Cut down research times

[Gio2k]

Do we really have to wait 10 days or more as normal players to get our own scans?
The same can be said about pretty much all the other researches, except probably the mining limit research.
Waiting so long to get ships / eta / scans doesn't make the round any more interesting, more so when you have to research up to bs classes to defend yourself against fr/de incs.

[Wandows]

Without adding (alot) more researches this will only make it worse really. As now you at least have some difference due to ppl chosing different paths to complete first. If you reduce the research time everyone will only be done sooner, leading to an even more boring game as you end up fighting exactly the same planets sooner rather than later.

If your goal is to make the round more interesting, you have to add more researches or a more complex way of completing them. This would most certainly lead to players chosing different paths that fit with their personal style of playing and thus would lead to planets with different technologies available to them rather than everyone having exactly the same apart from the ships they can build. Reducing the research time will only result in a even more boring play as everyone will be done with researching sooner, leading to less diverse planets.

[Gate]

Actually, I'd always wondered about scans.

The way it is currently forces people to play scan planets. With a shrinking playerbase and alliance sizes, this becomes a larger proportion of an alliance and makes it harder for newer alliances in particular.

Is such a lengthy scan time needed for scans; or is the sacrifice of having to mass amplifiers enough?

[Alki]

i quite like the fact that not everyone can have scans, its all about the decisions you make on what you want when you play

[Benneh]

Id prefer it if ship researches took longer.

Initially the fi/co reigned supreme. Then after ahwhile fr/de comes and then cr/bs.

Now research or done so quickly it all happens at once.

[SkyHead]

Originally Posted by Gate

Actually, I'd always wondered about scans.

The way it is currently forces people to play scan planets. With a shrinking playerbase and alliance sizes, this becomes a larger proportion of an alliance and makes it harder for newer alliances in particular.

Is such a lengthy scan time needed for scans; or is the sacrifice of having to mass amplifiers enough?

Very true point about the newer alliances, they will have a much harder time getting scans.

[isildurx]

I think even longer research times could have been healthy on some branches, as it is now you can have bs extremely quickly if you try hard enough, something i think is a bit unbalanced.

[Allfather]

Make it so you can buy scans from another source.
Ie like you pay 5-10x the price of scanning it yourself.

Dedicated scanplanets run by pa

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Alki

i quite like the fact that not everyone can have scans, its all about the decisions you make on what you want when you play

But how many alliances know people willing to throw away their round to play scanplanet? It's little problem for the big boys, but considering how important scanning is, this can ruin the game for new players.

Originally Posted by isildurx

I think even longer research times could have been healthy on some branches, as it is now you can have bs extremely quickly if you try hard enough, something i think is a bit unbalanced.

I always found that with trying to keep up with constructions, roids, travel speed & ship classes was very difficult. Probably because I normally played xand, but even true the times I played ter/cat.

The ship stats I had experience with were also designed primarily for a full tech level; racing to BS etc was a strategy for an early round benefit rather than something to base the majority of your gameplan around.

[Rocko]

Originally Posted by Allfather

Make it so you can buy scans from another source.
Ie like you pay 5-10x the price of scanning it yourself.

Dedicated scanplanets run by pa

i actually really like the concept of this idea. It's not the finished final idea that'll work,.. but it's a start,...
perhaps limitations like u can't have scans if ure in the top 100-200,. or somthing??

[Kargool]

I think that the research times needs to be cut slightly to adjust to the current short roundspan of 7 weeks.

[The Real Arfy]

Originally Posted by Rocko

i actually really like the concept of this idea. It's not the finished final idea that'll work,.. but it's a start,...
perhaps limitations like u can't have scans if ure in the top 100-200,. or somthing??

NO! Just because you're shit, doesn't mean everyone else has to suffer. We should have the same rules for everyone, end of story.

[Heartless]

We could solve the problem by having a tech-tree with excluding branches again.

