RND in research time

[stepbystep]

What if from time to time the research team asked for money to buy a specific piece of equipment, or maybe items to disassemble and examine during research. You could then grant or deny the scientists request. Granting money / item requests gives the project a randomized boost.

For example:
Researching Plasma Granade, 20% scientist-hours through.
Lab request window pops up asking 1x plasma pistol clip and 1x plasma rifle clip to disassemble in order to gain some insight on plasma containment.
You partially grant the request (have no plasma rifle clip).
Get a +5% chance of immedately completing the project for 2 days.  (instead of the 10% you would get for a complete grant)
Or, alternatively, you get a flat (randomized)% advancement on the project.

Every project would have a list of possible requests, let's say plasma granade research can request:
- $25k "Modified lab equipment", 5% to 20% boost
- 15x HE Granade "We need parts to use as detonators and primers in experiments", 5% to 30% boost
- 2x Plasma Pistol Clip "We need to compare with parts using similar technology", 10% to 45% boost
- etc...

Maybe have the frequency of requests increase with the number of scientists assigned, representing the will to solve the problem by throwing money at it.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes Arthanor, thanks for the comment. I was hoping you'd show up

Stepbystep, right, why not... But then again, research is so fast that I'm not sure there's enough space for such sub-projects. Or it would require an even more revolutionary system, where... everything works differently

[stepbystep]

Stepbystep, right, why not... But then again, research is so fast that I'm not sure there's enough space for such sub-projects. Or it would require an even more revolutionary system, where... everything works differently

...and we would end up creating mods for crying out loud! 

(sorry I couldn't resist  )

[Arthanor]

Yes Arthanor, thanks for the comment. I was hoping you'd show up

I love research,it plays a pivotal role in pacing the game and that's also where I'd fit in XCOM if it actually happened. Although I'd like to think I'd grab a laser rifle to help with base defenses, honestly I don't know what I'd do ;P But talking about research is fun

@stepbystep:
I think this kind of small purchases is included in the cost of the maintenance for both labs and scientists. Scientists don't make 40k/month (Man! I wish though..! Why don't people care more about science? Then I could do my field work in Hawaii! ).

Using items is sort of what I was going for when suggesting the getting stuck/unstuck idea, but it could also be that having completed certain non-necessary projects could give bonus to others. Like if you have researched alien power sources (which are famously explosive), you get less chance of getting stuck while researching the alien grenades. More interplay than just dependencies would indeed be nice in the research, but that's not something done in any game I know of.. it's almost always tech trees. But xcom is very research centric, so it might be a good place to start.

For all these things, we have to ask: what does it add to the game? I like the possibility of getting stuck and of not getting new projects because you're not always guaranteed to get the grand idea and sometimes you have to make do with the side idea, which may well turn out to be grand once it grows. This creates a more erratic progress (bouts of discoveries and dry times) rather than the deterministic research we have (and I'd call at worst being 50% late on actual useable deliverables a really efficient science team). This makes the game more replayable in that maybe the first time you were lucky and got far with what you wanted but the next you have to make do with something else. A bit like how the factions you encounter shape your progress in Piratez (something I love): the development you get and where you get stuck would shape your game too.

Also, getting stuck and not getting projects would add a new value to some items/VIP even after you exhaust their freebies: you hunt them so they can explain something to you when you get stuck. And it adds motivation: you're looking for those things for a reason, not just for progress for progress' sake. It's the one thing I liked with Piratez endgame: I was shaping alien missions by trying to cause retaliations to get VIPs and armor parts instead of just responding to whatever missions were thrown at me. The more the player interacts with the world instead of reacting, the more satisfying the game is. And that's one thing I liked with XCOM Files: you continuously shape the world since what you encounter depends on your missions.

All that to say: research could do awesome things to XCom I think. And it's hard to think of a game where it is more applicable, except maybe civ types.

[Eddie]

What I would like is to come up with something that makes reasearch time a little more predictable. Vanilla has such a system, but it doesn't work for research projects that can be finished in a day.

And for all those saying "you can't predict research!": Yes, you can predict research, to a degree. You know that finding a flammable material to put on your arrows to produce flame arrows won't take as long as designing a new interceptor.

[Solarius Scorch]

...and we would end up creating mods for crying out loud! 

(sorry I couldn't resist  )

I'm afraid a mod wouldn't cut it, it would be a completely new part of the game!

@Arthanor: So if I understand your ideas, we could make something like introducing research fields. Stuff like for example medicine, energy weapons, craft propulsion, voodoo: destruction and so on. Every research in the game is assigned one (or more) field. And some enemies give you info on specific fields... But I haven't thought of an actual mechanics for this.

