[DEVBLOG#248] VFE-Ultratech research projects

Hello everyone and welcome to a quick development blog.

The work has started on Vanilla Factions Expanded - Ultratech. It is a huge mod, and because of that, we've decided to divide the development of that mod into three solid stages (and run testing after each stage is complete).

The stages are:

• Tech - this stage includes all the technology, items, structures, weapons and apparel, as well as a sleeve growing vat, cortical stacks and entity synthesizer for growing your own entities for the megacorp to buy.
• Biomes - this stage includes actual megacorp recreation parks, as well as any flora and fauna required. This means that this stage is focused on creating unique new environments and dozens of new entities that you can gestate.
• Faction - this stage is focused on actually implementing the megacorp faction, including faction bases, dozens of new backstories, megacorp raids, quests and the actual bureacracy system, which includes franchise contracts, lots of tedious reading, very unfun forms you can file to get free stuff or hinder competition etc.

We have now entered the early development of the Tech stage. This means that all the tech included in the mod is largely designed on paper already, and we're not creating art assets, sound assets and will then proceed to code it into the game.

To temper your expectations: This mod will not release this year. It is absolutely massive, our biggest yet. It will be to Biotech what VFE-Empire and VFE-Deserters are to Royalty. It adds an incredible depth of content for you to enjoy, and really pushes the 'Ultratech' stage of the game to the extreme.

I have decided that it's a good idea to show you how the new tech tree will look, and based on the tech descriptions I will include below you can get a rough idea what content you will be able to access.

I realize this image might be incredibly tiny but I'm not sure how to present it better.

Below are all the research projects coming in the mod:

NANOELECTRONICS

“Master the principles of nanoscale electronic circuits, enabling the construction of advanced equipment such as the ultra-tech research bench, ultracomputer, biolab sunlamp and warning lights.”

ULTRACONDUCTORS

“Unlock advanced power solutions that allow for construction of the UltraWatt energy network, including batteries, conduits and converters. Unlocks the construction of geothermal ultragenerators, solar ultragenerators and wind ultraturbines.”

REPLICATION

“Enable ultratech component crafting and construct an Ultrareplicator for advanced manufacturing.”

HI-TECH ENTERTAINMENT

“Unlock next-gen entertainment devices like the Hyperscreen TV, Dreamcaster, and Ultralounger for enhanced recreation and comfort.”

SHIELD PROJECTORS

“Develop protective shield systems to safeguard your colony with the construction of Solar shield, Low-shield, High-shield, and Psychic suppressor.”

NEUTROAMINE PRODUCTION

“Enable the synthesis of vital Neutroamine that is essential for medical applications.”

GEOTHERMAL LASER BORE

“Harness geothermal energy wherever you want with the construction of a Geothermal laser bore.”

MEAL REPLICATION

“Establish automated meal replication for convenient sustenance by constructing the Meal replicator.”

SMART WEAPONRY

“Advance in smart weaponry technology, allowing crafting of smart pistol, SMG, rifle, and lance, as well as orbital strike targeter, and target painter for better defense and offense.”

GRASER TURRETS

“Upgrade your defense with high-energy graser turrets, enabling the construction of minigraser and Beam scorcher.”

HELLSPHERE IMMOLATOR

“Deploy devastating hellsphere immolators for colony protection. They fire devastating projectiles that vaporize everything in radius, but require a long time to acquire targets.”

SLEEVE GROWING

“Delve into bioengineering to grow human sleeves, enabling the construction of sleeve incubator and sleeve casket. Sleeves act as vessels for cortical stacks, allowing lucky individuals to become immortal.”

ANTIMATTER

“Unlock antimatter technology for powerful energy and weaponry solutions, allowing the construction of antigrain reactor and crafting of antigrain warheads. Safety precautions should be taken, as unstable antimatter may result in devastating explosions.”

ENTITY GESTATION

“Explore artificial entity gestation for creating synthetic organisms, allowing the construction of Embryo Synthesizer and giving you the ability to raise creatures from corporate-produced feragerms.”

CRISIS ARMAMENTS

“Develop crisis-ready armaments for enhanced colony defense by constructing the versatile crisis suit and tower shield belt.”

SHARE RESEARCH

“Share research with other factions to boost relations. Upon completion, increase faction relations with all non-pirate factions by 50.”

USE RESEARCH

“Use research to boost the productivity of the colony. Upon completion, increase global work speed by 5%.”

SUBMIT RESEARCH

“Submit research to the megacorporations for profit. Upon completion, receive silver worth 10% of the research points.”

The final three research projects are something quite new - they are infinite research projects, similar to the ones in Factorio.

These research projects can be continuously researched, and each time they are completed, they provide some sort of bonus and appear up for research again, except with an increased cost.

Cost increases geometrically. We denote by N the current level of the research, by F the final non-infinite level of the research (hence F+1 is the first "infinite" level).

The formula is:

1,000 × 2^(N - F - 1)

This means that a research project with a base cost of 5,000 points will cost 10,000 research points on level 2, 20,000 research points on level 3, 40,000 research points on level 4 and 80,000 research points on level 5.

Each time the research project is finished, the bonus is permanently applied.

Over the coming weeks I will show you the stuff we're preparing! You can be excited!