0 years till next discovery?

[mark13]

I have seen this several times, and have often wondered what it meant - all the tech points have been gained, so presumably the tech should be discovered, right?

It is not just in MP I have seen this, either - several times in SP it has happened. My theory is that there is something in the game which may give you a couple of RPs mid-turn, but this is pure speculation.

Any ideas?
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited January 31, 2001).]

[Garth Vader]

No, but it has happened to me a number of times.

[stuntman19]

May it be do to a SE change during the turn, that actually doesn't take effect until the following turn.

[Tau Ceti]

My theory is that it has something to do with captured cities. In a recent MP game (builder game that went on till Graviton Theory making for a very fluid military situation) I found myself having several thousand more research points than I needed, and I did not have them at the beginning of the turn. As I had conquered quite a lot of cities that turn and that was the only notable thing that had happened, I suspect that maybe you are given one turn's worth of research points when you capture an enemy base. But I have not tested it.

[mark13]

Hmmm....interesting. Although in at least a couple of my circumstances, I had not captured any cities whatsoever. Neither had I changed SE settings, at least not those that would increase my research rate (switching to Planned as Gaians, for instance).

[Hawkeye_td]

In the early game (first thirty or so turns) the computer sometimes gifts you an extra research point every few turns. I know this because I do extreme micromanagement in the early game to get the most out of my empire, and I look at the research window almost every turn. Sometimes, in the first ten years, when I can keep every variable under control, I have seen many times the appearance of an extra research point. Sometimes, when there is then only one point between your accumulated research and the next discovery, and the computer gifts you a point, you can get the "zero year" thing. I have never noticed this in the late game, but then I almost never look at my research screen in the late game.

[Hawkeye_td]

Conceivably, of course, the same sort of thing could happen in the late game. You might even be only one point away, or for all I know, the computer might start making even larger gifts.

[Misotu]

I can't comment on Tau's observation, as I've never looked at this. But I believe that in the game Mark is referring to, it is to do with the cost of a tech being calculated based on techs already researched by other factions ...

I think that the game makes an adjustment in tech cost depending on where you stand relative to the others and/or the total number of techs researched in the game. I'm a bit hazy on this, (in my usual manner ) I admit. In the game in question, the CyC made a tech breakthrough that turn which I think (given that the Drones are researching just a few RPs per turn) could easily make the difference we've observed.

In one of my MP games vs one other human player and where I was tech leader, researching a lot faster than they were, I have noticed that their tech cost has decreased every time I get a breakthrough.

[Googlie]

harrumph - do we have one seriously messed up bulletin board tonight

The reply was meant to be:

Mis is right:

Tech Cost = [11 + (DIFF x 4) + {(TECHS x 6)/ 5} - (TURNS/8) - (MOSTTECHS/5)] x TECHS x WORLDSIZE

Where:

DIFF = difficulty level (Citizen = 0 to Transcend = 5)

TECHS = # techs you have already discovered

MOSTTECHS = greatest # techs discovered by any one player

TURNS = # turns elapsed

WORLDSIZE = size planet you are playing on (factor is from 0.6 for a tiny map thru 0.8, 1.1 to 1.6 for a Huge world, extrapolated for world sizes beyond the defaukt huge (64 x 128)

So if a fellow player, human or AI, gets a new tech (or maybe trades for a bunch) then your cost will dramatically decrease, to the point occasionally where you curently have more than is needed for the current tech being researched.

That's when the 0 turns to completion kicks in.

G.


[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited February 05, 2001).]

[Misotu]

Yeah. I *knew* there was a formula, see? I wish I could understand these things

[mark13]

Thanks Googlie - cleared things up once again. I had suspected this, but had thought there might have been some sort of one-time bonus ala civ2. Still, I suppose there are only so many times Mis can be right - I'll get her one of these days....

[DilithiumDad]

Another question is "When is research cost re-calculated?" Sometimes the cost is recalcualted while you are still researching. You see this when you trade for a new tech or two and then find that your "years to next breakthough" has gone from 1 to 6. Other times, the research cost stays constant. It seems as though research cost is more likely to be recalculated early in the discovery process rather than later. Or is it random?

