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[Farmerbob]

Yeah, but then the player's next colony would have that technology too.  Eventually they would just have all the techs.

That doesn't necessarily follow.  The Romans had concrete and used it extensively.  After the Roman Empire collapsed, it was mostly forgotten in the west until the 1600's or so, if I remember right.

And the Romans weren't offed by eldrich abominations.  So just because your colony has this new tech doesn't mean it will be absorbed permanently into world technological progress.

[Glloyd]

Yeah, but then the player's next colony would have that technology too.  Eventually they would just have all the techs.

That doesn't necessarily follow.  The Romans had concrete and used it extensively.  After the Roman Empire collapsed, it was mostly forgotten in the west until the 1600's or so, if I remember right.

And the Romans weren't offed by eldrich abominations.  So just because your colony has this new tech doesn't mean it will be absorbed permanently into world technological progress.

This. People in Western Europe forgot how to build roads, buildings and whatever like the Romans did after the Empire fell. In addition, that complex system of bureaucracy and state management that kept the Empire afloat also fell out of practice for some time. Just because your old colony had the tech, doesn't mean the new one will.

[Boksi]

Well, if you invent something like an improved hammer and several in-game years pass without the colony being destroyed, it's quite possible that the technology will have spread, especially if you start exporting those hammers. If you invent a new type of boiler two days before the trees start weeping and everybody gets this strange urge to go deep into the woods and the colony is never heard from again, well, it's not unreasonable to assume that the new boiler design doesn't spread.

[Farmerbob]

Well, if you invent something like an improved hammer and several in-game years pass without the colony being destroyed, it's quite possible that the technology will have spread, especially if you start exporting those hammers. If you invent a new type of boiler two days before the trees start weeping and everybody gets this strange urge to go deep into the woods and the colony is never heard from again, well, it's not unreasonable to assume that the new boiler design doesn't spread.

True, but remember there has to be at least some level of irrationality in games, or it becomes more like life and there's no reason to play any more

Again, the Roman example.  They were using concrete for hundreds of years, *many* hundreds.  Maybe even a thousand years.  Then the Roman Empire went poof, and so did the knowledge of concrete, for hundreds more years until people started figuring it out again.

[Glloyd]

Well, if you invent something like an improved hammer and several in-game years pass without the colony being destroyed, it's quite possible that the technology will have spread, especially if you start exporting those hammers. If you invent a new type of boiler two days before the trees start weeping and everybody gets this strange urge to go deep into the woods and the colony is never heard from again, well, it's not unreasonable to assume that the new boiler design doesn't spread.

True, but remember there has to be at least some level of irrationality in games, or it becomes more like life and there's no reason to play any more

Again, the Roman example.  They were using concrete for hundreds of years, *many* hundreds.  Maybe even a thousand years.  Then the Roman Empire went poof, and so did the knowledge of concrete, for hundreds more years until people started figuring it out again.

In addition, the constructions made out of concrete were still sitting there for people to look at and live in (and fight over), yet the knowledge of how to make them, and how to make the concrete did not pass on with them. Thus, it's not necessarily a certainty that the new colony will be able to make the new hammer, even if they find it in the ruins of the old colony.

[dennislp3]

Another issue that is a little more complex is also the notion of technology suppression (for many different reasons) and certain technologies not gaining popularity or use due to a population or culture that sees the invention as unnecessary and things like that.

[Karkov]

Being able to export a technology back to the Empire would be pretty awesome, just to integrate it with the Empire or watch it get buried beneath mountains of cloth or something and forgotten in the back of a warehouse for generations.  Could totally be like a way to save technology between playthroughs (if you're into that kind of thing). 

Load up a box of roller-skates and send them on over to the Empire.  They catch on quick enough with the populace at large and are remodeled and redesigned by shoe-makers and cart makers alike.  A burgeoning economy is built solely on roller-skates alone; the Empire at large is happy for once (especially the now luxuriously wealthy doctors).

On the flip-side, the new hot-water-heater that would not only heat water, but sanitize it (and convert sea water to drinkable water) as well, is lost underneath a mountain of plaid cloth.  Lost is the great technological marvel that revolutionized a small colony that lived in a desert biome, but right next to the ocean.  They lived happily, able to produce many riches from the ore-filled desert, and lived in harmony for many years.  Years after they heard about the loss of their great hot-water-heater, they decided to get back at the Empire for their great insult upon their small colony.  They boxed up a beacon of Quag'garoth, labeled "Feather Dusters," and sent it upon it's merry way back to the Empire.  The colony hasn't heard from the Empire in quite some time.

[Gaslamp-Daniel]

Wow!  This is really interesting

Nick and I are just on the train back from a skull kissing ritual with Valve, but I wanted to comment on some of this, regarding our current plans regarding the systems you're discussing, and maybe some opportunities here.

First, regarding the genesis for the idea, it's so awesome that you guys can help us solve our problems like this.  I love game development.

