Science "Points" - Accumulate over time

posted on August 4th, 2012, 1:40 am

I was thinking about how advances are made in science in the real world. New technologies usually require many years of research before even a prototype can be made, and even more time for the final "product" to be developed. It seems clear that scientific progress and time are strongly linked. For example, televisions began as big, bulky, expensive boxes displaying only grayscale images, and then progressed to colour, and finally to the flat-panel displays common today, which are able to display high-resolution images. It's easy to put technological developments on a timeline, like the one above. New technologies do not evolve overnight, and they build or improve on older technologies.

In the strategy game Civilization V, science points accumulate over time, and eventually when the player accumulates enough points, a new technology is unlocked. I'm wondering what people think about using a similar system in Fleet Ops. To me, it seems like it would be more realistic than the current system. As far as implementation goes, I assume a new resource called Science would be created, and it would accumulate over time, the way Borg collective connections do.

posted on August 4th, 2012, 3:37 am

Mh. While that might be more accurate/realistic, I think the starfleet in FO would likely redirect large parts of the funding for science projects and only fund the projects that will have an actual impact on the battlefield, resulting in the kind of system we have.


(Civ 4 > Civ 5)

posted on August 4th, 2012, 10:55 am

Well, Fops is a RTS game which plays in a smaller timeline than a round based Civ that plays in a timeline of thousands of years and hours, if not days, of gameplay.

A main difference as well is how the techup in Civ works in general: you don't just tech up to more "complex" units, or unlock a specific tech tree, you kinda literally advance in the timeline, making older units more and more obsolete with every milestone you achieve - and in the meanwhile you only fight with a hand full of units which makes the combat itself quite boring. While that works well in round based games, where you mainly focus on economy and infrastructure, in a RTS game like Fops, where you mainly focus on combat situation, i can't really think of a good advantage.

Anyways, i would be interested in how you would think this could be implemented well.



just my 2 cents


(btw. Zap: Civ 3 > 4 )

posted on August 4th, 2012, 11:22 am

You're calling it 'science' when it really seems to be closer to the term 'logistics'.

It's not that you develop a whole new tech for your ships, you just establish a supply line that permits their usage.
Those proximity torpedoes don't build themselves, ya know!

posted on August 4th, 2012, 3:06 pm

You're calling it 'science' when it really seems to be closer to the term 'logistics'.

It's not that you develop a whole new tech for your ships, you just establish a supply line that permits their usage.
Those proximity torpedoes don't build themselves, ya know!

That's exactly how I've seen it for years.