Hi, I thought about this idea for some time now. I know there is already a tech system in the game but if I remember correctly, it is built to enhance your player's character by giving him bonuses. My idea of a Tech Trees is different and have, for now, no relation with this one. Before starting my explanation, i think this "system" will be better if the player can choose to activate it or not in the option panel. That being said, let's start ! The name of my idea actually explains the main purpose. It will be tech trees but i thought, it to be more than that. (Almost) everything in the game can use this system. A player's character can not use or understand things in the game if the corresponding search was not perform beforehand. Because, i think it can be awkward to use a new technology or an alien technology or even understand things (music, legend, etc..) if you don't know what is it at first. And you, also, can't craft something that you don't know ! The progression can be made this way: We discover an artefact or a blueprint, a legend or myth, a music and so on in the universe. We want to use the artefact or craft an item from the blueprint or understand the discovery. We need to do a research on some elements in the tech trees to reach some level of technologies and understanding who will give us the tool and knowledge the understand what we have and how to use/make it. For use to research things in the tech trees, we need to gather items, it can be anything. And some other tech can be required to research on others! Example : We discover an old base, abandoned. But the electricity is broken. We don't have, in the category "Electricity" of the tech trees, the "Basics of Electricity" so we can't figure out what to do to repair it ! This is actually the first thing we can do in the Electricity category and we need to have discover some research about metals and conductivity first and have some ore to make the "experiment" and learn the tech ! Another example : We search beforehand on iron and steel to be able to use them in our crafts. But we want to build an underwater base but we can't because of the oxidation in steel and we want to perform a search on Stainless steel to help us achieve this construction. For that we need to search the previous one : Iron and Steel so it's okay. And we need, for exemple, 5 iron, 5 steel and 10 water (in a container). Now we can perform the search in the lab for Stainless steel and, we not, build the new non-natural ressources into a factory ! Here a bonus i made (not complete but with basics informations) : PS: if you like the idea, i will finish it ! It's pretty basic but can be very powerful and it can had more depth into the game ! This is the main purpose of the idea. It can make the game harder but i think it will make it better that way If you like the idea, i will go deeper in explanation and mockups. Kitefr
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neat, I was thinking about making a thread about a similar tech tree/research system, mine being passive, being developed while the player does other things. Perhaps even a EVE Online system where research persists even while you're not playing. (Though that results in really long wait times, and is generally not very rewarding.) It also included a setup where making certain discoveries, items, scanned planets, and downing bosses/finding dungeons or even crafting certain items would result in a ''breakthrough'' that gave you a bonus to research in its respective field(s) (engineering, quantuum mechanics, biology, or computing) which would be common enough that you could research at a reasonable pace without investing in a particle accelerator. Also, I thought of research being more ''fluid'' in that you got points, lots of them, (about 1 every second if you averaged all the points you get while playing.) And that you'd need so many points to be able to craft/use certain items.
I was actually thinking of that too ! What i thought is, everything or almost everything in the game will need a lab to make a search on the technology. It includes musics, old artefact found in ruins by exemple and so on !
While I like the idea of this a lot, I don't know how well it will fit in with the current game style. I don't believe there is a lot of ore combining or anything like that. That being said, this might make for an amazing mod! You could even have researchers that look into things for you and the more researchers you have, the faster you develop the tech.
I believe that indeed if Tech works that way the progression in-game would feel more organized and correct. :alien:
Thanks ! I'm actually thinking of making a mod of this if there is a modding API for the game. I'm not really a programmer but i could hire a team ! But it would need to be a very good API because i will have to hack into all the system or almost to make it work the way i want... well... Wait and see !
Maybe a research computer that does the research for you over time, but that you can feed samples relevant to the research to speed it up? It would only speed up the present research, and the less relevant it is(If researching energy, batteries are more relevant than copper is more relevant than plastic)the less of a bonus it gives. The above is for passive, observant research; there could be an option to dissect the object, destroying it to give a bigger bonus(If relevancy=x,passive bonus=x every 3 seconds,dissect bonus=3*x exactly once.)
