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!
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.