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[Hansag]

I have been thinking about the data-packages strewn across the sector.

So I was thinking, perhaps make these a lot less common, but more powerful.

Enter, reverse engineering and research.

Spoiler

Assumptions
- Costly
- What you research needs to be picked apart and destroyed (weapons, systems, ships, at least one needs to be taken apart)
- Difficulty scales exponentially with size and tech level (figuring out how to make a light machine gun might take a month or two, while a capital ship takes many years)
- You need some sort of facility/industry to do research
- Research requires a hefty budget to do in reasonable time

How then to research?

Option 1 - The simple way (Linear model)
Allocate a budget (like your growth budget) and then you have a data package for the thing in a specific amount of time.

Option 2 - Making life difficult (Breakthrough model)

Instead of just having the amount of money allocated play a role, you also have to battle with "breakthroughs" and "progress"

Various items require a certain amount of breakthroughs*, something that might happen 50% each month at an average budget on a Size 5 world.
If you don't get a breakthrough, you get an additional +10% for the next month (i.e. you have some progress).

* Examples of Breakthroughs required:
Small Weapon 1
Medium Weapon 2
Large Weapon 4
Ship System (equal to cost for a Frigate level system)

Frigate 8
Destroyer 16
Cruiser 32
Capital 64

Low Tech x1
Midline x5
High-Tech x10
Civilian Hull x0.5
D-mods present on researched specimen x1+N (N= number of D-mods percent on reverse-engineered hull, because you have to figure out a fix to it)

So if you want to be able to build High-Tech Capital Ships it would be 640 breakthroughs, and if the one you are studying is a mess with 5 D-mods, it would require 3200 breakthroughs, which would take more than 250 years if you're making a breakthrough per month. A Light Machine Gun however, would take just 1 breakthrough and might be figured out in a month or two.

Example of Facilities

Technologistry (Level 1 - Facility)
A meeting place with dedicated workshops and expert systems.

Engineering Works (Level 2 - Industry)
Dedicated heavy industrial machinery and plants for tearing down ships and other large pieces of technology.

Research Institute (Level 3 - Industry)
Provides additional facilities for some of the sectors more sought after technologists.

Nanoforge - Reduces cost by 20% or 50% depending on sort
AI - Reduces number of breakthroughs required for a project
Colony Size - Increases number of breakthrough chances per month
Theoretical Support - In case you have more facilities, but allocating less than one artefact for each (or an artifact is pirated in transit), then they only produce at 50%

One could also imagine of giving this chain of buildings a similar bonus as the Industry Skill to finding more rare finds, but from Tech-Mines. Again though, they should be one of the most expensive buildings to keep.

Just some thoughts.

[close]

[Hansag]

Another (simpler) idea to this inspired by NEO Scavenger.

You find these "Data Slabs" (the ones you right-click to get blueprints).
But, they all have 1-5 "D-mods" (e.g. encryption, information being unstructured and needing clean up), and until you remove them they are just useless junk more or less. Maybe the data slabs are domain era tech, so they still have some value but what you find on them is a bit of a mystery.

So, you don't get blueprints out right, but need to "decrypt" them first to see what is on them. Further, having an additional skill in the blue tech row dedicated to "hacking" (the game seem a bit cyberpunk anyway) could help unlock 1-3 levels of D-mods for free (and make data from derelict ships a thing or more common), maybe even do SIGINT from orbit of planets (like mining in NEX). That way, you could buy Data Slabs with D-mods, fix them up and watch the cat videos before selling them back for a loss, or profit in case of something useful being found.

If I remember correctly, in NEO Scavenger you had three types of information on the memory sticks:

- Financial data (a person's bank account details, company financials etc.), which gave you a bit of cash.
- Software, which gave you new abilities to add on your laptop or other device
- Location data from old GPS logs
- Random nonsense - e.g. cat videos, someone's diary (possible lore), movies and series and things that just have no real value to the player otherwise. Might be entertaining for someone on the market though.

This way, it's not so much R&D as just figuring out what is in front of you, albeit behind several layers of quantum encryption and scattered across enormous disjoined file structures.

In summary

Resource: Data Slab
Domain-era data storage device containing information ranging from personal notes and lore, to blueprints or financial information.
Sold individually if content is unique or unknown. Sold in stacks if empty or known to only contain nonsense or entertainment media.

Data Slab Encryption (d-mods, e-mods?)
Hides the information on the Data Slab and makes it not readily available. Can be
Removed by Hacker skill
Removed by selling to markets
- Black Market (Unlocks Data Slabs with 1 d-mod)
- Open Market (Unlocks Data Slabs with 2 d-mods, but redlists any Data Slab with financial or personal data)
- Military Market (Unlocks Data Slabs with 3 d-mods, but redlists any Data Slab with blueprints, mods, personal or financial data)
Removed by paying a hacker to do it for you (1-3 d-mods) which then places the Data Slab on the Black Market (similar interface to when handing in AI). Perhaps requires you to find one in a bar first, or be approached when arriving at a location. If you have a good enough relationship with the hacker, perhaps they are able to sell you things as well (at a premium of course)?

