Research Overhaul Suggestion

[SnuggleBuckets]

Sparked by the recent controversies involving resource requirements in ClanTech labs different projects, some suggested instead copying the existing color pigment drop system for a consistent timegate separate from player resources, this got me thinking of making the laboratories act more like laboratories, with NPC scientists you could hire, and now a flood of further ideas inspired me to lay it all out in a separate topic in the proper feedback forum.

Instead of the current boring lab menus involving only confirming or cancelling research and resource investments, implement a budget vault (similar to regular vault), research project overview and a scientist hiring board.
Budget Vaults would let you and clan members to dump resources and credits that can be used in that particular lab. In the research project overview computer panel you can set budget limits, priorities and daily expenditure for every project, be it weapon, sentinel, warframe etc. And then in the other board you can browse suitable scientists for the projects you need researching, some are specialized for different tech, having more experience in grineer weaponry for instance, others are cheaper but still will get the job done, just slower.

Under this system a solo-tenno clan should be able to research everything, but it would take a long time, the way I imagine the timegating to work would be that you could technically research everything with just credits, a daily budget of a few thousand credits (one thousand for the cheapest scientist and one thousand for the progress on the research), but for your average clantech mid-tier weapon this pace would take 3 to 4 months in real time to research.
That might sound like a really long time, but remember I said at the barest minimum in a one-man-clan only using credits. But a clan with members having millions of credits and resources to use, they can hire more scientists and dump a lot into the vault and assign in the project overview huge amounts of resources to speed it up, it would still take a few days to a week to research a mid-tier clantech equipment, but it would be doable.
I imagine that you should be able to just pay credits, and leave it to the scientist to get the resources needed (thus it would take even longer to advance), but for instance in the biolab, if you dump into the vault say 1 mutagen sample, for a specific bioweapon that one mutagen sample would translate in worth to something like ten thousand credits in speeding up the research, less for more common resources, same principle applying to the other labs for the resources associated with their respective technologies (orokin cells for tenno lab, fieldron samples for the energy lab).
Under this balance, a casual player would still be able to research stuff, eventually, the time gate being long but research certainly progressing nevertheless, incrementally, and if you farm and have a more active clan with rich people, you can speed things up, depending upon the size of the project (what weapon, warframe etc you're working on), how many and how specialized scientists you've hired, and how big of a budget you've assigned to it.

Just some examples, maybe researching the Amprex in the Energy Lab would take under the barest minimum 2000 credits a day, 6 months, and to get it done in 6 days you would need to give it a budget of 15000 credits a day (90k overall budget to research and pay scientists) with existing resource requirements tripled but not more (well, depending upon the clan size). a 15k budget a day but without the resources would double the time needed to research, 12 days, 180k credits overall.
Applying the same logic to something like the Caustacyst, you could imagine again a daily 10k-15k budget getting it done in two weeks, one week if you put the current resources into the vault as well and assign them for the project.
If you want it done in three days, hire more scientists and triple the budget maybe.

Add to this, every 24 hours there would be a 25% chance that the scientist would halt research and send an inbox message asking to meet you at the lab. They would explain that they ran into a problem and need a specific part or resource they couldn't get their hands on, and need your help in obtaining to continue the research and development.
This randomized mission could have some minor similarities with the Void Sabotage system, where you're given a tileset and the direction of a warehouse, storage room or other place where intel suggests the needed part is located, and once you get there, there would be a ~50% chance that it would be missing, Lotus would suggest it most likely being in the possession of a mini boss in the area, similar to the minibosses you meet in the Void sabotage missions, and upon defeating them they'd drop the part that you would need to pick up, like the old void keys, minus the debuff as that wouldn't make much sense. Then you'd need to extract, carrying in one hand the part and secondary or melee in the other. Mission complete, return to Dojo, dialog prompt with scientist to confirm that you found what they needed, and research continues as normal. Randomize the part name ala Riven, different dialogue voicing to minimize repetition, mission type could be expanded upon. More involvement from players and a chance for more universe building.

