Lo-Fi Games

I know that the research is still a work in progress. I believe that one means to improve the research would be to have a system based on the actions/ observations of the scientists. For example: If you want to research the next tier of stone quarry, then you would need a person who has worked in the quarry to do that research, or someone who patrols the base looking for new research ideas(this could be a task tied to the science skill).

This is similar to the research system in the game evil genius, were research topics where randomized based on the observations of the scientists that wandered around your base. And if you wanted to get better weapons, then you would need to have one that was at a minimum of one less level then the current research level(like a catan #1 in the lab if you want to research how to make catan #2). This would also give the player incentive to hunt down artifacts, so that these may be studied and used to unlock new things.

This can also add fluidity and realism to the game. The scientists can wander the base, and talk to your other men. A check is done based on the laboring skill of the non scientist and the current tech level of the equipment of the task, and if it is passed, then the scientist will get a new topic for the bench.

The only downside i can see to this is that it will add a lot of time to unlock the topics. However, this system could be used for certain special research tasks.

I found it easy to get to the maximum research level and also to the best weapon types. This made the game immediately easy, which made me kinda lose interest (I still play daily nevertheless). Researching about new things should be hard, like not just simply waiting 12 real hours to research everything.

Suggestion : Kinda what you (philthymcnasty) said, the only way to research something is to either own it, or to have someone with enough knowledge and skill to make a blueprint of it. The science skill should be crucial in all research, everything you design or make increases your science skill.

WEAPONS AND ARMOR :
Purchase a weapon or a piece of armor --> Break it down to gain knowledge on how it is built --> You then have the blueprint to create a copy. This will increase your science skill. Quality of copy will depend on your weapon/armorsmith skill (of course!), possibly science skill too.
AND/OR :
Have enough [insert any weapon type here] proficiency + enough weaponsmith skill --> create a weapon blueprint. This will increase your science skill. Quality will depend on your weapon proficiency and weaponsmith skill, again, maybe science skill too?
Have enough science skill --> create an armor blueprint. This will increase your science skill. Same thing goes with armor.

BUILDINGS AND MOSTLY EVERYTHING ELSE :
Purchase a blueprint from the guy who supplies you with building materials (pricey though)
OR
Have enough science to make the blueprint yourself (I don't know how science would be initially earned but hiring an engineer, from a bar, would make it possible).

Because personally I found it too easy to get the best weapons possible, too easy to farm building materials, iron ore, hemp, wheat, etc...

I am almost done with all the new research. I am not sure what the finial system will be(this is STILL in alpha, which is confusing because it is better then most finished games).


A simple solution to the end of research problem, is disease. Randomly spawning, diseases that require a certain amount of research time to get the cure.This works regardless of: post apocalypse, lost colony, alternate dimension, or Sahara samurai theme park. Random plagues should generate, and cures could be researched. This adds a dynamic, never ending purpose that can easily*(i think) be coded(pandemic games have existed since comadore 64). A dedicated clan of doctor samurai that roam the badlands curing the aliments of the world adds an awesome never ending story for the players, and leaves it to them on how much to charge for the cures....

Option 2 is have the research bench research better prices for your trade goods that expire after a certain amount of time. Place these under an economics tab.

Option 3 is have the research bench make drugs. This give the research bench purpose, and makes money/enhances combat/helps recruitment.

I like the idea of having to observe something and brainstorming before a research topic can come up. It is by far more realistic and encourages you to look for neat stuff.
Take it one step farther and combine researched tech together to get a hybrid. Why not eventually open up vehicles and blimps (type of hot air balloon) and boats. Maybe even build a mobile city like in John Carter!!?? Mwhaahahaha!!
Then again I would have no idea how to implement something like that. Probably way more work than it is worth

I agree with the overseer idea to help with the research I wild also like to see more in-depth research for everything for example, smithing make it to where you have to research differ steel types for the blade, variety of materials for the handle and the hand guard. And make it all have different properties like weight speed, cutting ability attack strength and defense.

