Jet research

[Andrew H.]

One sort of realistic way that you could put a limit on tech without making the game to complicated would be for there to be a cost to put developed tech "into production."

Right now, you pay to research certain techs, and as soon as the tech is developed, the player can purchase the tech. What I'm thinking of would be an additional cost that you would simulate converting the factories or whatever to produce the new weapons.

So if the Germans developed Heavy Tank -1, they would have to pay a certain amount - say 250 points - to put the tank in production. After they've paid the production cost, they can purchase the units as usual.

One further twist would be that no further research would occur until the earlier research was put into production. That means that you can't get heavy tank-2 until you've both developed the tech *and* paid the production cost.

And the production cost could become greater as the tech level becomes higher - it might cost 250 to put level 1 tanks into production, but it could cost 700 points to put level 3 tanks into production.

I think that this is pretty realistic for WWII - experimental jets were flown even before the war, but jets weren't built until much later in the war.

I'm not an expert on techs though - I haven't played with some techs yet, so I'm not sure how they work yet.

[Guest Mike]

I like that idea Andrew - I think it fits with the game whereas teh idea of ersearching individual weapon systems doesn't really.

Yes, Tech is way too easy to get. I played my first game last night on beginner +0 as the allies. Held France througout (just) and the Russians took Berlin in Mid 43 with Tech 3 tanks and that was about eth only tech advance in the whole game.

Then I played Norse's "Stalingrad" scenario - operation Uranus. Well that was a bit different - there was tech coming out my ears (as the allies) - by the end of July 43 the Russians are up a couple of fighter Techs, the Americans are at Fighter 5 and Bomber 4, etc.

It's a fun game, but it ain't history when this happens!!

[USGrant]

I agree with most of these ideas, but think they will probably wait for SC2. The simplest way to address this problem (and I do think it is a problem) and stay within the structure of SC is to decrease the maximum number of research "chits", say from 10 to 8, and to decrease the maximum allocation to any one category from 5 to 4 or 3.

An additional tweak that I would like to suggest is to increase the cost of research points to 300 and to start each major power with one free point. That way even France might have a surprise up its sleeve some times.

[ August 07, 2002, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: USGrant ]

[Bruce70]

Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to just reduce the %chance of an advance from 5% per unit investment to 4% or even 3% IF reaearch is widely considered to be a problem (I cannot say one way or the other since I am still waiting for delivery of my pre-order)

[Guest Mike]

Not really Bruce.

I think it's not so much the chance of getting an increase that is the problem, as teh implementation of the increases.

All units get it instantly, as soon as a new tech level is achieved. And then next turn they might get another one. And that can be 1 week appart!!

This could happen even at 1% per level.

Mind you the possibility of 1% per research point, additive over time might be good - so if you put 5% in you get 5% on T1, then anotehr 5% on T2 for a total of 10%, then 15% on T3, etc.

And it resets to zero whenever you advance a level.

[Bruce70]

Yes for SC2 I agree with you, perhaps. But for a quick patch, changing the percentage will reduce the chance of getting historically inaccurate results. Abstraction is the beauty of SC, you have to imagine that the increased strength of a unit is a result of receiving some of the new type of unit.