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I don't fully understand the way research efficiency works, no matr what I do my research efficiency seems to nose dive, can some one point out what I should be doing to maintain high research efficiency

I always make sure my education budget is good.... and I tend to adjust most research money out of the "overall tech level" and into "specific tech" and "efficiency" That and make sure your overall research budget is at recommended or above.

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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill

If you are in a small region or a region with a low GDP/c the investment cap on all areas of research often limits your ability to reach a higher level of efficiency, particularly if you are researching multiple technologies at once. You can increase the cap by adding research centres but you may need many of them if the region is both small and low GDP

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

Another way of looking at is like this -

The techs (not unit designs) show a time-to-develop that is often MUCH smaller than you are getting in fact. Efficiency - as a concept - shows up if you do not fully utilize all development slots. To achieve the ETA shown in the tech's header, it is often necessary to use only one or two of four slots (assuming you have only one research center). In this kind of case - research only one or two items, and set the efficiency allocation to about 30%, and next tech to about 10%. You will see your one or two techs developing nicely. This is 'efficiency.' Add a tech and watch your ETA's slip by about 30-50%. Add a research center, and voila - no improvement. They won't get any better than the stated optimum time to develop. But adding a research center would permit you to have two more 'efficient' projects going, or three-to-four more slow projects.

So do what I do - bargain your ass off for techs from neighbors - even hostile ones. You'd be surprised what you can get from anyone. Even paying premium prices in these offers is cheaper than developing them in your centers.

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Colorless green ideas sleep furiously [but otherwise, they do not worry and are happy].

I have taken on board what everyone has said but I still don't have an answer for my original query, which I didn't make too clear in my first post.
The situation was this; I was playing as Huston in the US south West campaign. My research efficiency starts around 90%. I begin 1 project BFRB-BB ammunition and within a couple of months the research efficiency has fallen to 42%. and it was still going down. My research funding was above recommended from the beginning and when the efficiency reached 42% I altered the amount of money in to research . I took all the money out of next tech and improved research efficiency up to over 50% of the the funding. This stabalised the level of research efficiency at 42% but did not improve it over 6 months of gameplay.
My social spending was way above recommended and I have an education rating of 107%

So, I guess my question is this, what factors affect research efficiency and what can be done to improve and maintain a high efficiency rating in the above situation.

In the above situation you cannot maintain high efficiency with the starting situation. As I mentioned in my post, the amount you can spend on research is limited by the size of your economy and that includes the size of your population. At the population of Huston you can't push enough money into research to keep a high efficiency and it becomes worse when you research a technology since the same limit applies but you're trying to spend into two areas. The only way to get a higher efficiency is spend more money. The only way to spend more money is make your region bigger through conquest or build more research centres.

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Chris Latour
BattleGoat Studios
chris@battlegoat.com

On what %'s did you set the sliders...

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NO MORE NOISY FISH [unless they are green & furiously]
I HAVE STILL A FISH IN MY EAR

what difficulty level? On normal I never had that much trouble keeping Dallas in the 70 to 80% range... Then again, I usually just researched a few fairly simple units and then shoved the War rollercoaster over that first hilltop...

(maybe the constant 99.99% humidity in the Houston area is corroding their research equipment? )

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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” -Winston Churchill

Phoenix_ryan,
It seems no one has asked you what your inflation rate is. If you're going through rising inflation then your research efficiency will dimish as your inflation rate rises. To mitigate this you have to keep pumping up your overall research investment each time your inflation rate goes up a tenth of a point.

I've found that building more research centers actually isn't helpful as that means more money is spent on operations - a number you can see on the top left of the main research details screen. Better to have fewer research centers and jack up the research spending so more gets spent on research than on wages and facility upkeep.

Research spending spent on techs that aren't used gets spread between efficiency and tech level. I can actually raise efficiency by decreasing the tech level percentage and applying it to researching techs. Makes the techs go quicker and the overspill helps bump up efficiency.

I still think it's rising inflation that's reducing your efficiency over time and unless you can flatten out inflation you'll keep seeing diminishing research efficiency unless you keep pumping in more cash.
Thanks,

Eric Larsen

I have returned. Well maybe for a little while then i be gone again probably. I bet I can help u some. In order to get eff up u have to have the money ur spending at least at the recommend or above. Add a center for every 2M ppl and have 60% of the money going into eff. The other 40% I usually put in the tech itself. never spend any on tech year if I'm not really for more tech to research yet. Also have education at the recomm. spending. Of course have ur GDP going up helps too. But course if its goes too high u be losing money fast.

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In war destroy everything even the livestock.

Really ? per 2 million pop ?

That seems like a lot of research centers.

So if for example, i had 300 million pop, i would build 150 research centers ?

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM

alot of centers but I seen that one center for every 2m ppl actually makes my research go faster because my eff for one thing goes up. I know that a 150 centers would be alot but I have once built 250 centers just for China one time and never had one for every 2m ppl. Now that took awhile to do. I pretty much have research mastered. The only fault I have is never having enough money.

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In war destroy everything even the livestock.

...Now here's an intersting case of SR2010 diverging from reality: following berg's finances here, in the real world you could probably just buy your opponent out.

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Colorless green ideas sleep furiously [but otherwise, they do not worry and are happy].

well when the ppl can't buy anything even clothes to wear in my region u see y I can afford to build and research. So i got millions of ppl walking around in rags if their lucky to get that. Bet alot of them are naked. Be a bad winter for them. and still I never have enough money. maybe my ppl hold out some money from me. Too bad I can't nuke them.

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In war destroy everything even the livestock.

Bows down to berg- master of research.

does the game slow down much with 150 centers ?

Ive noticed that that amount of airbases has a verynoticeable effect on time passage,so im curious if research centers which dont have an actual production (dont make units or resources) has the same effect.

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This post approved by Tkobo:Official Rabble Rouser of the United Yahoos
Chuckle TM