[Mzyxptlk]

Exclusive quests or research paths/trees (ie, you pick one, the other is excluded) are not as great an idea as they may initially seem. Someone mathematically inclined will calculate which the best path is, and then everyone will just do that.

If you really do want to implement something like that, the options must be such that they are fundamentally different from each other. For instance, for standard value planets the choice between '+X% mining bonus' or '+Y% construction units per tick' is not fundamental. The latter will simply be converted to refs/FCs, and then the net buffs to income can be compared directly, and the one that is objectively best will be chosen by everyone.

Here's some examples of choices that might work better: 'your amps and dists cannot be SKed', 'your alliance defense fleets can be recalled by DCs' or 'roids past your mining limit contribute 50% of their normal income'. Different planets (scanner, defwhore, top planet, respectively?) would pick different options. I'm not advocating whether any of these options should be implemented or not, just saying that they are not comparable in any way shape or form.


For research, specifically, exclusivity can be achieved in a slightly more organic way: just make them so long that there's no way to finish all of them before round end. Right now, if you never get more than 2000 roids, you can finish all required research before round end. If you need to mine more than 2000 roids, you only have to ignore cov ops to achieve the same.

I'm not suggesting that the current research should be made slower to force people to choose. Most of it is mandatory for most planets: HCT, infrastructure, travel time, population. Without, say, Hypergate, your planet is not just a few percentage points less useful; it might as well not exist. If there were more research that improved your planet or quality of life just a little bit in a way that fit your style of play, and less that were mandatory for everyone with a planet, it wouldn't matter so much if there were some research that stayed out of reach for you.