N.B. Perhaps make so that hackers do not spawn in Luddite locations and be more common in and/or higher level in the larger or TT colonies.

Tech Skill: Hacker
Level 1
Automatically unlocks Data Slabs with 1 d-mod
30% chance of finding Rare Data Slabs (e.g. blueprints or things of value) from abandoned stations and other derelicts (fleet)*
Ability: Signal Intelligence (success rate 15/30/50 per level, requires empty Data Slabs for storage)

Level 2
Automatically unlocks Data Slabs with 2 d-mod
50% chance of finding Rare Data Slabs (e.g. blueprints or things of value)  from abandoned stations and other derelicts (fleet)*

Level 3
Automatically unlocks Data Slabs with 3 d-mod
75% chance of finding Rare Data Slabs (e.g. blueprints or things of value)  from abandoned stations and other derelicts (fleet)*

*Assuming they are present

Industry: Technologistry
Maintenance: 8,000 * (pop size - 2), multiplied by market upkeep modifier (hazard rating)
Produces: Unlocks locked Data Slabs
Demand
- Luxury Goods; Equal to Colony size - 2  (High-end marvels of technology, like the latest TT workstations or supercomputer; also kinda makes this a no no for the Ludds)
- Supplies; Equal to: Colony size - 3 (spare parts, microfab feedstock, and prefab components)
- Crew; Equal to: Colony size - 3 (technical staff that lets the experts focus on more important things)
- Recreational Drugs; Equal to: ((Colony Size/2)-3) (to keep focused and awake)

Place your Data Slabs in a dedicated Storage Tab, and they will work on cracking them open and reveal the data, or making it useful.
Automatically unlocks Data Slabs with 3 d-mod* (similar to a level 3 Hackers) and removes 1 d-mods per month (one Data Slab at a time)
i.e. a 5 d-mod Data Slab is reduced to 3 d-mods*, then unlocked.

* or 1-3 depending on level of Technologistry (levels 1-3: Hacker Collective/Technologistry/Academy or Research Institute)

Gamma
Same as default (resource reduction)

Beta
Same as default (resource and cost reduction)
+1 d-mods removed per month

Alpha
Same as default (resource and cost reduction)
+2 d-mods removed per month

Nanoforge
Enables production of a few empty Data Slabs per month?

[Serenitis]

An alternative means of 'researching' could be to have 2 separate streams running off the same infrastructure.

Infrastructure
This might take the form of an industry with a non-trivial level of upkeep, and an input of crew (to represent the researchers).
From this you would have the 2 streams of research.
The 'general' stream which is running constantly.
And the 'specific' stream which runs only when set by the player.

'General' stream
When the research industry first goes online, the player is prompted to select an area to research.
This will be one of the the stats that are shared accross all ships - such as hull points, armour, speed, flux capacity etc.
The research will then tick away until complete, at which point the player will be prompted to select another project.
The length of time this would take to complete would be on the order of weeks.

Each 'level' of completion adds +x% to that stat for all ships owned by the player empire.
These projects can be repeated as many times as desired.
However, every completed level of a project will increase the time 'cost' of each subsequent level of that specific project. So even though there is no hard cap on the number of times the player can research a particular project, there will be a soft cap base on time invested.

'Specific' stream
The specific stream remains inactive until explicitly invoked by the player. The project will run until completion and then sit idle until invoked again.
In order to start a specific project the player will need to own a working heavy industry, and a have a learned blueprint for the ship type they wish to modify.

The player will first pick a specific ship type to modify from the heavy industry blueprint list, and then select a specific attribute to improve.
(There could be a greater choice of attributes to mofify here than via the general route.)
Upon selecting an attribute, the player will be presented with a 'cost' in order to proceed. This will be a small assortment of commodities, which will be removed from either the player inventory or colony storage when the player accepts.

The project itself will run for a number of days, and will improve stat y by +z%. But only for that specific type of ship.
Each time a particular ship is improved, any further 'specific' project related to that class of ship will become more expensive both in time and resources.
The increase in 'cost' would be a similar soft cap to the general stream.

Considerations
As a rule, the improvements gained via the 'specific' route will be more substantial than those gained via the 'general' route. z > x.

All improvements are fully retroactive - which means that any researched improvement will apply to any ship the player 'owns' immediately. Same as how certain skills apply stat modifiers to owned ships, but globally throughout the player faction rather than just the player fleet.
Having to build new ships to take advantage of research would be more 'realistic' but would be a considerable increase in micromanagement, and would undermine any features which might be encouraging the player to retain ships for roleplay/story progression purposes.

The ability to arbitrarily improve all a ship's stats may be 'too good'. In which case it could be possible to introduce choices insomuch as if you choose to improve a you lose the ability to improve b.
This would be akin to 'specialising' your faction.
It would also require some careful consideration in order to avoid trivial choices.

