New Engaging RnD

[bman]

This system focuses on scientists attempting to achieve very specific conditions or tasks and then exposing specific machines to those conditions to help understand the mechanics behind them rather than being an unimaginative tech web UI clicker.

In this new system, research is no longer based on deconstructing items to gain arbitrary levels better, but by exposing lab equipment to conditions that relate to the scientific technology being researched. This means that the ways science can gain levels is virtually infinite, as long as new features are being added.

The level of the technology being gained depends on the severity of the condition; for example: high pressures will help you understand mechanical technologies better, but hard-to-achieve, elusive extreme pressures will be more useful for your research.

There are several types of conditions to be achieved (and each condition has a specific machine that "samples" it), including but not necessarily limited to.

some "scenarios" may need to be hardcoded, but most others would probably be a simple check for pressure, temperature, heat and so on.

Pressure.
- Extreme pressure
- High pressure
- Low pressure
- Vacuum

Possible scenarios: You can already see the possibilities with this; teleport the machine (barometer?) into the atmos air supply, lock it in a high-pressure burning chamber, throw it out in space for a while, siphon a room, unleash it into a fiery SM chamber. FOR SCIENCE.

Electromagnetic radiation.
- Alpha, beta, gamma rads.
- Visible light (Lasers included)
- Exotic particles (Antimatter?)

Possible scenarios: Throw the machine in the SM chamber, leave it outside in a radiation storm, fish around / dive into the singularity with it, lock it in a room with 20 uranium doors/floors/golems, shoot it with a laser, build a room covered in reflective panes and unleash 20 emitters in it, bust open the nuke core and play basketball with it. Again, a wide spectrum of methods only restrained by your creativity. FOR SCIENCE.

Organic technology
- Alien organs, facehuggers.
- Living alien fauna and flora can be photographed/filmed and then studied.
- Human experimentation through reagents.

Possible scenarios: Make a small slime habitat, watch rabbits fuck and film it like a creep, cut off a catperson's tail then study it. Put someone on an operating table and jab needles full of unknown substance into them while he's hooked up to your machine so that it can study the adverse reactions their body has towards the chemicals. FOR SCIENCE.

Bluespace
- Portal storm events.
- Bluespace crystals (obviously)
- Warping of spacetime
- Time dilation caused by extreme speed.

Possible scenarios: GO SUPER UNSAFE: Put 20 people into a bluespace body bag and fold it, toss the machine into the singularity, see what happens when a singularity and tesla kiss, be around when a wizard decides to cast his timespace distortion spell and then study THAT. GO FAST: Shoot yourself out of a mass driver, and now with kevinz' momentum PR around the corner, throw yourself into infinite portals leading to a mass driver to reach lightspeed. Wear a flightsuit, inhale meth and go turbo. GO SAFE: Play bluespace-crystal-volleyball with your friends, run into a syndicate resonance cascade FOR SCIENCE.


Plasma research
- HIGH-ENERGY PLASMA DETONATIONS.
- Burning plasma.

Do I even need to explain the scenarios for this? They're both obvious and numerous.

Possible scenarios: Raise a family of plasma golems then have them participate in a suicide convention, blow up 20 fuel tanks for science, maxcap brig for science, burn the clown in extremely hot plasma to see how it reacts with the organic compounds in his body (really anything burning but this ties into organic science too). FOR SCIENCE.


Electronics
- Electricity obviously.
- High wattage/voltage.
- Cybernetics.

Possible scenarios: Tesla, build a tesla bolt generator using an electrified grille and a conveyor (this is real), hook the sing/SM directly into the grid for science. Build a rage cage that utilizes extremely high voltage and have people fight in it. Make good-looking wire art and claim it's electromagnetic coils for research. Turn a light on and off a lot to see what happens. Build synths and immediately put them in extreme conditions to see where you went wrong in their design. Build 2B when you're done. FOR SCIENCE.

These are just a handful of the things you can do, if you just get creative you'll be doing science in no time.

and here's the best part, as long as people keep adding features that even arbitrarily have depth, more methods to do RnD will be available because there will be more "scenarios".

---

I probably didn't put all of the possible research avenues here but hopefully you get the gist of it.

Hope you like this idea.

tldr: dood let's do it like in ksp

[DemonFiren]

This sounds kinda fun but also like a pain in the ass to code.

[bman]

This sounds kinda fun but also like a pain in the ass to code.

maybe for some scenarios, but most would just be checking if the pressure on the tile is sufficient then handing out research etc.

[ShadowDimentio]

I had an idea that was much more feasible to code.

