In real life (RL) "research" produces "information", which is infinitely copyable. In Kapilands "research" produces "quality", which cannot be copied at all. In other words, Kapilands "research" could be considered to represent the construction and development of improved production equipment (which is not copyable) instead of methods and inventions (which as information, are definitely copyable in RL).
In a way this is a shame, since because of this, Kapilands does not reflect one of the great hidden benefits of capitalism, namely this: When an inventor develops a new product and starts producing it, everybody benefits. When another company copies the product (either by purchasing the blueprints from the inventor, by reverse-engineering a product or by parallel research) and offers either a better product or a similar product a a cheaper price, everybody benefits. Even the original inventor benefits in the way that he now has access to a better version of his invention, even if his royalties were to dwindle because of the competition.
I would like to see a separation of methods and production equipment in a future version of Kapilands, since then we would see situations where a large corporation actually benefits by selling a technology at a low price to its subcontractors, as they can now supply the corporation with better raw materials or components or whatnot without spending oodles of caps to parallel research. You could simply turn research into a copyable immaterial product (once you have researched it, you can sell it to as many buyers as you can find; perhaps you could stipulate in the contract that the buyer does not have the right to resell the technology further, turning it into a licencing agreement instead of purchasing contract) and require actual construction for upgrading a production building to benefit from the technology.
Name "research" is misleading
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Of course, this game is a pure math.
Let's talk about new version. We both know, that this just cannot be implemented in THIS version. That is too big change to the rules.
But in the future, with average quality changing price and time of the research... selling the research will reduce its price and make it much easier for others to have (buy or develop).
Let's talk about new version. We both know, that this just cannot be implemented in THIS version. That is too big change to the rules.
But in the future, with average quality changing price and time of the research... selling the research will reduce its price and make it much easier for others to have (buy or develop).
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I like to look at things like this on two levels:
Which leaves the trickier point 2. Now no disrespect to Astrologer, but it sounds like he's contradicting himself a bit. It can't both help the bigger players and make everyone the same. I think it would more likely do the second, turning research centers into a direct revenue source as well as an indirect one. Someone would be the fastest at research in any particular product, and sell what they learn. Everyone else gets it faster and potentially cheaper by not having to build the research themselves. Which would make everyone the same as Astrologer said.
The problem is there's no "tension" to use a game design term. There's little reason not to sell research if you keep it yourself. The current setup gets around that nicely. You can sell research for a profit, but only once and you're back to q0.
Where this might work is if the retail market was more directly competitive. If players were fighting each other for market share instead of just taking pieces from an independantly-derived pie. Then you wouldn't want to sell research because if you did, you'd lose your advantage and have to lower prices to stay competitive.
But that would require a large overhaul to the game. And itself would need balancing. I'm still enjoying exploring the way the game works now. It's a little different than I might have expected, but not in a bad way.
Also, one related thing I suggested a few days ago was having research be proportionately easier when higher q exists in the world. That would approximate "reverse engineering", as it's easier to learn something when someone else knows it.
- Is it a good idea for a simulation
- Is it a good idea for a game
Which leaves the trickier point 2. Now no disrespect to Astrologer, but it sounds like he's contradicting himself a bit. It can't both help the bigger players and make everyone the same. I think it would more likely do the second, turning research centers into a direct revenue source as well as an indirect one. Someone would be the fastest at research in any particular product, and sell what they learn. Everyone else gets it faster and potentially cheaper by not having to build the research themselves. Which would make everyone the same as Astrologer said.
The problem is there's no "tension" to use a game design term. There's little reason not to sell research if you keep it yourself. The current setup gets around that nicely. You can sell research for a profit, but only once and you're back to q0.
Where this might work is if the retail market was more directly competitive. If players were fighting each other for market share instead of just taking pieces from an independantly-derived pie. Then you wouldn't want to sell research because if you did, you'd lose your advantage and have to lower prices to stay competitive.
But that would require a large overhaul to the game. And itself would need balancing. I'm still enjoying exploring the way the game works now. It's a little different than I might have expected, but not in a bad way.
Also, one related thing I suggested a few days ago was having research be proportionately easier when higher q exists in the world. That would approximate "reverse engineering", as it's easier to learn something when someone else knows it.