Research system visual rework : tech tree#942

Oh boy, one of my big suggestions again.

The research system seems to confuse some people, despite the efforts to make it simpler. I think I came up with a way to further improve it, that would look very cool while doing it. Plus, it doesn’t change too much technically, it’s mostly a visual change !

The research stations (Worktable, stations, HUBs) would all still have 4 tabs : production tech, refinery and research, these remain unchanged, but the “schematic” tab would be renamed to “Tech tree” (or something along those lines). And when selecting it, the usual visual of all the slots with craftable items would be entirely gone, and replaced by… well, a tech tree. I made some images (and they took me a while to do), you can take a look at them at the bottom of the post to better see what I mean. The best part is, this would change (almost) nothing technically ! It’s only a visual change, meaning that when you click on a schematic, it goes into the queue and starts producing.
Once it’s done, the lines become clear and all further schematics become researchable.
You can look over the tech tree from left to right using the mouse scroll wheel.
I also thought of this idea after reading #909, so that you know what schematics you have already researched just by looking at the tech tree.

I also imagine that this tech tree could appear instead of the list of installed schematics in the “Upgrades” tab of your ship inventory, so that it would be a lot clearer too there. You just wouldn’t be able to craft any. The color coding explain later would still apply.

In the worktable, there are only T1 schematics, with the icon of a station at the end indicating you need advanced equipment to do the rest.
In the station, it’s just as you’d expect.
In the HUBs, it work the same, threshold will keep one in storage, etc.

I also thought of some color coding to make it even simpler to quickly read and get information :

• Unacquired but acquirable schematics are greyed. (necessary equipment operational but missing ingredients)
• Unacquired and currently craftable schematics are greyed with a green background. (necessary equipment operational and ingredients present in storage)
• Unacquirable schematics have a red background (due to missing previous schematics or necessary equipment missing)
• Acquired schematics are displayed normally (as they would in your inventory)

Another thing I think would really make it better would be to display in the description what the schematic unlocks. That way, players will look over the tech tree and see what they can unlock clearly, especially if items get separated in more different schematics. Having a clear vision of what you can unlock and how makes players want to progress and reach this point in the tech tree.
Separating more items into individual schematics would help fill the tech tree, but also make the game a lot more fleshed out, instead of “research schematics, destroy ship, craft upgrades, destroy laser, repeat”, it would go something like “research basic schematics, raid a ship, research useful schematics, explore the map and find a specific location which allows you to make a special schematic, destroy ship, craft upgrades and research schematics, destroy laser, etc”.
You would have a schematic for controllers, for weapons, explosives, turrets… I am positive this would make the game a whole lot more interesting. Having a ton of items locked behind one schematic, without even telling which ones they are before or after researching it, makes it so that people miss a lot of them, they don’t even know they’re there.

So yeah, I think that’s about it. This visual change would help massively, and would also give a solid structure for the future of the game, if more schematics are added.
If you have any more ideas, or something’s not quite clear to you, don’t hesitate to comment and I’ll be happy to answer.

Does it have to be a tree system though? Every game insists on this old boring mechanic. While I agree that every item should be researched individually I would much prefer a reverse engineering system:

• new items looted by the player can be converted to a schematic in the research station
• researching these schematics takes an extremely long time
• player can boost research speed by finding and using up more of the researched item
• research station should have the same tabs as the crafting bench for clarity
• already researched tech is grayed out and can be hidden with checking a box on the UI
• currend ui grid is OK but icons should be much smaller (easy overview+less scrolling)

I really like the idea of a tech tree here because it clearly shows progression. It’s a very nice way to see where you’re at that everyone knows and is used to.
As for a reverse engineering system… That’s already how the game works. You get tech salvage, research it into intel, and turn that intel into schematics.

I really don’t like this idea of speeding up by finding more items. Makes it hard to lock schematics behind certain requirements.

