Mechanic Unlock Flow is Off

[Promethian]

We are unlocking deep mechanics too quickly and it is letting us skip some of the gameplay phases. The perfect example of this is my recent colony. I have built the Mohole. Which is effectively the game's "I WIN" button. I haven't even looked at researching deep metals. Wasn't worth it because shortly after getting deep scanning I got enough anomalies to unlock most of the techs, including Mohole. I don't have any Hawking Institutes made. I have 3 small domes and 1 medium dome. Haven't even researched megadome tho the tech is visible.

I am looking at my techs and I have skipped over a ton of them and gone straight to the end.

I think the problem is the key/unlock anomalies. They give us too much. There needs to be a limit to how far they can push us down the tree. Like say 3 or 4 un-researched techs per line, maximum. That way we can leave a couple undesirable techs on the backburner for a while but still be able to advance.

Just make them give a beaker anomaly of research once we are at the cap. Or to make it more fun, a small chance to give a breakthrough. Say 10%, 15% for PDX sponsor.

 

[Gilmund]

I'd personnaly go way further and give options to only see the next tech in line once you've researched one. So you would have a max of 6 techs at the time (5 lines+ breakthrough). The anomalies would make you see what are the next techs but you wouldn't be able to pick them unless you get there. No rush to wonder.

 

[Promethian]

I'd personnaly go way further and give options to only see the next tech in line once you've researched one. So you would have a max of 6 techs at the time (5 lines+ breakthrough). The anomalies would make you see what are the next techs but you wouldn't be able to pick them unless you get there. No rush to wonder.

That would remove the value of the key anomalies and restrict choices way too much. 3 or 4 out won't be skipping entire phases of development but give us the freedom to choose from a set what is most valuable to us.

 

[MarQan]

TL;DR I would like the game to be more difficult, but I wouldn't want to be forced to research useless techs.

I think your issue a good example, but the problem is more complex than just Mohole vs deep resources or anomalies.

Soil Adaptation makes Hydroponics and Fungal Farms irrelevant for example. That's 2 useless buildings, a useless tech (Low-G Fungi) and a useless breakthrough (Superfungus) for researching a 1-2k tech.
On the other hand there are meaningless techs like Water Reclamation, Magnetic Filtering, Martian Patents, Smart Home, Utility Crops to name a few. These just aren't worth the research points and the related costs.
And of course Breakthroughs are also completely broken, that has been mentioned a few times.

That being said, if you had the research points to push for Mohole then you basically won anyways. Your suggestion would've delayed this by what.. 20-40 Sols? Would that matter?
Currently even on max difficulty "winning" is only a matter of time.

 

[Gilmund]

That would remove the value of the key anomalies and restrict choices way too much. 3 or 4 out won't be skipping entire phases of development but give us the freedom to choose from a set what is most valuable to us.

I'm all to give people more options at the beginning of a game to define what you want to play. Therefore what you call a restriction of choices is to me an addition of choices we don't have at the moment.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

I think a better solution to the Moho issue is, just to requreWonders to be staffed and staffed hugely. As in you need a Mega dome given over to staffing a moho mine and the support staff they need.

Same ith the artifical sun, same with the others.

 

[Promethian]

TL;DR I would like the game to be more difficult, but I wouldn't want to be forced to research useless techs.

I think your issue a good example, but the problem is more complex than just Mohole vs deep resources or anomalies.

Soil Adaptation makes Hydroponics and Fungal Farms irrelevant for example. That's 2 useless buildings, a useless tech (Low-G Fungi) and a useless breakthrough (Superfungus) for researching a 1-2k tech.
On the other hand there are meaningless techs like Water Reclamation, Magnetic Filtering, Martian Patents, Smart Home, Utility Crops to name a few. These just aren't worth the research points and the related costs.
And of course Breakthroughs are also completely broken, that has been mentioned a few times.

