Moore's Law - The observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors, per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. In subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law, which Moore himself has blessed. Most experts, including Moore himself, expect Moore's Law to hold for at least another two decades.


Why does every innovation make the next item larger? Wouldn't an intelligent, space-faring race want to make things smaller so they could fit things on a ship? While they are more powerful, they also get bigger. Why not have some of the developments make them smaller too? Or the same size but more powerful?

It's a game
And things get bigger but more space efficient, so also follows Moore's law. (like more shields per size)

IF things get smaller as you research, decks would be useless as you will hit the limit (5 shields, 8 weapons) faster.

I am not saying that every innovation has to be smaller, just every few inovations it stays the same size or goes smaller. Like the Level 4 stays the same size but goes up in power.

Very difficult to implement now. The tree is huge and implementing it would require a lot of changes.

most items that i have seen has gotten more effecient per deck space.

most of Prejor items were low in size and yet very efficient ... Just wait for next events ... You'll probably get some nice items.

Also some high lvl missions have low size items with an excellent ratio. It's all about patience

Well there's your answer right there. GL is set way in the future.

lol

Here's a quick drive-by idea that I put absolutely no thought into but think it would be cool if it worked:

Equipment size is reduced by 1 for each subsequent tier researched in that tree. For example - a heavy laser cannon takes 11 space. Reaching 1st tech of the following tier (Ion channeling) will change the heavy laser to 10 spaces. Research Plasma Filtering would shrink ion weapons by 1 space, and laser weapons by 2 spaces and so on. It would add strategic options, which I'm all for.

Edit:
Ok I realize now that this wouldn't quite work with a straight -1 per tier, it would allow ships with infinite 0-space autocannons by the time plasma was researched. But what WOULD work is -10% size per tier, with a cap of 50%. So when I research Phased Energy (tier 6) I could build a light phase cannon (att +63, size 21) OR I could fit 10 heavy autocannons (size reduced by 50% for a total of +20 attack.) It would still be more efficient to build the latest greatest tech, but we would have options, and this could lead to much more variety in ship building.

I think this would be freaky cool.

pwned

like i was saying above. atm the items get slightly larger. but u get more bang for your buck when you do upgrade. Each item higher is more efficient per deck space than the tier below. So yes this covers all the bases..

I would think that planetary structure follows true Moore's Law than ships are because of finite size that planets have that can't grow unlike ship deck size..