Talk:Research

I'd like to see 'optimal research trees' being discussed, with the obvious endpoints of 1) Avenger (which includes Firestorm), 2) Flying Suit, 3) Heavy Plasma/Clip, 4) Plasma Beam, 5) Psi Lab/Psi-Amp. Working in the advancing profitability of Motion Scanner, etc., ultimately to Laser Cannon. Surely there are opportunities for overlap and optimization, depending on one's goals (quick victory, best Avenger/Psi fighting force)... discussion / new wiki topic? I'm new to wikis - pardons if questions aren't usually asked this way?

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Good job on the re-write, Ethereal. It was another eclectic collection page that you've made much more neat and informative.

I see you hacked RESEARCH.DAT - excellent work! We really needed those. Was there only the project name and research times in RESEARCH?

Now that I know all the projects are there, maybe I'll revisit those total research time findings. If you want the spreadsheet I used, you're welcome to it. Ultimately though it's more a factoid than anything important.

Were those Notes in the Research Trees fixed correctly? (Notes 1 & 2 were incorrect and meant the same thing?) Also the current lone note is slightly hard to find... Maybe the "notes" should simply be noted in italic, right at the point where they apply?

FWIW the Discussion note (above this) is one of the very first things I ever put on the wiki. I didn't know how to sign then.

---MikeTheRed 18:17, 22 May 2006 (PDT)

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Thanks. No project names in research.dat -- but the order of projects on the Research screen matches the order in research.dat. Combined with the known values (mostly derived from the .cfg file included with xcomutil, I think), it wasn't that hard to figure out what everything was. The missing stuff was mostly research times for individual aliens, and I was able to run filecompare (fc.exe) before and after starting research projects on them to see which entries they corresponded to. Bytes 0x01 and 0x02 (zero-indexed) seem to match the values in astore.dat: 01 01 is a Sectoid Commander, 01 02 Sectoid Leader, etc.

I didn't try to figure out what all the bytes are, but if I remember correctly, some corresponded to whether the topic was available to study, whether the item/alien was in Stores... I seem to remember research time left (in hours) was stored in projects.dat.

The number of aliens you need to research to fill out the entire UFOPaedia is a little variable -- you can study aliens that give nothing, and early on, some will give two entries. I believe 11 corpses (180 ea.) + 9 live aliens (192 ea) (2 of which are Medics for live Sectopod and Cyberdisc) + 8 Navigators (192) + 8 Engineers (192) is a good approximation. This assumes none of the "9 live" are engineers or navigators, but also that there's a leader and commander in there: no efficiencies, but no redundancies either.

Your total time graph is useful (and it'd be nice to see it for w/ and w/o all the alien projects) -- the efficiencies part is esoteric, especially taken out to 10 labs, but to see 12 mos vs. 6 vs. 4 for 1 / 2 / 3 labs is quite informative.

Hmm, I should fix the note on the hovertanks a little, just got lazy on that point.

I'm still not sure how best to structure the Popular Sequences section.

--Ethereal Cereal 19:58, 22 May 2006 (PDT)

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Ah, now I see... the old Notes 1 & 2 were confusing... all that they were saying is you also need Fighter Craft tech to build Hovertanks, period.

It sounds like you know your game files. To whatever extent you get the time, if the wiki doesn't have some of this stuff you've figured out, stick it in there. Even partial notes are better than none.

I had been thinking about optimal research sequences, although "popular" is also something to do. "Optimal" as in, what research route(s) gets you important goodies (psi, plasma, hyperwave) and good manufacturing a.s.a.p.

I'll see if I can't find that old total time thing and crank it out again.

---MikeTheRed 22:42, 22 May 2006 (PDT)

EC, I found my old total time spreadsheet. I can include those alien estimates (11x180 + 25x192, right)? I can also do variations, as you ask... maybe a "minimal three" path, the middle road you suggest, and "everything possible", and thus have three different total-time breakouts? What do you think. But if I do these, can you remind me / specify a little more what would be the differences inc. total aliens... I'm kinda rusty these days.

---MikeTheRed 11:50, 23 May 2006 (PDT)

I think there's only two sets of numbers that are particularly interesting: all useful technologies, and all UFOPaedia entries. Useful technologies is every research topic except Alien Entertainment, Food, Reproduction, Surgery, Examination Room, Corpses, and all the live aliens (except 3*192). All entries is everything except Reproduction plus 11*180 + 25*192 for aliens.

Run it for, say, 1-5 labs as well as 1 scientist and 10 scientists (the initial allotment).

--Ethereal Cereal 14:56, 23 May 2006 (PDT)

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Now I see what you mean by Popular Sequences. Of course. Quite well done, thanks!