I agree somewhat I think there should be items that are needed to research the techs
Also I think there should eventually be unique animations for each tech research

Chris said that in the future he was thinking he would likely be adding in Ruins and such that became a requirement for certain research.
So when the new biomes come in he will probably do that next and we will have differant ruins in each of the biomes giving even more differance for building in certain places.

The reason I don't like the research where you have to find something is I feel like it would possibly stop research or make you limited, because personally it would anger me greatly if the thing stoping me from being able to build some really cool armor was the fact that. I couldn't find the right thing because it didn't exist or I couldn't find it. It feels restricting more than anything, that's why I think it should be stupid long to research unless you find that armor and break it down and it knocks off said pesantage of it, so instead of 190 hours it become like 40. I also think the overseer should have a big impact like the higher the ability in said field it becomes easier

i hear ya mate.
It can suck at times if you gotta go around grinding just to get that little bit stronger.
Think about it tho, if you didnt have to work hard to get so strong then everything you have done would be meaningless. While it might be ok to make you strong fast, making you as strong or stronger than other factions is something that shouldnt happen for a long time.
Perhaps Chris will add a start story where you already control a fully setup faction, so you dont have to work much to get stronger than you already are.

First I'll add my previous entry of my views on research in other topics, I'm terribly sorry for such a long post:

arthoz wrote:I like the idea of blueprints. It's kind of boring if you have the same tech to research all the time. Just wait and in no time you'll get everything seems kind of tasteless. It's better that you could only research the tech of other faction after you've bought the required blueprint and those blueprint may only be bought with certain level of faction relationship or prerequisite quests.

Also in every different game depending on your gameplay choices, you might have different tech-tree related to the quests you've completed, discoveries you've made in your travels and factions you've befriended (or slaves/captives acquired). Eg: cannibals might have unique bonecraft techs and surgeon/medical/artificer faction could enhance limbs or implants.

You might even gain tech from continous capture/abduction of slaves and torturing captives. Sort of similar to tech research table only you use torture/interrogate captives/slaves to unlock the tech and increase the research rate.

There is an arguement that a single research will allow anyone to master the skill of making a unique sword? How about looking at it from the industrial perspective. Researching tech from a blueprint means you are making a standard operating procedure and quality control for making the product. In that way you could ensure a standard level of output everytime by any operatives designated at equipment production. Only that a master craftperson would make it faster due to their skills and understanding of the trade (in addition if you'd like a % chance of adding rare/unique/special enhancement to the weapon/equipment giving more reason to use a skilled unit).

Moreover you could become a weapon merchant selling weapons and equipments to other faction (not selling tech but selling the product). For example a quest/contract to provide certain ammount of armament to a faction which resulted the spawning of powerful patrols/guards/scout or even an army for invasion.

Sell it on your shop counter and see if the dynamic economy would cause change in merchant caravan guard or faction soldier equipment...sell directly to both side (or three side, four side, etc...you decide what political relation to influence) for profits or to even out their strength and prolong a war or support one side to decisively act to end it...your choice.

To put it into context of this topic my take on this is that research tech apart from normal tech tree and faction acquired should need a pre-requisite for it to be unlocked. Sort of a hidden tech for example:
-Build 500 open corpse pit/impaled corpse: unlock the Butcher Banner.
-Mine and smelt 100/500/1000/10,000 steel: each stage unlocks an increase of production effeciency and relevant weapons and equipments.
-Capture/release 100/500/1000 slaves: you might get some inspiration perhaps industrial tech like labour efficiency and stuff.
-Hunt animal/Gather skins: unlocks certain armour and equips.
-Discovery of plants or animal or ores leads to better medicine, medics and other stuff like alchemy/poison/bichemical warfare/chemical body enhancement, etc.
-Kill 10,000 enemy: better weapon design aim at killing.
-Maim or incapacitate 10,000 enemy: better weapon that do less killing and more at incapacitation.