That being said, if you had the research points to push for Mohole then you basically won anyways. Your suggestion would've delayed this by what.. 20-40 Sols? Would that matter?
Currently even on max difficulty "winning" is only a matter of time.

Perhaps. However in that time I'd have to expand to more and more locations. I'd have done some of that expanding towards deep deposits because of their value. Also you seem to be overestimating how much tech I had. 100 sponsor, 180 from rovers, 100 from that early social tech, 3 research labs giving about 800 total. I don't have the research points to be pushing endgame techs. Mohole took me 17 sols to research itself and half of the robotics techs aren't researched. Not because I don't want those things but because I unlocked so many techs the Mohole came up and I went straight for it.

With my change there would have been an extended time planning out where to build next. Making the tunnel. Planning the wires and pipes. Arranging for water. I'd have chased after those deep rare/metals. All the things that make the game.

However now its all trivial. I have a rocket set to automated selling super fast because fuel is easy and the Mohole generates more rare than my factories plus the rocket can spend. I have skipped over several phases of development. I am in end game while missing out on several steps.

 

[MarQan]

Perhaps. However in that time I'd have to expand to more and more locations. I'd have done some of that expanding towards deep deposits because of their value. Also you seem to be overestimating how much tech I had. 100 sponsor, 180 from rovers, 100 from that early social tech, 3 research labs giving about 800 total. I don't have the research points to be pushing endgame techs. Mohole took me 17 sols to research itself and half of the robotics techs aren't researched. Not because I don't want those things but because I unlocked so many techs the Mohole came up and I went straight for it.

With my change there would have been an extended time planning out where to build next. Making the tunnel. Planning the wires and pipes. Arranging for water. I'd have chased after those deep rare/metals. All the things that make the game.

However now its all trivial. I have a rocket set to automated selling super fast because fuel is easy and the Mohole generates more rare than my factories plus the rocket can spend. I have skipped over several phases of development. I am in end game while missing out on several steps.

With techs 13-14 costing 10k and 15-16 costing 15k I assumed about 1k research points per Sol for that extra 1-3 techs you'd need to get, so I'd say my estimate was on point

You can easily finish the relevant part of the tech-tree when you're only halfway through the actual colonizatoin process. That's really underwhelming and I agree that it's a problem.
But first, I think, the techs and related buildings would need a serious rebalance. Probably make research cost exponential instead of the current linear, to incentivise investment into research. This would also make some low level core techs a bit cheaper while making wonders much more epxensive. For that you would also need to move some of the techs around. And only after that you can start tweaking anomalies.
That's how I see it at least. maybe your problem would be solved with that specific change, but I'm really hoping for a more serious rebalance.

 

[Promethian]

With techs 13-14 costing 10k and 15-16 costing 15k I assumed about 1k research points per Sol for that extra 1-3 techs you'd need to get, so I'd say my estimate was on point

You can easily finish the relevant part of the tech-tree when you're only halfway through the actual colonizatoin process. That's really underwhelming and I agree that it's a problem.
But first, I think, the techs and related buildings would need a serious rebalance. Probably make research cost exponential instead of the current linear, to incentivise investment into research. This would also make some low level core techs a bit cheaper while making wonders much more epxensive. For that you would also need to move some of the techs around. And only after that you can start tweaking anomalies.
That's how I see it at least. maybe your problem would be solved with that specific change, but I'm really hoping for a more serious rebalance.

I like the idea of something more comprehensive, my solution is an improvement stand alone but can be part of something more. Maybe increase cost like you say, but make every tech you research reduce the cost of techs that are higher tier. So there is incentive to spread out and get the cheap techs in all the categories. Can make the wonder techs supremely expensive like this but bring them down gradually as more techs are researched.

 

[zenstrive]

I think what we have now is fine. So what, you now have Mohole, but on my current playthrough even that is not enough to feed my ever expanding colonies of several mega domes and medium domes and two-spires domes. It's an I win button in the regard that if you feel the game ends when milestones are all checked, and not when you have put domes in every possible space on the map.
The randomness of techs given by anomalies are half the fun, and really force you to manage the colonies and tech researches accordingly. Even if you're forced to research martian patents again and again for the money.

