Martian Network and overall research progress

[YertyL]

So, this may be subjective, so I would be interested in your experience, but at least for me, the following has been pretty consistent in all of my play-throughs:

By the time it would make sense to build the network node spire, research is effectively over.

The network node makes sense at a point where you can afford to focus a medium dome on research only. But in almost all of my game, research tends to progress roughly this way:

• Early game: Research costs are low, and you get a lot of freebies, from sponsor research to rover research, to map anomalies, to planetary anomalies...Progress tends to be pretty fast even with very few or no labs.
• Mid game: You want to expand your research, but then you need more food. And machine parts. And education for your at this point considerable amount of children. Electronics are also running low, and you need to expand to a new rare metal mine to produce those...The contribution of anomaly/sponsor research is also a lot less noticeable, so research tends to stagnate pretty hard
• Late game: OK, you have taken care of basic needs and production and can finally really focus on research. So you crank out 2+ hawking institutes, your research suddenly explodes to 10k a sol, aand...you're pretty much done in 10 more sols. Not in the sense of having researched absolutely everything, but everything you really need, which in the late game is basically the mohole mine and that's it. Start the repeatables that you also do not need, but that "no active research" popup is annoying, so...

So, again, this may be partially due to my personal playstyle, but the developers seem to have also acknowledged this at least to some degree by making the terraforming techs significantly more expensive than the normal ones. However, I still think the flow of research progress might benefit from a few tweaks:

• more exponential research cost: less costly early techs, significantly more costly late game techs. It would be nice if you actually needed a few dedicated research domes before hitting repeatables.
  
• tweaking the "freebies": to balance their power over the course of the game, I would change earth-mars initiative, rover AI, and the satellite project to increase your research by ~10% instead of an absolute sum. Research anomalies could give 1-2 sols worth of research instead of an absolute sum.
  
• pure research techs earlier: hawking institute, martian network and omega telescope need to be unlockable early enough that research is not already over when you have built them. I would move them all up ~2 rows. IMO the network node should also give some research on its own, or increase all your research by 5-10%, because it currently just has too few advantages compared to building more labs/hawking institues/other dome spires to justify such a costly tech and building

What do you think? How do you experience the research progress in the game?

 

[Foefaller]

While I do feel like I'm building a dedicated research dome w/spire later than I should, I've yet to feel as if I had reached the point it wasn't worth it.

Way you describe mid-game sounds like you are freaking out about other things which might not be as important as you think, or at least so important that they must be solved before you can set up a research dome as long as you have a good revenue stream and didn't roll a mystery that will cut you off from Earth. It's usually a fairly long time (like, in the final steps of the Mystery) before I'm completely self-sufficient on electronics, or have enough happy colonists that a micro or basic dome dedicated to education is no longer enough. By the time I do, I've usually found a nice spot with 2 or 3 research nodes that a medium or Trigon Dome can touch that I can set up for tech. Network Spire can come after.

 

[Xeorm]

To me the issue with the research spire is the other mechanics don't feel like they support using it. I look at my priorities and with the start of the game I'm looking to become resource independent from Earth. By midgame I'm working on producing more and just plain expanding. Neither of those ever feel like I'm hugely limited by research. More research is always nice due to the bonuses you can get from extra tech, but I don't feel I'm limited. Because it's on a low priority but useful level, research ends up getting put in where I can fit it. And usually I can fit a lab or institute here or there.

And that's all I need for research. There's still plenty I need for research mind you. Even on my longer playthroughs it takes a good long while for me to get my research done, and in general I'll even feel like I'm waiting for techs at some points to start the next big thing. But even then I don't think that I want some dedicated research spire. Instead I'm perhaps wanting more food, or a training dome, or a elderly dome, etc. Research domes don't fit into my plans, so I don't tend to view the research spire as being a big draw. I never get around to thinking that I'll want a dedicated research dome because my research rate has been steadily increasing as I go anyway.

Overall, I like this progression too. I don't want research being super expensive given the timeframe of the game. 100 sols is a good number to go for completing an achieve + mystery, 200-300 for a long game where you're looking to also terraform and go the distance. Not everything needs to be lengthened out and I do enjoy the rate of progression that I currently have.

 

[th3freakie]

Something you didn't mention is how the Network Node requires quite a bit of staff. Staff that could just as easily go into another HI. This delays the point of usefulness even more, so that even if you get the spire for free (Europe gets it) it still doesn't make sense to use it until a point when the game is essentially over.

 

[YertyL]

So, I have to correct myself a little bit here: I tried a game with the paradox sponsor in which I prioritized the research techs and held off setting up my own electronics production via cash import until after I had built 2 dedicated research domes (medium domes with 2 institutes + network nodes), and got some solid use out of them before hitting repeatables. However, even when buffing 2 fully staffed hawking institutes, my network nodes were only 1.5-2x as powerful as a lab, with the same staff requirement.
I guess you could increase its use if you start outsourcing comfort and/or housing to another dome, but still...I find it hard to justify this amount of setup -- you need a dedicated larger dome, an expensive tech and a spire slot -- for so little payoff.

Same with water reclamation btw., I find it increasingly hard to justify all the setup instead of importing a few more vaporators. These spires should maybe at least not be staffed.

 

[SillySMS]

The one advantage I can think of is that network nodes don't contribute to collaboration losses. That said, ordinarily they are unlocked at the point where the game is almost "over", compete with other stupidly valuable techs (such as the wonders, moisture vaporators, etc), and you can brute-force your way around the issue with a few more science buildings.

