EvilJedi has asked me to get some ideas together as to what the tech-trees should look like for the different races in his Sins of a Galactic Empire mod, which is discussed here:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/331584
So let's start to have the discussion people: What do YOU think needs to show up in the tech tree?
Examples include:
- The empire should have more shield upgrades, but fewer hull point upgrades because XXX
- Capital ships (e.g., dreadnaughts) should require you to upgrade XXX before you can build them
- Ships X, Y, and Z should be available at the start, but you should have to research ships A, B, and C because they are awesome, advanced ships.
- Gee, it would be nice if we could upgrade ability X, or if ability Y required research before the ship's could use it.
Do NOT say things like, "The empire suxor, plz make them kik @zz" I need details to make a tech tree, not tips on balancing (controled by EvilJedi) or general statements about the mod.
-Grand Admiral Prawn
UPDATE 12/16
Okay, I've started looking at what people have said, and I've started to get an idea as to what some of this should look like. Since most of you have been talking about Alliance and Empire military properties, I figured it was a good place to start. Here are my sketches of what things could look like (Prototype section hasn't been done yet - I may wait until there's some commitment either from EvilJedi or anyone else to develop ship icons first - it would be hard to tell what you're researching when you don't remember what it looks like).
As an immediate disclaimer, nothing here is even remotely final - revisions can and will be entertained. And, as always, EvilJedi has final control of the mod.
Some thoughts that can't be immediately displayed on the research tree:
- Yellow boxes are for items that I'm either up in the air about (seize ship, Bounty Hunter den), or haven't put any thought into how to code (the extra TIE fighters for ships/cap ships).
- As you can see, I've tried to give the Alliance advantages in technologies that are easy-to-install: the R1-R3 units, shielding, torpedoes, and armor could presumably be backfit onto existing Alliance ships without redesigning the whole thing. This is probably high-cost, but when you don't have a lot of shipyards (or when some jack@$$ in a Star Destroyer keeps blowing them up), upgrades are more cost-effective than new ships. The Empire, on the other hand, has lots of firepower (note both damage AND speed upgrades for weapons), and hull upgrades (that would presumably take re-design and re-fitting ships).
- As EvilJedi noted, maybe the Empire doesn't care so much about their ships (few shield, armor upgrades) as much as it cares about firepower and cheap, rugged designs (hull HP increases as a result).
- I've thought about cost decreases (e.g., Empire builds things at a bulk discount), but it seems that it would interfere with game balance/mechanics. If the races start out balanced, it would be pretty cheap for a single technology to grossly tilt the playing field to one player's advantage. Let's face it: we're not scripting epic underdog movies here, we're trying to make races similar in strength overall.
One of the biggest things I've been thinking about is drastically upping the benefit of research. Screw this 5% increase at a whack - I think it could be much more interesting if, for instance, if the first couple levels gave 5% a pop, the 3rd and 4th gave 10% a pop, and the 5th and 6th gave 20% a pop. Shoot, that's a 70% increase! Talk about an incentive to do your research!!! Clearly, there would need to be some limits, lest the Empire blow up an entire system before anyone knows they are there, and yes, I realize that we'd need to make the higher level research more expensive and more time consuming. However, I'm always dismayed with the way that a fully-updraded weapon only does 20%-30% more damage. It doesn't seem much like "researching weapons" so much as "making sure the weapons are working today"
As always, feedback appreciated/encouraged.