The lists goes on...this would give incentives for players to experiment and discover stuff on their own trying to play the game through different perspectives and method which may unexpectedly reward the players with powerful tech tree. The developers could hide tons of this stuff along with additional updates and maybe even even after years of playing, no one might be able to discover all of it.

In addition research on their own should requires resources like a certain amount of money or food or construction materials, tools or ores. Just like my previous post, maybe a number of tortured or interrogated slaves. In a less gruesome setting it could be done by collecting certain amount of plants or animal samples or relics like carvings or books in order to max the research bar or complete a stage of the research.

For example for every scrolls or plant samples you have available you could proceed with 5 hours research time of the total 20 hours, meaning you need to have 5 research item avaiable. Similar like cooking or making rum. All the more reason to travel the world in hunt for relics and rare flora and fauna.

You could still have the present method of research for the standard tech tree but I believe discovery of a unique tech or tech tree along with the hard work to research it would make it all the more rewarding in terms of gameplay experience variety and replayability.

Not to mention if you allow npc the same option to unlock hidden tech. If a faction killed enough enemy or capture certain limit of people their upgrades will reflect that they've discovered the tech and would be available for the players to purchase the blueprint. The longer you play the game like 500 to 2000 days, the more unexpected thing you might discover not just on your own but also by the actions of other factions.

You become warmonger and the whole world consume in fighting, the factions would fulfill requirements of special related tech to conflict. Use lots of archers and you start seeing armor upgrades to counter this, besiege a lot of cities and many city would soon have thicker wall upgrades, and so on and so forth. Allow the world to prosper and other type of tech tree requirement could possibly be fulfilled by the players and the npc so it's not just a dynamic world in terms of activity but also in terms of technolgical dicovery.

So I had to do a bit of searching to find a topic that was related to it but I’m glad that everyone had already brought up the idea of reverse engineering. I figured I’d throw my two cents in and then go into how the mechanic would actually work.

I’m really enjoying the blueprint system they have for armour and weapons but I don’t think it should be as easy that you just buy a blueprint for everything. As of version 0.50.3 there are still weapons and armours that haven’t been added into the blueprints. To extend the process of research and the need for science skill, in order to unlock certain blueprints you need to reverse engineer those items themselves.

So for example, you come across an incapacitated Holy Servant, either you did it or you wandered upon him. Instead of just looting and selling/using the Holy Chest Plate you would have a third option of reverse engineering the armour. Back at your research bench you would add the item as ‘input’. For each piece of that armour you reverse engineering it would count towards the overall progress of figuring out how to make it. When you’ve fully researched the item you receive a blueprint.

To determine how proficient you are at reverse engineering a piece of equipment would depend on a combination of the character’s Science stat, weapon smithing/armour smithing stat and the level of the Research bench you were using. So the equation for a character with science at 62, armour smithing at 75 and a level 3 research bench would looking like this:

62 (.075) + 75 (.075) + 3 (1) = 12.75% Reverse Engineered

Of course the actual multiplier amounts would be determined by Chris. I just threw in lower numbers to show that it would help to have higher benches, skills and that you’d need to collect a couple versions of it in order to actually unlock that blueprint. I was also thinking that the time it would take to reverse engineer each item would be ¾ the amount of time it takes to produce that item. Included a picture of what it might look like.

Thoughts?

+1 for H2O I think the research system needs something else than just blueprints and research. This could be great way to improve it.

Also, maybe some of the low tier equipment can be researched "straight" without actually finding it first. And maybe some of the medium tier would require just certain material, for ex. chainmail sheets or armor plating, to research further. And finally the high tier would require the equipment itself.

????????

I agree. If you see someone wearing a Ninja Zukin or Bandana it probably doesn't take a genius to tie a cloth around one's head. So things like that you'd know right away. Then after you craft your first set of chainmail sheet you probably know how to put that together as a shirt.

