I've taken many of the ideas from forums and by listening to others in science and deadchat. It's hard to get away from the "put these items into DA in the correct order" thing but at least this would make make science more integrated to the entire station instead of being an isolated department. Science could get more items added to the tech list but would get them later in the round and with the help of others, not just by clicking in the same room for 20 minutes to unlock everything. if science is working alone like now this is a nerf to it. If other departments are helping nothing changes but this allows science to get better and more fun items to high levels without having them automatically every round and just for science.
Lumipharon has had similar ideas about the level system I've used here and I've partly taken the ideas from it. I'd need help to do the final decisions for item levels so I hope other science players and coders will help with these.
Please read through the reasons for each point and leave your comments.
Main points:
- More coherent origin tech levels
Required tech levels rebalanced
Time and skill level of doing basic R&D is reduced
More department co-operation
Items R&D can make to be limited by mostly tech levels
Request of new items: items that work as upgrades for existing items
What I don't want R&D to be
Smaller points:
- Remove experimentor tech level upgrade thing
Remove reliability
Return material efficiency upgrades but balance item costs
Mineral sheets to 1000 units (will skip this one)
Update autolathe efficiency
Origin tech level cannot be higher than required tech level (+1 maybe)
Possibly add new fun lategame items to high tech levels (?)
Bluespace crystals > artificial bluespace crystals
Small changes to DA
Bugfixes to R&D console
More coherent research levels
Almost all research levels will be remade to fit a new system. All techs will have basic levels from 1 to 5 which are relatively easy to get and can be done without leaving science. Currently it's possible to get nearly everything to 6 without leaving science.
The levels below are the origin tech levels of items which means that they can raise the tech levels one over that level.
- Level 1 items can be found easily and start inside R&D room. These levels will probably mostly stay as they are at the moment. Example item: wrench
Level 2 items are easy to make or a bit harder to find. Most level 2 items will probably stay as level 2 items but with some changes. Example item: Mining drill/ high power battery
Level 3 items are more rare items but can start on the station. They can also be made if some basic research has been done. Example item: Intelicard/most circuit boards.
Level 4 items are harder to make and cannot be found easily as round start. Difficulty to make these will be about the same as now, not becoming any harder. Example item: Portable chem dispenser, many mech items.
- Level 5 items will need at least some help from other departments. These items are not hard to make but do need someone doing something somewhere.Example item: slime speed potion/combat shotgun/bluespace tomatoes
Level 6 items are harder or more expensive to get. Example item: sentience potions, bluespace crystals
Level 7 items are rare special event items that are only got during long rounds or when something special happens. Example items: Anomalies, nuke op gear, abductor items
Level 8 is reserved for possible new levels or admin only items. I have no plans giving any items origin tech 8 myself.
Required tech levels rebalanced
The good items are behind levels 6 and 7. Some rare good/fun items can then be added behind level 8 for rare situations.
Time and skill level of doing basic R&D is reduced
Time:
Making the basic levels from 6 to 5 reduces the time spent so people wouldn't have to sit there for 20 minutes each round before doing anything. Items will also have a bit more diverse tech level than at the moment. This is partly because plasma levels are only used up to level 3 at the moment.
Skill level:
Items which become buildable at certain tech level will have higher origin tech. This means that new scientists don't need to figure out which item out of the 30 items makes the research levels go up by one. Basically origin tech levels are more likely to be the same as required tech levels on tech levels below 5.
More department co-operation
Currently the only departments that even can do anything to help are cargo with combat shotguns and xenobio with sentience potions. I want to increase these departments. Botany is at least easy to do since they have some progression with mutating plants. Other possible things would be for example an item which spawns after chemistry mixes some hard-to-make chemicals and can (only) be used for R&D. This item could then unlock a level which allows them to make bluespace beakers for example, for chemistry. Problem with this would currently be that science can do all the same things with their chem dispenser. Anyway, give ideas for more departmental co-operation through the station. These can also be added to the game later, they do not need to exist already. For example particle collider for engineering which gives some exotic things that can be used for high R&D levels.
Items R&D can make to be limited by mostly tech levels
Partly explained in the first 2 chapters. Minerals shouldn't be the thing restricting things in R&D as much as they currently are. Science needs to be able to give others good gear. Items that would benefit science a lot such as good guns can be put behind those high tech levels.