There's an opportunity to build a lot of atmosphere, immersion and storytelling with this approach, giving scientists characteristics, CVs and backstories, maybe future quests involving as a reward some future weapon, but already the simple immersion and atmosphere of hiring these scientists who'll wander around the lab, chattering and tinkering about, maybe if you hire more than one to speed things up (and if you have many projects ongoing you should hire more to carry the work load) then they'll exchange banter, maybe have the lab increase with little details over the course of the days or weeks of research with formulas, scribbles and equations, blueprints scattered around, have them change dynamically the longer a project goes on, maybe if you're paying them poorly and having the research going slowly because you can't afford a quick development, then they get a bit cranky and obsessed in the project, littering more around the labs. Maybe the devs could hide a few easter eggs with the scientists expressing pains and pleasures they themselves have gone through when developing and programming the game itself. Would give the NPCs a lot of character and depth.

I also think this would both be potentially fun for players to drop by their labs even though progress would be slower than usual, and still work as the usual free2play incentive as a timegate, motivating some to simply buy the gear for that instant gratification and bragging rights for testing out new gear before anyone else.

That brings me to the Market, because I think the whole Market and ClanTech inventory needs some changing.
Some of the obvious: Stuff like Prova, Nami Skyla, Spectra and Ogris should be downgraded to regular market blueprints, Tigris, Hek, Tonkor and Sonicor for instance fit more perfectly in the more advanced laboratory setting.
Less obvious: Introduce a "Recommended for you" section into the Market, that looks at your Mastery Rank and what weapons you've mastered in your profile, and makes suggestions for what to buy. A MR 0 player who just got out of the tutorial/prologue will be greeted by suggestions of Lato, Braton, the MK1 varieties, higher MR and you'll be suggested Boltor, Karak, slowly working upwards, someone of high mastery rank and having already completed a bunch of weapons, the Market will suggest the remaining weapons, even without a purchasable blueprint, that will then be available at the labs. But prioritize recommending always blueprints first and the lowest tech first.
A more finely tuned tech tier system, with slowly introduced weapons over Mastery Ranks, to create a more easy path for players to follow in getting to try out all the gear.
Don't diss the MK1 weapons, I still remember being a very new player and enjoying the sound, look and effectiveness of a MK1 Braton against the level 1-9 grineer that I fought so long ago, it served its purpose as a stepping stone.

The Market should be for the easier blueprints that require a modest amount of resources and credits, it could have room for some higher tech gear that cost more and require a bit more rarer resources depending upon the level of gear we're talking about, and then the Dojo lab, by the very nature of this advanced research development going on, would house more exotic and powerful or simply still viable and fun weaponry, they would take time to research, but pay off and feel satisfying.
You could come up with some ingame explanation that you need to research them to build a suitable blueprint that the Foundry on your ship can properly use, that's why some stuff on the Market are instantly compatible with your foundry but you can only buy the completed weapon with platinum from there.

This would build a sense of discovery, advancing along tech trees and working with scientists to build your arsenal to impressive degrees.
This should sidestep the concerns of stockpiles and veterans instantly researching everything, since even though they can increase the budget and provide all the needed tools and resources for the scientists, the very nature of this project building, development process and occasional situational mission to obtain needed parts will prolong the research process and hopefully work as a timegate to both please some that like that sort of world building, and still work within the confines of free2play economies of motivating others to buy the gear.

This system could be expanded upon greatly.
Have scientists maybe on occasion coming up with surprising developments, hidden fruits in the current projects that they can further develop into something, maybe augment type mods for the weapons in question, or some other weapons, like if the Soma were a ClanTech weapon, then out of that the scientists could learn to build Dual Razas and Aksomatis. Maybe allow scientists to work on mods as well, a bit like Transmutation, but it would cost more (got to pay the scientist to work on it) take longer to allow them to work on it, but would be with more certainty related to the given project you wanted them to work on, and rarer mods also than what you would get from the instant mod transmutation on your ship.

I think that's it, I feel like there were some other things I thought about, but I've been writing this for very long so I might have forgotten some things.

