Give additional labs diminishing returns, n/(1+log_10 n)?

[quyxkh]

Right now you can stockpile flasks, and catch up when you like, but i think there could be urgency there.

The mechanic I'm thinking of is track the lab reports in the last 5 seconds, and when a new one comes in the total research benefit for the n reports is n / (1 + log_10 n), so a single lab gets full benefit, but by the time you get to ten labs you're only getting half. With a log_10 divisor the penalty never gets _too_ bad, and with a 5-second window you could get full value out of 6 labs on 30-second-cycle research if you cared, 1.8x better than the 3.37 you'd get just throwing flasks over the wall and crying "mush!".

I like this because if you defer/ignore research you're really losing something, running more labs later to catch up won't be as efficient.

[TheDagmaar]

a NO, and a YES

NO: I am working with 30+ labs at mid-game and 60+ at late-game. Why? Because I can manage my factory well so I can research much faster, but I give up research at the early game for this... coz I love "steamroller" tactics.

Yes: What if you can research more tech at once? If more lab work on one project then its efficiency decrease, but if they work on different projects... I would love that!

[Klonan]

I don't really see what this adds to the gameplay? You would be disincentivizing building big and complex research setups, which is a lot of fun

[Koub]

I actually like the idea. Past one point, especially before automating blue science, if you have enough labs, red&green science can be researched so fast you can't keep up with building.
With diminishing returns on labs, you'd need much more labs to achieve such absurd speeds, which would be prevented by the fact you'd have to invest too much resource into science. I think it would balance research in such a fashion that the average player wouldn't be too hindered, but if you want to finish science at an absurd pace, then you'd have to invest a LOT.

I actually always build only like 2-4 labs in order not to research too fast for what I can build. At the beginning, I used to build like 10-16 labs, and I always ended green science research ages before I could have automated blue science, which I found frustrating. I feel this diminishing returns thing would help getting rid of that "I limit myself not to go too fast" feeling.

[TheDagmaar]

I don't really see what this adds to the gameplay? You would be disincentivizing building big and complex research setups, which is a lot of fun

Not everybody play for fun, some are like it as a sport. Like Speedrun. Its just make the game more harder... which is good. But

What if you can research more tech at once?

[BlakeMW]

I actually always build only like 2-4 labs in order not to research too fast for what I can build. At the beginning, I used to build like 10-16 labs, and I always ended green science research ages before I could have automated blue science, which I found frustrating. I feel this diminishing returns thing would help getting rid of that "I limit myself not to go too fast" feeling.

Do you research the military upgrades? Those things are the main reason I get 16-20 labs, wheras the economic techs are usually 10s to 30s, the military upgrades are 30s or 60s and usually have a much high multiplier too. I think I'd die of old age waiting for Bullet Damage 3 (60s x 200) to complete with only 4 labs.

[Koub]

My rule of thumb : if I have time to finish (or nearly finish) green research before I got to blue science automation, then I researched too fast. I usually don't consider the XXX damage 3 as mandatory at the time they are available I also never research lab efficiency, as more labs is always better (which would change if diminishing returns were added).

My point of view is that if reseach can be done so fast that the order of the research has literally no importance, then what's the use of having a research tree ? I want that every research choice becomes a strategic decision, like "should I research this first ? or that ? Knowing that if I pick the wrong choice, I might get behind in terms of firepower on the long run". If research is like "first automation, then all the red science in whatever order, then automate green, then all green science whatever the order, then automate blue, then advanced oil processing, and tank, then all blue science whatever the order, then all purple", what's the point in having all these techs ? Let the game have only 10 techs, and give them the corresponding science costs.

That's why I find the diminishing returns appealing : allow people to put efforts into searching fast enough and give a bit more strategic value to the choice of what to do next :
- should I hurry searching next research, or should I favor production ?
- if I research something, what's the best pick (knowing that if I want to search many things very fast, I probably won't afford it) ?

[TheDagmaar]

My rule of thumb : if I have time to finish (or nearly finish) green research before I got to blue science automation, then I researched too fast. I usually don't consider the XXX damage 3 as mandatory at the time they are available I also never research lab efficiency, as more labs is always better (which would change if diminishing returns were added).

My point of view is that if reseach can be done so fast that the order of the research has literally no importance, then what's the use of having a research tree ? I want that every research choice becomes a strategic decision, like "should I research this first ? or that ? Knowing that if I pick the wrong choice, I might get behind in terms of firepower on the long run". If research is like "first automation, then all the red science in whatever order, then automate green, then all green science whatever the order, then automate blue, then advanced oil processing, and tank, then all blue science whatever the order, then all purple", what's the point in having all these techs ? Let the game have only 10 techs, and give them the corresponding science costs.

That's why I find the diminishing returns appealing : allow people to put efforts into searching fast enough and give a bit more strategic value to the choice of what to do next :
- should I hurry searching next research, or should I favor production ?
- if I research something, what's the best pick (knowing that if I want to search many things very fast, I probably won't afford it) ?

