Certain tech tree dependencies and trigger tech issues in Space Age

[KuuLightwing]

I'm at Aquilo currently, and across my playthrough I had some friction with trigger techs, and some dependencies in the tech tree that do not make for smooth game experience.

First of them is oil. I'm not a fan that you need to mine oil first before you can do anything with it. It's a minor thing, but usually I build refinery first, then I get oil and also usually use trains for this. Another issue this is that it's convenient to use flamethrower turrets to defend oil outposts, which are now locked completely until you mine some oil. This kinda forces to take some artificial steps like triggering the tech first, then researching all the required tech, then coming back and actually building the outpost.

Second is uranium. Now it again forces you to mine uranium before you can do anything with it and then do an additional research before unlocking nuclear power. Another problem is that heat pipes and other power components of the heat subsystem are locked behind this research. I arrived at Vulcanus without touching uranium and found out that I can only use regular steam engines, which was... not ideal. Contrariwise, the heating tower unlocks other power components as well, so I think the tech that unlocks acid neutralization should also give access to steam turbines.

Third is Quantum processor. It requires biter egg handling trigger, despite not requiring any biter eggs as far as I can see, so it's a completely arbitrary step that is probably a leftover of some previous game version where processors needed biter eggs to craft.

[KuuLightwing]

Oh, found another anomaly. Is there a particular reason why railgun shooting speed needs cryo science, and railgun damage does not, and needs agri science instead?

[Twisted_Code]

Most of this I can kind of get, as this is how tech trees normally work, i.e. you unlock things by doing the relevant research and interacting with the relevant systems. Igniting oil, and knowing how to use it all offensively, reasonably requires having at least touched the stuff.
On the other hand, I'm with the last two things. For the advanced steam engines, I think that is worth the Devs at least taking a peek at, and the biter egg trigger is just weird, you're probably not far off with your hypothesis on it.

[NineNine]

These dependencies are set up to help new players learn the game.
For experienced players, it should take no time at all to flip on the technologies, so I don't see what the problem is, exactly.

[fencingsquirrel]

Not having nuclear on vulcanus is totally fine. It's got 300% solar polar and shorter day cycles, while having infinite iron/copper/sulfuric acid to make solar/accumulators. I just made a chest of solar and accumulators and plopped down a few thousand at once.

Having to use efficiency modules isn't ideal, but if you don't have nuclear you probably don't have beacons either anyways so you don't really miss much.

[Burgoo]

Can you get to vulcanus without power poles and completely brick yourself?
from what the wiki says you don't need to research alectric energy distribution 2 to get to vulcanus at all

[fencingsquirrel]

Yup. Solar is needed too iirc.

[astroshak]

Interesting.

Vanilla, you need Electric energy distribution 1 (medium, large power poles) to research the silo.

Space Age, you do not.

That said … this is a game of automation. As long as you have the ability to set up the production of small power poles on Nauvis, from Vulcanus, you can ship them over. Remember, the platform you used to arrive at Vulcanus is still up there. Did you forget to bring the means to return to it?

[h.q.droid]

The soft lock happens when no rocket silo on Nauvis has logistics access to wood / small power poles and Nauvis science somehow stopped. Unlikely, but still possible.

[Leo Felix]

Some of these tech locks feel kinda unnecessary. Having to mine oil before unlocking flamethrower turrets could make outpost defense a hassle.

[angramania]

Some of these tech locks feel kinda unnecessary. Having to mine oil before unlocking flamethrower turrets could make outpost defense a hassle.

You need oil as ammo to flamethrower turrets anyway and tech is cheap, so It will take more time to bring oil to outpost then to get tech. And even in deathworld settings gun turrets are enough for outpost for a very long time.

[Twisted_Code]

These dependencies are set up to help new players learn the game.
For experienced players, it should take no time at all to flip on the technologies, so I don't see what the problem is, exactly.

