FreeOrion

The first thing we have to do is hammer out the list of categories we're going to use. Some of this will be malleable later on; for example, it's sort of pointless to decide now how to divide up ship battle tech when we have no idea how this will work (and we wouldn't be making content for this anyway).

There's also the question of how complete to make the tree. I think it is counter-productive to make the tree complete for each version; we're going to have a lot of holes all the way until v1.0, and I think we need to at least make an effort to leave holes where we think there may be some, if for no other reason than to balance the phase of the game when the relevant techs start becoming available.

I will submit my sample list of categories for discussion; I know Geoff has some, and the rest of you undoubtedly have others. I'm not going to promise that this will be put to a public review -- Tyreth and I will be conferring as the discussion in these threads progresses how best to officiate them, since the volume of stuff is simply larger than anything we've done so far. But for those of you who have been with us, you know that no constructive criticism or input goes unheeded, and I certainly don't want to do this by myself.

The Rules For Categories:

- The name of the category must clearly indicate the type of techs that belong to it, and vice versa; that is, given a category, I should be able to guess what I might find in it without looking, and given the name of a tech, I ought to be able to guess what category it belongs to. This is a usability issue and an important one, although we won't always be able to do this as well as I might like. This is also the primary argument against categories like 'Physics' and 'Biology' since they are far too generic. We have not specifically passed any categories, although there was a discussion on it:

http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=814

- There ought to be between 8 and 12 categories.

- For now, there should be no theories without applications and no race-specific techs (as we have no races).

I'll open up specific tech threads after we take care of this issue. Sorry it's taken me this long to get to it.

Aquitaine's Category List

Energy Projection (contains ship and ground weapons and shields)
Ballistic Projection (contains ship and ground weapons and shields)
Resource Development (Food & Mineral techs)
Planetary Construction (PP, Shipyard tech, perhaps planet defenses)
Propulsion and Mobility (interstellar engines, starfighters, ground vehicles)
Starship Development (Small & medium starship hulls and equipment)
Capital Ship Development (Large & Huge starship hulls and equipment)
Socio-Economics (Trade & Diplomacy)
Government & Development (Government & Science)
Espionage and Law (Spies & Morale/piracy stuff)

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

I suggest 10 categories in 4 groups

1st group:Physics
1. Matter theory (all about matter, dfferent aplications, weapons and construction)
2. Field theory (Energy, Force shields, beam weapons)
3. Space-time theory (Engines, exotic weapons, research)

2nd group: Advanced matter studies
4. Biology (everithing about life in universe)
5. Chemistry (Alloys and armors, some weapons)

3rd group: Construction
6. Space construction (Spaceships, Starbases, Missiles)
7. Planetary construction (Infrastructure, planetary buildings, research)

4th group: Humanities
8. Psychology (Diplomacy, happiness, research)
9. Economy (Taxation, income, trade)
10. Organization and law (Happines, income, diplomacy, maintaince)

hrm, what fun.

My thoughts:

I think we should wait until v.4 before locking which military categories to use. imho, for v.3, a single "military" category resembling the v.1 tech list is good enough.

I'd like to see the military catagories based off the hull types Geoff and others were working on in another thread. (Rock hull gives big big ships and big big projectile weapons, metal hull tends to be average ships and missles, etc. etc.) Basically, each military tech would be like a doctrine. The rock hulls are super big, slow, armored. The psi hulls super small, quick, with strange "weapons". You'd be able to mix and match doctrines via mixing and matching ship parts.

But nevermind all that crud. Point is, we can wait until v.4 to decide.

As an alternative to Aq's economic categories, could make each foci/meter a category. (science, farming, mining, industry, trade, later on security and happiness.) It would be really easy to find stuff that effects farming if we stick it all under a farming category.

An "infrastructure" or even "plantery construction" category could handle the construction meter, max population meter, terraforming, shipyards, etc.

Once we get to the stage where we have governments, diplomacy, and spies, could include a "statecraft" category to catch all that stuff.

Though, I'll be happy with just about any category list that makes some kind of sense. I've got no problems with Aq's categories, for example, or some of the lists Geoff's come up with in the past.

Agreed re: military categories. Although I love the idea of the 'hull type doctrine' - any hull lets you mount any system that will fit but gives you a bonus or penalty to the points/space required for that system if the doctrine favors it.

not really relevant for this thread but definitely something to sit on!

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

As stated in the brainstorming thread, I dislike Aq's categories (starting here: http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopi ... 3403#13403 ). Unless someone's really keen on them, I won't reiterate why (and it's in the other thread anyway).

My last proposal from the other thread, which is probably the best of the thread (IMO):



The reasons for these are at the end of this post: http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopi ... 3595#13595 .

As an addendum to the above though, it might be worth splitting a few categories. In particular:

-"Industry" could be split into "Planetary Industry" and "Space Industry"
-"Spacecraft General" could be split into "Spacecraft Hulls" and "Spacecraft Engines & Auxiliary" depending on how much hulls research there is (which could be a lot). The starbase stuff could also be moved into "Space Industry"
-"Trade and Economics" could be split off of "Sociology and Culture" into its own category, if there's enough of it to warrant its own category.

Doing all that, we'd have:

I like a lot of what I am hearing so I will make a list by mixing and matching some of the ideas already used and throw a few new ones in as well.

