Today we’re talking about changes coming to the tech tree in SotP v0.90 Warlords!

Posted by Unikraken on Jan 15th, 2020

Today we’re talking about changes coming to the tech tree in SotP v0.90 Warlords!





In our last article, (click here to read it) we talked about the upcoming leader system for v0.90 Warlords. Today, we’re going to touch a little bit on that system again and explain how it works in practice within the tech tree - which has some other big changes that we’ll explain here as well.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the tech tree has been reduced from 8 tiers down to 5. This is a dramatic change in scale for the tech tree that was made for several reasons, the largest of which was balance-related. Generally, our research tree has been bloated with tons of “filler” techs in past releases. These techs only served the purpose of filling up space in the menu and being repeatable techs that used up mid-late game resources. The progression that players experienced through these upgrades wasn’t rewarding, and most of them were relatively small bonuses that didn’t make you feel like you were improving your empire.

Reducing the number of tiers across the board allows us to make each individual tech functionally more important, and enhances the potential choices on each tree with bigger bonuses. This has the benefit of having the players spend less time in the research menu getting those filler techs and more time actually playing the game and building an empire. When you are in the tree, you’re making choices that can affect the outcome of the game and shift your playstyle.

The biggest way that we’ve accomplished these playstyle choices is by making a new tab dedicated to the leader system for both factions. This allows for a dedicated space where most of the leader-specific empire changes can be found. You can follow the tree for each leader and see exactly how it will affect your empire throughout the game by seeing all the strengths of each leader listed progressively. Selecting one of the initial leader techs locks you into that leader tree, setting you up for a specific gameplay style and providing you with certain bonuses for your empire. Each leader has multiple additional ships that can be unlocked in both factions’ respective ship unlock tabs once locked into a leader tree.

The one caveat to this system is the removal of the dedicated fleet supply tab for both factions to make room for the leader system research trees. We wanted there to be a single place to see all of the leader techs, and rather than sacrifice one of the other tabs, we decided to spread out the supply upgrades across those other tabs. This dispersing of the supply upgrades allows for a more organic feeling of your fleet growing and lets it progress over more upgrades that don’t damage your economy as much.

An incredible amount of effort and tweaking has gone into making the tech tree for v0.90 Warlords more readable and user-friendly. The goals have been to improve the experience of the player, reduce time wasted, and make the upgrades more purposeful. With that said, there’s a lot more to talk about in the upcoming release besides the research tree - and you’ll be reading a lot more about it over the next few days and coming weeks following the release.

This is the first in a series of deep-dive articles discussing changes made in v0.90 Warlords, and we plan to explain some of the other equally (if not more) significant changes in the imminent future. Keep on the lookout for more information, and save the date of the release which is on January 17th.

Want to talk about this awesome update with other dedicated SotP fans? Why not become one of the 2300+ fans already in our Discord server and come tell us which leader you plan to specialize in!