Petition to Re-Add Tech Level

[expert700]

Imperfect solutions aren't inherently better than nothing.  In some cases, imperfect solutions are worse than nothing, creating more issues than they solve.  That is the case for TL.  Getting tech nowadays feels less special than before, but it's so much less annoying that it's worth the trade of abandoning TL.

My thinking is that progression should involve more "doing" of stuff, like how the material harvesting patents require you to go out and harvest samples by hand.  Maybe some patents should need us to go out and do things like taking relevant measurements or testing recently developed tech (e.g. no rocket powered spacecraft until you successfully fly around in a space rocket).

Note that I do not see any need to "protect" established empires from new ones by slowing the new ones down.  That's silly nonsense.  This shouldn't be about old empires at all.  It's about helping to lead new players into the game at a comprehensible pace, while nudging them to go on little adventures and giving them a sense of progression and accomplishment.  We shouldn't hold them back from the real game unnecessarily, but we absolutely should make the process of learning and acclimating to the game as fun and interactive as possible.

Getting tech nowadays doesn't feel like anything, because there is no tech now. There are just those patents, which are only a distraction. 

As for what you call "protecting" established empires, do you really think that an empire that has been around for years should have no benefit over an empire that has been around for a few days? Hazeron isn't a complete sandbox, there has to be some sort of gating.

[pizzasgood]

Note that I'm using technology in the normal definition, not as a synonym for TL.  So yes, there is tech (cryo heatsinks, vulcium hulls, etc.), which is unlocked through patents, which are kind of boring but far less aggravating than TL.

As for gating, an empire that has been around for years does have multiple benefits over one that's been around a few days.  For one, they've got all those big ships that take ages to build.  They've got cities all over the place.  They've got population, stockpiles, and supply lines.  They've got alliances.  If that's not enough and some week-old empire crushes them?  Then they deserved it for being completely and utterly incompetent.

I'm not objecting to some sort of long-term progression that gives marginal performance improvements, as described by Mortius. I am objecting to arbitrarily holding back new empires from access to the core game mechanics.

[expert700]

Note that I'm using technology in the normal definition, not as a synonym for TL.  So yes, there is tech (cryo heatsinks, vulcium hulls, etc.), which is unlocked through patents, which are kind of boring but far less aggravating than TL.

As for gating, an empire that has been around for years does have multiple benefits over one that's been around a few days.  For one, they've got all those big ships that take ages to build.  They've got cities all over the place.  They've got population, stockpiles, and supply lines.  They've got alliances.  If that's not enough and some week-old empire crushes them?  Then they deserved it for being completely and utterly incompetent.

I'm not objecting to some sort of long-term progression that gives marginal performance improvements, as described by Mortius.  I am objecting to arbitrarily holding back new empires from access to the core game mechanics.

You're right, old empires do have those benefits. I should have been more clear. What I'm concerned about is the narrow gap when it comes to technology. A new empire could build ships as capable as those built by a well-established empire within a week. I don't really think technologies like warp travel should be considered core game mechanics that are easily accessible to new empires. Such advanced technologies should be earned by an empire in some way.

I would also like a better system, but we've not gotten that better system, and it doesn't seem to be one of Haxus' main focuses right now. We've just had the existing system gutted repeatedly until there was barely anything left.

[AnrDaemon]

A new empire could build ships as capable as those built by a well-established empire within a week

And that is bad?

[Deantwo]

The old TL system is nothing but wasted time. At the start of the fifth universe it took the veteran empires a week to get to TL32. So the TL system only really punished players that didn't know how to exploit it.
Not to mention that with new-style cities you can get huge populations in no time and have giant universities. So the TL grind would likely be even easier to overcome now.

What you seem to want with "progression gating" is just a way to limit how fast an empire can get to warp and gigantic spacecraft. Neither of which is a fault of the "no tech" situation.
Waiting a week to grind through the TL would only delay the large spacecraft by a week. But it still takes about a month to produce a gigantic spacecraft. As for warp, or warp9, it is still just a question of finding and exploiting the required resources.

I think the main issues you seem to have can be addressed in better ways, such as making the quality of resources and spacecraft modules matter more. For example you seem to mostly want TL because you need high quality resources to get high warp factors, that can easily be fixed by changing the warp drive material costs and maybe implement some way for quality to affect its performance. There are plenty of things where quality doesn't make a difference yet, probably because it has to do with balance and it is far from a priority right now.

The old TL system only made it harder for new players to get to something fun. Just think of how you had to reach TL2 before you could make sensor, this was not fun to wait for and meant that you had nothing to do until then. You finally found awesome cryozine? Too bad you have to wait for the RNG gods to give you the needed TLs.
Not to mention how confusing the TL system was: Why was it based on building types? Why some building TLs mattered and others didn't? Why the complicated "TL=Q/8" math? Why can't I improve TL of high Q materials from low TL allies?

I would rather keep the current "no tech" situation we have now, than go back to TL or QL.

[AnrDaemon]

There was one good property in the old TL system: the granularity of the ship properties.
The rest was… not up to the task.

[Deantwo]

There was one good property in the old TL system: the granularity of the ship properties.
The rest was… not up to the task.

That is true. Spacecraft size limit progression is still something I have no idea on how would be solved. But we have had several possible ideas in the past.

I believe it was Ikkir that suggested that the size of your spacecraft factory and space station could limit it the size of spacecraft you can manufacture. Maybe building a bigger spacecraft factory could require more advanced construction materials.

Or the ideas we had in the old "Remove TL Mega Thread". Spacecraft manufacturing requiring tech objects that have diminishing returns and slowly decay, so you have to keep producing more and more of them to get the amount needed to manufacture bigger spacecraft.

Resource quality could also be a factor, unless that gets another use. Haxus mentioned that maybe the quality of a spacecraft's modules should determine how likely the module is to break down when used from wear and tear. I at least like that better than the module effectiveness scaling and spacecraft size limiting.

Anyway, I guess that is getting off-topic.

[martianant]

I am also opposed. Will be thinking and adding to the doc about possible replacement ideas. Might take some time though.

[Phenoix12]

I'm against bringing back TL.

Instead of bringing back an old broken system a new better one should be made.

[SpaceGeek]

TL was a broken system. Patents as they are, are a broken system. Trading one broken system for a broken and defunct one is not progress. A complete replacement system should be developed before anything is changed but since Haxus is on track to put Hazeron on Steam, this will likely never happen.

That being said, I think we should consider species modifiers for things like culture and temperament. A culture that can pool all its resources into the pursuit of science probably isnt going to dedicate all of it to making pwnlazorz all in one go. Space is huge, even in Hazeron and nobody is going to be thinking about building massive glass cannons for fighting an intergalactic war. Empire modifiers along the lines of ethics choices in Stellaris come to mind. A culture that spends most of its time researching weapons isnt focused on developing medicines or efficient power generation, etc. so minmaxing your options to leverage all out war would leave your empire internally weak and susceptible to unconventional warfare like bioterrorism or your civilians are more likely to revolt under sustained bombing, etc.

That suggestion isnt meant to be taken seriously as it would require a massive rewrite of several game mechanics, but I do think its the only reasonable way to accomplish what the TL system meant to.