@Eddie: Then maybe you would like an additional indicator of research cost? For researches which cost up to 5 it says "Trivial", 6-20 is "Easy", 21-50 is "Average" and so on.

[Dioxine]

And for all those saying "you can't predict research!": Yes, you can predict research, to a degree. You know that finding a flammable material to put on your arrows to produce flame arrows won't take as long as designing a new interceptor.

Unless you've never even heard about flame arrows, and designing a new interceptor is just a matter of reshuffling known components in an interceptor designer software, then pushing the 'wizard' button to calculate all the stuff. Outraugeous? Maybe, but think Star Trek Also while you could say, in relative terms, that the former will take less time than the latter, due to sheer complexity difference, this would be a pure guesswork to ascertain how much time, in absolute terms.

It also bears reminding that your examples concern engineering (planning and protoryping), not research (theory & experimentation). XCOM doesn't differentiate between these two (and lumps data analysis and intelligence into the same model, too), true, but none the less we cannot reductio to engineering.

[khade]

I'd like to see the capacity to upgrade our sciencey girls, from brainers to scientists, with however many steps in between as we're willing to add.  Brainers are smart, but not actually trained, while scientists are well trained and smart and expensive as well.  Getting new girls through the black market would always get you brainers, training them would be your job, for lack of a better location, the workshop would be a good place for it, though how runts would be involved boggles the mind.

On the subject of the runts, they could be upgraded too, a runt is supposed to be basically cheap labor, inexpensive, but in serious need of oversight and very clear instructions, with a little bit of schooling, they could be trained labor, and with more they could be true engineers.

I figure having an upgraded worker, science or workshop, would provide a bonus, even if the others in the project are the most basic type, one scientist/engineer could provide enough authority and direction to be noticeable, at least.

[Eddie]

@Eddie: Then maybe you would like an additional indicator of research cost? For researches which cost up to 5 it says "Trivial", 6-20 is "Easy", 21-50 is "Average" and so on.

I would find something like that helpful. Example where I would have needed that: damaged grav unit. Early research topics take more or less the same amount of time, except for the damaged grav unit, which takes a lot longer. On my second playthough I know how long it takes, and haven't researched it so far because I know how many other useful research I can get done in that time.

[Dioxine]

I have voiced a similar idea too. However, there is GUI problem; perhaps this should be displayed when you open up a research to start or cancel it? The available research list won't feasibly fit any extra indicators IMO.
Extra points for color: white (0), blue (trivial), green (easy), yellow (normal), orange (challenging), red (hard), purple (extreme). Naturally the ranges would have to be set as globals, as the cost would wildly range from mod to mod (Piratez have very low research costs compared to vanilla).
As a guideline, in Piratez I'd set:
Trivial: 5 or less
Easy: 6-10
Normal: 11-20
Challenging: 21-35
Hard: 36-60
Extreme: 61+

[Eddie]

+1 from me on that. Definately an improvement.

[Meridian]

How about this?

[Arthanor]

Some indication of rxpected effort would be cool, yes. That doesn't make research predictable. Like you know that the expected result of rolling two dice is 7, but that doesn't make you able to guess your next dice roll.

The sorting is a great idea, Meridian and it is something your research team should be able to give you. Pushing it, we could add a display in the window where we assign scientists that gives some feedback dependent on "cost / # assigned", sort of like the profit indicator for manufacturing.

[Dioxine]

I don't like the idea of sorting, I'd rather check the topic that interests me and only then maybe change my decision based on difficulty; can't imagine a situation where I'd go and think, "now I'm going to research something easy", except maybe on a 1-brainer base. I know it's a matter of perspective, and it's surealy a solid improvement, but not the thing I had in mind...

EDIT:
I'd add one extra line on research difficulty (small font) where the red line is in the attached picture.

[Arthanor]

The filtering is handy for "low-hanging fruits" that you might not realize are quick (either they popped up a while ago and you forget what "tier" they were in, or they are quick for their "tier") as well as tidying up the "tech forest" occasionally. I could see myself using it and trying to go through projects in order of how quick they are to complete (exhaust the trivial ones, move to easy, etc.) if I don't really know where I'm headed (ie when not using the tech tree viewer to beeline for something specific, which I tend to avoid).

That said, as a general use tool, getting the info in the project starting window as you suggested would be great as well. (Was going to say better, but no, I think they're complementary. One is a warning of the project length when you want a specific project, the other gives you projects when you want a given length)