Make Research Dynamic

[Redrover1760]

Suggestion:

• Remove (almost*) all prerequisite techs requirements to unlock a tech.
• Increase the cost of techs that used to have prerequisite techs by the prerequisites.
• Cut the cost of tech across all techs by a decent amount. But overall it should be more expensive than before.
• Reformat the interface to use "Tiers" of tech, the tier of each technology depending on the amount of research it takes to unlock. Instead of a messy pre-req based menu. In addition, divide technologies by categories, I.E Engineering, Medical, Science, Military, etc.
• And finally, ensure that Science ships have an edge on researching technology.

Potential things you could do with this:

• Limit a research console to a specific category. A medship may have (or find) a medical research console(/server?), etc, which can only research medical techs... (Assuming research was made more interesting).
• Add ways to get discounts for categories, via exploration, etc. Maybe one day make the method of research category specific (Like Factorio, but without the factories. Kind of.)
• Restrict access to higher tiers as appropriate requiring upgrading your scientific equipment/rnd servers/supercomputers/Rare bluespace hypertech that you have to find. Making devices take a lot of power or perhaps some kind of gas interaction or gas to work, like a Plasma cooled supercomputer, could help promote connecting the various mechanics of ss13 together (better than fucking experisci) It'd also be a good way to keep Science ships both relevant and needed. These sorts of advanced scientific equipment should probably make research easier or more effective in some way as well. Overall, it can be used as a way to give partial access to the Endless space 2-sorta tech tree I've suggested.

Reasoning:

By removing the tech tree, scientists now have to hunt for specific technology they want. It encourages trade, as you can unlock a specific technology that is needed and give/trade it to a medical ship, like surgery or chemistry. However, it also makes filling out the tech tree for a single ship much harder. On the other hand, it can allow cooperation between Science ships to research various parts of the tech tree, and encourages specialization. On the other hand, it also makes competition between science ships who are trying to trade away the same technology.

Essentially, it makes one of the main issues of RnD, that ships can essentially get anything they want and essentially have to in order to even unlock things, less impactful. Oh, and I'd say it makes it less gamey. You figure out a specific thing of technology through effort... Well, not really. Still better though.

In addition, it heavily discourages brainless tech tree researching. Ideally, everything should be more expensive, and thus opportunity cost, and making research leadership based by making it important to decide on what to spend the collected research on.

As well, it allows people to unlock less important and relevant techs for their own ideas, gimmicks, and/or roleplay ideas. Or you could make a kitchen. That sounds pretty fun, honestly.

...Hopefully one day RnD can be made less boring/more fun and engaging/actually involve more interaction regarding other people and other ships/actually be a vehicle for roleplay... Yeah right. One issue of research is that you do it or you don't. If you want spend time roleplaying, you lose out on research. Particularly when it comes to dissections. Making research more a gradual process, or limiting the amount of research you can achieve off how good your equipment is, could help slow down people, and prevent it being rushed by gamers. Fuck magical research point gain though, that shit's just boring as fuck.

*Tech that is simply direct upgrades, aka Nano parts > Pico Parts > Femto parts, or the Surgery tech upgrades, should still be pre-reqed to have the last tech, but nothing else, to keep the earlier techs relevant/allow for cost control. Techs that require pre-reqs still can and should be in higher tiers of technology.