Achievement based Tech

Um, so what practical difference is there between this and setting a research prerequisite? I mean sure it prevents you from getting the techs after volcanic research until you colonize one, but assuming all of those techs only affect Volcanic planets, if you never colonize one why would you want to research volcanic colonization in the first place?

Well the beauty of this idea is that you could use the achievement based tech side of the existing tech trees to expand the tech trees in a new and fun way while still retaining the feel and flavor of the original game. Also, the complexity wouldn't be overwhelming to new players, as the "prerequisite achievement" would always be event based and clearly labelled on any new tech. 

In essence, making the old feel new, and adding another tactical element to the game as well. 

currently, prerequisites tech's are just passive money dumps that, yes you do make an economic trade off for, but they are ALWAYS there to be made.  This idea allows for tech advances that are event based which allows for players to have an effect on what a person can and cannot research.  Lab destruction does this to some extent, but having in addition a "technology starvation" tactical plan would be an interesting addition to sins.  Naturally the benefits of the difficulty of some of these in game events would have to be matched with the relative ease to create the event.  the ice planet colonization would be a relatively easy one that might be a prerequisite to start a chain of tech that would ultimately lead to a new racial weapon system that kicks butt(which your opponent could take measures to prevent you from achieving the prerequisites if they were diligent).  Use people to balance people, and save the designers a headache.

This could also make the game more engaging to single players, as they will have more little things to achieve and interact with in the game environment.

As it stands tech is an integral part of the game, but no more then an economic money dump.  I'm not disrespecting the beauty at which this economic tradeoff has been orchestrated by the devs, merely the limitations of the current system.

Also, the devs currently use the logistics slots to create a trade off between structures in the grav well.  This would free their development arms up and allow for tactical teching up, destruction of labs, AND a great excuse to add more planets with variable logistics slots in the game, making them not quite such a game maker/breaker.

Also, achievement based tech's could be prerequisites to awesome normal money dump tech's, or lead ins to other achievement based techs.  In this way you could have an ENTIRELY different play style strategy that would be a viable path for victory. 

In fact i'll go into detail into how you could orchestrate this into the game.

Put a flashing symbol next to a researched tech that indicates that an achievement is possible that is associated with that tech.  the player, having researched it will click on tech (the fun of discovery!) which will open to the achievement specifics, what it might lead too and other pertinent information.  The developers can increase the tech's in the game greatly with less of a worry because they would be dealing with something that is entirely preventable player side.

Simplified, you would research a tech, see shiny thing and click on tech, and then read what shiny thing means, and then do shiny thing to get potential awesome.

achievements such as "kill 50 enemy combat ships" to achieve a prerequisite for a sweet weapon upgrade tech would be pretty awesome, in my opinion.  After all, the guy didn't have to let you rape his fleet, he could have ran!  It would add a lot to the game

Or take a note from games like Vindictus and make a separate tree or series of upgrades/prizes for actually getting the achievements? Obviously you would have to break them down to make them accessible within a single game or have online accounts to build your technological battle chest. Maybe something like a more interactive Artifacts branch to the tech.

I'm just not sure how it would work incorporated into the current trees. I do get the idea, but the economics would leave you with major amounts of cash building until you got stuff done. Then you would probably go minimal tech mid game just so you can use the extra cash to spam and get it over with.

ah well these tech's wouldn't cost you cash directly, they would be an event, not a cash dump.  any ships created or lost would cost you, but then you are in control of their loss to some degree.

also i just edited it again, to elaborate on implementation. 

haven't heard of vindictus, but i'll check it out.