 

[Mauer]

I agree, I like that we can choose different paths for sustaining our colonies; go extraction heavy and import resources, boost research to get the powerful buildings fast at the cost of early development, become self-sustaining to use money to outsource research, etc.; but most the time I don't even need to build more than 2 or three domes because I won't have anything to do for my population as I've already reached self-sufficiency by technologies. The problem with making technologies increasingly more expensive is that it just makes you build more research buildings or outsource more, in the end it's almost the same.

I'm thinking of trying making a mod (mostly for personal use) that restricts technology each game, so you don't get all the technologies to rely on copies of the most convenient set of buildings all the time and instead you have to make do with what you have, like breakthroughs work but for mid and late-game technologies, and restrict wonders to maybe two or three, but made more powerful. I'll have to see if it's possible and easy enough to make, when I have time.

 

[zenstrive]

If anything to mod, is to remove the fact that through anomalies we unlock breakthrough and breakthrough should have appeared out of random chance from respective activities/buildings/specialties.
Giant Fungus for example. Maybe after having a fungus farm with all botanists workers we can then pursue Giant Fungus.
Or after making several extractors but lacking personnel and having excess electronics, we can then pursue AI extractor. Something like that.

 

[porpsi]

If anything to mod, is to remove the fact that through anomalies we unlock breakthrough and breakthrough should have appeared out of random chance from respective activities/buildings/specialties.
Giant Fungus for example. Maybe after having a fungus farm with all botanists workers we can then pursue Giant Fungus.
Or after making several extractors but lacking personnel and having excess electronics, we can then pursue AI extractor. Something like that.

That would make a lot of sense and i do like the idea, though the problem with that is it's a system we can game... instead of working around what you get you would basically force extractorAI, nano refinement, superior cables and superior pipes every game, and thats pretty much the game won right there.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

That would make a lot of sense and i do like the idea, though the problem with that is it's a system we can game... instead of working around what you get you would basically force extractorAI, nano refinement, superior cables and superior pipes every game, and thats pretty much the game won right there.

I'm not sure its better for a cheat code to be random than it is to be standardised and so balanced around.

 

[dumbo11]

Personally, I think the problem is materials/production rather than research. (research is essentially just "wait a while").

There just aren't enough types of "material" in the game. Dome 1 mines rare metal, dome 2 mines metal and produces machine parts, dome 3 produces electronics and polymers... And that's it - you're producing everything required to build an end-game wonder, in what (feels like) the early game.

 

[Jaol]

I think a large part of the problem is that tech speed is so variable.

The game feels well-balanced on the hard maps/sponsors. When you're Paradox on a low-resource, disaster-heavy map, the system works well, IMO. Yes, you unlock many high-tier techs, but you have to be very strategic about when to jump up the tree, because your research rate is slow, and there are so many basic techs you still need. But if you're Europe or Blue Sun Corp on a water-rich map, then you can just jump ahead, and it feels a bit wonky.

I particularly agree with MarQan on this point:

...useless techs....
Soil Adaptation makes Hydroponics and Fungal Farms irrelevant for example. That's 2 useless buildings, a useless tech (Low-G Fungi) and a useless breakthrough (Superfungus) for researching a 1-2k tech.
On the other hand there are meaningless techs like Water Reclamation, Magnetic Filtering, Martian Patents, Smart Home, Utility Crops to name a few. These just aren't worth the research points and the related costs.

There are too many techs that either aren't worth it at all, or are only useful in certain specific scenarios (e.g. fungus, vaporator, water spire, etc. on very water-poor maps).