Basically, each area of research is a part of a flowchart (flowchart included below). The area you can research and want to is selected at the R&D console, and research is started and done automatically. Research is very slow, but will eventually complete itself, though there is a way to speed it up: by feeding items like the researched area into the deconstruction analyzer.

How much faster the research goes is based on 3 things: The tech levels of the item being deconstructed (allows easy porting over of the current system as most everything already has assigned tech levels), its likeness to the area currently being researched (either increasing effectiveness if it's a good match or decreasing if not), and how if that item has been used to speed up this area already (and if so how many times has it been used).

Example: I'm researching Ballistic Combat Technology. I get cargo to order a combat shotty, and I feed it into the machine. Due to the high tech level (combat 6) of the shotgun and the exact likeness to what I'm researching (a shotgun is a ballistic weapon), I get a substantial boost to research, potentially completing it instantly.

Another example: Say I'm still researching Ballistic Combat Technology because the shotgun wasn't enough, but I only have a egun left. If I were to feed it into the machine, though it has a relevant tech at a good level (combat 4 I think), it's not like the tech that I'm researching (lasers != ballistics), so the returns to research would be diminished.

Spoiler:

[bman]

I had an idea that was much more feasible to code.

Basically, each area of research is a part of a flowchart (flowchart included below). The area you can research and want to is selected at the R&D console, and research is started and done automatically. Research is very slow, but will eventually complete itself, though there is a way to speed it up: by feeding items like the researched area into the deconstruction analyzer.

How much faster the research goes is based on 3 things: The tech levels of the item being deconstructed (allows easy porting over of the current system as most everything already has assigned tech levels), its likeness to the area currently being researched (either increasing effectiveness if it's a good match or decreasing if not), and how if that item has been used to speed up this area already (and if so how many times has it been used).

Example: I'm researching Ballistic Combat Technology. I get cargo to order a combat shotty, and I feed it into the machine. Due to the high tech level (combat 6) of the shotgun and the exact likeness to what I'm researching (a shotgun is a ballistic weapon), I get a substantial boost to research, potentially completing it instantly.

Another example: Say I'm still researching Ballistic Combat Technology because the shotgun wasn't enough, but I only have a egun left. If I were to feed it into the machine, though it has a relevant tech at a good level (combat 4 I think), it's not like the tech that I'm researching (lasers != ballistics), so the returns to research would be diminished.

Spoiler:

dude that's an even worse ui clicker you literally got the current system and added even more UI + made the game play itself for them

[DemonFiren]

it's shadowmemes

[Iatots]

Roundstart maxcaps are a thing, atmos being hard is a meme perpetrated by people playing exclusively on the fly and unwilling to sit down 10 minutes and think. The slow atmos processing and magic air filters make the sistem trivial, what magic conditions could unlock new technology, and what would said technology let people do they couldn't before?

Radiation is even simpler than atmos, evenn if you coded different types of radiation, it would just be pressing buttons/stacking machines to get big numbers. And what would research in radiation even produce?

Chemicals with random effects would be cool, but any possible outrageous effect would be quickly patched out in kneejerk PRs from the funpolice; all random selections of traitor items are already weighted, and besides every other round getting derailed by a new deathchem would get tiring really fast.

Biology experiments are dumb unless you have either random chems or random creatures. Sectioning a furry will teach you nothing, unless catpeople/lizards react differently to chems every round. Good luck getting that one through.

Bluespace: nobody has this figured out. It's just an excuse for sci-fi. "Do X and see what happens" only gives you data IRL.

Plasma: Yes you do need to explain more scenarios. Bombs and fire golly gee, like there is anything more to it.

Electricity: grid rework still pending.

Most of your suggestions seem to boild down to "do X, get cheevo, new feature unlocked", without even coming up with a feature to unlock, which seems to be exactly what happens in kerbal space program from what I can read (minus KSP's research system, which is computers and timers, basically what shadow suggested).

Only in KSP there are parts to unlock, which are basically the same as you already have but better numbers. Because a rocket science simulator needed a story mode I guess.

[bman]

Roundstart maxcaps are a thing, atmos being hard is a meme perpetrated by people playing exclusively on the fly and unwilling to sit down 10 minutes and think. The slow atmos processing and magic air filters make the sistem trivial, what magic conditions could unlock new technology, and what would said technology let people do they couldn't before?

I didn't say atmos was hard, It's just that achieving SUPER pressures takes considerable effort (atleast building a chamber)

Radiation is even simpler than atmos, evenn if you coded different types of radiation, it would just be pressing buttons/stacking machines to get big numbers. And what would research in radiation even produce?

