Creativity

Hi!

how the creativity bonus works.

Asked many times, AFAIK answered never.

BR, Iztok

I thought is increased the amount of random technologies that appear like, Dynamic Shielding etc.

Dynamic Shielding is ethics based I think, it won't show up with the Creativity ability. I don't think anyone knows exactly what it does, except maybe for the dev's. And I have never seen them answer in a post asking about it.

I would certainly like a dev's response on this question.

Can anyone explain how the creativity bonus works.

We could but then we would after feed u to a drengin!

Stardock classified this top secret. Revealed only on pain of death.

Ok, tell me. I don't mind the whole pain on death part!

Knowing what creativity does is worth it

From what I understand, having a creative bonus lets you discover new technologies out of the blue more often (e.g. getting Smart Chaff after researching Chaff).

Here's my theory, which I'm sure is wrong: when you research technology, you never have exactly the right amount of research points, by which on the last turn of researching, more research points are being applied than are required to get the tech. These points spill over into the next tech, and make it cheaper to research. Creativity somehow makes these spill over research points more effective than they otherwise would be.

Why do I think this is true? Because its plausible and explains why no one really notices the effect. But your guess is as good as mine.

I selected the creativity ability once, and I believe that's what led my scientists to discover a new propulsion method that oncreased the speed of all my ships by 50%. It apeared to be a random event like finding a precursor ranger, or an economic boom.

Ok, tell me. I don't mind the whole pain on death part! Knowing what creativity does is worth it

Sorry, I am not 100% sure what creativity does. I have read loads of different threads on this forum and neither does anyone else. Stardock seem to delight in not telling us.

The best guess is

From what I understand, having a creative bonus lets you discover new technologies out of the blue more often (e.g. getting Smart Chaff after researching Chaff).

This has happened to me on a couple of occassions. U get the tech u r researching, then the following tech for free, ie....a creative leap forward. Its NOT a overflow of research because this has happened to me when I did not have any where near enough research to get the follow on tech. Other than a random event (which I do not get any of anymore????), I can find no other reason for this then creativity.

Creativity may do more then this, only stardock knows!

I'm not sure about this, but isn't there a specific type of anomaly that gives you either 25% progress towards your current tech or nothing? Might Creativity make it more likely that you get that 25% of research bonus instead of the "you found nothing useful" or whatever it is result?

sounds more like luck than creativity though

I think the overflow theory is correct; each technology requires a specific amount of research points. Every turn, all of your research points are added up and then subtracted from the total amount of research points the technology requires. If, for instance, you ignored some of the lower-level techs, like Soil Enhancements (because you went Neutral) and Sensors, you can sometimes research multiple techs at a time (one time, I researched all the first three sensors on one turn ) if you have enough research infrastucture.

It sounds like the most plausible effect creativity has is the "two techs at once" thing that happens; the random tech events (ultradrive and hypersensors being the two I know of) are probably not it, because they don't give you alone any kind of advantage--the speed or sensor (in the case of the two afore-mentioned random events) bonuses apply to everyone, I'm pretty sure.

Might it help you get other things like the ultra comps or ultra drive speacil events?

Maybe it doesn't do anything in the game, it just inspires us to be more creative

Unless i know for sure what it does its completely useless and I never use it. I'm sure most others feel the same.

Maybe creativity just makes your posts here more interesting and entertaining

It is not gettng two or three techs at once. That is pure research ability. If you add enough research facilities that happens all the time. And you can see it accumulate in the little indicator window in the lower left of the screen that shows how long you have left to research. Add some research facilities and that will go from 4 to 2 (for example) in one turn. If the indicator is just a hair away from full, you will probably get 2 techs with that next turn, if the next tech is not to costly. If it is too costly for a single turn it may be half complete on that next turn because the research carries over on the same tech branch.

So, creativity is not for that. I agree with a few of you that it may do nothing at all.

Hi!
The game says for creativity "making groundbreaking discoveries traditionaly unavalable". So this is either getting techs from other morality alignments, or "random" techs like ultradrive, ultrasensors etc. That's the best explanation I can think of.

BR, Iztok

On the other hand, the game manual states "Creativity will lead your race to randomly discovering technologies from time to time."

We really need a definitive answer. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to know precisely how the game mechanics work, especially if this game wants to pride itself on moddability.

If it really does lead one's race to randomly discover techs, then the only way to really test it is not to build any research facilities at all.

From what we have mentioned so far it appears creativity allows one's race to randomly discover techs that you cannot get normally through the tech tree and that will not be available to other races either. If we all agree on this lets keep the conversation going and use this as our new starting base.

However I'm doing some testing haveing the creativity ability checked but so far the above idea hasn't happened yet