My suggestion is... honestly semi-inspired by the AI mystery and the name of the spire: a network node. Research in a dome is boosted by +20% per operational node. Thus, while +20% in your first science dome is "meh" compared to building another HI/RL, by the time you have 3-5 science domes, you're definitely loving those nodes.

Combine that with more exponential science costs, and possibly moving the nodes upwards a tad on the research tree, and you can get a situation where late-game science can get pretty painful without those nodes.

EDIT: Also, I forgot some of the other stuff in the OP.

On the Earth-Mars Initiative and Explorer AI: the additive bonuses of those are invaluable to getting some research going in the early game, before you can afford to put a lot of resources into science. The high-speed commsat project, though, that I could definitely see as a multiplicative bonus: that'd certainly be much more worth 100 electronics than a relatively measly +400 science/sol.

For 100 electronics, I can pay maintenance on a much more powerful Hawking Institute for 250 sols. A multiplicative bonus, however, becomes valuable at the point where you actually can afford to throw 100 electronics at the problem of research.

 

[Promethian]

This isn't only a problem with the science spire though. Most spires are simply rather weak when you look at the cost of them.

Someone already mentioned water reclamation which I add the outdoor farm also hits the value of the water spire pretty hard. You can go through the trouble of setting up all the workforce and whatnot for a farm dome with water spire. Or use outdoor farms and import seeds and some vapes.

Arcology is only useful in small domes and even then is outdone by the Hanging Garden in terms of providing high comfort housing.

Cloning Vats aren't worth it. It effectively gives you a sped up birth rate but the bonus births are shorter lived people. Better to get a medical or garden. Both will boost birth rates for you and you get fully lived martainborn out of it plus high quality service.

Sanatorium is good, but you only need one or two of it and you can put it in a dome specialized to universities so it doesn't block use of a Hanging Garden in a production dome.

Medical is actually worth making. However you can get the benefits of the spire with a small 3 hex building. Its also competing with the powerful Hanging Garden.

Finally is the Hanging Garden. Increases the comfort of all the homes in the dome. So the apartment buildings effectively become good. This is why the Arcology is bad. With a Hanging Garden you can make apartments that have a huge amount of housing in place of the lower capacity housing. In medium and larger domes this is a huge gain. It doesn't stop at giving you all the housing though. Its also a 100 value park service. Between the comfort provided from people visiting the spire and housing being quality with it you get a boosted birth rate so the big advantage of the Medical spire is matched as well. Plus people get a bonus to work quality when their stats are high so high comfort means you get more out of your manufacturing and mines. Hanging Garden is so good it drives pretty much every other spire to obsolescence.

Final note: I am aware of the church spire. But that is a single sponsor and I haven't actually played the church since before space race. Too many other things to try. I will say it seems quite good and might compete with the Hanging Garden if the workers in it can get the service value up to 100. Then it'll be a worthy trade off of having to man the spire but getting sanity restore vs the Hanging Garden.

 

[The Boz]

Arcology is almost good, but needs more residential space. Much more. 50-100% more.
Cloning is utterly, hideously useless.
Medical Center is alright.
Network Node is useless, man-wise and resource-wise.
Hanging Gardens makes sense.
Water Reclamation makes sense in highly specialized farm domes. 6 work slots isn't too much.

 

[mizushimo]

We have all these toys and nothing to do with them. I only use network nodes if I either get them early because of a mystery or need a huge amount of research for a mystery (I THINK it's the A.I mystery? It's been awhile, I mostly play the game in challenge mode)

Research is always a race for me. There are very necessary tech that's needed right away, and some sponsors don't give you any research so it can take ages to make progress on anything. I actually like how challenging research is in early game, it ups the tension.

Midgame for me as the point when I'm able to build and maintain hawking centers. I like to focus on giving my people all the services they want and expanding the population as fast as possible, so my colonies hoover up resources like crazy. One or more of those expensive, late game tech is usually vitally important to my colony's survival (waste rock recycling for low concrete maps, water conservation on low water maps, deep mining before my metal runs out. Midgame I usually have two mid or one megadome devoted to science. Research is only easy for me midgame if I've unlocked certain breakthroughs or am playing as Japan/europe

Late game for me is when I've finished all the research and built all the wonders. The challenge becomes keeping as many people employed as possible without running out of resources...and terraforming every square inch of my map.

To make things more interesting late game, what if we had to sink a bunch of research to unlock a second, optional mystery? The reward would have to be something useful late-game...like the ability to make a new game+ (a new outpost from the colony?) Or something to spice up the people management of late game, like a new perk or..idk, outdoor art installations ala mt rushmore that the colonists work on directly? The drones are dismantled and the colonists must do their work because of some new ideology that your colony has adopted?

About your suggestions, I do like the idea of the rover and other sources of ongoing research points be a percentage rather than a fixed value, or introduce some percentage based sources of research points later (or a way to switch them over). I think they are fixed because say, 10% of 200 points per sol is much less useful than 100 points in early game. The omega telescope is more about getting those extra three breakthroughs than the research points so I'd leave it where it is but maybe give it more functionality since it is a wonder.

I'd say that Hawkings is good where it is, it's comparable to the university and it's a huge research boost once it's up and running. The Network node is just..kinda..useless. Even if it popped up earlier in the timeline, I don't know if I would spend my precious research points on it without a sudden need.