Tech Tree nonsense

[Chthon]

I've been noticing this for a few things. A tech requires X and Y to research, but also needs Z to become useful. My most recent example is Railway. It requires Logistics 2 and Steel processing to research, but once you've done so you will quickly find out that you also need Engines to make an engine. Without engines the whole thing is worthless.

Another is Electrical Engine. Without oil processing, it is impossible to actually create an electrical engine, so the tech is worthless otherwise.

Anything requiring Blue research should also require Batteries which unlocks the blue bottle.
Anything requiring Purple research should also require Alien Tech which unlocks the purple bottle.

If there are any more, I can't think of them, tired right now. However shouldn't these pre-requisites be added to said technologies? It will help prevent players from making the noob mistake of researching it only to find out that it won't help them without another bunch of techs as well. That's just my thought anyways.

[Teurlinx]

There definitely are more of them like the Rocket defense.

You can compare the technologies and items (you can click them separately) in this tech tree made by another user:

http://davemcw.com/factorio/tech-tree/

[robhol]

I also kind of wish you wouldn't have to weed through the research you can't DO yet because you don't have the proper research vials. I can't really come up with a good way to "algorithmize" it, though.

[Teurlinx]

I also kind of wish you wouldn't have to weed through the research you can't DO yet because you don't have the proper research vials. I can't really come up with a good way to "algorithmize" it, though.

Maybe a simple sorting of the techs by cost. First techs that require only red from cheap to expensive, then the techs requiring red + green from cheap to expensive etc.

I don't think there's much point to do this for the existing tech tree though. IIRC it is a temporary version and will be overhauled completely anyway.

[MtNak]

Yeah, it would be great to know this things before researching. We can, but it is really tedious.

[goertzenator]

A research queue would be nice so you don't have to keep thinking about which techs you want. If you have a research queue, maybe you could double click on an item and all the prerequisite techs and subcomponent techs queue up for you automatically.

[Chthon]

A research queue would be nice so you don't have to keep thinking about which techs you want. If you have a research queue, maybe you could double click on an item and all the prerequisite techs and subcomponent techs queue up for you automatically.

Yes, it would be nice, but it wouldn't work or do you any good unless all of the prerequisite technologies were researched first. To do that they have actually be listed in the prerequisites.

[obuw]

I think some of the research being useless without other research is fine. For instance, you research railways first, and then you are able to start working on building your rail network while you research engines.

I agree that the tech tree definitely needs some better organization though. But I'm sure it must already be on the devs' list of things to improve before release.