I don't think you get the point of this, sure, there are few types of radiation, but the methods by which you acquire this radiation are open game.

Chemicals with random effects would be cool, but any possible outrageous effect would be quickly patched out in kneejerk PRs from the funpolice; all random selections of traitor items are already weighted, and besides every other round getting derailed by a new deathchem would get tiring really fast.

I agree with this.

Biology experiments are dumb unless you have either random chems or random creatures. Sectioning a furry will teach you nothing, unless catpeople/lizards react differently to chems every round. Good luck getting that one through.

I don't get where you're coming from, is this a realism issue?

Bluespace: nobody has this figured out. It's just an excuse for sci-fi. "Do X and see what happens" only gives you data IRL.

I agree, bluespace is dumb but SOMETHING needs to give you levels for it though

Plasma: Yes you do need to explain more scenarios. Bombs and fire golly gee, like there is anything more to it.
I don't know, it's almost like there's 2 billion chemical reactions utilizing plasma.

Electricity: grid rework still pending.



Most of your suggestions seem to boild down to "do X, get cheevo, new feature unlocked", without even coming up with a feature to unlock, which seems to be exactly what happens in kerbal space program from what I can read (minus KSP's research system, which is computers and timers, basically what shadow suggested).

without even coming up with a feature to unlock
We already have RND rewards dude, this is about how you do RnD, NOT what RnD gives you.

Again, you're missing the point horribly. It's not about doing X the same way every round, it's about achieving X using any method you want, and that makes all the difference in the world.

In KSP (last time i played) you go on missions to extract samples of materials from space e.g drilling moon rocks, (and also expose equipment to specific conditions) in order to study them.

Only in KSP there are parts to unlock, which are basically the same as you already have but better numbers. Because a rocket science simulator needed a story mode I guess.

I get it, this isn't a perfect system, but would you rather come up with a way to drop massive amounts of radiation in one room to get levels in order to build an advanced e-gun or literally just sit around and wait?

[Iatots]

Roundstart maxcaps are a thing, atmos being hard is a meme perpetrated by people playing exclusively on the fly and unwilling to sit down 10 minutes and think. The slow atmos processing and magic air filters make the sistem trivial, what magic conditions could unlock new technology, and what would said technology let people do they couldn't before?

I didn't say atmos was hard, It's just that achieving SUPER pressures takes considerable effort (atleast building a chamber)

You can't say it needs considerable effort one moment and then make the exact opposite point in brackets. Walls don't bust from excess pressure, neither do floors, and magic pumps/filters let you move around gas effortlessly.

Radiation is even simpler than atmos, evenn if you coded different types of radiation, it would just be pressing buttons/stacking machines to get big numbers. And what would research in radiation even produce?

I don't think you get the point of this, sure, there are few types of radiation, but the methods by which you acquire this radiation are open game.

Yes and? There is no danger to radiation because it's such a simple system. You can dump 2^32 uranium ore pieces or whatever the in-game limit on items is and it will never spread. Your tools won't become irradiated, your floors and walls won't become irradiated, get rid of the ore and radiation goes away.

Biology experiments are dumb unless you have either random chems or random creatures. Sectioning a furry will teach you nothing, unless catpeople/lizards react differently to chems every round. Good luck getting that one through.

I don't get where you're coming from, is this a realism issue?

It's a game issue. It will teach you nothing because nothing is coded to be taught. And can it?
It may sound like a meme, but biology *is* applied chemistry, and our chemistry system is really dull. What can you learn from new organisms?
New chemical reactions? No, those are all hardcoded.
A new source of chemical X? Magic chem dispensers already make chemical production a matter of button pressing, you could cut corners and have slimes produce ""end-game"" chems, but that's not the kind of discussion we are having.
Actual catalysis? Again, our chemistry is very simple, it's all balanced for rounds that barely last an hour, unless you wanted to implement more end-game chemistry and THEN RnD shortcuts, you won't get far.
On a more macroscopic perpective, you could have random organs generated and each organ would have an effect when implanted, and once studied this organ could be replicated, but where will that take you? Free surgeries for organs that cure toxins? dwarf livers?

Bluespace: nobody has this figured out. It's just an excuse for sci-fi. "Do X and see what happens" only gives you data IRL.

