era progress by quad? sound pretty cool actually

@lo_fabre Mmm, now they throwed in the hard/soft links, I'm not sure this is appropriate again. The thing is, it can't work like a 4-dimensions EL screen anymore since they now have links.

So I guess we'll have to zoom in / out again :s

(or, but this could be hard to design, have low era be pushed in background, and displaying low links by trasparency, but that would be super weird I guess).

Basically, they could just have two circles, too :

Inner circle with a 5 step 1/4 circle gauges, highlighted if accessable, and surrounded if selected. There you selects quadrant eras.

Outer circle with inventions in the selected Era. Links would go to the inner circle edge or the outer circle edge if they are coming from / to another Era. Links would be highlighted if the root invention is discovered.

The problem with that is the lack of general view, so you can long term plan a way from Era X to Era Y stuff. So you would still need a zoom in/out feature.

I think they will come with a nice screen anyway.

@Meedoc or someone who can reply :

You said it was not planned for update 1 (you're testing my will :p). There is also no plan for the science screen in the Improve List - Updates 1, 2, 3 and Release thread.

Not trying to sound restless (err... mkay, I am sooooo impatient on the subject in fact). But will it be ok for update say 2 ? 3 ?

Even with cuts like no whatever-advanced-or-awesome-stuff-you're-working-on ?

Do you have a working prototype ? Even with the old screen and a loosy display ?

Because the actual science screen, while practical, doesn't help to test that design.

If the engine behind it works, why not displaying a loosy text display with the old screen for us to test gameplay ?

I know the engine is so much work.

Honestly, I do. I'm a backoffice software ingeneer, plus as a geek writing hobby, I have to make design low-level changes in a dice & paper roleplaying game that I'm writing (and I fear that, low-level change #10, "let's restart again").

But if you have a crappy (working) prototype, I'd love to test that.

Or maybe you do you want somehow a final result and limiting non-final press screenshots ? (that would be also a very valid reason ?)

Let's be honest : I can't wait, in fact :p

You should read my wall of text, Romeo :)

Hard limit trees makes edge duration problems by construction. Everyone wants to science up the faster they can. With hard limits, you have a optimal way. Soon, when numbers will be ironed, multiplayer players will find it.

So you may be the first in a game to find something, soon, everyone will find the same because everyone is on the same track.

The way Era works (in EL for exemple), you need to bypass some inventions for a long period in the game (unless you don't care to pay high science cost in later eras). You're making choices for a longer time there.

Thank you for the answer :)

Mmm, I did not think about soft links and can't really imagine what would be the impacts.

If the cost for bypassing an invention's root with soft links is, say, "invention cost + (for exemple) 40% root cost", then maybe people would like to bypass if there's a tactical benefit doing so.

Especially if you can go back to the root invention later, for 60% of the base cost (for exemple).

(60%/40%... like 61% 39% golden ratio, yada yada)

-edit- mmm... If you have a "number of inventions" formula, that is a lot more complicated than this. Choosing to pay Era + 1 before Era + 0 would be a big discount.

Going full soft links would be interesting I guess, because you allready have hard limits with the Era's quadrants.

I can be very wrong here but having two different kind of limits with Era and hard links could lead to ergonomy problem (but I don't know if Era are still a hard limit in your system).

I wonder if Sophon's power, with the Scientist "law by default" combo still work after this changes ?

Sorry, sorry, 1000x sorry to devs for that wall of text, but I think you should read it.

I really hope we get to test this before there's actual links between techs. Here is the reason.

I'll recreate what I wanted to say before the post was eaten by my session the other day.

Say, as an hypothesis, there's 6 inventions to discover in each Era's quadrant.

Say also that to access to a higher quadrant era, you need 4 discoveries on 6.

Say in the end that science costs are 2 ^ (Era of the discovery - 1) x 100 x (1 + number of discoveries in this quadrant) x 1.61.

That formula is there only to illustrate with numbers, it's totally arbitrary. 1.61 is the golden ratio you will have between costs inside within an Era in a given quadrant (personal gamedesign preference here).

Numbers are just here to find and illustrate the differences between a Tree system and an Era system.

In that Era by quadrant science system, the quickest way to have full Era 5 would be finding 4/6 in Era 1, then 4/6 in Era 2, then 4/6 in Era 3, then 4/6 in Era 4 then finding Era 5.

Then, the quickest to find all the quadrant would be to find remaining stuff in Era 5, then Era 4, then 3, then 2 then 1.

In this exact order.

Aka, playing a lot of time in the game with early stuff from Era 1 missing. Aka making development choices lasting a long time.

The costs would be :

Era 1: (161 per discovery) => 161, 322, 483, 644

Era 2: (322 per discovery) => 1610, 1932, 2254, 2576

Era 3: (644 per discovery) => 5796, 6440, 7084, 7728

Era 4: (1288 per discovery) => 16744, 18032, 19320, 20608

Era 5: (2576 per discovery) => 43792, 46368, 48944, 51520.

