The Time Has Come to Climb the Tech Tree!
"Every designer of a space warship has, at one point or another, wrangled endlessly with the age-old dilemma between battleship maximalism and practicality."
— Irene Belgort, Chief Designer of Vulcan Shipyard
*** The next morning.
Having finished spectating the chaos in the gallery and enjoyed a proper night's sleep, I now found myself in a position where the star system had been more or less thoroughly devoured.
The assorted little odds and ends were being cleaned up automatically—like a bot grinding mobs—by Ilena and Heisenberg, so there was really nothing left for me to personally sweat over.
Which is why, right about now, I could feel it in my bones: the time had come to finally start climbing a real 'tech tree'—the genuine article, the honest-to-god kind.
And I wasn't the only one thinking it. The old-timers who had conquered their own star systems around the same time as me—or even faster—were feeling it too, as were a handful of lucky newbies.
[System Message: Star System Conquest Complete]
Hear me, oh veterans of the deep!
Now craft me, this humble newbie, a custom-tailored tech tree. Hoh hoh hoh!
Threads on the subject were popping up in every corner of the forum, and I could see the userbase soaking up the entertainment.
Perhaps because the prevailing atmosphere these days—unlike before—was that information between players had to be rationed carefully, the users nibbling on the bait chattered this way and that, yet very little actually useful information made it into the open.
Still, it wasn't a total drought either. So I sat down at my desk in my best pretense of working, and while I watched Ggomuli's main body wriggle around inside the mini-aquarium, idly picking off the little shrimp and small fish I'd put in there for algae control, I started rummaging through the gallery. It didn't take long to strike paydirt.
[If You Veterans Won't Look After the Newbies, What Good Are You?!?!?] (Comments: 209)
[A Practical, Condensed Tech Tree Guide for Newbies!!!] (Comments: 105)
[(Some Generic Title for Newbies)] (Comments: 1,233)
"Yeah, figures."
The veteran friends of mine—who reeked so thoroughly of "my mouth is bored to death"—were dutifully uploading all sorts of odds and ends of their own accord.
But before I dug through the archives myself, I decided to first take a look at the 'tech tree for newbies' posts our gloriously rotten old-timers had cooked up.
And when I found the most credible-looking one of the bunch and checked its contents—
Let me get one thing straight first: the "nation tech" I'm talking about here is clearly and distinctly NOT the tech tree you've seen before.
You could ask why it has to be so complicated, and honestly, it can't be helped.
The national tech tree is about the big-picture stuff—which nation's equipment you primarily use, which nation's 'warships' you primarily field, managing your favorability with that nation, squeezing out the right kind of support, that level of thing.
The technology tech tree, on the other hand, is literally about 'technology,' so it's a different story entirely.
Ah, that phrasing sucks. Let me clean it up.
Put simply: national tech = choosing the 'space warship' you'll pilot. Technology tech = deciding what turrets or missiles you bolt onto that warship, and how many magazines, mess halls, parts factories, and so on you stuff into its hull. That's it. Yep.
So in a way, how you handle the national tech tree is the single most important decision. Without it, climbing the tech tree is literally impossible—which is why, all this time, the veterans have been keeping their mouths shut, only ever mentioning the tech tree in the vaguest possible outline while never touching the details. Yep.
"Very interesting."
So THAT was why the veterans had been responding to every detail-seeking newbie with a pat on the head and a "you must protect the newbies," glossing over everything in vague generalities.
As it turned out, the entire system was built so that if you didn't lay down the skeleton first—something called the national tech tree—you couldn't progress at all, and you'd just end up wasting everyone's time and blowing hot air into their lungs for nothing.
Thanks to these magnanimous, borderline-saintly veterans, I could once again live to fight another day, and inwardly I offered them my heartfelt gratitude.
And while I was busy being thankful, Dr. Midori posted a new thread, declaring 'chit-chat time is over, let's get to the actual substance.'
Cutting straight to it: there are 7 options you can pick from.
You can complain about how that's way too many, but the base game is already over 5 years old and has been through a ridiculous number of DLCs and patches, so it can't be helped.
Besides, you all came in with the mod pack installed, which added even more on top of an already bloated list. Just let it go.
Anyway, chit-chat over, to the point. The nations (or factions) a player can choose are as follows:
Demonia Empire (hereafter DNE)
Earth Union (hereafter EU)
Babel Cult (hereafter BR)
Atlantis Coalition of Independent Nation-States (hereafter ACIC)
Pirates
Space Monsters
Miscellaneous Neutral Nations
First off, what I recommend to newbies are the four so-called "Great Powers," known by their English acronyms.
Why?
Why do you think? They're the major nations. Ship designs, parts, the quality and quantity of troops, and—most importantly—supply and logistics support. No problems there.
Now, strictly speaking, each nation has its own standout specialties, so if a player's chosen concept clashes with them, you get reverse-synergy problems and so on.
But that's YOUR problem, dear reader, so I won't go into it here.
And as for the ship characteristics of each faction and nation, the selection screen will tell you all of that anyway, so no need to belabor it.
So what's my point?
PLEASE. Do not let your inner hipster take the wheel, pick Pirates, end up in a completely insane metal bathtub with 0 armor that has to win on pure mobility alone, and then cry:
'Wait, why can't this cruiser survive even ONE hit?'
And do NOT pick Space Monsters, get smacked around by every other faction, and then whine 'why does everyone around me keep attacking me? T_T' Please. I'm begging.
The base game was already flooded with people like that. Please, I'm on my knees here!!!
And this is the most important part: picking your nation on the tree is NOT the end of it.
There are separate, detailed sub-trees underneath. THINK before you pick, PLEASE!!!
"And this is just an outline of an outline—yet you can already smell how monstrously complicated the whole thing is."
Absurdly enough, in games of this genre, when you pick your so-called 'species' or faction at the start, three choices is the norm, and four or five is pushing it.
But the game we'd all been isekai'd into—the original game plus its mod pack, to be precise—had shoved a start screen with seven full tech trees in our faces with the confidence of a used-car salesman.
As I wondered whether this could possibly be real, I also gained a fresh, belated enlightenment as to why the veterans had been so desperate to hide all this information.