I agree, bluespace is dumb but SOMETHING needs to give you levels for it though

Bluespace is both a crutch and and obstacle for balance reasons. It explains FTL travel and communications because otherwise we wouldn't have the setting, it's a research barrier to better versions of items, and it's an excuse for teleportation because teleportation is a thing in sci-fi settings. The only point in researching bluespace is for features that should just be electronics but can't because space (tcomms), things that should be easily upgradeable but can't because balance (beakers, backpacks, fucking bluespace syringes), or just QoL stuff because realism matters, but only sometimes (bluespace mining satchels, as if normal satchels were a thing).
The only maybe fun thing about bluespace is bluespace bodybags, which can create !FUN! situations.

Plasma: Yes you do need to explain more scenarios. Bombs and fire golly gee, like there is anything more to it.

I don't know, it's almost like there's 2 billion chemical reactions utilizing plasma.

Back to chemistry, what do you learn from reacting things with plasma? Nothing, because you can't learn new reactions, because chemistry is an exact science for spessmen. Plasma, much like bluespace, is an excuse for sci-fi (cloning chems, made up chems) or balance (scarcity).

Most of your suggestions seem to boild down to "do X, get cheevo, new feature unlocked", without even coming up with a feature to unlock, which seems to be exactly what happens in kerbal space program from what I can read (minus KSP's research system, which is computers and timers, basically what shadow suggested).

without even coming up with a feature to unlock
We already have RND rewards dude, this is about how you do RnD, NOT what RnD gives you.

How would existing rewards be achievable in your proposed science method and what kind of new rewards can it produce?

Again, you're missing the point horribly. It's not about doing X the same way every round, it's about achieving X using any method you want, and that makes all the difference in the world.

This web of methods does not currently exist.

In KSP (last time i played) you go on missions to extract samples of materials from space e.g drilling moon rocks, (and also expose equipment to specific conditions) in order to study them.

Only in KSP there are parts to unlock, which are basically the same as you already have but better numbers. Because a rocket science simulator needed a story mode I guess.

I get it, this isn't a perfect system, but would you rather come up with a way to drop massive amounts of radiation in one room to get levels in order to build an advanced e-gun or literally just sit around and wait?

my TL;DR
You are trying to implement a discovery system based on the real life scientific method for researching the nature of the poorly understood universe into a 2D solved spessmen game. Even worse you are walking backwards, coming up with funny situations and trying to work the method around them.

my suggestion
Work on improving existing systems, and once they are sufficiently more complex change science to work in tandem with them. Realism is not paramount, but reality is the most complex thing we are aware of and it is all one single system. More realistic features will all build up to a point of harmony that is our reality, game balance is all about making the point closer.

[bman]

fuck this is too far but ok

Roundstart maxcaps are a thing, atmos being hard is a meme perpetrated by people playing exclusively on the fly and unwilling to sit down 10 minutes and think. The slow atmos processing and magic air filters make the sistem trivial, what magic conditions could unlock new technology, and what would said technology let people do they couldn't before?

I didn't say atmos was hard, It's just that achieving SUPER pressures takes considerable effort (atleast building a chamber)

You can't say it needs considerable effort one moment and then make the exact opposite point in brackets. Walls don't bust from excess pressure, neither do floors, and magic pumps/filters let you move around gas effortlessly.


Perhaps have it so you have to "fix" the pressure/temp to a certain randomized value requested by a machine? It would take some effort if you believe that's too easy currently (perhaps for the good, research for pressure mechanics doesn't necessarily have to be difficult).

Radiation is even simpler than atmos, evenn if you coded different types of radiation, it would just be pressing buttons/stacking machines to get big numbers. And what would research in radiation even produce?

I don't think you get the point of this, sure, there are few types of radiation, but the methods by which you acquire this radiation are open game.

Yes and? There is no danger to radiation because it's such a simple system. You can dump 2^32 uranium ore pieces or whatever the in-game limit on items is and it will never spread. Your tools won't become irradiated, your floors and walls won't become irradiated, get rid of the ore and radiation goes away.


I see the issue with this now and I agree, it's really an issue of depth of our systems thoughs.

Biology experiments are dumb unless you have either random chems or random creatures. Sectioning a furry will teach you nothing, unless catpeople/lizards react differently to chems every round. Good luck getting that one through.

I don't get where you're coming from, is this a realism issue?

It's a game issue. It will teach you nothing because nothing is coded to be taught. And can it?
It may sound like a meme, but biology *is* applied chemistry, and our chemistry system is really dull. What can you learn from new organisms?
New chemical reactions? No, those are all hardcoded.
A new source of chemical X? Magic chem dispensers already make chemical production a matter of button pressing, you could cut corners and have slimes produce ""end-game"" chems, but that's not the kind of discussion we are having.
Actual catalysis? Again, our chemistry is very simple, it's all balanced for rounds that barely last an hour, unless you wanted to implement more end-game chemistry and THEN RnD shortcuts, you won't get far.
On a more macroscopic perpective, you could have random organs generated and each organ would have an effect when implanted, and once studied this organ could be replicated, but where will that take you? Free surgeries for organs that cure toxins? dwarf livers?


