Just your emphasis on emphasizing the "probably" and "somehow" is what led to the question.
Ah, gotcha. When I say something like that, it pretty much means "right now, I'm thinking of this in terms of trying to make it work, seeing how that goes, and making changes as necessary for the stated approach to fit the design goals". That is, the important part is tying ship/weapon production to the economy in an interesting way. Making weapons/ships work with the supply/demand structure in some way seems like a good way to go about that, but it might not turn out to be. I think it will, though. I just don't want to commit to specifics, you know? The larger design goals are what's more important, and you can get there in different ways, and might have to, since so many things need to fit together.
As for research, wasn't it one of the original features that was outlined when the game was still named Starfarer? I'm talking about 3 years ago or so.
Hmm. Now that you mention it, I remember thinking about it. I don't remember talking about it, though! Not something I'd ever want to call a feature, since it was so speculative at the time, and even at that point it was (iirc) clear that it was an awkward fit in some ways.
I'm not up to date with the lore, but research seems like it would be right at home with factions and industry: expending resources to unlock better guns / tech / etc which leads to corporate espionage, piracy, economic changes and warfare. Aside from factions and industry, research was the feature I was looking forward to most which makes me a bit sad if it was never concept to begin with.
Those things sound like fun. I think we're back to the same idea - design goals vs implementation paths. What you've outlined doesn't have to come from traditional research. Right now, I'm thinking about it in terms of gaining access to new blueprints/denying access to blueprints/etc. Doesn't mean that's exactly how it'll end up, but hopefully you see what I mean re: goal vs path.
Yeah, at least in Ivalyo's lore research is pretty much treasure hunting:
Research has a different meaning than the word as it is known to us today. Research, the one done by Tri-Tachyon and others, is a process that involves a couple of things. First, techmining, or retrieving Domain artifacts to locate blueprints or working components. Second, analysis deconstruction and\or integration. Lastly, potential blueprints extraction. That last step is extremely rare though.
Research to me is more like "research", i.e. a euphemism for tech mining. It's not something you would do passively and wait on a progress bar for.
Right. Still thinking about it in those terms, but, as an example: we've had to change up how some aspects of production work in order for the economy to work out. There's the idea of "light industry", i.e. something that can be done without an autofactory, and includes basic stuff like making furniture, and more involved things like, say, plastics and such. It's also somewhat hazy how much of heavy industry requires blueprints/autofacs - some certainly does, but some (such as, say, refining metals or making basic components) does not.
(Anyway - I guess this is just a general reminder not to treat the lore as set in stone. Not that you were.)
Hope it stays that way, it fits the setting perfectly and sounds as if it could be a ton of fun. In that scenario I would imagine a top researcher to be some kind of space Indiana Jones
What I like about that conceptually is the opportunity for the player to be an active participant.