Research Tree Revisited

Last week, we gave you a glimpse into the structure of the new Expanded Story Campaign endgame. It was the first time we showed off our megastructures. Constructing these massive buildings will be the main point of your new mission on Galatea 37. Adding such an enormous extension to the structure of the Story Campaign requires us to reflect on various areas of the game and introduce improvements wherever necessary. You could already read about the overhauls of the weapon and loot systems and the addition of the Randomized Mission Generator. Today, we will tell you about another area of the game that will receive a makeover to facilitate our endgame design - the research system.

Click the image to view it in higher resolution. Here you can see two new additions to the research screen - a bar with all your stored resources and a fourth research tab. The megastructure research items are located in that additional tab. You will only see that tab if you enter the endgame.

Let’s start with the most significant change to the research system in the history of The Riftbreaker. Starting with the 2.0 version, all research items in the Story Campaign will cost not only time but also resources. Adding a research item to the queue will require you to pay a one-time resource fee. We understand this will sound controversial, but hear us out. In a rework as extensive as the one we are attempting, we must ensure that all elements are in harmony. The addition of the new loot system, the abundance of biocaches, the ability to generate infinite numbers of missions, and the increased rewards you’ll get from the Omega creatures have drastically increased the pace at which you can fill your resource storages and progress through the Campaign. Adding resource costs to research items adds more meaning and incentive to stockpiling resources and building up your economy.

Hovering over an item will reveal its cost. The amount of required resources will gradually go up as you progress through the research tree.

The one-time payment for research items also allows us to solve an additional issue. Previously, a player could add all the research items to the queue without worrying about the order. It was simply a waiting game before they unlocked all the items from the current tier. The new system adds a degree of strategy and depth to setting up the research queue. You must prioritize the technologies you need over those that could be useful later. Resource costs will also necessitate maintaining the economy for the entire campaign duration, as you will always have a use for the advanced and rare resources previously used only for specific buildings and weapons. It is also worth pointing out that these changes will only affect the Story Campaign. The rules stay the same in Survival Mode.

If you can't afford a research item you will be notified about it in the tooltip, as well as a small icon representing the missing resource next to the research item node on the research tree itself.

To make research management easier, we have also added one quality-of-life feature you requested. The research screen now features a search option. Simply click the magnifying glass icon in the bottom-right corner and type in what you’re looking for. The search option will highlight the research items corresponding to what you typed. It works for the name of the research item and the individual buildings or weapons that research grants you. For example, you can type in ‘Liquid Resources Handling’ and ‘Pipe’ - both will show you where to look for that technology.

The search bar will highlight all tech items that are relevant to your search. The search sticks when switching between pages, so you can check out all the branches without having to type again.

This is a significant change, which might seem radical. However, after playtesting the campaign several times, we concluded that it makes gathering resources much more rewarding. We encourage you to approach this change with an open mind. Not too long from now, we will start an Open Beta of the Campaign Mode on the Riftbreaker’s usual experimental branch, which will allow you to test these changes ahead of time and provide us with valuable feedback. If you want to know about this first, sign up for our newsletter, join our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios, and watch our streams at https://www.twitch.tv/exorstudios every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 PM CEST. That way, you won’t miss any exciting news coming your way - and we have some great news coming at the beginning of the next week!

EXOR Studios