simultane forschungsgebiete:
In MOO3, the only limit is due to your money, and you can divide that up as pleases you.
For
fundamental research (the thing you have to do to learn what pretty toys are possible) there can be
over 30 research fields open at any given time (there are 45 in total). You may have none, one, several, many, or even all of those active at once, funding them as you wish.
For
applied research (the thing that actually gives you the pretty toys),
you may have as many projects open as you feel you can afford, and fund them at various levels depending upon how quickly you want them completed. Any research points (what money becomes) left over after we deduct what you spend on applied projects are what go to fund your fundamental research, so you might have to make some decisions on how many toys you want to build all at once.
forschungsgeschwindigkeit:
The first stage of determining speed of research is based upon how much money you put into R&D in general. There is a diminishing-returns formula (no specifics yet, sorry) that determines how many
Research Points (RP) you get out the other end. So doubling the money will at best halve the time, but may not do that well.
All research requires RP, and the RP numbers are fairly fixed (though you don't know them). However, there is no diminishing returns formula on assigning RP (though there IS the old MOO1 formula of giving you interest on your RP), so doubling the RP allocation should approximately halve the time required.
initiierung neuer forschungsgebiete:
You'll still be able to swap things around pretty freely from turn to turn, but this is one of those areas where "turns are between 1-2 years" covers us pretty well.
grundlagenforschung und spezialgebiete:
In addition, we need to distinguish here between
fundamental and applied research.
With fundamental research, you can push the money around however you like. The interest will save you money in the long run, and we're trying to make money a lot tighter than in MOO2. However,
fundamental research doesn't give you techs...it only gives you the ability to conduct specific applied researches, which are how you get the techs.
With applied research, there IS a limit to how quickly you can push through a project, and if you try to exceed the defined "normal" funding you increase the risk of the project incurring additional expenses. So you can't just triple the funding and get one thing each turn; projects require time.
steht das ALLES im handbuch?:
I wouldn't know. I have nothing to do with deciding what goes in the game manual and what doesn't.
What I do know is that we're going to have an "
Encyclopedia Galactica" help feature, and I hope that a lot of such details will end up in there. But again, not my decision.
infos von Stormhound - MOO3 Assistant Designer