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Yeah speaking of the hydroponic farms, it feels like that model should be the upgrade, more farmed area, in more controlled circomstances, with fewer people, and vertical farming IRL has better yeids against area than traditional.

a lot of the techs feel, rather like we are starting in the middle somehow, theres a lotof techical and logistical chalengesof the early 'figure out how to survive at all' stages that are just, skipped completly, and aspects like comunicating with a home you just left that are completly ignored. Then theres the way havinga first martian born is made out to a huge important thing, but theres no actuall issues or chalenges with it, where as given how complex and delicate and fraught with complications a pregancy an be on earth you'd think it would involve a lot of ethical and scientific choices. I mean for athes sake Rebuild is only a flash game and it handles the matter of childbirth and starting familes in situations of high danger, and limited population/resorces better than Surviving mars does atm.

 

[MarQan]

I'm just throwing this out there: how about a research system where instead of static costs, every tech would increase the cost of the next tech in the same tree?

As Jaol mentioned there are some situational techs (which I totally disregarded before), like Subsurface Heating or Water-related techs.
Heating tech is a must have on some maps and totally useless on others. Currently it takes up a very cheap spot on the techtree, increasing the cost of every tech to the right of it.
With the suggested system you'd still have it quite early to reserach, but you could also skip it and it wouldn't make other techs more expensive.

This would make reserach as a whole easier, so you'd need to offset that by increasing the total reserach needed to unlock everything (i.e. same 1000 starting tech cost, but a more exponential increase for every consecutive tech). Or make it harder any other way, really.. I personally think reserach is too easy unless you're in the top 50% difficulty.

 

[Promethian]

I'm just throwing this out there: how about a research system where instead of static costs, every tech would increase the cost of the next tech in the same tree?

As Jaol mentioned there are some situational techs (which I totally disregarded before), like Subsurface Heating or Water-related techs.
Heating tech is a must have on some maps and totally useless on others. Currently it takes up a very cheap spot on the techtree, increasing the cost of every tech to the right of it.
With the suggested system you'd still have it quite early to reserach, but you could also skip it and it wouldn't make other techs more expensive.

This would make reserach as a whole easier, so you'd need to offset that by increasing the total reserach needed to unlock everything (i.e. same 1000 starting tech cost, but a more exponential increase for every consecutive tech). Or make it harder any other way, really.. I personally think reserach is too easy unless you're in the top 50% difficulty.

That is the opposite goal. The point I am making is that by skipping so many techs because the key anomalies open up so many I skipped several huge phases of colony development and went straight to the mohole. I went from "I need to keep expanding to the various deposits to stay solvent" to "mohole trivializes everything, I win." All this with half the techs, including big time ones like deep resources unresearched.

I'd go the opposite of what you are suggesting here. Every tech you research reduces the cost of further techs but those techs have a higher baseline before the reduction for doing the lower level.

 

[Ma®tin]

That is the opposite goal. The point I am making is that by skipping so many techs because the key anomalies open up so many I skipped several huge phases of colony development and went straight to the mohole. I went from "I need to keep expanding to the various deposits to stay solvent" to "mohole trivializes everything, I win." All this with half the techs, including big time ones like deep resources unresearched.

I'd go the opposite of what you are suggesting here. Every tech you research reduces the cost of further techs but those techs have a higher baseline before the reduction for doing the lower level.

I see a problem with this that it may force people into playing phases in some specific order. But what if I want to do something else? Just now I finished a playthrough of the one spaceship challenge (Well, two, one for cargo, one for colonists) and it is much more useful to take very different order of techs there.

In the same way someone going for the colony without humans may prefer doing some different order of techs and have the first colonists arrive into nice and cozy terraformed dome or mega dome.

Someone may enjoy playing tall, with very few colonists, perhaps even just a single medium dome with all the wonders around, going for early high level techs and someone may prefer building huge colony with a lot of people.

It might be better to not restrict player choices too much... or to perhaps implement some way for player to control what areas of research they want to unlock with the key anomalies and what areas of breakthrough they prefer. (Playing one ship challenge and getting ton of breakthroughs that deal with traveling from earth is plain evil)