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I have been thinking about a different research rule idea from that in the main rulebook and wanted to get people's thoughts on the idea. I wanted to curb the yo-yo effect of waiting until turn's 11 and 12 for tech advancements.

My thought is that instead of making a roll based on the amount invested / 1/2 TDP at the end of turn 12 to see if a nation learns a new technology that the following is used. The new chance for success is: (amount invested - tech requirement ) / tech requirement x 100. Once the sucess % is greater than 0, the nation rolls per TURN to determine if the research is gained.

Example: A nation has a tech requirement of 50. Normally, if that nation has invested 21 EP, it has a 42% chance of success in turn 12. Now in the new system, there isn't any roll for the new technology until 51 EP have been invested (no matter how many turns it takes to get there). Once 51 EP have been invested, the chance for success is: (51 - 50) / 50) x 100 = 2% chance for success per turn. If the nation decides to add 10 more EP in following turn, the sucess chance (61 - 50) / 50) x 100 = 22%

Once a nation has doubled the tech requirement, the chance for that technology is 100% (Math is fun). Now the tech requirement for nations might need to be changed to take into account that there is zero chance of success until you reach the tech investment level, but since a nation can 'speed' through technology if it wants (and can find the money), perhaps the normal level is fine.

Thoughts?
-Bren

Hmmm, an interesting idea. Something like that would probably best fit in an exploration campaign, where it's not uncommon to have money you don't have an immediate need for, so throwing extra into research is not a problem.

Personally, I always figured the late in the year research expenditures merely reflected when the grant checks were sent to the labs, but that the research had been ongoing all through the year.

Interesting approach. I'm allowing my players to invest up to 200% of planetary output in tech to auto advance 2 tech years. Speeds up the game and makes them spend more EPs on research. (Exploration campaign it is)

Cheers,

Charles Lewis wrote:Hmmm, an interesting idea. Something like that would probably best fit in an exploration campaign, where it's not uncommon to have money you don't have an immediate need for, so throwing extra into research is not a problem.

Personally, I always figured the late in the year research expenditures merely reflected when the grant checks were sent to the labs, but that the research had been ongoing all through the year.

That is absoluetly how I "visualized" the funding/research in VBAM as well!


Bren,


I like the per turn roll to determine success, waiting 12 months is a bit "game mechanicy" but the VBAM flexibility allows you to tweek things as you're doing here. I'll mull this over and see what I think.

Charles Lewis wrote:Personally, I always figured the late in the year research expenditures merely reflected when the grant checks were sent to the labs, but that the research had been ongoing all through the year.

I guess that is an interesting way to approach the issue.

-Bren

After thinking about this some more, there is a way that a starting 'peaceful' nation can really rack up the tech advances early on. Assuming a nation's maintenance cost is ridiculously low (~20%), a micro advance per starmada could be every 3 turns! Pending no outside threats, a nation could spend the first couple of years quickly upgrading their micro/macro advancements with no 'major' issue.

There are a comple of 'fixes' that I am considering at the moment.

1. Raise the tech requirement so that it will take longer for nations to get a possible tech advancement. The only issue with this idea is that a nation that spends 'normally' would suffer from a longer 'dry spell' (Consider a nation that spends 10% TDP would have to wait 11 months before there is *any* chance for a discovery).

2. Impose a penalty on the percent chance of discovery for a certain amount of turns after a tech discovery. Thus a nation that 'needs' to speed through tech advancement could, but at a very high cost. My initial thought is that the turn after an advancement, there is a 50% penalty to a discovery chance that would be lowered by 10 per turn until gone. the only issue with this is that a -50% isn't much to a nation that is able to spend 80-90% of its TDP on research (1 to 2 turn increase).

3. Change the chance of discovery to some log scale so that the more a nation pours into research, the less 'return' a nation would get. Something that allows a nation to get to 30-40% chance fairly 'cheaply', but once that threshhold is reached it gets expensve too get much higher (Remember even at 30%, a nation has a real good chance of a discovery in about 7 turns).

Still working on this...
-Bren

I don't think there is any problem. I know that I'll never get beyond ten game years (closest I got was with a campaign I wrote the 'end' status for on here), and frequently I give up on campaigns between one and three game years (the latest one, for instance, I ended 34 turns after activation--where the admission of the Ikhanx Clans into an alliance already containing the Kryptonian Royal Kingdom, Djosta Republic and Irsonkaihn Alliance meant that the other three powers were inconsequential (even the largest one, two INT-1 powers unified, the others being a IND-3 race and a power that got to INT because they rolled for a special event and I decided to fudge something that would allow them (at that time just passed IND-3) to try to get into space.

If you have the sort of campaigns that go that long, then write up some house rules to curb rapid tech advances (maybe a power can't increase its macro level in a tech more than once every five years?)

I'm tempted to try and do a crossover campaign, but the only settings I know are Babylon 5, Star Trek, Star Wars and Farscape, and I only have ideas for converting B5 vessels to Starmada...

jygro wrote:After thinking about this some more, there is a way that a starting 'peaceful' nation can really rack up the tech advances early on. Assuming a nation's maintenance cost is ridiculously low (~20%), a micro advance per starmada could be every 3 turns! Pending no outside threats, a nation could spend the first couple of years quickly upgrading their micro/macro advancements with no 'major' issue.

Have you considered capping the maximum research expenditure per turn,

This has the effect of slowing RP accumulation, and also preventing the "end of year dash" to gain RP,

In the current campaign I'm playing the players need to build research facilities to buy RP with. Each depot has an associated cost and upkeep, and allows the player to buy 5RP per turn - so there is incentive to only build what they need (otherwise tech advances become very uneconomical), as well as some incentive to buy tech each turn (because they may not have time to later on),

A starting peaceful nation probably still has an advantage here, but it will start to cripple them financially,

Gareth_Perkins wrote: Have you considered capping the maximum research expenditure per turn,

This has the effect of slowing RP accumulation, and also preventing the "end of year dash" to gain RP,

In the current campaign I'm playing the players need to build research facilities to buy RP with. Each depot has an associated cost and upkeep, and allows the player to buy 5RP per turn - so there is incentive to only build what they need (otherwise tech advances become very uneconomical), as well as some incentive to buy tech each turn (because they may not have time to later on),

A starting peaceful nation probably still has an advantage here, but it will start to cripple them financially,

I saw that idea in a previous post and I really thought it was a good idea. The only issue is that was wondering if anyone had use it and what kind of feedback people had received. So, how is it going?

-Bren

jygro wrote:

Gareth_Perkins wrote: Have you considered capping the maximum research expenditure per turn,

This has the effect of slowing RP accumulation, and also preventing the "end of year dash" to gain RP,

In the current campaign I'm playing the players need to build research facilities to buy RP with. Each depot has an associated cost and upkeep, and allows the player to buy 5RP per turn - so there is incentive to only build what they need (otherwise tech advances become very uneconomical), as well as some incentive to buy tech each turn (because they may not have time to later on),

A starting peaceful nation probably still has an advantage here, but it will start to cripple them financially,

I saw that idea in a previous post and I really thought it was a good idea. The only issue is that was wondering if anyone had use it and what kind of feedback people had received. So, how is it going?

-Bren

I had not seen that, and think it sounds pretty slick. Like a designated research institute or university in lines with some of the other optional structure rules.

Very well generally,

I should add that most of my players are first-timers mind, so they may simply not have figured out how to "finesse" things,

I set the Base cost at 8, and upkeep of 1/2 - not too expensive, but enough. Each base allows 5RP per turn of tech investment - so a "starting empire" (with a tech target or 30-40RP) really only needs one facility, but with one facility will need to spend on researching for 6-8 months of the year (costing 42EP for the 30RP target including upkeep),

An empire attempting to cover the same RP investment over (say) two months would need three facilities (costing 54EP),

So from a purely financial perspective it's more economical to build fewer. I may toy with some of the figures for later campaigns (at the moment a single facility will comfortably cover an empire up to a tech target of 60, so I am tempted to reduce the RP allowance to 3RP per facility per turn, and the maintenance to 1/1),

Just to add another idea to the list:

I have been playtesting a new way of doing tech advancement. What I have done is something similar to how tech investment in Master of Orion (MOO) worked. You invest up to the required amount and, once that amount is met, you have an increasing chance each turn of acquiring your tech advance.