Request of new items: items that work as upgrades for existing items
Best way to prevent science from being the "build everything, have everything" is to give science upgrade parts instead of giving the full item. This is especially important for low research levels. A good example is the janicart floor buffer upgrade. Science can't make better janicarts than janitor's cart but instead it can make an item which upgrades it. Same kind of things could be used for many other items as well. One great thing would be upgrade parts to a laser gun which make it closer to the old laser cannon, giving it more charge and higher damage. These items are useless without a laser gun from security so they would work well as basic weapon items. Good guns themselves could be then put behind the tech level barriers to high levels.
Point of the upgrades would be that science can help other departments more than it can now which is usually just upgrading medbay and that's it. Best thing would be that science can make something for all departments and all departments can do something to help science (because it's a research station). These upgrade items could, in my opinion, replace some of the machines that are already in the game. Just take the machine out and add an upgrade part to an existing machine.
Ideas of these upgradable parts:
- More charge for laser guns/tasers/armory guns for security
More damage for laser guns for security
Small upgrade part for defib to make the death timer longer and/or damage limit higher
Upgrade for chemistry's chem dispenser to give more chems (like bluespace-upgraded portable one gives now)
Upgradable RCDs for Engineering? Hard to differentiate between those and Autolathe-made ones, so maybe just upgradable RCDs. Defibs/chem dispensers for Medical (if we ever get Baymed, upgradable health scanners too!), upgradable guns and maybe armour for Security (DRAGnet when), Service already benefits lots from upgrades (but maybe a better light dispenser that can fabricate its own lights and automatically recycle old ones?), Cargo's a difficult one though - what stuff do they have that can be improved? The console, maybe, to reduce costs? -N
What I don't want R&D to be
Adding some useless RNG would just make R&D more like genetics. With the number of items needed this would just make R&D VERY slow and frustrating.
Putting a time barrier on R&D would make getting levels even slower than now. Making things slower or adding "science points" which slowly add up would make it even more waiting and possibly even reduce departmental co-op.
Smaller points:
Remove experimentor tech level upgrade thing
If the tech level barriers are supposed to work, giving science an easy way to overcome them needs to be removed. Experimentor needs to get reworked anyway but this thing would just unbalance most of these level gates.
Remove reliability
This is just adding some useless RNG to deconning items and basically the only item that's actually affected by this is the adv egun (which is getting its cost raised). Tech levels will get balanced accordingly so perfect success rate with the current items still won't give an easy way to get above those level barriers. It's also easy to do this while changing all the item files at the same time.
Return material efficiency upgrades but balance item costs
See the chapter above for limiting with tech levels. I'll return the nerfed version of the old efficiency upgrades. Science needs to be afford to give miners their mining tools and to have fun with their items. There are many very cheap items which cost like 10 minerals after upgrades. These costs need to get a lot higher. Guns will also get their costs higher.
Mineral sheets to 1000 units. E: Skipping this one. Too much work for one PR.
This is easy to do while I'm balancing all the item costs.
Update autolathe efficiency
I think autolathe still has its 85% price reduction with upgrades. I'll balance this properly and change the item costs accordingly since the number of metal/glass is changing.
Origin tech level cannot be higher than required tech level
While I want R&D to be easier than it currently is for new people without guides, there shouldn't be those exosuit syringe guns that you can just make 4 at round start and get most levels instantly maxed. With a proper rebalance these kind of items wouldn't be needed anyway. This mostly affects mech parts and mech circuits so if this gets balanced we have to make sure that robo can still do their job and build those fun mechs without waiting for long times for R&D to do something. Normal protolathe items seem to be well balanced in this way.
Possibly add new fun lategame items to high tech levels (?)
Some items can be moved there but some new items could then be added more easily. Level 8 items would be really hard to get and require luck or some rare thing to happen so it would be safe to add items which wouldn't be used every round.
Bluespace crystals > artificial bluespace crystals
Bluespace crystals can be used well as a tech level barrier. I just have to make sure that the roundstart machines start with artificial crystals and not real ones to make this work well. Then the artificial ones can have different tech levels than real ones. Their usage will still be identical though.
Small changes to DA
I'll change the triple "are you sure?" clicking to only require 2 clicks from the console menu to deconstruct an item. I'm planning to add a warning when deconstructing items that don't give any new tech levels though.
Bugfixes to R&D console
I'll fix some bugs while at it.
