Add-on to Science System

This is a suggestion from one of my KD-mates:

The science system should have a chance to generate an "epic scientist" in addition to regular scientists (e.g., a "Dean" or "Laureate").

Epic scientists would appear fully ranked-up and would have a cap higher than a professor (e.g., 2x professor bonus to the category). These epic scientists would be the equivalent of scientific breakthroughs in a field of study. To keep with this theme, epic scientists would become regular professors once leaving the field of study in which they spawned (i.e., a breakthrough in crime won't necessarily translate to a breakthrough in housing).


How this might work
Epic scientists wouldn't be a rank that could be achieved through normal learning. They would spawn randomly, similar to how the original scientists spawned. This would simulate a randomness to the "Eureka" moment.

However, unlike the original science system, you would need to invest in Laboratories to have a chance to spawn an epic scientist. Currently there's a base science generation rate. Building laboratories increases the base scientist generation rate by X%. With this proposed change, laboratories would also have Y% rate to generate an epic scientist. For example, the first 1% of laboratories gives a 3.96% increased spawn rate for regular scientists. Under this proposed change, it would also give 0.396% CHANCE to spawn an epic scientist. There would be no guarantee on spawning one and there would be no accrual of generation, like there is for regular scientists. (Note: this would not change the current system for regular scientists.)

Potential impact of change

1. Increases the value of laboratories and introduces a strategy of running laboratories more frequently to provide even a chance of generating these scientists.
2. Adds value to universities once epic scientists spawn, since you may want to provide greater protection for them due to their rarity.
3. Indirectly enhances the (unfavored) sage personality by enhancing their inherent protection of scientists from abduct attacks.
4. Provides a little dynamism to scientist generation, rather than just watching a static increase in generation %.

What if a method were available to incorporate some of the old system by paying to teach Professors which would increase their bonus once they reached a certain level?

I'm heavily against adding randomness to the game, which is why we removed the randomness from spawning to begin with as I feel it detracts from the core Utopia values.

So to continue, you could choose to invest this 'learning' or 'teaching' into a specific category and it would result in something like say .1%-1% based on the amount of gc you were investing in upgrading a scientist of that category to an Epic Scientist which would function similar to your suggestion.
My thoughts at the moment would also be to provide these Epic Scientists with abduct immunity and not allow them to change their category once they reach this level.

Just for fun, in this scenario if you maxed the spending you could generate an Epic Scientist once every 4 days to allow for a potential total of roughly 20 Epic Scientists throughout the course of an age if you were at max learning for the entire age.

I do think there should/could be some sort of investment scaling that could be tweaked to either give a greater effect on science in general, or a category. Similar to raising or lowering wages for Military...

I see something more like a tick-by-tick investment, similar to the 'old' science rates, that would either result in tick-by-tick progression towards an 'Epic' (I prefer if they are called Mad Scientists or something more fun like this, new and exciting stuff is always 'crazy' before its the norm), or that investment would increase the %-chance that your next scientist could turn out to be Mad. The latter would have to work on a similar basis to wages, in that you wouldn't want people to simple up their investment on the ticks they expect a scientist to be generated.

Mad Scientists would not add direct science effects, but instead increase the effectiveness of the other scientists in their category, by what amount is debatable... I think you should be only be able to change the category of your Mad Scientist once, and each one that you have should increase the cost for the same rate of generation (or %-chance), on the next one.

To address the somewhat random nature of scientist placement, having Mad Scientist could also increase the chance that your next scientist appears in their category as opposed to others.

If we don't like randomness, it would be nice to see a change that lets you work towards a specific scientist, instead of getting a random one. It doesn't matter if you are on the tick he appears, but if it happens when you are away, you lose a few ticks worth of growth.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LuckySports

If we don't like randomness, it would be nice to see a change that lets you work towards a specific scientist, instead of getting a random one. It doesn't matter if you are on the tick he appears, but if it happens when you are away, you lose a few ticks worth of growth.

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This!!! I suggested elsewhere in these forums to allow us to select a field in which we want the new scientist to spawn into, say for example; you have selected the next xx amount of scientists to be alchemy recruits etc. So give us a toggle option, allow us to select random field or the option to select a specific field for the next xx amount of scientists recruited.

Also, love the idea of a new epic/mad/crazy/egghead scientist level!!!