[DilithiumDad]

Hawkeye: I wouldn't have believed it, but I ran some tests checking the F2 screen just before and just after hitting End Turn. Sure enough, about half to two thirds of the time I was gifted a single research point. A little later in the game, I saw as many as 6 bonus points appear. However, this was usually during a pop boom and was probably from the extra citizens or possibly it was from extra energy due to spreading forest.

What's odder is that EVERY time a tech is completed you are ROBBED of a research point! If research cost is 48 and you have 40 points and are getting 10 points per turn, then you would think you'd have 2 leftover points to use towards the next tech. Nope. It's one. Every time with three different factions I was this robbery take place. If the number of research points left before the next breakthrough and tech points per turn were exactly the same, then I would get the "0 points to next breakthough" situation. I knew this before subconsicouly, I think because I would always make sure to have one or more extra research points to make sure of getting the breakthough I seemed to be promised on the F2 screen the previous year.

Can anyone confirm this? Does it happen with SMACX, too?

------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet, available at The Chironian Guild:
http://guild.ask-klan.net.pl/eng/index.html

[big_canuk]

DD:

I'm pretty sure that if you need 5 points for the next discovery, and you provide 5 points, then you get the discovery with 0 RPs carried forward. This just happened in one of my games (you can then switch research goals within the turn without penalty).

I also regularly manage my pop, and crawlers in OCCs to get exactly 1 tech per turn. (no sense wasting the ecs).

As to the "loss" of a RP when carrying over, are you sure this is not due to loss of any extra RPs at the base that makes the discovery. IE: If you had 2 RPs extra, but only 1 was carried forward, maybe it is because the last base on your "base op status" screen was producing only 1 RP, while your 2nd last base made the discovery.

[Misotu]

Good points Big_C. Just wanted to add that although I haven't really analysed it to the nth degree, I have the impression that the game recalculates the tech costs every time the situation changes. I'm fairly sure that when I got a breakthrough, the tech cost changed for my opponent each time - on the following turn I think ...

Also, your own tech cost is recalculated every time you acquire a tech if you have not yet researched a breakthrough. This isn't so obvious if you are a decent research faction making an early breakthrough. But I remember in one game, as the Spartans, I acquired 6 or 7 techs from pods, exchanges and probes before I'd researched one for myself. As a result, the cost of that very first tech was astronomical.

It's also very noticeable in an accelerated start game, such as OktoberfistIII. This game utilised SMAC's accelerated start option - so we all had a few bases, one SP and rotten AI terraforming. Even though you have, in theory, researched techs already, the game behaves as though you've researched nothing when calculating tech cost. So when you exchange techs before your first researched breakthrough, the cost of that first tech can increase very steeply indeed.

[DilithiumDad]

This research cost question is driving me batty, so I've kept a pad by my computer and played a few quick games in the first century. One observation is that once RP's were accumulated towards a tech, I NEVER saw a recalculation of research cost until the next breakthrough. In other words, once I wrote down the research cost in the year of the breakthrough, I never had to scratch it out and change it.

I am quite positive, too, about the 1-2 RP's being gifted on some turns, and 1 RP being taken away on the breakthrough turn. Both these things happen about half the time, the rest of the time it works like it's supposed to. I don't think OCC games are a good comparison --the HQ base is always treated differently and I don't think these "oddities" arise from the HQ base.

It seems that research cost is calculated differently in multiplayer. I know I have seen research costs change in midstream in multiplayer, but I haven't observed it in SP since I started keeping records.

Also, I compared research costs from SP and MP games. Research costs are uniformly higher in MP for the same number of techs and same number of turns passed. For example, researching your 4th tech as Gaians in year 2113 on a huge map cost 45 RP in SP and 77 RP in MP. This is not due to a "being #1 in tech effect" because I was third place or worse in both cases (probably further behind in MP than in SP, if anything, which should have made the research cost less, not more).

Curiouser and curiouser!!


------------------
Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet, available at The Chironian Guild:
http://guild.ask-klan.net.pl/eng/index.html