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Research could be a much more interesting player experience


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I was thinking about the research experience overall and how insignificant it is to the player. The only real choices you make are your first 2-3 selections, for the rest of the game you just click the end of a tree and work your way down, out of sight out of mind. A simple addition would be to make each research path require different materials. I get that dirt and water are the most basic ingredients a player has access to, allowing you to research out the gate. But there are a ton of other options available at start too! Raw mineral for paths like plumbing and ventilation for instance.

This also leads me to the point of requiring material from specific biomes to unlock relevant research paths. I've never gone to the oil or volcanic biomes, but every game I have oil well and oil refinery unlocked. Same goes for space, by mid-game the molecular forge is unlocked but I haven't even broken the surface. I think it would be a much better player experience to retrieve material from the surfaces of these biomes in order to unlock their tech trees. 

A more complex addition (and way more interesting) would be to require the researcher to perform experiments to unlock selections. Some examples off the top of my head:

Employment: Requires a stress test to be performed. A dupe has to monitored while using the manual generator for a total of 0.5 cycles (cumulative).

Filtration: An experiment on gases/liquids needs to be performed. Deposit 100g of two different gases/liquids to unlock this selection. 

Decor (lighting): The effects of light on dupe environment need to be analyzed. Deposit one shinebug to unlock this selection. 

I think all of these additions would make for a more thoughtful research experience. 

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On 30.04.2019 at 4:46 AM, situpc said:

This also leads me to the point of requiring material from specific biomes to unlock relevant research paths.

+1. Simply having access to resources sounds a bit 'hollow' as a requirement, so research station probably should consume resources. But since some resources are rare it might be better to consume some 'initial resources' to start research and then go with normal research process.

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This sounds really interesting, not goona lie. The game is almost officially done though, so I don't really see klei adding it at this point. It would be a fantastic mod though. Maybe part of a DLC addition that Klei makes in the future. 

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if you think about it i had a suggestion for a blueprint board if its not on here here is the description. Ahem. The blueprint board would serve to a new reasearch icon. Reason why i got the idea. In the rocket industry animation there is a board where a duplacant was drawing blueprints. maybe a blueprint desk in the game or a board for it.  That was a simplafeid but also more in depth descriptoin the original was differnt

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