...We're an advanced race, that know how to make spaceships... Im sorry, but I think we know how to do the most common of things, so sorry, but you get a downvote from me
I agree with you on some point but we don't know the story in starbound now, so it might be a little too soon to tell this : What if you got by yourself in a spaceship running away a cataclysm on your planet or other things like that and you are now on your own. Like Sarzael said : Your race knows how to make all this stuff, but do you ? And if we can built a small nuclear reactor in the early stage of the game, won't you think this a little awkward ? My idea is to bring a constant evolution of the character in the game and bring new mechanics when we need it. And i said that it will be better if the system can be switchable in the option panel (for those who doesn't want to use it) But thanks for your opinion ^^
I know a few others already ragged on you a little, but I can't help it. We are an advanced society that builds spaceships, cars, planes, and much more complicated things, but the average person doesn't know what metals are in bronze or how to make a battery, or how to start a fire without a lighter (or how to make a lighter!). We rely heavily on what we can buy and other people can make for us. Do you seriously believe that in a futuristic/sci-fi world that people will be any more knowledgeable about the technology that they use on a regular basis? If you do believe that, I give you MAJOR points for your positive outlook on humanity and our future as a species. If not, then why would you assume that someone who managed to escape a planet being destroyed (reportedly the premise of the intro for humans) wouldn't need to learn such things to be able to do anything beyond buy stuff or build a mud hut which would later collapse?
Well, considering our character knows how to fly the ship, and they should have atleast basic knowledge or even higher standing knowledge (college, university level) why wouldn't they know how to make such basic things? Especially the glitch, just saying, after all, they're medieval and live in the ages of such iron and steel armor, so they'd definitely know how to make basic things. We may not be able to assume our character might have a super high intelligence, but why should we assume they know nothing?
"basic knowledge" of a rocket doesn't really cut it. You're going to have to know the exact numbers and specs of every part in the thing, down to the smallest bits. Then you have to have the technology to make the parts, which would be quite expensive to say the least, plus an understanding of how to use those tools, you'd next need the metals to replace certain parts, which would have to be very high-quality and advanced so as to not crack or deform under the intense heat of an engine that's capable of sending a rocket to space. So you'd have to understand advanced metallurgy and it's tools and processes too. You'd have to have the knowledge of dozens of degrees in all sorts of different fields. Though I think that many basic things might not need researching, as things such as basic metals (iron, bronze) are easy enough to stumble across and has a huge range of success and isn't that difficult to create a furnace capable of getting some copper. Stone items are also pretty obvious to anyone. Though even a member of a futuristic society capable of regular intragalactic spaceflight probably wouldn't be able to go much past the bronze age on his/her own without help. though depending on the training
I can't tell if you're saying we should or shouldn't have a tech tree, because at first it seems you're saying we shouldnt because we know how to fly the rocket and such, yet not, and the second part you say we don't need it...but do? ._. you confuse me
I think we do need a tech tree. Because knowing every bit of a rocket and its construction is very difficult on one's own. The second is that the character would have some prior knowledge of basic tech, probably up to the bronze age, maybe slightly farther as education becomes more efficient. A tech tree would be very important for balancing things too. When I played Terraria, I managed to skip several tiers of equipment because I got lucky, and my experience was drastically lowered because of it. A well designed tech tree would prevent that from happening, through quite a few mechanics, just slowing me down, requiring researched things from elsewhere to be able to use/craft certain things that might have a difficulty that I'll need lower tier armors to unlock the higher tier armors.
But researching things takes time, if this idea were to be implemented, i think it should be more of an option when creating the character, like how in terraria they had softcore, medium, and hardcore, well, maybe we should have an option to turn research on and off. Not just because of the time it would take, but the speedruns streams and videos group wouldn't be much of speedrunning and such with the option (you can probably tell i watch them alot). It's a time consumer, and it should be more of an option than anything.
It kinda makes sense, but what if when you wanted to speedrun, you would find things that instantly give research points or whatever to you, or increases its speed by 100% for X minutes, so that you're not just sitting around? That would be a way to make speedruns quite possible. Or if you're really good and have more of the tier 5 resource than the tier 4, while you're in tier 3, you might just be able to run the dungeon for tier 5 research in tier 3 armor if you're really good. Bypassing tier 4 armor but being difficult and counterintuitive. In Terraria, I bypassed several tiers of armor barely realizing that I had.