First off though I feel we should Aim for 16 its a nice round number small enough for you to memorize but large enough to cover all the differnt things we want. They will look good when displayed as a 4x4 table of buttons as well.

Energy Field Projection - Shields or any type or other similar things
Material Synthisis - Armor and some industrial tecs
Infastructure Development - Infastructe related
Industrial Expantion - Industry related
Environmental Manipulation - Terraforming and Farming
Resorce Collection - Mining oriented
Information Processing - Computers and other ship components
Interstellar Propulsion - stardrives
Sub-light Drives - in system movment
Orbital Construction - shipyards and other improvments
Economic Practices - trade and money
Social Organization - goverment, happyness
Bio-Medical Sciences - health and population
StarShip Enginering - Hull related stuff
Theoretical Physics - misilanius Theory

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

A doctrinal separation of military categories sounds like fun. I third the motion that waiting until 0.4 before settling on those categories.

Drek, categories based on focus names sounds good, but there's something that doesn't seem to map. For example, would terraforming fall under 'farming', or would it be 'science'? The problem with having a 'science' category is that the focus it is named after (research) is what all other fields fall under. It seems redundant since doing research is science - and therefore all other categories are assumed to be scientific fields.

I think most category selections are good, but ultimately whatever we name them will have the potential to shape some aspects of the game beyond the obvious.

Question: Must a given theory / application only appear in a single category? If cross-mojination was permissible, a number of my issues with certain breakdown schemes would be resolved.

(Though I still like my suggestion(s) the best )

Terraforming would be the province of the "construction" meter/tech catagory. Note, I'm thinking a category for each meter, not all meters have foci.

Could call the science meter research "Pure Science" and the actual research screen "Technology".

Meters in v0.3: Farming, Mining, Industry, Science, Trade, Health, Construction, (Happiness, Security)

These would seem to correspond to (in my categories):
Farming, Health -> Biosciences
Mining, Industry, Construction ->Planetary Industry
Science -> Theoretical Research (?)
Trade -> Trade and Economics
Happiness, Security -> Sociology and Culture

... Not exactly a clean 1 to 1 mapping, but I do wonder if there's enough different stuff in Mining, Industry and Construction, or Happiness and Security to warrant separate categories for each.

Also, while Construction is presumably independent of any other resource meter, as it influences the growth of all of them, is it really worth a whole separate category?

Also more, is there much use for mining without production, or production without mining? Assuming no, aren't they thus linked from a strategic perspective? Each individual planet doesn't need both, but the empire as a whole needs about equal amounts of each.

Also even more, does Health have enough to it to warrant its own category? IMO it's linked heavily to Farming, much like the Mining-Industry link.

Also yet more, it seems to me that with all the ship and possible non-ship military tech categories, as well as the arguable need for a category for Diplomacy / Xenological stuff, the theme of "a category for each meter" sort of breaks down in practice...

Conclusion: My suggestion is good.

I'd discourage this. "Pure" in the context of research means "not applied", which is the opposite of "applied" or "technology", and isn't really a good term for generalized research output (combined total of the the applied and not applied flavours).

Of course, my mistake.



This sounds still more like a path of theoretical research than practical - but that may not be a bad thing. Though it still may be a bit too abstract.

A single theory or application can only be in one category, but a 'result' -- a tech that can actually be used -- can require multiple applications, so you may have to research Geoffian Physics and Drektopian Geometry before you get the Mallet of Design +4.

16 categories is too many. No more than 12 (as per the public review) and 10 would be better.

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Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

After review of above examples, I propose:

Propulsion (Engines, Stardrives, Ballistic Weapons)
Energy Projection (Energy Weapons, Shields)
Resource Acquisition & Application (Mining, Metalurgy)
Ship Design & Construction (Ships hulls, Armour, etc.)
Environmental Science & Application (Terraforming, Life Support systems)
Social Sciences (Morale, Medical Sciences, Government)
Economic Doctrine (Trade, Diplomay)
Military Doctrine (Espionage, Offensive/Defensive Strategies)
Construction Science & Application (Planetary infrastructure, Starbases, etc.)
Data Acquisition & Application (Computers, Sensors, etc.)

I think that the names of the categories must describe something theoretical, even if they have many applications. In real life (OK, it's not about realism, it is agbout fun) military takes the best from everywhere. Many of military techs (sorry for disobeying no-modern-history-rule) are used widely by civilians. Having separate military research category is not fun (Also not realistic, that's irrelevant now). If one rushes for super-puper-mega laser it's wrong he must rush for advanced beam theory that also gives him "Universal healthcare facility" and "Virtual realty MkII" as well as "Super mega laser".

Also I think that "Engeneering" is better than "Construction"

Sandlappers sugjestions look good but I would take out all the extranius "Aplications" its a word that adds nothing of value and is potentialy confusing with Aplied tecnologies.

These would be my sugjested name changes (I think my names were a bit better for some of these fields)

Propulsion
Energy Projection
Resource Acquisition & Application >> Resource Acquisition
Ship Design & Construction >> Starship Enginering
Environmental Science & Application >> Environmental Manipulation
Social Sciences
Economic Doctrine >> Economic Practices
Military Doctrine
Construction Science & Application >> Construction Tecniques
Data Acquisition & Application >> Data Processing

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Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune