Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » tech swap and research costs
| tech swap and research costs |
Fri, 21 April 2006 09:28  |
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 TheShadow7478 |
 | Crewman 1st Class |
Messages: 33
Registered: March 2006
Location: Long Island/NYC | |
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Assuming ship slots are available.
Am I correct that research costs increase the more tech levels you have (total not just in that one field)?
So would it be better to save scrappers till you need them, in order to keep lower research costs and in effect achieve more tech faster?
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Fri, 21 April 2006 12:28  |
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This discussion is most influencial on early game.
Miniturization can sometimes more than make up for the costs in research. Stuff like starbases, minelayers, battlecomputers, and chaff get cheaper if your lowest tech bio goes up.
As a side note, if you sprint through several techs and some are cheap and some are expensive, doing the expensive ones first is cheaper... each existing tech adds cost of 5 (50%) to cheap tech but 17.5 to an expensive tech.
[Updated on: Fri, 21 April 2006 12:29] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Fri, 21 April 2006 16:26 |
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| Marduk |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Fri, 21 April 2006 11:43 |
The obvious time to delay is if you need the tech your are researching more than the tech in the scrappers AND your resource margin for gaining your researched tech is very small so that an increase in cost will push achieving the level back an extra year.
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True, but also remember that tech from scrapping or WP0 pop-drops happens before production and that research happens as the end of production. Tech that reduces your build costs may (depending on your queues) increase the number of resources available for research. I've been surprised before by getting a tech level that I thought would end up 100 resources or so short because I didn't take miniaturization into account.
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The method is pop drop tech trading; I generally avoid using this method because there is no control over what tech area you receive and most of my races have no interest in gaining more that level 4 in BioTech, so trading with a partner who has high levels of BioTech, say an SD or CA or SS, tends to increase my long term research costs by giving me unwanted Bio.
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Ah, but as I recall you are ISB-friendly. If a player does not have ISB, and relies on space stations (1200 resources at 0 tech), they may find even unwanted Bio speeds their research. Each level of Bio tech drops the cost of a space station by 48 resources, assuming Bio is the low tech. And of course assuming you haven't taken Bio to the max for miniaturization.
Let me propose the most extreme example, 0 tech and expensive fields in everything but bio, and going to tech 26 in all the other fields. So there are 130 levels of tech that will suffer the extra 17.5 resources each. That's 2275 extra resources for each level of Bio. Given a savings of 48 per station, that's about 47.4 stations to hit the break-even point.
I've ended up with more than 50 stations even when crippling myself by not taking ISB. Granted, several of them were built before acquiring excess Bio tech, but I also had some cheap and normal-cost fields and quite a few levels in the other techs already.
If you're a 3.5 cheap tech race with, say, 30 levels in the other techs before you acquire excess Bio, and you don't go to the max in every field (19 Elect, 12 Prop, 22 Energy, for instance), you won't spend nearly as much extra for the Bio. I figure less than 700 per level for such a race, roughly 14 stations to break even. Not counting the cost of the Bio level itself, obviously, but if it's free or you'll be using it for TT anyway...
The same sort of thing holds true for any component or hull with no tech requirements. Though I guess that's really only a concern for SD races (Mini Mine Layer hull) and ARM races (Midget Miner hull). Colonization modules and colonizer hulls are affected, but you'd have to have hundreds to break even - same for the SD and ARM hulls, but they probably will. An HE maybe, if they like to use their Mini-colonizer and Settler's Delight for everything. Still, if you don't have ISB free Bio is an excellent investment. And you can annoy vonKreedon if he pop-drops your worlds! 
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Fri, 21 April 2006 18:55 |
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The same sort of thing holds true for any component or hull with no tech requirements. Though I guess that's really only a concern for...
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Regular minelayers, scout based flak, orbital forts, regular fuel tanks, regular battle computers (cheapo as counterdesign for high init), tritanium armour (overcloakers), qj5 engines (specialty extra light ships including 2.25 speed dreadnaughts), dna/rna scanners (anti-cloaking), smart bombs (bombing with friends help)... both resource AND mineral savings.
Starbase savings are often at frontier, giving extra value to savings. Planet under seige may rebuild starbase several times.