AAAAnd thats where we arrive there: Game is still in alpha. The research is still has its unbalances. If we really want the gamers to think strategically, then OP has his point. IMO on the long run we need to change the tech tree, and the research system, but not before we have an almost clear game. We still haven't got any of these: underground, nuclear reactor, ships, other planets, clever aliens, ect.

[ssilk]

Moved from Suggestions to Balancing.

I think the last one is a good argument. There is currently no reason for such changes. But the time will come.

[quyxkh]

I don't really see what this adds to the gameplay? You would be disincentivizing building big and complex research setups, which is a lot of fun

I see from my post title that I'll never be in sales. Of course you're right that building glorious gadgets is this game's staple, don't want to get in the way of that. But the log_10 divisor quickly becomes nearly constant -- your 100th lab only gets 1/6 less research than your 10th (and your 1000th would only get 1/12 less than your 100th) -- so bigger is still always much better, this mechanic adds two things: a bigger "do it NOW" urgency to getting lab production up, and a new optional kind of complexity with a nice reward structure for mastery, you can get a noticeable boost with even the simplest tuning, and some more sophisticated automation could get a really major boost out of a late-game complex.

[thereaverofdarkness]

It's the perfect diminishing return. The rate at which it diminishes diminishes. I like to call it a diminishing diminishing return. In layman's terms it means every lab will be useful, just not as useful as the last one. Contrast with an exponentially diminishing return, in which every lab has the same percentage reduction over the previous lab. For a while it seems reasonable, but soon you get close to the theoretical maximum, and no matter how many labs you have, you can never actually reach that maximum. It is an asymptote. But the diminishing diminishing return allows you to get any amount. You could get a million times the science. It'll take a lot more than a million labs, but there is a number of labs that will give you a million science.

[bobingabout]

I dislike the whole idea of the bonus being less as you build more, I mean, you kind of have that already.

Build 1 lab, it's an infinite speed improvement, the new lab makes up 100% of the total research speed.
Build lab#2, it's a 100% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 50% of the total research speed.
build lab#3, it's a 50% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 33% of the total research speed.
etc.
so if you already have 99 labs, just 1 more is barely a dent in the speed boost.

ahem.

Still though, building an automated research facility is half the battle, more labs means you need more science pack production, and you are rewarded with faster research for your efforts. if the labs barely increased speed at all, then the usage of science packs barely increases at all, there's a definite limit to the size of your science pack production facility.

And if you were to suggest that science pack consumption is increased as you have more labs, but the science each provides is reduced... just, no, that would effectively force me to only use 1 lab, ever, because I'd rather wait than waste resources.

Remember, building labs is only a tiny part of the research battle, producing the science packs and making sure each is able to get to each lab is a much more involved part of the research game, something that would drastically be reduced if an idea like this was implemented.

It's one of the few things I ALWAYS use belts for, regardless of the stage of the game I'm in, for the fun of it. You should see my Alien Lab chain, it can take up to 8 different science packs. And it's all belt fed!

[bobucles]

IMO research speed boosts should be removed entirely. There is little reason to build beyond a dozen or so labs as is, never mind after they get their speed doubled.

[BlakeMW]

I'd support the removal of research speed upgrades. We don't need research speed upgrades for the same reason we don't need smelting speed upgrades or assembling speed upgrades. We can build more or use the module slots.

I also completely agree with bobingabout, going from 1 lab to 2 labs is the same benefit as going from 10 labs to 20 labs - the fewer labs you have the cheaper it is to double your research speed.

[thereaverofdarkness]

I dislike the whole idea of the bonus being less as you build more, I mean, you kind of have that already.

Build 1 lab, it's an infinite speed improvement, the new lab makes up 100% of the total research speed.
Build lab#2, it's a 100% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 50% of the total research speed.
build lab#3, it's a 50% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 33% of the total research speed.
etc.
so if you already have 99 labs, just 1 more is barely a dent in the speed boost.

If you already paid for 99 labs, the cost of one more is insignificant and you probably aren't going to plop down only one more. It's not a diminishing return, regardless of how you try to math it.

[Frightning]

I dislike the whole idea of the bonus being less as you build more, I mean, you kind of have that already.

Build 1 lab, it's an infinite speed improvement, the new lab makes up 100% of the total research speed.
Build lab#2, it's a 100% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 50% of the total research speed.
build lab#3, it's a 50% speed improvement, the new lab makes up 33% of the total research speed.
etc.
so if you already have 99 labs, just 1 more is barely a dent in the speed boost.

If you already paid for 99 labs, the cost of one more is insignificant and you probably aren't going to plop down only one more. It's not a diminishing return, regardless of how you try to math it.

Correct, it's what's known as diminishing marginal utility, which people often confuse with diminishing returns. Diminishing marginal utility is typical of linear scaling (such as lab speeds, which are the same for each lab, hence each lab adds the same amount of 'research power' but the change in research time is less with each additional lab because you already have more). Diminishing returns is when each of something beyond the first provides less and less benefit (decreasing benefit of (n+1)st compared to the nth).