.
I like the basic idea of being able to fight the ayys more without starting all-out war, but basing it on ship losses might not be the best option. Suicidal missile boats is already the best way to get an early kill and unlock exotics; making it not generate hate would be excessive.
SpaceMarine4040
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by SpaceMarine4040 »

instead of having a MC cost in research campus, there should also have a research term that is a floor just like MC. Why does it matter if you are getting your research from nations or from stations?
PAwleus
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by PAwleus »

johnnylump wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 6:54 pm To clarify the patch note:

I've seeing lots of saves where players have built up Mercury Dyson with the scads of Research Campuses and being entirely unconstrained in research.

We certainly intend to make the AI contest Mercury more but in the meantime trying to rein in the growth curve.
MC is not necessarily a way to go - in my current game I have over 800 MC in 2033 and Research Campuses wouldn't be limited by it (I would just power down some of my Noble mines from too extensive mine network in the Asteroid Belt). However, they are strongly limited in my game by their Volatile cost so perhaps increasing it might be an additional stopper.
anonusername
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by anonusername »

If you are able to defend 800 MC from the aliens, then having a lot of research seems fine. The main issue, in my opinion, was the ability to get huge amounts of research *before* needing to fight the aliens. MC isn't a huge cost in the lategame, but in early-mid game it is a limiter while you prepare for open war with the ayys.
PAwleus
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by PAwleus »

You are right, my case is not really representative here as I didn't go by the way of maxing space research. I checked and in this 800 MC space presence there are only 20 Research Campuses - looks like Volatiles were constraining me in this strategy even more than I thought so perhaps their cost in Volatiles was already working as it should.
Ian_W
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by Ian_W »

You also don't care, at all, about Alien Hate, and presumably the Aliens are trying to shoot your stuff as you try and shoot their stuff.

From my perspective, this is great, and to be encouraged by the game design.
2alexey
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by 2alexey »

johnnylump wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 6:54 pm To clarify the patch note:

I've seeing lots of saves where players have built up Mercury Dyson with the scads of Research Campuses and being entirely unconstrained in research.

We certainly intend to make the AI contest Mercury more but in the meantime trying to rein in the growth curve.
Well, maybe buff Fusion reactors then, so Mercury is not so essential?

It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.

Not to mention the insanity of having terawatt fusion power plants, but needing 5-7 reactors for every station. T3 fission plants are a joke, heavy fussion is not only much further down the tree, it is far more expensive, and take a year to construct.

That is the problem, Mercury is your absolute best space for anything that isn`t mining, and it is far better to just have very cheap T1 mining modules anywhere else, till far into late game.
anonusername
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by anonusername »

2alexey wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:12 pm
johnnylump wrote: Wed Nov 23, 2022 6:54 pm To clarify the patch note:

I've seeing lots of saves where players have built up Mercury Dyson with the scads of Research Campuses and being entirely unconstrained in research.

We certainly intend to make the AI contest Mercury more but in the meantime trying to rein in the growth curve.
Well, maybe buff Fusion reactors then, so Mercury is not so essential?

It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.

Not to mention the insanity of having terawatt fusion power plants, but needing 5-7 reactors for every station. T3 fission plants are a joke, heavy fussion is not only much further down the tree, it is far more expensive, and take a year to construct.

That is the problem, Mercury is your absolute best space for anything that isn`t mining, and it is far better to just have very cheap T1 mining modules anywhere else, till far into late game.
I have found good results by leaving T1/T2 fission/fusion reactors alone (they are already sufficient IMO), but buffing the T3 options in line with their costs and earlier patterns. In particular, T3 fission is increased to 165 power, T3 fusion to 330, and heavy fusion to 660. Heavy fusion is still somewhat inefficient and less powerful than mercury solar, but the gap is substantially smaller.
Ian_W
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by Ian_W »

2alexey wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:12 pm
Well, maybe buff Fusion reactors then, so Mercury is not so essential?

It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.
The problem is not providing power to the research campuses - that's relatively simple to do. It's the sheer number of them that were being built to race through the tech tree without a reaction from the Aliens that was seen as the issue.

Lets assume the threat meter was tweaked so research campuses on Mercury were especially hated but ones on Mars were not. Players would simply build them on Mars. The tech tree would still be raced through, leaving the Humans at rough tech equality with the aliens before the war starts.

That's the issue that the change was designed to fix.
2alexey
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by 2alexey »

Ian_W wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 12:43 am
2alexey wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:12 pm
Well, maybe buff Fusion reactors then, so Mercury is not so essential?