[Updated on: Fri, 21 April 2006 18:56] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Fri, 21 April 2006 23:54 |
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Use your scrappers as you get them, Get the techs you need as you need them. Any addition to research costs is trivial in the long run since as a monster race you are going to have lots of resources left over in the end game. When all tech is maxed at 26, minerals are in short supply - what do you care how much all that research cost you? You are building ships - not researching.
In the mid game, you'll see yourself spending thousands of resources for research in a given turn - where is the advantage in trying to save 2k resources overall in the research plan? Besides which, all the free tech you are getting from the scrappers is saving you thousands of resources.
By getting the free tech from scrappers, you are gaining overall and getting something for free.
Ptolemy
[Updated on: Fri, 21 April 2006 23:54]
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Sun, 23 April 2006 03:31 |
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| m.a@stars |
 | Commander |
Messages: 2768
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| Marduk wrote on Fri, 21 April 2006 16:48 |
And I say no
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Well, my answer was perhaps a bit terse, but I stand by it. 
TheShadow7478 wanted to know if "research costs increase the more tech levels you have" and that's true, however trivial the increase. 
He also wanted to know if it would be better to "save scrappers till you need them, in order to keep lower research costs and in effect achieve more tech faster" and that's also true, even if generally "you need them" pretty immediately, for a variety of reasons explained already in this thread, or the overal resource savings is also trivial.
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Sun, 23 April 2006 12:49 |
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| NingunOtro |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 105
Registered: September 2005
Location: Brussels, Belgium | |
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IMHO there are perhaps only two reasons not to use a particular scrapper inmediately. First, because you are already scrapping another that provides a different tech that turn that will cover the maximum allowance of 1 tech level gained through tech exchange each turn (not sure if this limitation is for the sum of all techniques including pop-drop or separately). And second, because you will want to gain a tech level by conventional research if the resources needed complete it are limited, so as to use the scrapper to gain the complete investment on the next level (provided this does not make your scapper obsolete for the task, of course). The most bang for the buck of a scrapper comes when it completes a level for which you have invested nothing yet, because then you get the full amount of resources to get to the next level from the scrapper. This situation is best prepared by indicating an alternative field of research once the level is completed, as any surplus resources you invest in the same field will be completely wasted when you use the scrapper.
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Sun, 23 April 2006 13:39 |
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| NingunOtro |
| Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 105
Registered: September 2005
Location: Brussels, Belgium | |
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That situation you depict is very plausible, it depends on whether you are actually researching the same tech field that you are using the scrapper for, and of the way in which the scrapping tech level gains are implemented.
If, as I would logically expect, gaining one tech level means you get exactly the amount of resources needed to reach the next level, then it is useful to do so when you have not yet invested any resources of your own, because you will be given them anyway, and instead invest any surplus in some other field. But if gaining one tech level means you get the total amount of resources needed to reach such level from point 0 of the previous one, then of course what you had already invested in the lower level will overflow in the next one and not be wasted.
It all depends on what technique Stars! uses to count the levels when it says it counts levels, as the controversy around given MT Trader tech levels show. Are you given a certain amount of tech levels, or are you given a certain amount of resources that get you as many tech levels as your particular situation can buy you with?
Further, if you happen to be investigating the same field as you are scrapping, the scrapping happens before the investigation, and so, considering also the previous paragraph, you could be raised to the next level by the scrapping and apply the amount of research you do on top of that instead of on top of your previous investigation level.
There are many factors at work simultaneously that can interact in different ways. It is our job to combine them in the most favourable way.
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Sun, 23 April 2006 22:07 |
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| NingunOtro |
| Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 105
Registered: September 2005
Location: Brussels, Belgium | |
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Yeah, that is exactly what I had in mind but could not afford to affirm categorically by lack of personal research on the matter.
What I was trying to get said, albeit including some safeguards by lack of hard proof on this particular issue, is that it is often rewarding to wait before you plot any popdrop, wolf-lamb or scrapping operation untill you complete any tech level that might be involved in such an operation when the resources needed to achieve this are little. This is because instead of receiving the little resources needed to complete this level, you could leave that effort to your own research first and instead you would get the whole amount of resources needed to go up to the next level after the one you just completed. Just a matter of getting the most bang for the buck from such an operation anytine you can arrange it to happen.
