Research issue involving research effeciency

[tkobo]

Okay,I had a tech being researched.

It had 17 days to go.
I was paying the exact amount reccommended.
I had not put any cash/time into research efficiency- it was only 31.
I had the sliders set to zero/0 tech level ---100 tech research----zero/0 effeciency.

I decided to play around and see how the research efficiency slider effected time required to research a tech.

I set the sliders to zero/0 tech level --- zero/0 tech research--- 100 tech efficiency.

I let the game run for 7 days.

My research efficiency went from 31 to 142.

I than set the sliders back to the way i had them first.
zero/0 tech level ---100 tech research----zero/0 effeciency.

Now this made the time amount left on the research only 3 days.

So by doing this i had apparently saved myself 7 days time- just by juggling the sliders.

I was curious if the 3 day to finish would stay at 3 days.I thought the efficiency would go back down now that it had no funding again.

The tine to finish did indeed stay at 3 days.And it finished in three days.

In those three days the efficiency only went down to 131.
It dropped 4%-- than 4 %- than 3 % to 131 from 142.

So i had not only gained 7 days time on the research of the first tech,but now i could also reap the rewards on a second tech.
The second tech would have taken circa 23 days,if the efficiency was still at 31 and the reccommended funds were 100% in tech research.
It only took roughly 10 days.

So a 7 day investment in efficeincy earned me roughly 20 days in tech.
The efficeincy was still at 108% with a circa 3 % drop per day.

I didnt do the third day.To me the problem was already plain to see.

This need to be changed.It makes the research far to fast.

The efficiency drop after funding is taken away/lowered needs to fall faster.
IE instead of a mere 4% / day----- its needs to fall like circa 30% each day -back to its original percentage.

[tkobo]

Still looking at this.

The efficiency is far too powerful.

With only a 10% slider setting i was able to do even better without stopping the tech research.

Needs to be toned down.

After i finish this world map for the US NW, i will play it agian and use what ive learned in the application of research points.

I predict a very easy game.

[Balthagor]

I've mentioned this thread to George, I'll see if he can shed any light on the situation but it does sound like the efficiency is going beyond what was intended for its effects.

[George Geczy]

There was actually a specific reason why this happened - the research eff you originally had, at 31%, was very low; Research eff is meant to be be in the 70% to 120% range with normal spending levels.

If the minister had full control over research spending, he should have started to immediately take actions to change the spending split, since the minister would have known that at 31% your research dept was not on the ball.

Setting spending on tech level to 0 is not unusual - generally this represents shifting all your research efforts into 'applied' versus 'theorhetical' research. However, setting efficiency spending to '0' means everything starts to go to pot - think of this as the spending on the research 'infrastructure' that surrounds the scientists themselves. As much as everyone hates red tape, scientists need upkept facilities, co-ordinated oversight, assistants, materials, etc. Spending all your money on tech research with none towards efficiency will cause things to start to fall apart.

As such, the example you gave was a bit flawed. Instead, the question to test is something like "would I have got my tech faster by doing what I listed above, or would it have been faster if I never pulled out of the eff spending in the first place?" ie, instead of spending 100/0 tech/eff, switching to 0/100, and back to 100/0, if you had spent 50/50 since the start of your research project, would it have been faster?

In fact, the 'sweet spot' might be slightly different - maybe 75/25, etc, depending upon your total research budget and the total number of research centres you have, etc. However 100/0 is not a good plan, but putting money back into research efficiency will bring things back to 'normal'.

Though there is a valid question in the scenario you describe - for those that try to gain a 'false economy' by zeroing research efficiency, do we allow them to recover too quickly when the spending is returned? It could be argued we should punish them more for cutting the spending so much, and lower the rate the efficiency gets restored. I can go for that, and will look into it.

Thanks for the post on this.

-- George.
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