[wielklem]

Originally Posted by Gate

Actually, I'd always wondered about scans.

The way it is currently forces people to play scan planets. With a shrinking playerbase and alliance sizes, this becomes a larger proportion of an alliance and makes it harder for newer alliances in particular.

Is such a lengthy scan time needed for scans; or is the sacrifice of having to mass amplifiers enough?

if there is no use for scan planets why play i know many people who would not play if scan planets are not needed

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by wielklem

if there is no use for scan planets why play i know many people who would not play if scan planets are not needed

There is a difference between making scan planets 'useless' and simply opening up scanning. Several suggestions have been made past year(s) to change the need for a dedicated scanner without actually removing the use of one. In the old days we had jammers and amps work next to eachother where jammers simply made it harder to scan a target without making it impossible.

This resulted in the chance of several scans failing, all costing resources, while eventually it was possible to get a scan. Planets were able to build alot of amps next to their normal planet development making it easier to scan other planets (mind you i can't recall the exact way it worked, but it had to do with amps / asteroids and jammers). This way players focussing on scanning would still be appreciated (as its simply cheaper to get the needed scans that way), without forcing alliances to look for dedicated scanners as the only viable way to get information.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Wandows

This way players focussing on scanning would still be appreciated (as its simply cheaper to get the needed scans that way), without forcing alliances to look for dedicated scanners as the only viable way to get information.

That's true, but i think what was more important was around the time of R3 when you had "scanners" who had chosen Military Scans over Hyperspace - Military Scans were incredibly useful, but Hyperspace was effectively a must for all really active players; thus the payoff. Having military scans didnt stop you from playing effectively, but it did make it more likely that you'd get defended against to a larger degree. But they were far more valuable than your run-of-the-mill Hyperspace member.

Perhaps that is an alternative way to proceed.

[Gio2k]

I am not against dedicated scanner planets. I just think we shouldn't depend on them so much for things we could do ourselves:
I don't need a dedicated scanner if i can get news / jgp / fa scans fast enough. Dedicated scanners are needed for raid scans and for scanning high distorter planets.
Back in the days when a round lasted 3 months, i would not mind.
Same goes for the eta and hulls research. The most important and interesting part of a round is when most players have reached bs hulls and -4 eta.
In fact, the only argument against having faster research times are from people that want the advantage of easier roiding at the start of the round.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Gio2k

In fact, the only argument against having faster research times are from people that want the advantage of easier roiding at the start of the round.

And those in more powerful alliances who have an incentive to retain scan planets, since they know their alliance will have access to them and others won't.

I'd be in favour of a system where it's made easier for everyone to get scans, but your ability to scan depends on the effort you put in; people could still dist-whore and these would need dedicated scanners to get through. Distorters and amplifiers may need adjusting for this to work.

One potential idea is scan accuracy, although I don't know how easy this is to code. Unit scans would be +/-5% on ship numbers for a good scanner, if dists outnumber amps slightly then it may be +/-50% or whatever. Does lead to problems with news & jgps, but it's a potential start...

[LordBlackheart2000]

Originally Posted by Wandows

(mind you i can't recall the exact way it worked, but it had to do with amps / asteroids and jammers). This way players focussing on scanning would still be appreciated (as its simply cheaper to get the needed scans that way), without forcing alliances to look for dedicated scanners as the only viable way to get information.

If memory serves though it probably doesn't, wasn't it based on the amount of rocks you had so basically if u had loads of rocks u needed alot amps just to scan a planet with no jammers...or something along those lines anyway

Cupelix

[Dorraj]

well

here comes my 5c worth

I think that research times as far as scans go are fine at the moment, its not too hard to get there if you are focusing on scans, and if you arent focusing on them you still get there within a couple of weeks without too much trouble

as for ship research times, i dont think it takes long enough, as benne said:

Originally Posted by Benneh

Id prefer it if ship researches took longer.