We had actually *loosely* settled on a pretty nice, simple solution to the problem that is easy to implement but adds depth to the game, whereby the amount of work demanded by overseers (aka artisans, foremen, etc) of work crews is a function of the overseer's personalities.  Lazier (or more aloof, or more distracted) overseers demand less time, and so forth.  It aligns with one of the philosophies that's interesting to us with the game that the characters' personalities affect the way the game is played.  If your boss joins a cult and never shows up to work, most people will slowly stop working, except those who themselves have good work ethics, et cetera.

Regarding technology, I love the idea of creating a system where circumstances can inform characters to develop new technologies, and if we can think of a clean, simple, and robust way to actually code that, I can't see us NOT trying it, but i'm always wary of systems where we need to hand-craft the circumstances in order to make it feel reasonable from the perspective of the fiction.  We might not have to, but we'll think on it for a while

We don't have any plans for a "tech tree", because that sort of mechanism is usually an arbitrary illusion of choice in the first place, and it wouldn't really serve a function in CE that is interesting: it'd just be grindy.  Our current representation of such an idea is that somewhat random, somewhat ordained circumstances will present the player with opportunities to invest in the analysis of artifacts that the empire (or whomever) sends you, or that you dig up, or perhaps just building 800 buildings gives someone an "idea", and an event happens, sort of like a quest, with some criteria, that if completed will have some outcome on your game.

Such a system could potentially be used to perform some of the concepts that you have been discussing, but right now it's all hand-written, and thus the depth isn't really there right now (there are like 3 events), but the overhead for us to create these things might be low enough to just put in so many that you'll have an interesting time regardless... We'll just have to try it and find out

[Farmerbob]

Ah, something code-workable that would lead to improvements:

The Office of New Opportunities (ONO) where an appointed NPC actually seeks out people and asks them if they have new ideas.

The ONO agent:
1) Seeks out residents and asks them if they have ideas.  The number of residents they seek out is based on stats.
2) Evaluates ideas based on their stats. (this is all just numbers, there is no actual evaluation occurring)
3) If the idea sounds bad, they seek another person to ask if they have an idea
4) If the idea sounds good, they talk to the mayor
5) If the mayor likes it (based on relationship with ONO agent + other stats) then the idea is implemented.
6) The idea need not even be an actual idea until the implementation step.
7) The ONO agent can have ideas themselves, but it should be rare.  Perhaps if they actually SEE an acident or event happen.

ONO agent stats would be critical here.  If you have a lazy ONO agent, few changes would happen.  A dumb agent won't think many ideas are good.  A ONO agent with poor social skills won't be able to convince the Mayor to allow new ideas.

This means that for best results, you will want a Really Good NPC doing a job with no direct impact on the colony.  They could do sooo much good work as mechanic or a politician or a barber, but you, in your infinite wisdom as the overseer, have chosen to allow them to be idle slackers according to most of the rest of the community, especially the working class.

[Citizen Daniel]

Neat  

We just had a discussion about this!  This actually sounds much like "research", but for the problem that the act of being sociable isn't traditionally a thing that "scientists" do.  We came up with a way to contextualize this though:

Your ONO is basically your research division, and your officer of the ONO is your head scientist.  They have a collection of lackeys that do the *real* science, while the lead researcher wanders around town telling people about all the great research they've been doing, while actually finding out what sort of things people need.  This way, the player can earn scientific advancements influenced by the needs of the settlement, the "real" scientists (the grad students) can be heads-down blowing up unique collections of exotic chemicals, and the scientist can be an Edisonian figure who doesn't actually do any useful work at all!  Perfect!

[Jopax]

Ooooh, that also gives the perfect breeding ground for neglected students who were denied fame to turn into mad scientists plotting to take over the world

[SquatchHammer]

Well you could use the "see a need, fill a need" basis for coding the mechanic. NPC's that work in an area would say they need x thing to make their lives easier at work/home/etc and think up a way to do it. You could make it where it's infeasible to the best idea of the century; that being a gradient or a bell curve style of what is feasible/workable. As being the governing force you could still say you'll do it but make it where there will either be problems down the road or very expensive resource wise to make the overly complex way of killing your enemies (figuring that most of bay 12 will go along with those ideas...)

Inducing madness.....

[Citizen Daniel]

Very unlikely that there won't be at least a minimal downside to any technological advance. 

As soon as it's all positives, you get this awful scenario where the game devolves into an optimization puzzle to space lasers (or whatever), and the player feels compelled to play exactly the same way every time.  Using a weighted random system to allow the player to coarsely steer research as you say (by having people working in the fields that you wish to be researched) means that the player may meander through technology related to what they want, with some weird outliers thrown in, and they can (but don't have to) use this as motivation to divert from specific goals as things become available. 

Also, yes, if the downside is that a technology spreads noxious clouds, you make some gas masks and they help repel attackers.  If it instead attracts outside attention, well... you have a great reason to build better walls

[Farmerbob]

Daniel,

Looks fun, but what does Q'aggath need?  I hope that you folks aren't ignoring the eldritch abominations when it comes to the needs of the community.  Surely the elder races and their avatars will have some valuable input on technological advancements that any human colony would benefit from!

[werty892]

Can we still have some random inventions, to keep it interesting?