I have some technologies that show up in my technology list as being complete—in other words, 17 of 17, for example.  If I drop the product from the research facility that found them, do I loose said technology, or does it persist.  In other words, do I need to keep my research facilities researching the same product to keep my level of tech in that product, or can I retool my facilities to other products.  I’m at a point where I’m deciding to restructure or build more, and I’m wondering how this works.

Thanks!

Not sure, but if I had to guess I would say you retain the technology which you have already researched.

You can close down your research unit or research other products.
Technology levels never decrease.

Contrary to brands level there is no erosion for technology levels.
The only thing that can reduce the impact of your technology is that if competitors research better technology than you.

So say you produce Q100 products which is the highest you can get. it will stay at that ?

It seems there is a confusion between the product quality and the technology level.

Product quality is the addition of 2 elements:
- raw materials quality
- production quality (=research level)

Raw materials quality is pretty obvious. Higher the quality of your crude oil, higher will be the quality of plastic.

Production quality is the result of your technology level vs the higher existing technology level.

Product quality has a maximum of 100.
Technology level has no limit (it’s a relative number, relative to the higher technology level existing).

Let’s take Plastic:
- raw materials quality will count for 35% of the final quality
- production technology will count for 65% of the final quality

For instance, let’s say that :
- the higher technology level existing is 400 (from any player)
- your company’s tech level is 200.
- your crude oil has a quality of 60

Your Plastic quality will be calculated this way :
Crude Oil Quality * 35% + Your Tech Level / Max Existing Tech Level * 65%
In numbers :
60 * 35% + 200 / 400 * 100 * 65% = 22.75 + 32.5 = 55.25

Now to answer your question, let’s say that you stop research but your competitor holding the 400 tech level continues to research Plastic. Let’s say he reaches a level of 600 :
60 * 35% + 200 / 600 * 100 * 65% = 22.75 + 21.66 = 44.41

Conclusion: your overall plastic quality has decreased not because your tech level has decreased but because your competitor’s tech level has increased. In other words if you don’t stay on top of research you don’t have the guarantee to keep your product quality at the same level.

oh alrite. that makes more sense now.

thanks for the great explaination

If you research the same tech from multiple units, do they all go to the same ‘pool’ for that one product?

Yes, if you have multiple research units working on the same product, the technology level for that product will increase faster.

Anthony Vicenza - 18 July 2009 11:42 PM

Your Plastic quality will be calculated this way :
Crude Oil Quality * 35% + Your Tech Level / Max Existing Tech Level * 65%
In numbers :
60 * 35% + 200 / 400 * 100 * 65% = 22.75 + 32.5 = 55.25

Now to answer your question, let’s say that you stop research but your competitor holding the 400 tech level continues to research Plastic. Let’s say he reaches a level of 600 :
60 * 35% + 200 / 600 * 100 * 65% = 22.75 + 21.66 = 44.41

This formula doesnt hold true. ‘Your Tech Level’ is not being divided by ‘Max Existing Tech Level’. The way it looks like its working now is ‘Your Tech Level’ multiplied by 65%. So Tech level is being treated like a material and competitor tech level is not being used in the equation like it should be.

My production seems to be taking competitors’ tech into account.

I have flour tech of 11 and wheat of quality 40.  The current max flour tech level is 49.

40 * .35 + (11 / 49) * 100 * .65 = 28.592

My factory reports flour quality produced at quality 28.  Do you have an example where you aren’t observing it working this way?

knightav - 31 July 2009 02:19 AM

My production seems to be taking competitors’ tech into account.

I have flour tech of 11 and wheat of quality 40.  The current max flour tech level is 49.

40 * .35 + (11 / 49) * 100 * .65 = 28.592

My factory reports flour quality produced at quality 28.  Do you have an example where you aren’t observing it working this way?

For flour, the wheat is 70% and the tech is 30% of the final product. But I will use Flour as my example too. My tech is 21/49 and my wheat is 40. My final product is at 34 quality.

This is how its suppose to work:

40 * .7 + 21/49 * 100 * .3 = 40.857

Im suppose to be producing 40-41 quality flour but I am not. This is what I am seeing:

(40 * .7) + (21 * .3) = 34.3

Ahh, whoops, forgot that the formula is different for each good.  Good point, it does indeed look like it is not working correctly.

Stashed: Brilliant.

But it’s working properly, I just didn’t say everything. 

Max tech level for all existing products is at least 100.

In your example (21/49) max tech level is not 49, it’s 100.

The max tech that shows up in the technologies window is the current max tech for all players, but in all calculations the max tech is at least 100.

Ok, I see.