Research and feasibility... how does it work?

[Marconius]

I'm having trouble understanding how research, particularly feasibility studies are supposed to work and I'm hoping for some help.

So I get the basic idea (played SotS1 too): the tech tree, apart from core techs, is random, so you only have access to certain technologies; what those are exactly depends on chance and your faction (what faction is good for what techs? How do I find this out?). But all the techs show up in your tech tree, you just might not be able to get them; so you gotta do a feasibility study to see how good your chances are.

So far fair enough... but here's my problem. So let's say I do a study for Shields and the result is I have a 50% chance. So what does that mean exactly? Is the cost increased to double, will it take twice as long? Well no, because it still says the same amount of turns... so it means the research can fail? Well apparently, cuz I tried it with a 1% chance tech and that's exactly what happened!

But why does it fail? Or more specifically, when? I got the 1% chance, so if I tell my researchers to try anyway, at what point do they say "okay, we can't do this!"? It seems to be at 200% of the research, but is that correct? Generally, how does the chance mechanic work? It's clearly not just a single dice roll, otherwise it would just be a binary thing, not a %-based chance. And if it's just a "roll every turn" kind of thing, why is there a fail condition? Why can't I just keep retrying until I get it, even if it takes 200 turns?

So yes, I'm rather confused by this; if someone could explain to me the exact mechanics, I'd be very grateful.

 

[Gen.Hannibal]

I too would like some clarification on this, I generally just avoid techs that don't have a high feasibility rate.

 

[stilgarpl]

At the start of the game it randomly chooses what techs are available to you and which ones aren't. While you are doing feasibility study, it generates random number, which is bigger is you can have the tech and smaller if you can't.

Usually if f>50% you have it and f<50% means you don't. 70, 80, 90 - it doesn't matter how much did you get, either you have the tech or not.

 

[unmerged(401526)]

But sometimes you get lucky. I successfully researched a tech with 30% feasibility once and failed on one with 75%. I don't know the actual coded game mechanic, but based on my experience, I think it is just a dice roll.

 

[Marconius]

Well okay, the questions are still... 1) what do the % numbers mean then? Obviously the higher they are, the better your odds, but what are they the chances of? And 2) if it is a dice roll, when is the dice rolled? Or how many times?

 

[unmerged(201662)]

The % is the chance to get it once the feasiblity is complete (chances of research completion).
It's a dice roll, made at the time of the research, the feasibility % however is made at the start of the game.
As for how many times, there are ways to 'reroll' if you will, with other techs leading to the tech (giving you another chance), and you can also (if captured from enemy tech) get a special project which will give you another chance and so on.

Back in the original SoTS, this was all done at game start and you either had a chance and got it or not but it was hidden from players. Players complained that they couldn't see the tech tree for it since if you never got it, it never showed. So this was a "transparent" way of showing the tech in the tech tree, and the chances of it happening etc.

Hehe, of course in the Me generation, if we see it we feel we are entiltled to it (not saying you feel that way Marconius), so although it became transparent now to the player, we often feel I see it, therefore I get it/want it.

 

[Mohreb]

Hy,
i would have a sligthly related question, i rolled 1% for Mega Strip Mining, it is sad as i wanted test mining station in my game (first longer scenario) but now i feel all my asteroids/gas giants and barren worlds are useless. Can i get the tech otherwise? (stealing it?) Should i try to research it anyway but set my research founding to a minimum after i hit 50% for breaktrougths(if it is an everyturn roll)?
(not related to tech but kind of interested still and wont find out easyly): Does mining stations depleat resources of barren planets / gas giants / asteroids? have i other use for those station slots (as the 4 permited type fits around planets anyway)?

 

[Marconius]

Hmm, I thiiiink I get it, maybe... still a bit confusing, but I suppose SFCShadow's explanation makes sense.

 

[HighLigerBimBam]

I have to disaggree with Shadow here. As far as i know Sots1 used to have some random techtree, so if you failed in a diceroll for a followup tech you could reload a older save and succeed in getting a followup tech by attempting it again. Well this isn`t possible anymore. In Sots2 all techs are fixed in your savegame. Means the game decides which techs you will get at the start. Feasibility just hides this for you. As Shadow pointet out, why feasibility was made, so you could actually see the paths now, as unaccessible techs where hidden back in Sots1. Feasibility is your races opinion of getting this tech. So it may get it or may not. But if you can get it is set into stone. The better the feasibility the more likely it is tht this tech is accessible. But it has nothing to do with the actual outcome.

Regarding Salvage this another possibility to get a tech.

 

[KK20]

feasibility is there to tease you.

 

[unmerged(201662)]

I guess I was not clear, at game start I ment when you start SotS Prime (each time you ran the program). So yes you are right. However it still was hidden from the player and now it's at start of each creation and saved but visible (transparent).

 

[KK20]

As far as I can now tell there are two parts to researching.

There is a probability that the tech might be available (techtree percent) and the feasibility that it can be researched (random feasibility set in the player_techs table). Im not sure if salvaging will bring back an available but unfeasible tech. Unlocking the techtree.techtree file so that you have 100% in everything does not bypass feasibility, it merely opens all techs to be OPEN to feasibility. However it seems you can increase the techtree.techtree beyond 100 percent to INCREASE the feasibility chance.

From what I can gather by editting and changing the save game file you either have access to a tech or not (percentage from techtree.techtree) then you do a feasibility and have an estimated feasibility shown to you (this is still different from the ACTUAL feasibility noted in the savegame but is usually close). At the end of each turn I theorise that the game looks at your research, looks at the research needed, looks at the feasibility and does a hidden roll. If this succeeds then you get the tech, if it doesnt then the turn continues. If you get to 200% overresearch then the tech fails.

I need to start a new game to test this out.

 

[Marconius]

I'm not quite clear on what you're saying KK20, could you please rephrase it a bit? ^^; Maybe use the words "feasibility" a bit less?

 

[silvaril]

Heya

A couple of points

First, the Tech Tree is rolled as part of the game creation, at the same time as Map creation / fill in et al.
Consequently there is no way to "re-roll" your chances after starting Turn 1, in either SotS-1 or SotS-2.

In SotS-2, the idea is to show you what Techs might come from where, even if you don't have access to them.
This ties in with the use of Research Stations.
Sure, and your Feasibility study says that your chances of researching that shiny is 1%, but if you discover that you have a neighbour who is using that Tech then maybe that nice Research Station you've been paying Maintenance on for the last 80 turns isn't such a waste after all...

Further, money spent on researching a tech that only has a 1% is not lost immediately.
Research points accrued on one tech are lost progressively if you switch projects mid-research to a different tech, before coming back to the first.
Money spent accruing research points on a 1% tech will count towards completing that technology, even if you don't have the final piece of the puzzle yet.
So if your Salvage research finishes while you are still researching, then suddenly you are a lot closer to it than you would be if starting from scratch.

And once again, Research Stations that are developed for a particular discipline increase the amount of research points retained for any study in that discipline.
So if you don't have any labs for a particular discipline, then you may lose all of the research points purchased by your spending earlier, albeit over several turns.
But if you do have labs in that discipline, then any such spending will be slowly lost until hitting the save point that exists as a result of having such labs.

Which of course makes getting your research labs shot to heck and gone that much more painful...