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[LoSboccacc]

Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.

Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".

so, uhm, I hate bringing data to this, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita

smaller nation with more focus and even higher spending doesn't advance any faster than the top three (USA, Russia, China)

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.

Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".

so, uhm, I hate bringing data to this, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_per_capita

smaller nation with more focus and even higher spending doesn't advance any faster than the top three (USA, Russia, China)

Uh. You do realize that there were two separate points there? Not to mention that it's rather fallacious to compare the logistical burden of incorporating a new innovation into a nation-state that holds territory on the subcontinental level to that of even a single planet, never mind a unified polity consisting of dozens of inhabited worlds with interstellar travel times measured in weeks and months, as if they were somehow equitable. A three-star state in Stellaris can (depending on spacing and FTL method) be traversed in days. A thirty star state could take a quarter of a year or more with some forms of FTL. Assuming no instantaneous technobabble communication exists (and certain events seem to hint that it doesn't), that's also how long it takes to send a message one way.

Bringing up contemporary military R&D cycles was solely for the purpose of illustrating how something might be possible and may even exist in a limited capacity without being fully implemented as standard equipment or doctrine. :|

[Retropunch]

Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.

Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".

UH. You do realise that if you have ten planets full of scientists, resources and infrastructure you'd quickly be able to outplace two planets full of scientists and infrastructure. Each data 'trip' would be slower, but each exchange would be far more fruitful. Even if your the ability to quickly converse between yourselves doubled your efficiency and then doubled again due to an easier roll out, you'd still be much slower than 10 planets worth of scientists (who I assume would also have 10 lots of logicians).

Futhermore, What about if the 10 planet empire decided to concentrate each type of science on a different planet - you'd have little cross over, as biology would be on planet a and computing on planet b and explosives on c etc.? Combine that with picket ships to jump regularly to move data and it might take a week or two to move data long distances, but that'd be fine if you were all working on different parts of the problem or different problems.

More resources and scientists = faster research.

[Exerosp]

Yeah, it makes total sense. I said this in thread once already, it takes a lot more time and effort to disseminate and work a new discovery into infrastructure and practice across a large empire than across a handful of worlds. Don't think of the research timer as just the time spent investigating the phenomenon, but as everything from the initial inquiry up to the point where everything in your empire uses and supports it.

Take, for example, military R&D in the real world. Stuff that's on the battlefield today was prototyped ten or fifteen years ago. So when you research a component for your ships that isn't indicative of "this is possible now" but rather "we have built up everything and refined the technology such that we can use it as standard issue".

UH. You do realise that if you have ten planets full of scientists, resources and infrastructure you'd quickly be able to outplace two planets full of scientists and infrastructure. Each data 'trip' would be slower, but each exchange would be far more fruitful. Even if your the ability to quickly converse between yourselves doubled your efficiency and then doubled again due to an easier roll out, you'd still be much slower than 10 planets worth of scientists (who I assume would also have 10 lots of logicians).

More resources and scientists = faster research.

Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?

[Retropunch]

Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?

I'd assume by the time you're a space faring civilisation you've mastered the ability to segregate work - or, as I said, you could divide up the sciences by planet groupings.

Think about something like missile development, you'd probably have a smallish section of your research staff working on that, and you could lob them all in one place (think atomic bomb projects) and let them get on with it. There's obviously roll out on top of that, but I'd imagine you'd have a pretty good idea of how to picket across data from jump points.

I'm not saying that it's a exponential curve, but more resources can ONLY SPEED UP SCIENCE.

[Jopax]

Like more programmers and money thrown at them speeds up programming projects?

It's not exactly an assembly line where more hands means faster assembly, past a certain point more people would probably be detrimental since coordinating that much manpower, especially with something that isn't a clear cut type of thing like development isn't exactly easy.

Say you're developing a new rocket, you have a 100 people working on it, they know the basics of rocketry and are able to start off with a sound design that they then iterate on until it's a viable product. If you make that a 1000 people they probably won't be any faster because it'll still be the same basic rocket they're iterating on, so a lot of them will either be repeating what others do, leading to nothing new, or will be chasing developmental dead ends which would turn out a waste of resources.

[Flying Dice]

Except it wouldn't work like that unless they could communicate with eachother well. What if they just covered the same thing that the majority of every other scientist have already covered?

I'd assume by the time you're a space faring civilisation you've mastered the ability to segregate work - or, as I said, you could divide up the sciences by planet groupings.

