Hey deon, is this the same deon from way back who started a fallout mod and made the BoS Leaderhead etc.? If so welcome back.
It would be great to have more people on board, especially with more skills!
Now to your points. They are fairly valid. Also remember this is still very early Alpha (even with all the progress we have made).
As to the 'Logic' of the tech tree, there are many 'logical' ways of looking at it. The tech tree is only a Mk1 and was done a while back, and fairly quickly too. A lot of development was stalled due to technical issues and bugs, that I could not solve and exhausted myself on. Then the team grew and a lot of these problems were resolved, and the 'next stage' of focus is in overhauling the way the economy of the game will work. So really the tech tree hasn't been looked at for ages.
Hunting: Hunting had the logic of needing armour to go hunting, so it went in after that. (as you don't want to get eaten by a gecko)
Barricade: 2 reasons why barricade comes at the end of the first era.
1: Game mechanic: Most factions need defenses to progress to getting settlers, and settlers need barricade to be built. Settlers are supposed to take a little while to come into play to simulate the idea of gaining 'confidence' in your town to go out in the frontiers.
2: 'Logic': The world could argue forever and a day on what the most 'logical' form for the tech tree to be in is, and multiple views would be equally valid. My current logic was, to build a barricade of any real worth, you would need tools and a workshop to prepare materials, especially things like watch towers, you would also need a sufficiently developed town to have the necessary 'manpower' to be able to do things like drag cars or put up solid style defences. The 'barricade entrances, etc.' stuff could be said to be represented in the 'basic shelter' type stuff of the earlier techs. But to wall in a town is a pretty big undertaking, you would be more likely to start with fire and guards to keep critters away.
Anyway, gameplay wise the difference is pretty negligible...
The tech tree will be developed and expanded, it is not just to make it 'big' but to allow detail and fun, and also to add in certain missing elements that we will be able to represent better once we add in some more engine additions. (such as crime).
The reason there is only one crossbow, is that it is quickly replaced with guns, also the tribals will feature an extensive, 'bow style' unit tree, as they will have less access to guns. (eventually) So bows are purposefully not featured right now because of saving them for the tribals.
The current idea of the tech tree is loosely based around 'Pre Fallout 1', 'F1', 'F2\Tactics', 'F3\NV'. Again full development of the tech tree and the later stages was stalled out due to bugs, and I just have not got back around to tooling it up properly, (again with a lot of things being better to wait for the engine upgrade, as this will fundementally change a lot of things)
As to the unit strength stuff, it all still needs balncing and full testing, I unfortunately lost my main testers to busy life, just as the mod got to the stage of really needing extensive testing, annd at the moment no one has stepped forward to take up the major role of testing/reporting/analysing, etc.
You could say unit strengths come down to vision, but I don't think having really high power units is even remotely a problem, as everyone will have them... a larger strength 'range' means more scope for balancing out a huge variety of weapons, armour, vehicles, etc. so the simple statement that the range of strength is 'too much' is just something that I would nominally disagree with, unless a larger argument and reasoning could be laid out as to why it is too big..
Anyway, I am always happy to debate, and listen to new ideas, etc. many of them may be shared and just not implemented yet!
The eventual goal is to make a mod as expansive and detailed as FFH2 or ROM:AND, etc.
It would be great to have more people on board, especially with more skills!
Now to your points. They are fairly valid. Also remember this is still very early Alpha (even with all the progress we have made).
As to the 'Logic' of the tech tree, there are many 'logical' ways of looking at it. The tech tree is only a Mk1 and was done a while back, and fairly quickly too. A lot of development was stalled due to technical issues and bugs, that I could not solve and exhausted myself on. Then the team grew and a lot of these problems were resolved, and the 'next stage' of focus is in overhauling the way the economy of the game will work. So really the tech tree hasn't been looked at for ages.
Hunting: Hunting had the logic of needing armour to go hunting, so it went in after that. (as you don't want to get eaten by a gecko)
Barricade: 2 reasons why barricade comes at the end of the first era.
1: Game mechanic: Most factions need defenses to progress to getting settlers, and settlers need barricade to be built. Settlers are supposed to take a little while to come into play to simulate the idea of gaining 'confidence' in your town to go out in the frontiers.
2: 'Logic': The world could argue forever and a day on what the most 'logical' form for the tech tree to be in is, and multiple views would be equally valid. My current logic was, to build a barricade of any real worth, you would need tools and a workshop to prepare materials, especially things like watch towers, you would also need a sufficiently developed town to have the necessary 'manpower' to be able to do things like drag cars or put up solid style defences. The 'barricade entrances, etc.' stuff could be said to be represented in the 'basic shelter' type stuff of the earlier techs. But to wall in a town is a pretty big undertaking, you would be more likely to start with fire and guards to keep critters away.
Anyway, gameplay wise the difference is pretty negligible...
The tech tree will be developed and expanded, it is not just to make it 'big' but to allow detail and fun, and also to add in certain missing elements that we will be able to represent better once we add in some more engine additions. (such as crime).
The reason there is only one crossbow, is that it is quickly replaced with guns, also the tribals will feature an extensive, 'bow style' unit tree, as they will have less access to guns. (eventually) So bows are purposefully not featured right now because of saving them for the tribals.
The current idea of the tech tree is loosely based around 'Pre Fallout 1', 'F1', 'F2\Tactics', 'F3\NV'. Again full development of the tech tree and the later stages was stalled out due to bugs, and I just have not got back around to tooling it up properly, (again with a lot of things being better to wait for the engine upgrade, as this will fundementally change a lot of things)
As to the unit strength stuff, it all still needs balncing and full testing, I unfortunately lost my main testers to busy life, just as the mod got to the stage of really needing extensive testing, annd at the moment no one has stepped forward to take up the major role of testing/reporting/analysing, etc.
You could say unit strengths come down to vision, but I don't think having really high power units is even remotely a problem, as everyone will have them... a larger strength 'range' means more scope for balancing out a huge variety of weapons, armour, vehicles, etc. so the simple statement that the range of strength is 'too much' is just something that I would nominally disagree with, unless a larger argument and reasoning could be laid out as to why it is too big..
Anyway, I am always happy to debate, and listen to new ideas, etc. many of them may be shared and just not implemented yet!
The eventual goal is to make a mod as expansive and detailed as FFH2 or ROM:AND, etc.