Initially the fi/co reigned supreme. Then after ahwhile fr/de comes and then cr/bs.

Now research or done so quickly it all happens at once.

Having a bigger gap in between ship researches would be heaps good. It would make race decisions much more complex as people would have to decide on whether they want to be flying straight out of protection, or whether they want to wait.

Some people would choose a particular race just so tehy can have FI/CO roiders directly out of protection, but others migth not care too much about have a good start at teh beggining of the round and might want to wait to do their roiding.

and it makes the game more interesting, because as benneh said, and again i quote:

Originally Posted by Benneh

Initially the fi/co reigned supreme. Then after ahwhile fr/de comes and then cr/bs.

soooo yeh, longer research times ftw!

[Ultimate Newbie]

You could have longer research times, but fewer items of research. To me, its always been silly ot have so many different types of scan; eg PSTUNJFA - that's nuts!

You could partition the research into groups though, such as "Basic Planet Information" which holds (P)ST and U, "Electronic Intelligence" with N and J scans, and "Most Leet and Hardcore Scans" for F and A scans. Thus, the "basic" scans which everyone really needs could be 30* ticks long - however this is less that S, T and U scans put together, but much longer than S scans (and all other starting research items) in comparison. So, you give players a choice; do this reletively long tech early and get the scans that you need in order to do (most) target selection with. Then, you can do the Scan research that lets you know wheter your fleet is likely to die at the target, and/or see what they've got hidden away with cloaked ships in the form of "Electronic Intelligence". This is obviously pretty handy, but because of its usefulness you could make it a fairly long research again. Then, you have the final research bracket that are critical for alliance scanners and handy to have if you're being attacked (ie, Fleet scan), but arent overly critical for "general" operations as you may be able to guess what's inbound given other low-tech scans. So, this then becomes the specialist scanner's tech, which can then be made quite long as a trade off.

*Obviously just a random number more or less

Futher, this open other opportunities for differention as well; you could tie in Governments with this branch; if only Democracy (or whatever, or 2 governments or etc) had the final Wave tech, whilst other governments do not, you have instant scanners and so on. Its just an alternative way of thinking.

[Dorraj]

yeh that sounds like a cool idea too, would give a bit more variety and make people have to think more before researching something, because they are such big chunks of time you cant do like 9 ticks for surface then focus on ships for a bit

you pretty much take up a day and ahalf and theres no backing otu half way sort of thing

would definately be a little more strategic thinking involved in research, and teh goventment idea is good aswell

tbh governments need to be more like that, each one a little more specialised in differentareas and one very generic one

wgich i guess thats sort of how they are now, but not as specific, if it was more specific would be cooler

and the way that you said you can only get final scans on some govenments, would be good because it sort of heads back to teh old tech tree idea where you can select different paths.

[Jester]

In my opinion, the solution to the scanning problem is to make everything always available, but lower the amount of information available via scans. Every player should "always" have access to all scans, but the information made available should be worse than the current possible to compensate for the easier availability (ie to make up for the fact that it's no longer necessary to contact a scanner.) The key insight here is the acceptance that having access to a scanner is a skill.

There are many ways to go about this, including weird stuff like having alliance or galaxy wide technology that each planet contributes to in some way.

[Shoshuro]

Could merge scans in pairs and lower research time ie:

Scan level I: 8 hours -> P / S available
Scan level II: 16 hours -> T / U available
Scan level III: 24 hours -> N / J available
Scan level IIII: 32 hours -> F / A available

For a normal planet allocating some hours for the first 2 + a few amps means you can at least scan some of your incs early on or search for targets.

Also dedicated scanners finishing faster their scan researches means they can actually play the rest of the round (build ships and join the fun)

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Shoshuro

Could merge scans in pairs and lower research time ie:

Pairs (of wave research) doesnt quite work; as it stands everyone (with an Amp) can do Planet scans already; unless you changed that... .