Competitive research

I like ideas that player need to do some action to research, watch workers, create and use weapons, do faction quests. However, making research more difficult does not always improve the game-play, unless the research is not the game itself (that I think requires too much efforts from developers).
What is worried me is a reason not to research.
Comparing with other games, like Civilization, Watercraft, research is a one of many possible strategies. E.g. you may rush, you may tech. There is a choice. And it is not obvious choice, because spending efforts on tech, the player might be rushed by opponents, or wasting time in rushes s/he might face high-tech enemy unprepared.
But in Kenshi, currently, there is no choice — it's always plenty time to research, you do it because there is not reason not to do it. The only show stopper is the real time, that is actually very bad (well, it's good only for free-to-play games, which trends to be so much boring that players agrees to pay to speed them up, and I hope Kenshi does not go this way, please ).
In Kenshi there is no need to rush enemies (moreover it's [s]Sparta[/s] madness). There's no need to protect the base with low-techs, it's possible to research sitting safe inside allies town (and again, it's very complicated to protect a beginner's base against e.g. large swarm of bandits or holy squads (that in the same time is better equipped, outnumbers, has better skills), easy to leave it and run to the nearest ally).

To keep researcher playable I suggest the following.

All factions, even bandits, upgrade their equipment.
Logically closed variant for me is looking like
1. Major faction (Holy nation, Union cities) definitely spends resource on research, and it's their main source of tech advance, however in fight or trade they can obtain superior items from other factions, that overcome them in other fields.
2. Stable factions, like mercs or cannibals, may do some improvements in tech, but most of advance they get from looting or trading with other factions.
3. Wandering faction, like hungry bandits, improve only by looting and stealing from other, but they definitely spend some efforts to upgrade themselves by this way.

The main char can either do completely sole tech campaign, where s/he must find its compromise strategy between loot, trade, reverse-engineer and develop, or s/he may choose to be allied with one of the existed faction, get good start and lead the mother faction to the bright future
If the game will allow player to ally, then balance between factions can be either done against player's choice, or not done at all, allowing player h/er/imself to manage game difficulty by choosing different factions. So its not a problems that the player can dis-balance the game by joining the one of the faction.

Above puts some requirements for the research tree; it should be infinite (or at least very large, so the faction technically is able to dominate much early anyone riches the tech top).
The research tree should be splittable, i.e. it should much easy to be on the edge of one research branch and low in other branches, than keep on the average all branches at the same time. So the factions may occasionally specializes in some fields, and exchange with other factions is important to make faction good in all fields.
The exchange should be extended, so it will be possible not only to loot swords, but also to obtain an engine for a water-well.

For each tech field it becomes that the faction has two levels — production level (it needs research), equipment level (it can be either produced or be got from other factions, faction fashion equipment can be improved if high-tech components is used).

Research tree split seems should very benefit for the game-play, but it is not that realistic, so the mechanisms may be not evident.
What probably can be done here.
1.Specialization of scientist and research branches that is difficult to alert.
2. Routine prerequisite, that is, a faction needs to produce items and use items, to improve them. So the huge industry is needed to be good in all techs that is restrictive. Also using own weak items for research will be non-practical when better items can be simply bought or.. stolen, so it will be quite game-type constraint that leads to tech specialization.

I agree with alot that has been said here when it comes to research. Like the fact that each faction has it's own research tree. You can join that faction to learn that tree or kill and loot there members. Then re-engineer that idem then improve it. Then depending on what idems you use to make it can improve it or weaken it's stats. Can even make like a certian kind of armor lighter but not as strong as the origional because you replaced some of it with leather but kept the coverage. Then again because you now know how to make it you can improve on it. As in we make that armor set with the normal kind of iron or we use the chain we can make with a combination or iron bars that are a higher carbon steel to make it. Though it will be heavier then the origional it will be stronger as well. Same with weapons. This way once you re-enginer something just knowing it is half the game now you can make it with and how you want. Could even make a wooden or bone/metal katana.

