Fwurg

[Brend]

In light of the very good question by Elmer, I propose yet another change to how the Genetic Lineage Analysis and its cohorts are priced. The previous change is to split the costs, and give a 'free upgrade tech'. But this 'free upgrade' tech makes the whole thing very uncooperative.

Since almost nobody has overlapping races (see the Factions by Race overview: among PCs only humans overlap and only for 2 PCs), this will lead to everyone researching their own tech to get the species they want for free.

As we gain experience more experience with how such things should be designed. We have learned that Technologies really shouldn't have strange side-effects (such as the Genome Correctors which was a tech in the early days), and the 'free upgrade tech' is such a weird side-effect. Though having a tech whose only benefit is 'you can build a useless zone' isn't great, it's better than having a side effect in my opinion.

Therefore, I propose to change from this:

Current situation

The GLA tech costs 1000 (note: you get a single racial upgrade tech for free with the GLA tech),
The Base Archive costs 250 , 500 and 500 ,
Each racial upgrade costs 250 , 500 and 500 ,
Each racial tech costs 1000 .

To this:

Proposed situation

The GLA tech costs 500 (note: you do not get a single racial upgrade tech for free anymore),
The Base Archive costs 250 , 500 and 500 ,
Each racial upgrade costs 250 , 500 and 500 ,
Each racial tech costs 1000 .

This makes the whole archive +500 more expensive, but it fixes the weird 'two techs for the price of one' quirk. The only faction that is hit by this is the Veolian Commonwealth (played by me) as they would've paid 500 too little. This can be remedied by dropping another 500 into it in the coming turn.

Opinions?

[Chriz]

I think that combined with your new proposal you should make each racial tech 750 from now on. That would basically balance out the difference as well.

Since the average player that uses this technology has about 2 races the price stays about the same and nobody has to pay extra.

[Brend]

Since the average player that uses this technology has about 2 races the price stays about the same and nobody has to pay extra.

I don't agree with your assumption about the average player, but I do see the value of keeping things roughly the same price. Your proposal also makes the cost for a player with only a single race (the majority of players) 1250 , only 250 more than in the original proposal.

I would like a few more opinions though, before committing this change.

[Elmer]

I like the change, it sounds more logical to me this way.

One question (which I forgot to ask in my thread what started this): I take it that upgrading of the archives goes as follows:

Old system: Tech GLA, get race upgrade for free, build archives, build races upgrade.
New system: Tech GLA, tech races upgrade, build archives, build races upgrade.

So in the current unchanged situation you have to upgrade your archive, even if you get a racial upgrade for free, and this is unchanged in the new cost proposal?

[Brend]

If no objections are raised within a week's time, I'll change this on the weekend of 25-26.

[Mercury]

I am in favour of this proposal, using the Chriz variation. This is probably how it should have been done to start with. Sorry everyone, my fault!

[Brend]

I have updated the wiki for these changes. Will post a Rules Change post later this evening.