Here is another cut to the Transhuman Era. The Transhuman Era is currently sitting on 50 techs. I won't be able to get it to 40, but I'd like it to be a little smaller. I think that we could merge all of
Smart Dust,
Nanoelectronics, and
Nanobotics into one tech under the Nanobotics name. I especially don't think Smart Dust is distinct enough to deserve its own technology. (I also think that Modern-Era Nanotechnology might fall under the "not ready for prime time" banner, but I have enough targets in the Modern Era and don't see it as necessary to cut.)
The three techs have similar prerequisites and almost form a loop. It's not a major loop or the mod would crash. The only major exit is Nanomining.
- Smart Dust: Requires Nanoelectronics OR Wireless Electricity. Leads to Nanomining.
- Nanoelectronics: Requires Nanotechnology + Advanced Computers. Leads to Nanobotics, OR prerequisite for Smart Dust.
- Nanobotics: Requires Nanoelectronics. Leads to Nanomining, Planetary Economics.
The other tech that I am looking at changing is
Smart Drugs. I think Smart Drugs is just a little too narrow for a tech and I would like to broaden it to cover just about all Transhuman Era medicine. (After removing Replacement Organs and Regenerative Medicine, there isn't any other pure-medical tech. Cloning, Artificial Evolution, and Homo Superior come close.) The name I am looking at is
Nanomedicine. I'd be interesting in any other suggestion. Nanomedicine would require Nanobotics in addition to Cloning and Thought Scanning. Broadening this tech out would also make it more applicable as a prerequisite for other Transhuman Era techs.
So this is the final result of the cutting and renaming. Several techs would also be moving up or down a level, but I haven't completely calculated that yet.
- Nanobotics: Requires Micromechanics + Wireless Electricity. Leads to Nanomining, Planetary Economics, Nanomedicine.
- Nanomedicine: Requires Cloning + Nanobotics + Thought Scanning. Leads to Homo Superior, Organic Cities, Space Colonies.
The one thing that these techs did have was a large number of tricks. Combining all three under one tech would give it an extremely high trick count of 12.5. Double-digit trick counts aren't a good thing. Here is what I want to do as far as parceling out the tricks.
- Nanofactory building: Stays with Nanobotics.
- Regenerator building: Moves to Nanomedicine.
- Utility Fog building: Moves to Nanomining. I think it deserves to be one tech after Nanobotics.
- SS Docking Bay project: Moves to Space Colonies. SS Life Support moves to Organic Cities. I think the spaceship parts should be on separate techs and fairly close to the end of the Tech Tree. The lowest level for a spaceship part is Transhuman-4 for Superstrong Alloys (SS Casing) and Holographics (SS Cockpit).
- Nanite Lab national wonder: Stays with Nanobotics. This is the production wonder for Nanobots.
- Nanite Defuser world wonder: Stays with Nanobotics.
- ACV unit, ACV SAM unit: These are the Transhuman Era upgrades of the Mechanized Infantry and Mobile SAM. They could go just about anywhere in the Transhuman Era, although I would prefer the middle of the era. Advanced Computers seems like a good place.
- Fusion Cruiser unit: The placing tech for this is actually Warmachines, which comes along later. I think we can just drop the Nanoelectronics requirement.
- Nanite Spy unit: Stays with Nanobotics.
- Nanite Swarm unit: Stays with Nanobotics.
- Nanoids promotion: Moves to Nanomedicine.
- Power Source Upgrade MK I promotion: Stays with Nanobotics. There isn't any spectacular place to put it and it needs to be after Fusion. Fusion Power Source is a prerequisite promotion for this.
- Sensors I promotion: Moves to Cybernetics. Cybernetics has only 2 tricks and could use a minor trick.
So Nanobotics winds up with a trick count of 5.5 (Nanofactory, Nanite Lab, Nanite Defuser, Nanite Spy, Nanite Swarm, Power Source Upgrade MK I) and Nanomedicine with 3.5 (Regenerator, Research Hospital, Cure for Cancer, Nanoids). This is solid enough for me.
Wouldn't hurt much IMO.