Re "what the problem is":
from my perspective, it is basically "veteran players are used to being able to research stuff as soon as they have the science packs for it. This breaks my workflow, can we have a config or something so we can go back to the previous behavior, since it's meant for new players?" In short, it's not an especially serious problem, but, given my interest in game development, I like rabbling about game design when someone gives me some minuscule problem to rabble about.
Re "dependencies and the NPE":
I'm aware that was the idea behind trigger techs when they were designed, as I remember reading the FFF where they explained triggers. However, since you brought it up, I'd like to address each of the techs in context of that New Player Experience:
Mine oil->Oil Processing
The oil one is fine, because I think I think there's a clear correlation between obtaining and processing oil (which serves the purpose of teaching new players), and it didn't really cause me any issue, even on Rail world. The most it inconvenienced me was that I had to run out and set up an oil outpost before I could proceed with the tech tree, but it's not like I don't need oil as an input to the oil processing recipes.
Steam Turbines not unlocked by Acid Neutralization
What exactly is this teaching new players? "I should've touched the funni green rocks™ before I came all the way here, because they are clearly the only way to get superheated steam"? I think if you have something that gives you superheated (500°) steam, there should at least be a technology somewhere nearby that uses the full energy of the steam, even if you have to properly have the steam (trigger tech!) before the unlock happens.
Biter Egg Handling->Quantum Processor
This could just be because I've not yet been to space, much less gotten anywhere near unlocking quantum processors, but at least from my cursory understanding, I don't get what biter handling has to do with processing power (unless it's the wetware CPU trope, but in that case I would really like some flavor text on one of the relevant techs). Even if it serves a purpose for teaching new players that's not served by needing the science pack, it feels WILDLY out of place, especially when only Gelba (not the other two planets) contributes a trigger tech dependency to the Quantum Processors tech. Since I haven't played through this part of the tech tree yet, the burden is not necessarily on others to explain, but if you would be so kind as to do so anyway, I wouldn't mind the spoilage (rimshot) of the experience.

[Nidan]

Biter Egg Handling->Quantum Processor

You'll need the eggs soon(tm), but this point has been resolved:

Moved biter egg handling to be required by promethium science pack instead of quantum processors because that's when they are really needed.

[jamiechi1]

I really don't like the 'trigger tech'. Thankfully there is a mod that removes it. "No More Trigger Technologies" mod.

[KillingTimeItself]

Honestly, i don't mind the trigger techs, i just think it's a little weird and arbitrary that some of them are so, aggressive. The oil one is a little weird, and the uranium one is a bit odd as well. It just forces a weird game play workflow for something that has no perceivable benefit.

A lot of the early game trigger techs i really like, it's a good solution to anything where you have a really linear path for game play reasons. If it's something like oil, it's a little weirder, and i would honestly prefer to just unlock the trigger tech with the research, or with a separate research, rather than with a trigger tech. It's weird spending science to research the specific action of drilling oil out of the ground, only to then suddenly by no act other than what can be described as divine intervention with the oil flowing over your hands gain the knowledge to refine oil out of thin air. It's similar with uranium mining as well.

I understand the game mechanic is intended to guide new players, but i feel like the tips system does a great job of doing that already, same with the tutorial. Maybe there should be "guide" science, which is a trigger science, that doesn't actually unlock anything significant? It just feels out of place, and i'm not really sure it serves a significant purpose. I'm generally not a huge fan of mechanically forcing players into a linear path in an open world sandbox, (especially if it's a short segment, it's like a required side quest) factorio is a masterclass of "subtle reinforcement learning" in this regard. It just feels out of place, maybe i'll grow into it, but i'm not sure. I've grown into gleba, haven't gotten there yet, but i'm excited, it seems like a fun and unique challenge.

Thankfully it's not a huge problem, it's just a rather annoying and sometimes confusing mechanic (as i quickly discovered on my first playthrough lol)

[Panzerknacker]

One that is also weird is Steam power. It makes no sense imo to unlock that while the power poles are locked behind another tech. You litterally can't do anything with the steam engines untill you have power poles.

I think the idea behind these trigger techs was good but the implementation atm is poor. Just having the trigger and putting a few things behind that is not enough, the whole flow of the early game needs to be considered, it must feel rewarding to unlock something, not 'just because'. For example, just smelting plates makes no sense if you don't really have a reason to do it. Maybe they could change it to crafting Iron gears or so, would feel already better.

Also, imo the unlocks are way too fast atm which defeats the purpose of teaching new players in steps the game. And for veterans, rushing for electricity is not really meta either, you rather spam burners to get the iron production to a reasonable level before starting to build anything else.

Thinking about it, it would be a good idea maybe to remove copper ore from the starting resources and implement a new type of pure mechanic crafting machine that runs on burnable fuel so that you can do more without electricity, extending the burner phase a bit. This will leave for something to develop to, instead of having immediate access to basically everything from the start. Having the trigger techs also enables this in turn because not all research relies on Labs anymore (that require electricity) so you could still unlock new technologies this way, leading to being able to harvest copper and generating electricity.

Yeah, having these triggers techs really enables stuff that was not possible before, leading to a better game. It's just a matter of really putting them to use in the right way.

[meganothing]

I am not sure oil and uranium techs are trigger techs to teach something but simply that it very well fits with the scenario that you first have to find a resource to then research what you can do with it. It also keeps some recipes from appearing simply because you have research left until the time you can really have a use for them. At that moment the new recipes pop up and it draws some attention to them, maybe the only teachings happening here.