User:Piotrus/Tech Category Project

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Note to people unfamiliar with Wiki. You can edit this post and change it in any way you like it, use preview button to make sure you changed what you wanted. Creating and accound and signing your talk would be much appreciated, try to use Free Orion nickname. Tnx. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13:18, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Note to Free Orion project members

I think that wiki engine is sometimes much better then forum for discussing certain aspects of FO (since hypertext+wiki are much nicer then loooooong forum threads, IMHO) and I hope our little discussion will familiarise you all with Wiki-tech. Hopefully we will be able to use official FO wiki for such discussions in the future.

Free Orion Tech Tree problem

I am afraid that the current tech tree category list is very bad, and this is a very serious problem that could not only make us waste our time doing tech tree related work now, but can make the game almost unplayable to general public (and remember, our public release is soon!).

Before I raise it on the forums in a separate thread and/or email Aquitaine, I'd like to hear here opinions of several other Project Developers and most active forum members, since: a) I may be wrong and you will convinve me that I am making a fuss over nothing b) if I am not wrong, we will need a serious backup to convinve Aquitaine to reanimate this dead horse and change his decision

Relevant threads

Problem description

We tried to make the tech categories to be 'intuitive', so a player has better idea what he is researching - and I apploud the effort. But I think that we failed in this regard, and there is a rather thin line between existing categories, especially production/construction/economy/growth. The fact that I cannot find any definitions of what should be inside those cathegories on FO wiki/forum doesn't help, and I think this confusion it may be responsible for little activity in the Tech Tree Design Uberthread as well :(

I would *guess* that:

  • construction is ship yard related thing, it is unclear to me if planetary building would be connected with this tech
  • production - errr...what is the diffrence beteen production and construction????
  • economy - the SMAC like big developments here, right?
  • growth - in SMAC it had to do with ecolology and population growth. What about us? Many things can grow...
  • learning - you mean SMAC like science?

People agreeing that current category list needs revising

  1. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13:29, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  2. Artur, a 4X games fan, 00:37, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

People supporting current category list in its present form

Problem solution

Ageeeing on new categories.

Proposed FO category lists

Posts how you think tech categories should look like or comment on the existing.

Academic categories 2D

My idea is based on the scientific division into

Obviously this is a way too long category list. Fortunately, it can be easily reduced.

My solution for FO

First dimension:

  • Natural sciences - learning about the universe, from physics to biology.
  • Social sciences - learning about ourselves, economy, sociology, political sciences, psychology...
  • Military sciences - military stuff, especially HOI like doctrines

Second dimension:

  • Theory - they don't belong into any first dimension category, they would have applications to one or more first dimention application
  • Application - unlocked by advances in theory, they would represent appliad scienctific knowledge research

The following table (matrix) will try to illustrate this graphically:

Dimension A
Dimension B		 Theory Application
Natural sciences

Social sciences
Military sciences

Now I think that this is fairly intuitive as well, don't you think so?

People supporting above version of the category list
  1. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 13:29, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Other Tech Tree issues needing attention

It would be very helpful if this was finally adressed in some non-brainstorming post, preferably in Tech Tree or other important section of the board.


Basic Tech Data

Layout and structure. How can we start a project without a template? I created one in: User:Piotrus/Tech_Category_Project/Template:Tech_Category#Specific_tech_data - better this then nothing. Feel free to answer, comment and improve :)

Tech categories: theory/applicaton/refinement

Will we have tech split into theory/applicaton/refinement or not?


Then there is the question if we allow techs (mostly at application level) to require invention not only in their parent dimension B category, but in others (for example, sentient construction nanobots requiring advances in both economy an physics).

Tech categories: doctrines

What is the official word on HoI-like doctrines?

Military categories

And I think we need to think how miliatry category (or categories) fall into this - consider SMAC, where many non-miliary category inventions had miliatry applications as well (and vice-versa).

Free Orion Tech Tree development

Regardless of whether we change categories or not, I think that Wiki engine is the best engine to develop tech trees. As Aquitaine said: Your job, as moderator, is to determine the best way to get the results needed by the design team. How you do this is totally up to you. You can make people email you and post results, you can post ASCII hieroglyphics and make people decipher them. I think all moderators should work on Wiki.

Related subprojects:

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