[theraot]

Tl;dr:

Replace the current dojo research mechanics with:

- Research personnel (available for hire[1]) that will work on the selected projects. Granting resources related to the active projects will provide a boost[2], but there is no specific research cost.

- There will be a random daily chance to get a clan mission related to the current research projects, when this happens the associated research project is halted until the completion of the mission[3].

- Some research projects could provide boosts for other research projects.

- There may also exist mod related research projects.

- The hired personnel will be visible in the dojo, and will add to its atmosphere.

- OP also suggests to move some items between market and clan research:

Spoiler

2 hours ago, SnuggleBuckets said:

Stuff like Prova, Nami Skyla, Spectra and Ogris should be downgraded to regular market blueprints, Tigris, Hek, Tonkor and Sonicor for instance fit more perfectly in the more advanced laboratory setting.

 

- For the market, a "Recommended for you" section in the market that will introduce gear based on mastery rank. The suggested gear will also include items from the clan research, which when selected will instruct the player to go the dojo.

---

Notes:

[1]: They would be procedurally generated, with random bio and apparience, random specialities (bonus to certain type of research) and a daily credits salary to hire. People would donate credits that inturn are daily depleted by the hired personnel. Hiring more personnel will allow for faster research time in exchange for a higher daily credits cost.

[2]: The boosts cut the research time. Any project will be able to get a boost from credits, yet this will be the least effective boost. Instead each project will have a series of resource types that can provide boosts to it:
 

2 hours ago, SnuggleBuckets said:

for instance in the biolab, if you dump into the vault say 1 mutagen sample, for a specific bioweapon that one mutagen sample would translate in worth to something like ten thousand credits in speeding up the research, less for more common resources, same principle applying to the other labs for the resources associated with their respective technologies (orokin cells for tenno lab, fieldron samples for the energy lab).

[3]: 

2 hours ago, SnuggleBuckets said:

Add to this, every 24 hours there would be a 25% chance that the scientist would halt research and send an inbox message asking to meet you at the lab. They would explain that they ran into a problem and need a specific part or resource they couldn't get their hands on, and need your help in obtaining to continue the research and development.

There is also a custom mission type suggested in the OP:

Spoiler

2 hours ago, SnuggleBuckets said:

This randomized mission could have some minor similarities with the Void Sabotage system, where you're given a tileset and the direction of a warehouse, storage room or other place where intel suggests the needed part is located, and once you get there, there would be a ~50% chance that it would be missing, Lotus would suggest it most likely being in the possession of a mini boss in the area, similar to the minibosses you meet in the Void sabotage missions, and upon defeating them they'd drop the part that you would need to pick up, like the old void keys, minus the debuff as that wouldn't make much sense. Then you'd need to extract, carrying in one hand the part and secondary or melee in the other. Mission complete, return to Dojo, dialog prompt with scientist to confirm that you found what they needed, and research continues as normal. Randomize the part name ala Riven, different dialogue voicing to minimize repetition, mission type could be expanded upon. More involvement from players and a chance for more universe building.

---

My notes:

- Evidently, if there are not enough resources to pay the personnel, they have to leave the dojo [4].

- Yet this suggestion gave an idea (a bit crazy): Mod replication projects. A warlord would put a transmutable mod they have to create a research project that when completed would allow to replicate mod blueprints for the particular mod used. Again there would be a limited number of slots for this kind of research, and when full the warlord will have to decide to get rid of an old one or buy more with pl.

- The way the research related missions work and scale is not clear. Should they be done once by any warlord, or do they require to be done once by each member, or they have to be done a certain number of times regardless of who does them, or what?

- The idea of boosting a research by another could be build from the get go to be boosts granted by doing things in the dojo. Doing things could be to donate resources, to complete a research, or even to build certain tiles or decoration. This in particular could open the door to have "Research equipment" decorations that provide some research boosts.

- I already have an idea for dojo development that include a different conception of clan mods and clan missions. See also the dojo 3.0 that introduced the idea of the cephalon room.

