Difference between revisions of "Topic"

{{Quality|Superior|06:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)}}

'''Topics''' (also '''Tech''' or '''Innovations''') are part of [[knowledge]].

There are around 300 innovations that can be discovered. Many of them have requirements, and many do not, so it's kind of a tech forest/grassland rather than a tree. Notably missing are innovations related to practical labors in the game (which will be added later in development). Only the discovery of certain "form" type topics has any effect on gameplay, as it allows scholars to write new types of [[book]]s; star charts, atlases, dictionaries and various historical forms.

For unskilled roles, some initial back-of-the-envelope calculations and some rough estimates observed through dfHack gives a basic idea of just how long research can take.  Note that player testing had found that the skill roll contributes a lot to the breakthrough credit.  Even dabbling dwarfs can gain over 2000 breakthrough credit at once and may average around 1000 breakthrough credit.  Additionally the formula for the skill roll seems to have a very large spread, players have reported as low as 3000 breakthrough credit and as high as 25000 breakthrough credit awarded to a dwarf with legendary skill.  Analytically calculating from the algorithm Toady gave, it takes an average of 58.54 cycles to get a breakthrough credit. Player testing has confirmed breakthrough credits typically take 55-65 cycles, so this calculation seems plausible.  Likewise, player testing has not shown any correlation between skill level and number of cycles to get breakthrough credit.  An unskilled dwarf might average around 120+ cycles to get their first breakthrough dice for a level 1 topics With only a single research dice,  it would take an average of 2528 cycles to get a breakthrough. Pondering takes slightly over 2 days per cycle, so this would be around 14 years.  In a real fortress, the research dice and skill level will be increasing during the process.  However, in a real fortress, the scholars will also need to take breaks to eat, drink, and meet other needs. A more reasonable estimate is around 5-10 years for a breakthrough starting with no skills.  In short, research takes an unreasonably long time with an unskilled dwarf.