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Mon, 24 April 2006 08:01 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2768
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| NingunOtro wrote on Mon, 24 April 2006 04:07 |
because instead of receiving the little resources needed to complete this level, you could leave that effort to your own research first and instead you would get the whole amount of resources needed to go up to the next level after the one you just completed.
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You might want to make a testbed for that. I remember that more than once a popdrop or scrap has given me the full resources needed to reach a techlevel, regardless of how many I actually lacked to reach it. 
As for "bang for the buck", what better than getting the whole tech level you were about to research on your own from popdrop/scrap and then your meager research budget reaches not that one, but the *next* higher one.
A classic jawdropper from my 1st multiplayer game: My WM partner gives me a high Weap lvl (which I was about to reach anyway) via WP0 popdrop, I have GR and am researching Const like mad, get a Const lvl, GR derives its bonus to Weap and whoa, I get *another* Weap lvl, which then my WM partner gets at his WP1 popdrop. Unlikely to forget something like that. 
What is nevertheless true is that popdrop/scrap can be a problem if you had shaved your research budget too close and the trivial extra costs from having gained an unlooked-for techlevel make you miss your tech goal by a handful of resources. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Mon, 24 April 2006 14:37 |
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| NingunOtro |
| Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 105
Registered: September 2005
Location: Brussels, Belgium | |
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Obviously, you have not understood what I wanted to say. Let me make it clear to you with an extreme example:
Suppose you have been researching weapons at a level where you need several years of research to achieve access to the next level. You have spent a lot and are casually just 50 resources from reaching that goal after spending heavily on it. Now, at this moment you get a weapons tech scrapper from an ally.
From the Stars! order of events, scrapping with possible tech gain happens first, before research.
So, if you use the scrapper at that moment, it will earn you exactly the 50 resources needed to reach the next level, and nothing more. Surely a waste of a scapper that most probably has cost your ally more to produce.
If you do not scrap at this point, but instead continue to research weapons first, you have two ways to go:
Either you research only weapons, and then 50 resources go into completing that weapons tech level, the rest being spent on accumulating towards the reach of the next one.
Or you research weapons but set the next field to something else, and then 50 resources go into completing that weapons tech level, but the rest is invested in that other field.
After this you use the scrapper to reach one more level of weapons tech.
This gives you THREE distinct outcomes out of the same starting situation:
1) You spend the scrapper to obtain a measly 50 resources with which you definitely complete 1 techlevel.
2) You get the 50 resources needed by research, and after that you use the scrapper to pay you a full level of research for free. Any resources spent on research the year before on top of the 50 that were really needed to reach the level are a lost effort because they would have been provided for by the action of the scrapper anyway (unless they were enough to buy you an aditional level of course, but we have discarded that in the setup of our hypothese). This way you get 2 tech levels at an additional cost of 50 resources, but waste the excess research in the same field.
3) You get the 50 resources needed by research, and spend the remainder of your budget on another research field. After that you use the scrapper to pay you a full level of research for free. This way you get 2 tech levels at an additional cost of 50 resources, and no resources are wasted because they were intelligently funneled into a field that would not see them nullified by the use of the scrapper.
Now, all three scenarios give you a tech level when you use a scrapper. Up to you to decide which one suits you best, considering your enemies have the same choice.
The way you put it in your own examples, you would spend the scrapper on the 50 resources and then leave it to your research to add on top of that. It is obviously more productive to think the other way around when the amount of resources needed up to the next level is limited, up to the moment where what the scrapper provides on top of the next level is less than what is left to research on the present one (hardly believable this could be in any case), or more probably if you need more than one year of research to get to that next level.
Also consider the convenience of spending the scrapper on a higher level in face of the fact that you can gain only one per year by tech transfer (better let it be the most expensive you can get). And also that any resources poured into a field you are going to use a scrapper for is wasted (in the case of 50 resources left, this can go into the thousands).
Obviously, you have not given the "bang for the buck" approach enough thought. There are many alternatives for playing less than optimal. But like somebody on this forum uses to say, if you are not paranoid, you are not paying enough attention  .
