Amphibious Research Stuck

[tortugapower]

Hi, I've seen a few reports of research getting stuck, and I'm not sure if that's my case or I'm just very unlucky.

It's 1930 and I had Amphibious on High I think since discovering it. I have X-lighters, the first tech, but I don't have the others. It's been such a long time, that I checked the ResearchAreas2.dat to see when these should fire. Tech 2 is 1916, Tech 3 is 1925, Tech 4 is 1930.

I checked my .bcs file, and I'm not sure how to interpret this:

Research20ResearchPoints=190215
Research20TSL=196
Research20CurrentLevel=4
Research20Level0=1
Research20Level1=0
Research20Level2=0
Research20Level3=0
Research20Level4=0
Is there some bug that the current level = 4, but I've only researched level 0?

What is the mean time for a tech that is 10+ years old to fire with high priority -- i.e. how can I know when it's very bad luck in RNG vs. a game bug?

[dorn]

Jun 13, 2019 18:08:49 GMT -6 tortugapower said:

Hi, I've seen a few reports of research getting stuck, and I'm not sure if that's my case or I'm just very unlucky.

It's 1930 and I had Amphibious on High I think since discovering it. I have X-lighters, the first tech, but I don't have the others. It's been such a long time, that I checked the ResearchAreas2.dat to see when these should fire. Tech 2 is 1916, Tech 3 is 1925, Tech 4 is 1930.

I checked my .bcs file, and I'm not sure how to interpret this:

Research20ResearchPoints=190215
Research20TSL=196
Research20CurrentLevel=4
Research20Level0=1
Research20Level1=0
Research20Level2=0
Research20Level3=0
Research20Level4=0
Is there some bug that the current level = 4, but I've only researched level 0?

What is the mean time for a tech that is 10+ years old to fire with high priority -- i.e. how can I know when it's very bad luck in RNG vs. a game bug?

I think it works as intended and it is simulating that some nations did not developed certain fields at time and was stuck for decade.

I did not test it if research works same way as in RTW1 so my answer is with expectation that the system has not changed yet.

- you researched lvl 1

- you start reserching lvl 4, but this is year 1935 technology

- year 1935 technology starts accumulating RP from 1933

- until 1932 included your priority "high" means same as "nothing". No RP is accumulated at that field and no RP is lost as they are distributed to other areas

- in year 1933 and 1934 you accumulate points but final accumulation is halved (in reality it is more difficult, see link below)

- you skipped only 3 technologies (see screenshot)

Conclusion for you:
You cannot research that technology yet but till 1932 but you will lost no RP on overall research. However this means that you are stuck in that research field for years (overall I like the system but it has sometimes very bad effects if it is in field where there are minimum techs or time period between tech are high. In my actual playthrough I have same issue with Airships as I get after researching the first level the last level which means my airship are stuck for decade similar to your Amphibious operations). This is because both fields (ligter than air and amphibious) are scare to technologies and time between them are quite high. For technologies as armour/FC/ship design/machinery this will have effect only slowing about 1-2 years.

My estimation is that in this particular case of yours, the probability of happening was about 2.7 % (could be wrong as there is no way I can verify my thinking how system works but everything shows that the first number after year is probability of choosing it as next tech; 30 % of skipping next level, see screenshot. So probability of skipping is very likely from lvl 1 to lvl 4 is 0.3*0.3*0.3 = 2.7%). In my case it was about 0.3 %. Before you think it is very low probability, you need to think about it in context as 1 case is everytime you research any technology. As there is 425 technologies, event with 2.7 % probability has overall high probability it will happen during playthrough (it is some simlification as different technologies has different probability of skipping and eg. in hull construction almost all technologies has 0 % probability of skipping, eg. AoN armour has 40 % probability to be skipped). The only negative effect is that it happen in field where technologies are scare and one per several years thus stucking at that field is much longer. So overall percentage of event that you can be stuck in some field for decade is very very low probably bellow 0.1 % as more tech fields has a lot of technologies

note: skipped tech could be researched later, I do not know how it works but I think that there is always some probability check that next technologie will be the lower one even skipped before. But i think that it is probably that probability of skipping is used for choosing it later than probability of not skipping (so practically opposite) but this is really quesing.

For more explanation about research look at this.

Question remains if such type of technology fields with so low technologies should have lower percentage of skipping. But I think that it is good as it is as some nations in history did not go in certain ways.

[tortugapower]

Hi dorn

Thanks for taking the time to explain all this. It was very insightful, and I learned a fair amount. I didn't realize that progressive tech (like amphibious or say hull) could skip ahead.

For the reason you mentioned, were it me, I would make the chance to skip dependent on the years elapsed for the subsequent tech. Otherwise, you end up like me, not getting research in an important field for 15 years.

Thanks again.