Specialized Research Labs |
Years ago there was discussion about "specialized research labs" in SE4 - bascially, you have a limited number of tech areas (say, 6 or 8 like in Stars! or MOO2) which grant all kinds of miscellaneous stuff in their broad categories, and no specific techs for individual components, etc. You also have an equal number of types of research labs (biology labs, physics labs, etc.) which can ONLY be used to produce research for their specific area.
Well, I think I came up with a way to implement that in SE5! 
1. Remove the research labs from the game, we don't need them anymore.
2. Consolidate all techs into six or eight or so.
3. Add new research labs facilities and components for each area.
4. Use six or eight AI tags for the specific research types and assign them to the new facilities and components which will be performing research, using the number of RP as an ability amount.
5. Add an event script which checks every ship, unit, and planet and calls Sys_Change_Empire_Research_Tech_Area_Accomplished_Amount with the ability total of that AI tag for the ship/unit/planet to increment your research in the appropriate area by that amount every turn.
6. Presto! Your specialized research labs should be working, if I have this planned correctly!
The downside is, you can't actually see your RP total for each area in-game unless you add in some empire-wide abilities commensurate with your AI tags - but then *everyone* could see your RP totals... 
Re: Specialized Research Labs
"Re-introduce"? Can't you already research cultural achievements by researching Cultural Studies and then researching the techs which that provides? Or were you thinking of something fancier?
~~~
The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious 
Re: Specialized Research Labs
An addition, with help from SJ:
Skills Based SE5 (akin to Skills Based RPG's) - every miner you build gives you a bonus to mining research, etc.! Just modify the event script to check for mining abilities, etc. as well as AI tags! 
~~~
The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious
Re: Specialized Research Labs
Just seems way to overly broad to me altho I'm sure some will like that concept. I like the research system in general and this would seem to eliminate a good portion of it.
Re: Specialized Research Labs
First I noticed that there are the following unused abilities in the SE5_Modding.pdf file:
Score Factor - Empire Cultural Points
Low Culture Level Cost Formula
Medium Culture Level Cost Formula
High Culture Level Cost Formula
Point Generation - Culture
Point Generation Modifier - Culture
Diging through the model files, I came to the realization that Cultural Achievments were originally intended to have their own tech tree, and their own special research points to develop them. It seems like it was intended to be like a second research tree, separate from normal research.
The structures still exist in the included game files:
Art Museum
Education Center
Gambling Mecca
Grand Council of Civics
I'm thinking the Education Center was like the Research Center and generated basic Cultural Achievment points. The Art Museum was probably a planet-wide modifier, like the Central Computer Complex. I also think the Grand Council of Civics was a system-wide modifier, like the System Computer Complex. I don't know what role the Gambling Mecca played, but one wild guess I can make would be that it lowered your Cultural Achievment point generation (or even total points!), but increased your resource generation (milk it from those citizens!).
Anyways, all files to make these structures work are in the game, they just arn't used for anything at this time. The abilities probably don't do anything, but even if they did, there is no interface to deal with them.
"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod
Re: Specialized Research Labs
Would it be possible to use this to re-introduce the cultural achievment research system?
"Only by being constantly at war with evil in all things, including yourself, can you truely know peace."
Download my mod here: GidMod