Vezzra wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 2:32 pm
Oberlus wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 1:14 amI can say I can't figure out more than 6 themes right now (if we add psionics to the mix).
I see two reasons for that: first, very obviously, we still lack several core mechanics, and with that all the techs that will come with them.
Then we need to at least sketch the missing mechanics. I assume you are not only referring to influence and diplomatics, and I'm eager to know anything else that could be introduced into FreeOrion in the future.
A trunk for the social stuff would be, as I understand it now, quite "functional"
Of course, which is why I don't advocate one "social" themed trunk, but have multiple themes where "social" or "civic" stuff makes sense. Psionics would be an example for a theme that focuses more on these kind of things, and less on weapons, shields, armor, carriers and fighters, or mining/industry.
Although I admit coming up with multiple "social"/"civics" friendly themes poses a challenge.
I understand you now. And now I think it wouldn't be that hard, because you don't need multiple social/civics themes, just multiple themes in which it makes sense to have (many or few) social/civics applications. So a theme at first sight rather non-social, like biochemistry, could have interesting civil control applications like the soma in Brave New World. Another example, a theme very focused on weapons could be seen as militaristic and hence make use of (e.g.) totalitarian measures, so it makes sense to have a Concentration Camps in a theme alike to the Mechanical.
that's probably the biggest disadvantage of my approach: coming up with reasonable themes that can work and distributing all the techs in a way that things are properly balanced and actually work as we want them to is going to be difficult. Not to speak of having to invent a lot more techs, many of them kind of redundant.
But the last two things are going to be an issue with the 5-6 complete tech trees model too. Total number of techs will be even higher, and you need to come up with enough ideas to cover that.
I don't think that is necessarily true, that the 5-6 model would require more techs. I read your estimations of 500-1000 techs and I think we can do better than that (I mean, way less than that).
Discarding app improvements, I think each theme can have less than 100 apps: 10-15 for weapons and hulls, and between 0 and 6 apps for each function. We have around 25 functions, less than 10 them 10 of them really essential, so that if each theme has, apart from the weapons and hulls, 6-8 essential and around 6-8 non-essential functions (3-6 apps each), that would sum up to 80 apps per theme (plus theories, one per tier). Being 6 themes, this means around 40 non-essential functions, that is a quite an overlapping of non-essential functions, so much that most non-essential functions could be covered with only 2 themes. So we could put even less non-essential functions per theme (say 5-6) and require at least three themes to cover all functions in FreeOrion.
Also, you are concerned with the idea of going a single theme being the best viable strategy if all themes are roughly complete. That could happen, but I believe we have the tools to avoid it, by adequate balancing of tier costs. If a tier costs 3x previous tier, you can have four T1s instead on one T1 and one T2. That could mean considerably better production/research/influence bonus for wide research. Another example, getting straight to T3 of a theme (so you have one T1, one T2 and one T3) could give you the edge on weaponry against adversaries that go for two themes (so they have three T1s and three T2s), unless they went precisely for the two themes that have the best counters against your single theme weapons and defences, plus they could have better meter boosts from two themes.
Vezzra wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 3:40 pmand they are doing most of the work on the project.
Well, "most" is probably a bit much, but he is certainly one of the most productive contributors.
Irrelevant for the subject, but just in case, I must note: I'm sure labgnome, with that "project", was referring to the tech tree rework and not FreeOrion in general.
Plus I think I am not more of a contributor than most regular users of this forum, until anything I talk about becomes a PR in GitHub. As Vezzra said, giving ideas requires less effort than making them real.