At present, I have been using a +10% (cumulative) chance after the tech goal is met. So even with bad rolls you will always receive the tech advance after 10 turns. If you are lucky, though, it can come sooner.

The primary benefit I have seen to doing tech in this manner is that it eliminates the artificial 12 turn cycle without adding a lot of other unnecessary checks along the way. It does force a player to fully-invest, however, which could be a problem for some.

So far I have done an end-of-the-year check like normal for all projects, just to help along powers that can't or won't invest fully into tech to get their next advance... but I am thinking that might be a bad thing. First, it forces the retention of the turn-12 tech advancement check, which really doesn't need to be there with a progressive research model.

I am torn, too, as to whether there should be penalties or special rules under this optional system for advancements sought after the first in a campaign year. I am thinking not, though I have played it both ways in my current solo campaign. Having to pay full cost would certainly end up being a limiting factor in an of itself.

The other issue I have been thinking about is tech trades between empires. I think exchanging of unit plans is probably all right without any real restrictions, but other forms of tech have me a bit worried. Macro tech levels (if present) definitely should not be tradable. I think you should be able to receive "assistance" that lowers the research cost, but that should be about it. For other micro tech advancements, you have to do something to keep a major power from using a minor power to "farm" tech advancements for them, otherwise I would say a free exchange would be fine. Again, "trades" should probably reduce the research cost or time for the other power.

I've being using the: (amount invested - tech requirement ) / tech requirement x 100 model along with the Research facilities (see http://forums.vbamgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=150 ) and it's been pretty cool overall. Yes, an empire has to spend more to get a technology payoff, but that doesn't really bother me honestly.

At present, I have been using a +10% (cumulative) chance after the tech goal is met. So even with bad rolls you will always receive the tech advance after 10 turns. If you are lucky, though, it can come sooner.

Now that isn't a bad idea either since a person is already needing to spend the 'full amount' for a tech advance. I might have to try that option and see how it works.

The other issue I have been thinking about is tech trades between empires. I think exchanging of unit plans is probably all right without any real restrictions, but other forms of tech have me a bit worried. Macro tech levels (if present) definitely should not be tradable. I think you should be able to receive "assistance" that lowers the research cost, but that should be about it. For other micro tech advancements, you have to do something to keep a major power from using a minor power to "farm" tech advancements for them, otherwise I would say a free exchange would be fine. Again, "trades" should probably reduce the research cost or time for the other power.

I would say that 'trades' just give a bonus to research (either macro or micro) since there can be a lot of abuse. Perhaps a flat 25% of the TDP for the empire to keep things from getting out of hand. Unit techs should be much an issue. Perhaps a 10% direct research cost so that an empire can't get everything for cheap!

One thought I had on Tech Development was to let the players say when they wanted to make the tech roll rather than waiting for turn 12. Thus a player could invest 20% of the total (Tech Development Percentage or TDP) each turn, planning on making the roll on turn 5, but something happens that they need to make the roll on turn 3. In their turn orders, they could instruct the Game Master to make the roll at 60%.

Now if the roll fails, what to do. My thoughts were that the TDP would drop back down to 0%, but each % invested would be doubled up to 1/2 the TDP of the last roll (in the case of the example above, 30%).
So if the above roll failed then:
Turn 1: Invest 20%, then the TDP would be 40% (20% + 20%)
Turn 2: Invest 20%, then the TDP would be 70% (40% + 30% (max))
Turn 3: Invest 20%, then the TDP would be 90% (60% + 30% (max))
Turn 4: Invest 10%, then the TDP would be 100% (70% + 30% (max))

Jimmy