Good luck.
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Mon, 24 April 2006 15:29 |
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it will earn you exactly the 50 resources needed to reach the next level, and nothing more
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Have you ever testbedded this? Perhaps you should.
If you can actually get those results, I would be interested in a copy of your stars.exe file. Results I get suggest you get a full level worth of tech resources even if field is mostly done.
I used default huminoid and insectoid races under human control in tiny universe with close start and simple wolf-lamb trade.
Edit to comment on post right after mine
Please, please, please.... testbed it, if you don't believe us. I have. IF you can back up your claim with a REAL testbed, then I want a copy of your files.
Or do you need me to email you a copy of testbed proof that you are wrong?
[Updated on: Mon, 24 April 2006 17:38] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: tech swap and research costs |
Mon, 24 April 2006 21:44 |
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| LEit |
 | Lt. Commander |
Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT | |
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Woops, sorry if I badly worded what I'd said.
When you get a tech level from some means other then research (and probably MTs don't work this way either) - battle, invasions, or scrapping, you get the # of resources you need to go from the beginning of the current level to the beginning of the next level.
So if you have level 4 and you need 500 resources to get from the start of 4 to the start of 5, a scrapper (or pop drop, or battle) will give you 500 resources. If you'd already researched 450 of them and it takes 600 resources to get from 5 to 6, you will now be 150 resources from level 6.
One exception is that if you are researching the same field you have a scrapper for, and have next field set to something other then the current field, then the excess resources (450 in the example above) will be applied to the next field. This does not generate resources for free or anything, but it can recover resources spent on one field and apply them to some other field.
If you are close to a level, it may makes sense to finish it before you scrap a scrapper, because the current level is going to be cheaper then the next level. There are several cases where it doesn't make sense however: when the scrapper is for one level more then what you have, researching that level will make the scrapper worthless; also, if you have an ally willing to provide you with scrappers every year and don't see and end to their tech, you may as well scrap as often as possible (every year); and, basically the same case, when speed of getting to a certain level is much more important then cost of getting there, scrapping sooner is better, unless your scrappers are limited (scrappers from an ex-ally perhaps).
One interesting use of the full resource for tech trades is what I've been calling 'split research':
Two races both research the same field, but with pop drops (or wolf/lamb, scrappers are usually too slow) make sure to pass each level back and forth. So for example, they both start at level 10, needing 1000 resources to get to 11 (all amounts of resources for a tech level are made up and unlikely incorrect), race A spends that, B spends 900, they set up so that B is doing waypoint 1 pop drop, end of the turn and A has 11, needing 1100 resources, B also has 11, but only needs 200 resources. Now B spends 200, A spends up to but not over 1099 resources (say 1000 again), and this turn A does the waypoint 1 drops. Then A has 12 needing 200 resources for 13, and B has 12 needing 1200 for 13. Repeat. It turns out to be very hard to pull it off correctly, for the pop drop to work you have to plan ahead for who's going to be ready to do the w1 drops and make sure you're not getting tech from elsewhere the turns you're not getting it from your ally. When the levels get more expensive, it's a bit easier, because it could take a few turns to reach each level. Wolf/lamb is possible if it takes a few turns too. It's a lot of planning ahead and a lot of work to get it right, and things will go wrong. However, it's very nice because the two races can both contribute to the same tech, which can greatly increase the speed of research in some critical tech (weapons or con are most likely). Or they can both build some in their off years and still keep the research going full speed. It probably doesn't make sense if you need 2 tech fields, because then each race should do one field.
We used this split research for weapons in the EACvsIRC game, and it was a big help, although there were a lot of missteps along the way, it still helped, and we effectivly had roughly 70% of our second largest race and one of our middle races econs being spent on weapons, which I guess works out to about 120% of our second largest econ on weapons, and still allowing both races to build factories and ships. The largest econ worked on con alone, and not surprisingly, we got to weapons 26 before con 26 (not by much, the largest econ was very well mananged, and sacrificed to get to nubians ASAP).
[Added EACvsIRC use of 'split research']
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[Updated on: Mon, 24 April 2006 21:53]
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