incramental research and engineering advancements

[swillo]

I know that we have talked about this before but I had some ideas and wanted to bounce them off the community.
Outpost building is such a big part of kenshi now, but there comes a point when you have everything built and everything researched.
This has always been the point where game research/tech trees have failed for me. once you know it all there is no reason to keep going right? That for me is fundamentally flawed. We are always striving for something more. Once we reach the end of our current knowledge we still say "what if I try this?" It human nature.

I was thinking that Kenshi research needed that kind of what else can I do to tweak just a little bit more out of this thing, to make working on your base that much more interesting and also personalized.

If when you reach the end of the tech tree on a certain area, there would be an infinite research option. One that didn't provide a step upgrade, but instead provided an Incremental increase to that one area. So once you know how to grow wheat, you can improve your methods to get a 1-5% increase in efficiency. This would not be known techniques, so you would have to do the research on your own. You would have chance to figure it out, based on your research skills and the level of increase. You would work on it for a time that is determined by the level that you are attempting to achieve, and at the end you would either discover what you are looking for or not. If not then you would have to start over again. If you discover it. Then you could have engineers try and add the upgrades to your structure. They would also have a percentage chance to make it work or not. They can keep trying over and over but if they get it right you would have an incremental increase to your wheat output. This could be applied universally to tech from crossbows to cook stoves.
Once in place it would do away with having to create multiple levels of machines and instead engineers would have to baby their creations to keep them working.

Also for the research I think instead of a set "cost" you would instead throw resources at it. Instead of needing X and Y. I can invest 20 books, 2 engineering blue prints, and an AI core in the project. the more resources the better the chance to succeed. Either way the resources are used up in the process.

The upgrades would just added as a variable to the machine itself. +3% speed, -2% resources needed. If the object gets destroyed the upgrades go with it.

I know that we talked about similar things years ago, but just was playing and thinking about it and wondered what other thought.

[Shidan]

The problem I see with it is you either have a cap on these bonuses (thus sort of nullifying the entire point), or you don't and leave the door open to some absurdly OP things. Harpoon turret with 1000 damage? Machines that finish tons of goods in seconds? Fields that grow enough crops to feed hundreds in an hour? The list goes on. While you could make it an abnormally long time to get these bonuses, there are a ton of people who would sit around for hours just to get there.

While the finite nature of the nature of the research is a bit of a let down when you reach the end, I'm not sure infinite bonuses are the right way to go. The game has never been primarily about the destination, more so the journey to get there. I see the end of research in the same way I see the cap on a skill. It's time to either move on and find another objective, or start a new game.

[swillo]

The problem I see with it is you either have a cap on these bonuses (thus sort of nullifying the entire point), or you don't and leave the door open to some absurdly OP things. Harpoon turret with 1000 damage? Machines that finish tons of goods in seconds? Fields that grow enough crops to feed hundreds in an hour? The list goes on. While you could make it an abnormally long time to get these bonuses, there are a ton of people who would sit around for hours just to get there.

Good points, but rather then an abnormally long time, I was thinking of a smaller and smaller chance of success. each level being more difficult then the last to come up with something new. You would have to offset that with more and better resources. Instead of you do x and you will get Y. you do X and you might get Y or you might get squat.

If you wanted to dedicate one person to research only Harpoons then go for it, only you can decide when you have hit the wall of diminished returns. And if you do create a Harpoon of total destruction, Good for you. It's a single player game. Your not hurting anyone. (in fact you could mod it in right now if you wished) There could be an arms race on the forum, who researched and applied said research legitimately the farthest. But I'm thinking more along the lines of playing along and suddenly randomly you get a the popup, "Your scientist ? has just make a break through! Now he wants more materials!" or "? says that should have worked, he just needs more materials to see if he can figure out why it blew up!"

What I'm really looking for is to add several new objectives to the game. I've got 5 AI cores sitting in on my bench, What to do with them? If I have become self sufficient in my base. I don't need to leave. Why should I? perhaps to find more resources for research.

Also imagine that if you had that Harpoon of destruction others would see it as a definite threat and would possibly send thieves to destroy it or steal it. Or maybe pay you for the blueprints?

The game has never been primarily about the destination, more so the journey to get there.

Absolutely. That's why I never want to get there. One of the things that I like the most about Kenshi is unlike most games there is a way to continue playing infinitely. Never stop. I think this would give us just one more way to do that.

[Roccandil]

I like this idea. Reminds me of the miniaturization techs from MoO2, or the refinement techs from another game I played.

Personally, I think there should be a difference between breakthrough techs (new way of doing things, with a lot of potential to grow) and refinement techs (better way of doing the same thing, subject to diminishing returns), rather like the CPU industry has been getting incrementally more and more out of silicon chips, while knowing that we need to do something very different to get a big leap forward in CPU speeds.

So breakthrough techs would be those researched with artifacts, whereas refinement techs should just take time, and eventually take so long to get so little it's no longer worth it.

[rincarsarff]

I do like the idea of incremental research as he said.
- I do understand runaway research like you said because I've seen it happen in Star Ruler. (I only played it a few times, but I remember being able to level up research infinitely without any downside).
-----His mentioned decreased success chance or diminishing gains could be a solution. Probably together to really hammer people about constantly reaching for progress.
- I do understand his idea behind success chance to get a piece of research after fulfilling the research requirements (time and materials). reminds me of SotS2 research tree where the simplest technology might only have a 20% of success and you'd think "FUCK". If it failed you could always try to get it again.
-----That success chance would suck for basic research, but higher up ones it would be understandable. It's a torture to get the materials though (unless you of course import instead of searching the whole map).
----- I got to edge 1 weapons research, that in my mind would be one of the difficult to achieve research modules instead of you automatically being able to get it.
----- If he did implement this idea it wouldn't be until the full game was released and even then it might not be until he created his kenshi-predecessor game with all the ideas he's had swirling in his head but wasn't able to implement.

It'd be a big undertaking either way, but it would be a unique feature considering tech trees for games.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Stellaris has a unending research tree. that gives incremental bonus once you researched all that's available to you. the bonuses are small and take a massive time to research. its one of the few unending research trees that i know of that works well.

[rincarsarff]

Stellaris and Fallen Enchantress. Where at the end of the tech tree you can research repeatedly a thing to give you 5% more health points or others, but it gets harder every time... but also by then you are god mode and turns to research don't scare you. and that is where the 5% chance to get 5% more health, then 3% to get 5% health, would come into play. Muwhahaha

[Sol Lignum]

While it might be very realistic and athmospheric, it doesn't sound very cool at all.

What would you do while your infinite level 5 of smithing is researching? How long it would take anyway? Will there be a point to reforge 30 (and potentially, 128 and more for those who're into TW scales) pieces of weaponry, at all? Just to give them another 0.02 points of dmg or less?

For me it's been tedious enough to reforge about 25 black chainmails of top quality for my entire squad, after my armoursmith has suddenly went through level 90. And I wouldn't even bother researching a better thing, it's just pointless in perspective.

In short: grind must die period