I can do both of the research total times you recommend. For a minimalist vet though, many things don't matter... superfluous aliens, plasma rifle/pistol & clips, etc. I guess I'll take a shot at defining minimalist and post the results.

Good idea to include 10 scientists; it's important in the early days - the most important part of the game. However, given the way columns can be easily packed into the wiki and that the spreadsheet's already constructed, there's no reason not to also paste columns with high numbers of scientists. It's not extra work for me. Hopefully nobody will ever make that many labs... the numbers make patently clear why they shouldn't.

I've put Civ4 down for the moment and am playing XCOM again. FWIW everything I wrote on the wiki was based on one game that I played last fall after having not played XCOM since what, 1995? (Not counting TFTD etc. after that.) As I neared the end of the game I started wondering about a number of things and hooked into the wiki and forums; the rest is history. I'm now on my second game in the last ten years. ;)

---MikeTheRed 22:01, 26 May 2006 (PDT)

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Research Abuse

I disbelieve the "truncation" comments. But the following behavior would emulate it.

This game, I come into Jan 23, 1999 with the following from RESEARCH.DAT:

Item	Man-Days	Scientists
Medikit	30h	4h
Heavy Laser	B7h	2Dh

So...throw 30h/48 scientists at the Medikit to get it on Jan 24. Reallocate research to 45 Heavy Laser, 4 Sectoid Navigator on the theory that Hyperwave decoders don't do me any good without money. [I'm putting cashflow ahead of armor this game.] And Heavy Laser now is....

Heavy Laser

8Ah

2Dh

45 scientist-days deducted, not one.

So (tentatively) the game [XCOM CE with XCOMUtil] does two passes, if not a loop. It first checks for research completion, then reallocates research, then applies the research. The question is what happens when the new projects include one whose scientist-hours are less than the number of scientists assigned...does research completion kick in immediately, forcing yet another assignment stage?

---Zaimoni 14:19, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

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Sometimes quick projects assigned lots of scientists do complete immediately, followed by another assignment stage.

--Ethereal Cereal 14:48, 20 July 2006 (PDT)

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Zaimoni, pardon my ignorance, but I'm not following well. Would you be so kind as to repeat what you said, but only use decimal numbers for ease of comprehension, and also say the exact times...

Did you re-assign a few minutes after midnight at the beginning of Jan 23, then viewed it a few minutes after the start of Jan 24? If you re-assigned 45 scientists at the beginning of Jan 23 and saw 45 sci-days deducted at the same time next day, I don't see a problem. But this is too simple; you wouldn't have a problem with that - did you save immediately, early Jan 23, and saw that? Or - did you do this re-assignment as of the moment you passed into Jan 23 (with X-COM having stopped the game there)?... if so, it suggests that ... anyway. If you could please supply a little more detail. :)

Also I don't know what the structure of RESEARCH.DAT is, and haven't tried to decipher it. The truncation effect detailed on the main page comes from actual observation of the game (samples) done by Zombie, not from reading RESEARCH.DAT (correct me if wrong, Z... I think more details are in old versions of the page or Discussion). Which brings into question what is RESEARCH.DAT showing... hours left, even for projects not yet started? (Does that mean they all get their ave/2 to ave*3/4 roll at the start of a game??)

If anybody can fill in more details for RESEARCH.DAT, that'd be great

---MikeTheRed 19:14, 21 July 2006 (PDT)

P.S. There's been a lot going on at work for me, but it's good to talk with folks here. I'm just curious about details on Research and how things work, Zaimoni! By the way we might get a good graphics app at work that will do 3D topo maps... but it will be weeks before it shows u, and it's not clear that we'll get it.

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In decimal, the starting numbers (what I changed from on Jan 23) were:

Item	Man-Days	Scientists
Medikit	48	4
Heavy Laser	183	45

Ending numbers on Jan 24, six minutes after midnight, were:

Heavy Laser

138

45

Reassignment was indeed early on Jan. 23. The completion of the Medikit was on Jan 24/midnight, with counter changeover then.

This is probably an exploit, because 44 scientists were double-counted (first for completing the Medikit, then against the Heavy Laser). [This is XCOM CE w/XCOMUtil.]

RESEARCH.DAT only shows scientist-days remaining for projects that have been started. I haven't bothered to decipher the exact layout; suffice it to say that everything is in the same order as in the research allocation screen. All of the time remaining entries come first (2 bytes each); all of the scientist allocations come next, in the same order, 1 byte each. I presume this is repeated for each base, but haven't checked that.

If you only research one project at a time, and fully reallocate at each project completion, truncation is emulated for all research projects except the first. And usually that pack of scientists coming in 72 hours after game start renders that exception moot.

---Zaimoni 21:58, 21 July 2006 (CDT)