So, I’m at Y21 and I’m trying to develop a large-scale Sci-Fi RPG for the mBox 360.
There are lots of features I want to add into the game, stuff like FMV’s, Simple body language, Virtual economy, Surround sound, Dynamic Environments and an upgrade to 3D graphics V5.
I’m in the 2nd office (6 employees, currently at 5/6) and I’m finding it hard to rack up research points. Games are giving me around 80 or so a piece (Maybe a bit less) so I’m unlocking a new research topic every game.
Some of the features I’ve yet to unlock make sense to be in a game at the current point in the timeline, but I don’t want to have to wait until the next generation to unlock those features; Some I can understand, but Surround sound and FMV’s? Surely that sort of thing is essential for an early-ish title in the mBox 360 era.
If there’s something I’m missing or if you guys wanna share any tips to increasing RP gain then I’m all ears.
Also - I think it’s worth mentioning that my characters progression has started to halt because I can’t afford to spend lots of RP on the higher-end courses and training.
When hiring your first two employees, pay very close attention to their base research scores. You want it to be higher than 200 points. A 250/300 + score is even better!
Make the VERY first training you ever give your employees (besides the new hire welcome training) the “Make Me Think” training to boost their research score further. Make sure to give your character that training first too.
Every time I’m ready to build up a new engine, I give my employees another round of research training before assembling the engine (if I have the points available). This is because the new engine should be boosting the gameplay scores and thus you don’t need to depend on the gradual increases of design/tech/speed to continue boosting your game quality for that specific title.
By starting with high high-research employees and training research skill early on, you will accumulate more research points over time, making running out much less of an issue.
Also: Once you start getting to the engine components that start costing 80+ RP to research, think about specializing in one or two genres. If you focus on, say, strategy and simulation games, you can skip all the 80RP+ point topics under the ‘Storylines/quests’ and ‘Dialogues’ game aspects, because you’ll always be setting them to minimum anyway, and thus won’t be able to include the more complex features even if you add them to your engine. This will save you both RP points in the research, and unneeded costs when building up new engines.
With these tips, I rarely have problems running out of RP points until the very end of the game. Even then, I’m able to spam the 30 rp college training course at least once per year for each employee, along with being able to afford boosts and specialization.
2 Likes