Think about something like missile development, you'd probably have a smallish section of your research staff working on that, and you could lob them all in one place (think atomic bomb projects) and let them get on with it. There's obviously roll out on top of that, but I'd imagine you'd have a pretty good idea of how to picket across data from jump points.

I'm not saying that it's a exponential curve, but more resources can ONLY SPEED UP SCIENCE.

It's like you didn't even read any of the discussion we just had about how the research times are likely representative of not only the scientific study and engineering development but also distribution and standardization--it doesn't matter if one of your research teams has figured out how to build battleships efficiently if that knowledge isn't transmitted and put into practice.

Also, talking about specialization and compartmentalization of research? Have you played Stellaris? Like every other 4X, it tackles research projects with the sum total resources of your entire empire's relevant specializations.

[andrea]

I just conquered a ringworld. population is also decently happy and will become happier after the recently conquered malus ends.
I must say, the production values are astounding, and that is before boosting them with edicts and such! right now, I could abandon all my core worlds, keep only the ringworld, and still be the most powerful empire in the galaxy! those things are amazing. I wonder if that is what happened to the fallen empire? they built this great habitat for themselves, then stopped caring about anything else, because they didn't need anything else anymore.

[andrea]

I doubt it. it would feel strange to have such a prize left intact but unclaimed. even if empty ( and without the fallen empire superbuildings), that is still 4 size 25 gaia-equivalent worlds.

[TempAcc]

Prob not, or not unless the RNG shits itself and somehow ends up generating an intact, uninhabited ringworld. It wouldn't make much sense in context either, since ringworlds are artificial, so finding an uninhabited and non-screwed one would be pretty damn odd and out of place.

Anyway, I stopped playing stellaris for now. Kinda waiting till the game is more complete, so that will prob take one or two DLCs. Maybe I'll get some of those mods that change combat and add removed species traits back in and play more. Combat feels specially simplistic (in the bad way) atm with the whole ~the only efficient fleet is a mass of corvettes with high evasion~ thing.

[Retropunch]

Say you're developing a new rocket, you have a 100 people working on it, they know the basics of rocketry and are able to start off with a sound design that they then iterate on until it's a viable product. If you make that a 1000 people they probably won't be any faster because it'll still be the same basic rocket they're iterating on, so a lot of them will either be repeating what others do, leading to nothing new, or will be chasing developmental dead ends which would turn out a waste of resources.

But if you have 1000 scientists, that allows you to put 10 people on 100 different avenues or types of technology, rather than 10 on 10 different avenues. There are obviously diminishing returns, but there's no way its FASTER to have less people working on scientific development.

It's like you didn't even read any of the discussion we just had about how the research times are likely representative of not only the scientific study and engineering development but also distribution and standardization--it doesn't matter if one of your research teams has figured out how to build battleships efficiently if that knowledge isn't transmitted and put into practice.

Also, talking about specialization and compartmentalization of research? Have you played Stellaris? Like every other 4X, it tackles research projects with the sum total resources of your entire empire's relevant specializations.

It does however, allow you to have some scientists working on propulsion, and some on guns, and so forth. There would be problems in logistics, but you're balancing that by being able to tackle more areas/avenues of research simultaneously. Yes, Stellaris groups it all into three parts, but the whole thing was about it being somehow faster to research with less resources. I agree that there are diminishing returns, and that distribution and standardization would be resource consuming, but if you've got a two world empire it's not going to be faster in the long term than a 20 world empire full of thriving metropolises all putting out different ideas and avenues of research.

[andrea]

well, in stellaris you research faster by being bigger. just with diminishing returns. unless you do stupid things like having your whole empire full of 6 tile planets with one or less labs each. in that case you suffer greatly and rightfully so, since research coordination would be a nightmare.

[Neonivek]

well, in stellaris you research faster by being bigger. just with diminishing returns. unless you do stupid things like having your whole empire full of 6 tile planets with one or less labs each. in that case you suffer greatly and rightfully so, since research coordination would be a nightmare.

The problem is that it EASILY gets to the point where you would go "Ok... can you just keep your research to the few planets I have that are good at it?" because the research penalty can get PRETTY high if you don't concentrate on research non-stop.

Heck in one game I had I lost on research pretty badly because I had the biggest empire by FAR, but didn't make EVERYTHING super research oriented.

[Egan_BW]

Protip: if you don't focus on having good research, you won't have as good research as those who do.

[LoSboccacc]

with all those rules to balance empire big and small, ships big and small, population big and small etc, it plays more like a card game than a 4x, they could call this hearthstone in space and it wouldn't be far off.