I don’t understand your 4th point. Do you mean that the research station should have the same tabs as the worktable ? That makes no sense and essentially turns it into a worktable which is already what the production station is. If you mean that the research station should have the same tabs than the research worktable, then yes that’s already the case and it doesn’t change in my suggestion. I really don’t get what you’re saying.

Your 5th point sounds like the visual changes of the tech tree but a lot less nice. What you’re suggesting is tom completely remove the progression aspect of the visual rework which is the main point of the post. It does fix the issues of #909 but has almost nothing to do here. In fact, this point would be much more relevant as a comment there.

As for your last point, there could actually be a slider in the options or on the station so people can have bigger icons or smaller depending on their preferences. I like that.

I wish I could say something about this but I don’t feel like reading right now

If you look at most of the games the research is grouped up because they are using a tree system that they are trying to keep simple. Your tree shows 7-8 techs and already needs scrolling. Imagine it with 200+ techs. Can you visualize dependencies and prerequisite techs? How easy is this for modders to expand/alter? Research trees IMO are either oversimplified or oversized and convoluted.

Boosting is needed because you can’t expect every player to like the expanded research we want. And even if you like it, it will become a chore after several playthroughs.

Hiding/differentiating finished research is critical as #909 also shows. You suggest looking up finished research every time but that’s exactly what frustrates most of the players including me. BTW, what do you mean on #909 by “removing an entire gameplay style and strategy”? A schematic unlocks the ability to craft modules indefinitely and that’s it. Am I missing something?

I’m suggesting a research table with an identical layout to the workbench because it is clean, easy to understand and highly scalable. Players can start as many research projects as they want but can only work on one at a time. See image below.

about #909 : It’s not “critical”. It’s just about people not keeping up with what they’re doing and being unwilling to check. I usually agree with most qol changes but this one just doesn’t sit right with me. And if you remove the ability to make schematics after you researched them, how do you make dupes ? I always like to make dupes of every schematic and upgrade there is to store them in the submarine in case my ship gets destroyed, so that I don’t have to do everything again and can quickly go back to where I was. If I can’t make dupes anymore, I have to start all the way back to the beginning if something goes wrong.

As for what you’re actually suggesting… I have to say, I’m impressed with the image you made, first of all, but I also quite like the layout. It doesn’t show progression quite like I would like it to, but I feel like it would work as well. I don’t know, seems like a nice alternative, I have to give it some more thinking.
Just the “time remaining” wouldn’t work because it would change each time you open/close more research modules which I can see being annoying.
And I still really don’t like the “use more items to speed it up” thing. But hey, opinions.

Overall interesting idea !

OK now I’m really confused. Creating duplicates of any schematics makes zero sense. In the Steam version they behave like global research not a local blueprint associated to the specific ship. I’ve destroyed my ship then captured a new one and all of my schematics appeared there automatically.

I think you should let the devs know that they need to clarify if the sytem is going to be a global research or a ship based blueprint system.

That is very wrong. Schematics are an item, and when you craft one, it automatically applies to your ship, but not to every ship out there, otherwise you’d have all research completed from the beginning of the game since there’s ships with all the research done.
What most likely happened is that you claimed a ship that’s not the tutorial one, and those have the T1 schematics, while the tutorial ship has none.

It being a global system makes no sense and is not coded this way anyways ; if it currently works like that, the game is very broken and they need to patch it. But if it was currently broken, I think it would be extremely noticeable.

Marked this as Modded, I spent a couple hours digging into the UI for the Research Table and Module and changed it to be more of a tree design, however there is quite a steampunky twist to it but I’m not giving it away yet, Expect it to be fully released shortly after the Modding Update goes live!

The research and crafting systems could be more intuitive and the UI could be better. I like that they change the systems a bit as you upgrade beyond the initial workbench and stations to an automated system, but the whole thing still feels really clunky. I feel like they’ll eventually clean it up, streamline it, make it just a little easier to figure out and use. The in game tutorials are a bit rough, too, so the combination of everything just falling a tiny bit short of where it needs to be makes the whole thing a little confusing.