It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.
The problem is not providing power to the research campuses - that's relatively simple to do. It's the sheer number of them that were being built to race through the tech tree without a reaction from the Aliens that was seen as the issue.

Lets assume the threat meter was tweaked so research campuses on Mercury were especially hated but ones on Mars were not. Players would simply build them on Mars. The tech tree would still be raced through, leaving the Humans at rough tech equality with the aliens before the war starts.

That's the issue that the change was designed to fix.
The sheer number of them being build is <partially> because Mercury has huge amounts of power, that allows you to have very MC-efficent setup, that also removes your problem with money, MC, space or vulnerability, that are <supposed> to force player to have more balanced approach. I don`t care that much if the aliens will have me, because I only have to defend 3 planets, and I don`t need notable fleets to do so, battleships with coils/arc laser PD / whatever deal with most alien ships perfectly fine, they just can`t leave orbit, but I don`t care, all I need can be neatly packed in just 3 places.

Sure, it`s not all of the problem, but ~50% of it. For just 6*8 MC for all of the ground planet, I can have 8*13 campuses, protected by battlestations. Or 8*4 MC / 8*8 campuses for T2.

Now, this isn`t just related to research campuses themselves, but Mercury dyson sphere problem absolutely is created by the fact that everything is better if located on/near Mercury due to how atrocious T3 fission/fussion is, and to put a cherry on top, fission/fussion are far deeper in tech tree, are more expensive, and are consuming valuable fissiles.
2alexey
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by 2alexey »

anonusername wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:13 pm
2alexey wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:12 pm It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.
I have found good results by leaving T1/T2 fission/fusion reactors alone (they are already sufficient IMO), but buffing the T3 options in line with their costs and earlier patterns. In particular, T3 fission is increased to 165 power, T3 fusion to 330, and heavy fusion to 660. Heavy fusion is still somewhat inefficient and less powerful than mercury solar, but the gap is substantially smaller.
T3 fission consumes over twice(and more rare at that) the resources to build, and ten times the upkeep of solar. Buffing it to 250energy is justified.
Fusion is even more expensive to build, but is slightly cheaper on upkeep, maybe as far as 800 (same as Mercury solar) is justified, and Heavy Fussion is insanely expensive to both build and upkeep, costing more than ten times the cost of T3 solar, and having very high upkeep. ~1500 to 2500 is appropriate.

That would still have Mercury as the best option, since it is cheaper and tech comes in far earlier, but at least deeper system building would be notably more competitive.
anonusername
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by anonusername »

2alexey wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:11 am
anonusername wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:13 pm
2alexey wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:12 pm It is just insane that fussion power plants are so weak, compared to solar on Mercury. It doesn`t matter if AI will or will not contest Mercury. Build everything clustered there is by far the most MC efficient strategy, in particular because mid-late game reactors are so bad compared to Mercury solar power.
I have found good results by leaving T1/T2 fission/fusion reactors alone (they are already sufficient IMO), but buffing the T3 options in line with their costs and earlier patterns. In particular, T3 fission is increased to 165 power, T3 fusion to 330, and heavy fusion to 660. Heavy fusion is still somewhat inefficient and less powerful than mercury solar, but the gap is substantially smaller.
T3 fission consumes over twice(and more rare at that) the resources to build, and ten times the upkeep of solar. Buffing it to 250energy is justified.
Fusion is even more expensive to build, but is slightly cheaper on upkeep, maybe as far as 800 (same as Mercury solar) is justified, and Heavy Fussion is insanely expensive to both build and upkeep, costing more than ten times the cost of T3 solar, and having very high upkeep. ~1500 to 2500 is appropriate.

That would still have Mercury as the best option, since it is cheaper and tech comes in far earlier, but at least deeper system building would be notably more competitive.
A bigger increase could definitely be justified, I was trying to be minimalist with my tweaks to avoid throwing off balance too much. (Since testing balance as a single user is very time consuming.) My changes were enough that terawatt fusion reactors didn't feel like a huge disappointment, which is enough for me. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to an even bigger buff from the devs, however.

I do think fission should remain in the role of "approximately equal to Earth solar, but at a higher cost". It serves as an additional cost for outer system colonies, which is a useful gameplay element. Fusion, especially terrawatt fusion, is definitely underwhelming.
neilwilkes
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Re: Nerfing Research further

Post by neilwilkes »

There is another option that has not been discussed - why not reduce the efficiency of Solar on Mercury?
In reality the panels would degrade at an alarming rate due precisely TO their proximity to a massively radiating Star being slap next door, outputting immense amounts of radiation. They would need replacing every other year that close - there is no atmosphere or magnetic field on Mercury that can in any way protect them from the appalling bombardments of SEP's
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