Finding 6/6 in Era 5 would be 54096, 56672.

Then going down:

Era 4: 29624, 30912

Era 3: 16100, 16744

Era 2: 8694, 9016

Era 1: 4669, 4830.

Ok, so, this is the quickest way possible through the quadrant.

Let's say now, a player is in Era 4 after discovery 3. And he need (because he misplanned) something in Era 2 in the same quadrant.

He found 15 discoveries. To find his stuff, it would cost (15+1) x 322 = 5152.
Now he found 16 discoveries, he can go back to Era 4 stuff. The next invention would cost 21896 instead of 20608, because he have 1 discovery more than the shortest route.

The penalty doing this is costing 1288 more in Era 4 and 2576 more in Era 5. Then going down, 644 more from Era 3.

That's it for the penalties from an Era system.

Now, say there's a tree / link system. He need something left in Era 2 in the same quadrant.
That would force him to find all the root inventions of the thing he need in Era 2 => from the Era 4 scenario, that would cost him (1288 + 2576) x (1 + numbers of roots) + cost of unneeded root(s) + 644 x (1 + roots) from going down the tree + 322 x (roots) going down the tree.

Aka a lot more : the delta between the method is (1288 + 2576 + 644 + 322) x roots + cost of roots.

Going to 6/6 in Era 6 would need the player to find all the roots before. So actually this is scripting totally the choices of progression in the tree because links force this.

The player would want to progress the higher in quadrant Eras first with 4/6, until he's blocked by missing roots. Then unlock roots to unlock remaining stuff in his Era, so he gets 4/6 inventions and move on to Era +1.

This is meaning that all players makes the same choices, because someone will end to calculate the "best" science route.
Sophon's bonus take a hit because people choice the same route.

That's why I personally doesn't like links between techs. This is scripting choices, with non-tactical discoveries. You end to not choose what you need, but what you "have to" learn to stay competitive.

If you let the players having to choose freely without links there, then your player's "best route" is going to full Era 5 before going to 4 then 3 then 2 then 1. It means they played a lot in the game missing 2 basic stuff from Era 1. This is making real choices. They choose their disadvantages and they last a long time.

Now anyone could argue that a tree system makes people choose their advantages. But immediately after, a competitor would choose the same advantage so he can progress as fast in the tree. There is less edge in your choices. Because they don't last long.

Decoupling quadrants like here could lead to "advanced specialist pwn me" problems. I hope military guys will have problems from production / dust / science before blindly rushing to Era 5 military : this is really (really really) hard to balance here.

There, Era balancing should be watch under violence term and time to achieve the means of that violence.
Era 5 military can be strong, yes, but Era 5 diplomatics need to be as violent, with as quick means as Era 5 military stuff.

Ideally, say, a Era 3.5 military + Era 3.5 diplomatics combo need to be as violent as Era 5 military or Era 5 diplomatics. Or less violent but quicker.

If Amplitude doesn't balance this, then the game will end to be a race for "who go first to whatever era 5 is broken", and Sophon will win at this because they are snowballing in science.

Here, 3 / 6 tech could have prerequisites from Era in another quadrant. Say this Era 3 military tech needs, on top of Military Era 2, Diplomatics Era 2.

So to go to Era 4 military, you need Dust 0 / Science 0 / Diplomatics 2 to find that missing Military 3 tech / Military 3 (with 4/6).

But you could do Dust 2 / Science 0 / Diplomatics 0 / Military 3 choosing the other tech with the Dust Era 2 needs.

Also, say in military Era 4 to go to 5, you could have two invention asking Dust 3, two invention asking Diplomatics 3 and two invention asking Science 3. Here's the magic of why that arbitrary "4 / 6 to pass a quadrant Era" :)

=> Mr "Military pwn boy" would have Military 5 but also say Dust 3 & Diplomatics 3, having trouble with slow science.

Or, Mr "Military pwn faster boy" would have Military 5 and also say Science 3 & Dust 3, having trouble with his diplomacy.

This way you could ask a player to not be a full specialist and at the same time avoid Tree edge duration problems that I explained.

(if unclear, just ask. Beer proposal from my Sophon lobby is still here :p but you could ask also the opinion of an intern database ingeneer for exemple : they solves those problems all day and have XP to share).

In conclusion:
A Tree system is aimed for completionnists players, looking for each stuff they can do before moving on to the next area. That is making late stuff rarer.

An Era by field system is aimed for competitive players, looking to have an edge over the opponents because they choose something better suiting that game in early Eras. This is making early stuff rarer (and important decisions).

There's a middle way here. The links between techs could be ON/OFF with a server option. This way everyone is happy. :)

The gamedesign of this is a total free choice for Amplitude but I think there is consequences for the players they look for.