Also, the point of this tech improvement from the strategic aspect of the game is to reward a certain style of play and provide a surprise technology based reversal.  Say you are fighting a long war of attrition and you hit the "50 enemy combat ship kill" mark.  You then get the sweet weapon to take him out.  then he gets it as well, and its a race to see who can get the most of these new ships(or possibly, pay a little cash to upgrade existing ships?) and still micro and spam and do all the fun stuff.  It gives you more options for how the endgame can end up so that each game can feel fresher.  inventing new techs now won't be a development nightmare!

achievement ideas:

scouting upgrade tier 1 (who researches these anyways)-achievement- scout an enemy homeworld.  Scouts move a little faster, and becomes the start of the "ship movement speed tech tree" that is largely/entirely achievement based.  The next tier to this could come from basic LRM research, after losing X amounts of lrms you get a speed increase (the logic being, you find a problem in the LRM design, and a solution nets you a faster LRM..yay!).  If balanced like this, people wouldn't be wanting to rush this tech, and selling LRMS to get a speed increase wouldn't be economically viable in the early game.  Also, if someone in this position of losing X lrms had paid the initial investment in a little used scouting tech, they would have a slight edge on their enemy in fleet speed that could pay off for them later, reducing their long term attrition and increasing their attack capability so that they might be able to recover.

achievements could be color coded so that you could have multiple achievements per research, and the same color would correspond to the same achievement path.  A detailed outline of this path could be found in a special help menu in the tech window to help players initially familiarize themselves with these less than conventional, mysterious technologies.

This also creates an illusion of mystery surrounding research, which is where the excitement of research is supposed to come from.

I like where this is going, the idea of having a tech tree specific to certain conditions like owning an Ice planet makes for more strategy in planet acquisition. Maybe even make the number of such planets be like the number of labs for that tech tree, the more ice planets you have the faster the research is done. 

I also also wanted to suggest tech trees for artifacts. Maybe instead of the full bonus after discovering an artifact one could choose how to upgrade it to it's max potential. Any thoughts or additions? 

I agree, artifacts need to be better incorporated into the tech tree and in general have more going on for them.

I am fine with that idea, as long as there is still the regular tech tree. The economy dump isn't bad as certain mods take advantage of that system and there is more than enough economic production to where eliminating it entirely leaves you with too much material resources.

Meh, the only real change the tech trees need IMO is exclusive techs (you research A you can't research B ), but we already know that's coming in Rebellion. That said...

You can actually make a mod to do this if you so desired. Artifacts are considered research just like anything else, and thus can be prerequisites for normal research. Only problem is if you lose the artifact you may not lose the other techs if already researched.

I'm actually certain you won't lose the other techs if you lose the artifact.

As for the exclusive techs, it's coming, but in a limited fashion. Nothing as deep or complex as Civilization, but there is still a choice involved. That said, making something more advanced would be nice, as it would truly force you to consider your gameplay style and all. Distant Stars has tried to meet it in the middle by upping the tech levels to the point where in a medium length game (or game with average research speed) you can't expect to research everything before it's all over. MP and long games still leave enough time to get it all in, so it's not a perfect solution at all.

Then again, this game is not the hardest core 4x and thus one can't expect it to strike all those notes. If that were the case, planets would have as much potential to become an economic drag as boost (see Total War and Civilization). Until then, I see it as a more successful in creating an expansive RTS.

Naturally the existing tech tree would have to exist to research things like normal.  You research via normal resource dump and unlock the achievement based tech.

By the power of Greyskull, I raise thee from the depths!

*facepalm* No. You are inviting much anger, wrath, trolling, and love and tolerance by using a spell of necromancy ro randomly.

-Lord Brony

But I always wanted to be a necromancer, from the day I dug up my grandparents(age 5) and tried to zap em with a wire in the power socket.

For some reason, my parents thought I shouldn't continue this behavior, instead of properly encouraging it.

Fools!

Muhahahahahahah!

...

Sareth = bad

F*** it.

You deserve this.

-Lord Brony

@ oddski

Not really, The OP is a good idea.  Most new players haven't read it before.

Have you ever heard of the saying "there are no new stories, only new audiences"  ?

The new audience would be the new rebellion crowd.

This would be a recap of an old idea that many people haven't seen.

So if you have seen it before, its not for you, its for the new guys.

Thanks for understanding!

 Also, most of your pictures don't make sense in the context.

If I was a troll, i'd be using hate, after all.

Ponies do not need to make sense. I use my powers of doublethink to make sure that they do make sense. Regardless, the original was actually a good idea.

-Lord Brony

Hehe, been a while since I read that book.  Orwell was a well informed people's prophet.

Thanks for the compliment.