I think some research trees should be made if you take option A then you have to go with its other options and it research tree. You can not go back down path b as well. There for adding a little unique ness to play each time you play the game. Like for instance you have 2 types of refiners for iron.
Option A you get alot of the basic iron but not much of the higher quality iron. In time you will get better at it but even then it will be like gold very valu-able to you. Though because you can easily get the iron out of the ground the man power it takes is very few.

Option B your mine is focused on the higher value iron with the better carbon in it because of that you do not get much iron at first. An even later on when it picks up it still takes alot of man power to do it.

An once you pick lets say option A you can not go back later and pick option B. Same with research. This way no one can know all. An though I like the blue print idea for the buildings. I would think it more involving in the nature of the factions around you. If you have to join them or loot there men to learn there tech. Looting and re-enginering the rusty idems would be the fastest way. But not many merc armor out there is rusty.


One thing I am not seen much in the game is light armor that can be crafted or researched. I am seen alot of heavy armor but only the merch chest plat can be researched. Personaly would like to be able to research and craft all light armor for my faster units. An then turn around research and craft full body heavy armor for my heavies. But even idems like this for instance I buy a vest or leather shirt or loot one. Then re-enginer it. Then tweek it to not only be a leather shirt but a leather steel mesh shirt. That way now I have a light armor shirt that has kept it's light ability but has had added protection with out suffering with a lot of weight added to it. This also means no one person will ever have the same kind of light armor suit or heavy for there men. Every thing is enginered and researched and can be changed around. Would also mean a lot of using said idem in combat and seen if it works or fails.

I have to disagree with you on making research branches/trees mutually exclusive. Not only is it silly to say that you can only learn one type of knowledge, but most players find it assinine and constricting.

For example, consider the PC game Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. There are three skill trees, each with a few branches, so even within a particular tree, progression is nonlinear. The player might learn everythong eventually, but its important for them to have a choice in how it progresses.

Then Dark Messiah gets a console release. The console version has a couple extra levels, and "simplified role-playing element". What this actually means is at the beginning of the game, the player chooses one of four classes, and then skills are automatically learned according to that class as the player progresses. Linear, mutually exclusive skills.

Can you guess how players received these different versions? The PC version scored highly, whereas the console version was voted worst console title of the year by some reviewers, and scored significantly lower. On the Kenshi side of things, we've already been told that there won't be character classes, as there's no reason to constrict players/characters, so there's no reason to add that sort of limitation to research.

Oh and about the lack of light armor. I'm pretty sure the reason is simply that light armor is more like clothing, and would require a greater effort from the art side of things to have reasonable looking outfits. And as you may know, Chris is already over budget on art.

Well yeah I am not one to worry about the art work I mean this is alpha. I just want him to get the new A.I. going. An as for the low armor stuff it can be an x in the store for all I care and make my men naked. As long as the stats are there. All that stuff can come later when things start to go better and he has more money to pretty things up.

I know what you mean but making them naked is a bit lackluster. At that point you might as well just mod in your own nonexistent armors. At least give them some sort of placeholder. Also: only men? What gives? You don't have any women in your squad?

When I say men. It is a military point of view you do not gender in combat you call them what you call them. An I only have 2 women in my squad of 17.

On to the research and my idea of unigue trees. It also adds to a replay ability of the game. But I do see were you are coming from. Maybe some of the earlier ideas are better were you have to find the tech to learn it. Like have your engineers see and study it to learn the tech. Also think anything that can be made by the npc characters or used by them we should be able to make as well. Including there walls and gates. So just starting out with the bare basics would make things hard. An every thing else you would have to find study then you can improve on it with time.

LIke the walls of the npc cities your engineer or scientist studies them. An depending on his lvl depends on how long he has to study them. Then once he understands it you can only make the bare basic wall. But through research and time you can make the big great city walls.

This way even if you can build a house out in the wilds some were you can not even begine to make a wall for it. Until after you learn the tech to build it. Same with the houses armor and so on. Even weapons I mean there are a lot of rusted blades out there but through study you can make the rusted once then with more study and research you can make it stronger and sharper.