Dual - Cooperative Research

[Nightknight]

Greetings,
 
Good day, guys. I'd like to share an idea that would be nice to have in the game. I've searched the forums and the Requests Tracker at SourceForge.net and didn't see someone mentioning it before, so I'll proceed.

1.- "Shared Research": I've noticed that you are not able to research "X" Topic in two different bases at the same time. Example: Assuming you have a "Base A" with X number of Scientists and a "Base B" with Y number of Scientists, you can not research the "Z" topic at the same time on both bases. "What is the point of it?" you might ask. If you have a "Base A" with 20 Scientists researching "Z", your other 30 Scientists over at "Base B" will just sit there and do nothing while the eggheads at "Base A" have all the fun. Sure, solution is easy. Stop research at "Base A", since "Base B" has more Scientists, the research will be completed sooner.
What I am proposing is to be able to have X number of Scientists on "Base A" and Y number of Scientists at "Base B" working together, cooperatively on the same project. It would help to shorten the research times and also to make good use of your human resources. (Having expensive scientists sitting around doing nothing is a waste of time / credits.)
It does sound reasonable since in year 2084 (If i'm correct) there would be a million methods to be able to coordinate scientific investigations made at X different locations.
What do you think?

[Imposeren]

Your proposition have props and cons. It's hard decision.

Other option is to make different optimization and minituarization projects: first reduce production costs, last reduce size of items(maybe only for big ones)

[Nightknight]

I fail to see the relation between my proposal and yours. Could you please elaborate?

[Imposeren]

The main purpose of yours proposition is to get work for all scientist. But I think that your method will slightly imbalance game.

[Gunner]

I fail to see the relation between my proposal and yours. Could you please elaborate?

your saying to stop scientists being wasted let them both work on the same research,,

he's saying to stop them being wasted have more research

[Nightknight]

Greetings,

Imposeren, I've now understood what you meant. Gunner, thanks for the explanation too.
About it unbalancing the game, it's a possibility. But remember that Research time for some topics have been -- greatly -- increased.
The "why" of my suggestion is because I noticed that some Investigations -- even with 90 scientists assigned -- take too much time to conclude.
Subjectively speaking, I own one base with 90 Scientist (Which is completely suicidal), and another one with 50. When I send the 90 guys to one project, the other 50 guys are "wasted".
Now, here is where your argument is fully valid:

The main purpose of yours proposition is to get work for all scientist. But I think that your method will slightly imbalance game.

since having 140 scientists assigned to a single project sounds really like an overkill. But please consider the following.
1 base with 90 Scientists (Which is an extreme case) means that you need 5x Living Quarters + 9x Labs on a 5x5 grid where, in the best case, you'll have only 1 block filled up with "rubber". If you slightly increase the research times, there would not be any problems.
About production times, The max you can reduce the production of an item is down to 1h.
Thank you for answering the post and sharing your ideas, discussion is good to reach the most optimal solution. :-)

[odie]

Greetings,

Imposeren, I've now understood what you meant. Gunner, thanks for the explanation too.
About it unbalancing the game, it's a possibility. But remember that Research time for some topics have been -- greatly -- increased.
The "why" of my suggestion is because I noticed that some Investigations -- even with 90 scientists assigned -- take too much time to conclude.
Subjectively speaking, I own one base with 90 Scientist (Which is completely suicidal), and another one with 50. When I send the 90 guys to one project, the other 50 guys are "wasted".
Now, here is where your argument is fully valid:  since having 140 scientists assigned to a single project sounds really like an overkill. But please consider the following.
1 base with 90 Scientists (Which is an extreme case) means that you need 5x Living Quarters + 9x Labs on a 5x5 grid where, in the best case, you'll have only 1 block filled up with "rubber". If you slightly increase the research times, there would not be any problems.
About production times, The max you can reduce the production of an item is down to 1h.
Thank you for answering the post and sharing your ideas, discussion is good to reach the most optimal solution. :-)

Actually, u might not know, but plans for more levels for a single base are in work.

So, 5 living quarters + 9 labs, coupled with no more needs for Large / small UFO hangers = more spaces for us to work with. So its technically viable to even have 8 living quarters and 12 labs.

PS: Though personally, i still think tat with tech advances, we can double the capacity of labs space and production centres.

[Nightknight]

Greetings,

YEp Odie, but thanks for bringing up the Base Upgrade planned for 2.4 (I think). I did read the plans for it.
I also liked your other observation: "Advanced Labs" that could, maybe, hold twice the number of Scientists.
That (Adv Labs) would make my suggestion stronger. Imagine one base with 100+ Scientists working on a single project, while the other base, with other 100+ Scientists, just sits and watches doing nothing.

[Gunner]

Greetings,

YEp Odie, but thanks for bringing up the Base Upgrade planned for 2.4 (I think). I did read the plans for it.
I also liked your other observation: "Advanced Labs" that could, maybe, hold twice the number of Scientists.
That (Adv Labs) would make my suggestion stronger. Imagine one base with 100+ Scientists working on a single project, while the other base, with other 100+ Scientists, just sits and watches doing nothing.

well i have to say that unless something dramatic changes in the rebalancing then as it stands at the minute if you specialise 1 base for research then you don't need scientists in any other bases, you just have to pick the right order to do it. that way you get the tech you need when you need it and the rest just idles along once my specialised base is up and running (in 2.2.1 admittedly) then i quickly ran out of stuff to research. and my entire science team was sitting around twiddling there thumbs waiting for the first infection mission when the game ended. 

[Nightknight]

There you've got a good point.
Maybe adding more "Researchable" things would help?
You made a good observation, most of the time Scientists sit around doing nothing. The most exploited guys in game (Particular case) are the "Workers / Engineers"

[Gunner]

There you've got a good point.
Maybe adding more "Researchable" things would help?
You made a good observation, most of the time Scientists sit around doing nothing. The most exploited guys in game (Particular case) are the "Workers / Engineers"

even then i didn't really, cause once you have researched the new stuff i could just buy what i needed in quicker than it took me to build them, main thing they were doing where building the stuff i was using in quantities higher than the shops had like targeting computers, ECM, rocket pods. with only 3 or for available each month and me rapidly spreading to 3 interception bases i needed to build then to equip my interceptors. later they were mainly taking UFO's apart baring a small team at each base for ammo production

[Hertzila]

I think allowing joint projects between bases should be done (if that isn't hard to code) but with keeping multiprojecting more efficient, like removing a fraction (a hard one or based on the distance) of the research effort done by the smaller team.

Also:

About production times, The max you can reduce the production of an item is down to 1h.

This is not true anymore, you can reduce it to one item/minute IIUC.

[Nightknight]

Thanks for your reply.
That suggestion you made is really good. You accomplished to explain explain, in few words, what I am proposing.
As for Production time, I'm currently running "Revision: 25872" Of the game but I've not yet seen what you said.
What were you producing / with how many engineers / to achieve the 1 item per minute ?

[Hertzila]

I don't have the newest version installed but according to discussion in there http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3829.0, it's implemented (IIUC = If I Understand Correctly).

[Nightknight]

I asked Geever about it and he told me it was implemented.
I don't know, however, how exactly it works.