[4]: This may lead to clan opting to get rid of the budget to remove personnel when there are no research projects available, and start hiring them again when new projects are added to the game. The alternative is to have some incentive to keep them around (ej: they gain experience or something like that), I like that idea thematically... but it doens't lead to a good balance between small and large clans.

[SnuggleBuckets]

33 minutes ago, theraot said:

Evidently, if there are not enough resources to pay the personnel, they have to leave the dojo [4]
[4]: This may lead to clan opting to get rid of the budget to remove personnel when there are no research projects available, and start hiring them again when new projects are added to the game. The alternative is to have some incentive to keep them around (ej: they gain experience or something like that), I like that idea thematically... but it doens't lead to a good balance between small and large clans.

I was thinking that the research would pause if the budget was cut and the scientists would pack up and leave since no one is paying them, and to resume the research you'd only need to build up a budget again and hire the scientists again for the regular fees.
And once all active projects would be complete, the scientists would again move on from the lab, they'd come back just as easily when hired again for a project, no need to hang around otherwise. The remaining Budget would either stay in the vault or perhaps allow some form of shifting around to different labs.

33 minutes ago, theraot said:

- The way the research related missions work and scale is not clear. Should they be done once by any warlord, or do they require to be done once by each member, or they have to be done a certain number of times regardless of who does them, or what?

Once by any clan member, whoever did the mission and gave the needed item to the scientist would be enough, nothing more complicated, or do it in a squad and everyone in the squad gets one and can give it to the scientist, maybe for a speed boost the more clan members did the mission and returned the requested part/resource.
Scaling is a more interesting challenge, could be tied to the relative power level of the weapon or warframe being researched, or play it safe and keep it in the mid-to-moderately high levels, or more linearly tie it to the research tech tier trees, since the idea is that you start by researching some of the lower clantech weapons, and they unlock more advanced stuff and so on (this is to some degree true already), then the missions would simply scale with this setup. Anything added later on into the labs outside the tech trees should play it safe though and not require very high level missions.

Edited January 22, 2017 by SnuggleBuckets

[theraot]

6 minutes ago, SnuggleBuckets said:

Once by any clan member, whoever did the mission and gave the needed item to the scientist would be enough, nothing more complicated, or do it in a squad and everyone in the squad gets one and can give it to the scientist, maybe for a speed boost the more clan members did the mission and returned the requested part/resource.

I can see the value on that... for instance if you needed it to be done by each member, then an innactive member would stop the research. If it had to be done a given number of times it would be more grinding... So, doing it once makes sese. Then again, this kind of thing is for the whole clan, and thus the responsability shouldn't fall to a single member.

Perhaps it is better to flip this around: Consider this an opportunity to boost it. It could work like an alert (so it is doable in a time window), and have each member a chance to do it... the more members do it the bigger the boost. But if nobody does it, then it halts for some number of hours. What do you think about that?

[SnuggleBuckets]

18 minutes ago, theraot said:

Perhaps it is better to flip this around: Consider this an opportunity to boost it. It could work like an alert (so it is doable in a time window), and have each member a chance to do it... the more members do it the bigger the boost. But if nobody does it, then it halts for some number of hours. What do you think about that?

That does sound like a good idea, I kind of want to keep the personal element of going to visit the scientist in the lab to hear the request to gain the alert though, but maybe that would work in the way that the scientist will talk to any clan member visiting under that "alert duration", and then stop making the request after a time window, and then it's up to the players to complete the mission before the day ends and return to give the needed parts. Or else a slow down in progress as you suggest.

[SnuggleBuckets]

Also, as a free-2-play game where platinum is used to bypass the natural timegates, you could use it as a "bribe" to force the scientists to get the research done by the end of the day, with hilarious consequences as the scientists scramble to use every dirty clunky trick in the book to spy, steal and quickly put together their work in a much faster timeframe than all the credits and resources in the world would allow for by themselves.
Just like in the Foundry you can use platinum to skip the waiting, this would give the devs another way to get platinum out of circulation so players will buy more of it in the long run.