Allow starting level of ZERO for techs

I’ve been meaning to write this for quite a while, but Jay should consider adding ZERO as a an option for the starting level of techs. IMHO, this is a simple/elegant solution to address the requests from numerous players to (effectively) disable experimentation.

I.e. if I setup a game with starting Experimentation of 0 and “NO Experimentation Research”, it effectively becomes a no-op in the game. I.e. you do NOT get any bonus tech points at production.

Allowing a starting level of zero can be used as-is for all the other techs:
Weapons=0: you basically can NOT attack - you’ll never win!*
Manu=0: you just keep cranking ships per the existing formula.
Terra=0: ditto comment above that existing formula still works for construction
Range=0: Same formula - just one less LY of reach
Scan=0: Same formula … see a pattern yet!
Bank=0: Ditto (i.e. you get no bonus)

  • The one corner case is two ships hitting an unoccupied star at exactly the same time from exactly the same distance. I don’t know how @JayKyburz handles that corner case now (i.e. who gets defensive bonus), but if he does not randomly assign it, then it is zero versus zero … black-hole annihilation! :wink:

I’ll bet a trivial code change of just adding a “0” to list of “Allowed Starting Tech Values” … or if you are worried about the other params, just add it as an option for Experimentation.

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I second the idea. Especially for the small, even duel games disabling exp would be great.

It’s not quite as simple as that for weapons. I think the game assumes there are no enemy carriers sitting at a star together.

It would be easy for some techs, but I’m not sure I want to enabled it for some and not all.

I will fix it up one day, but i’m not sure its a huge priority unless we want to have a lot more 1v1 duling tournaments!

I’m all for this. that way we can lock down that pesky experimentation. I can fight another player but it’s real hard to fight experimentation luck.

Pinging this thread again since it would be nice to have the option of Exp=0 for the 1v1 tournaments …

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