[Morrokain]

I like the idea of research in general. Even just having an interface for it would be very useful for mods like Nex that are going for the 4x style of game. I also really like it from the flavor perspective - I'll say that upfront. Part of the suggestions reminds me a lot of Sins of a Solar Empire and Endless Space.

I do think that the suggestions above need further tweaking or additions, though. Let me explain:

1) Little of real value is brought to the game by these (at least from what I can tell - feel free to explain/counter argue.)

2) Powercreep of any kind needs a counter-balancing difficulty factor or it trivializes the game.

3) Adding gates for the sake of gates is generally not a good idea. I'm not against progression gating as a principle, but I feel there needs to be a good reason for it and it can't be overdone.

Adding D-mods that must be removed from blueprints for them to work is complexity that doubles down on the blueprint mechanic. Instead of find/use/sell a blueprint it is now find/unlock/use/sell blueprint. The tie-in to skills creates some value, but other than that? Unless the way to unlock blueprints is found through hard-to-find or limited resource mechanics, it just creates more... errr.. "tedium" is probably the wrong word but essentially it creates more steps for the player to achieve the same result without meaningful choices in between. If it does require things like quests/story points/rare resource, etc, then the only thing that it really accomplishes from a design standpoint is allowing blueprints to be found more easily while unlocking them requires more difficulty. We then have to ask ourselves "Why is that desirable from a game design perspective?" For instance, why then would you not simply just have the blueprint itself as the reward for these things? - if that makes sense.

Similarly, stat improvements through research is very 4x-like as a design choice, but could potentially cause problems for Starsector without much gained from the perspective of design. Skills already cause stat improvements either directly or indirectly, and this system just adds on to that with the notable caveat that it applies to player faction allied fleets.

Some potential problems:
- What counter-balances this power creep? What added difficulty makes this desirable or necessary to the player? Without one it will have undesirable effects on the game's inverted difficulty curve (early game hard - late game easy).
- Assuming the above is solved, why not just have skills do the same thing? (The choose A and lock out B mechanic is already there in the next update.) A new feature that performs the same thing just for credits instead of experience seems more redundant than is probably prudent for a whole new game feature. An entirely new resource and new interesting ways to obtain it would help solve this, but see next point:
- At some point, players are going to want AI factions to also research this way - which opens up a whole other can of worms and design considerations. So Research as a feature ideally needs to be something that other factions are assumed to be "already doing" by their normal behavior. So the effects need to be something other factions already generally have (such as unique hulls or weapons) and not be something unique only to the player.

Personally, I've always liked the idea of research allowing the acquisition of completely new things. Whether that being new weapons, hullmods or ships otherwise unobtainable or very hard to obtain (like XIV battlegroup ships) or new industries/structures, etc. There is also the idea of research slightly changing the functionality or enhancing the functionality of certain things (such as adding emp to a weapon or making a weapon with emp now arc or increasing the rate at which emp arcs, etc). That also runs into the above problems, though, and makes balance more difficult.

I think at the end of the day research is going to have to be something entirely unique and meaningful to the campaign progression if it ever becomes a feature. Just my thoughts, though, I'm open to discussion of those opinions.

[Hansag]

Interesting replies. One of the things I was hoping "R&D" would address, or whatever one desires to call it, is that blueprints (packages in particular) are fairly easy to uncover and then gives you the ability to produce fairly advanced fleets, making the low-tech tier of militarized civilian hulls obsolete for you. Slowing down the players technological advance in other words. (Forcing you to stick with improvised pirate designs if you want something with a bit of a punch)

I'd even go so far as to say the player shouldn't start with any blueprints, but rather have them be readily available for a price. Further, make blueprints for ships at least, a controlled good (i.e. redlisted), cuz you know the major factions are going to either want to get their hands on them (especially the advanced ones), or just prevent anyone from building anything not civilian (pushing the player to perhaps focus on getting blueprints from the pirates, or getting a commission somewhere to get faction-specific blueprints (which really shouldn't spawn randomly outside the core systems, or in domain-era craft/locations). Sorry, digressing a bit there.

My assumption is that the large factions who has a lot of engineering knowhow (blueprints) to make midline and hightech fleets, or even dedicated low-tech designs without d-mods, do not do research as such, but rather tries to piece together data of things that was once lost (thus requesting that players go out and run data-packages on derelict ships).

PS

In response to Serenitis, I'm reminded by the end-game techs of Stellaris here. So, if having this type of research, it would probably have to be an effort taken over many years to a decade and involve a substantial amount of resources and AI-cores (i.e. for the major factions to balance against the player getting to OP perhaps, but also available for players though they might not see much benefit of it until they are the size of the Hegemony or has an edge like TT).

PPS

Morrokain, micro is definitely something one want to avoid, thus if having something like a Technologistry processing any that are in your Storage, rather than assigning them a project every time (unless you really really want them to work on one particular slab).
 
Also, maybe cracking the Data Slabs open requires an AI-core to be possible at all, and if so, perhaps it will require you to go out and find missing data from hulls drifting around unknown stars in far flung sectors?