Probably, you can simply take the "function" of the organ then 3D print your own organ with the functions you learned from previous organs. Biological research does not really have an impact ingame as it is now, which is why "scenarios" would be hardcoded/ a var applied to chemicals determining amount of levels learned.

Bluespace: nobody has this figured out. It's just an excuse for sci-fi. "Do X and see what happens" only gives you data IRL.

I agree, bluespace is dumb but SOMETHING needs to give you levels for it though

Bluespace is both a crutch and and obstacle for balance reasons. It explains FTL travel and communications because otherwise we wouldn't have the setting, it's a research barrier to better versions of items, and it's an excuse for teleportation because teleportation is a thing in sci-fi settings. The only point in researching bluespace is for features that should just be electronics but can't because space (tcomms), things that should be easily upgradeable but can't because balance (beakers, backpacks, fucking bluespace syringes), or just QoL stuff because realism matters, but only sometimes (bluespace mining satchels, as if normal satchels were a thing).
The only maybe fun thing about bluespace is bluespace bodybags, which can create !FUN! situations.


Yeah, I was trying to tie bluespace into the existing concept of time dilation somehow, or spacetime ripples maybe in order to make it realistic.

Plasma: Yes you do need to explain more scenarios. Bombs and fire golly gee, like there is anything more to it.

I don't know, it's almost like there's 2 billion chemical reactions utilizing plasma.

Back to chemistry, what do you learn from reacting things with plasma? Nothing, because you can't learn new reactions, because chemistry is an exact science for spessmen. Plasma, much like bluespace, is an excuse for sci-fi (cloning chems, made up chems) or balance (scarcity).

Yes, plasma is also difficult to reason out in a "scientific" way because it's an imaginary meme that is poorly explained, but just for the sake of plasma research existing I proposed for mixing plasma-based chemicals that are a pain in the ass to give you point.

Most of your suggestions seem to boild down to "do X, get cheevo, new feature unlocked", without even coming up with a feature to unlock, which seems to be exactly what happens in kerbal space program from what I can read (minus KSP's research system, which is computers and timers, basically what shadow suggested).

without even coming up with a feature to unlock
We already have RND rewards dude, this is about how you do RnD, NOT what RnD gives you.

How would existing rewards be achievable in your proposed science method and what kind of new rewards can it produce?

They just reward you with levels, the protolathe is unchanged.

Again, you're missing the point horribly. It's not about doing X the same way every round, it's about achieving X using any method you want, and that makes all the difference in the world.

This web of methods does not currently exist.

In KSP (last time i played) you go on missions to extract samples of materials from space e.g drilling moon rocks, (and also expose equipment to specific conditions) in order to study them.

Only in KSP there are parts to unlock, which are basically the same as you already have but better numbers. Because a rocket science simulator needed a story mode I guess.

I get it, this isn't a perfect system, but would you rather come up with a way to drop massive amounts of radiation in one room to get levels in order to build an advanced e-gun or literally just sit around and wait?

my TL;DR
You are trying to implement a discovery system based on the real life scientific method for researching the nature of the poorly understood universe into a 2D solved spessmen game. Even worse you are walking backwards, coming up with funny situations and trying to work the method around them.


I think you're looking at the scenarios exactly how I thought people would misunderstand them, it's not that you're doing the exact same scenario every time, it's just one of the possible scenarios you can take to achieve the prerequisite, I understand your concerns about depth though


my suggestion
Work on improving existing systems, and once they are sufficiently more complex change science to work in tandem with them. Realism is not paramount, but reality is the most complex thing we are aware of and it is all one single system. More realistic features will all build up to a point of harmony that is our reality, game balance is all about making the point closer.

but yeah i see the issues with this system now.

While this is reiterating the very broad task of "give the game more depth". I absolutely agree that realism has a natural balance to it that can be used as a guideline, but I've dropped attempts at realism a long time ago

I personally believe trying to add depth will not go anywhere if there is no unified push towards it, hence why I'm doing industristation.

[Remie Richards]

Please

Stop

With

This

[bman]

Please

Stop

With

This

no

[kevinz000]

this thread happens when you code it and when you code it before i finish
goodluck, gamer!

[Selea]

techwebs needs this thing