Research Guide

Technology Tree

The Technology Tree is a dedicated progression screen for late-game empire development. It adds a new way to spend Components and turns major tech milestones into visible branching unlock paths.

Access

Open the Research Panel on any colony you own and choose Tech Tree.

How It Works

• The tree is per player, not empire-shared.
• Your active branch is based on your current empire type:
• Expander
• Miner
• Technologist
• Warmonger
• Unlock progress is stored separately for each empire type branch.
• If you later change empire type, your old branch unlocks remain with the old type and do not transfer.

Tiers

The first version of the tree has three tiers:

• TECH 2000
• TECH 3000
• TECH 4000

Each tier uses five vertical lanes. TECH 3000 nodes require the right empire tech level, enough Components, and any listed prerequisite unlock. TECH 4000 nodes require their TECH 3000 predecessor in the same lane. Each node shows its exact prerequisite in the tech tree details panel.

Cost

At TECH 2000, each branch contains five live unlocks:

• Stargate Construction: 50 Components
• Nuclear Warfare: 50 Components
• Planetary Ion Cannon: 50 Components
• Planet Shields: 50 Components
• Branch Bonus: 25 Components

At TECH 3000, all five lanes continue:

• Enhanced Production: 100 Components
• Wormhole Stabilizer: 100 Components
• Ghost Fleet: 100 Components
• Defense Matrix: 100 Components
• Branch Optimization: 50 Components

At TECH 4000, every lane now contains a live unlock:

• Blitzkrieg: 150 Components
• Barrage: 150 Components
• Deep Strike: 150 Components
• Fortify: 150 Components
• Branch Apex: 100 Components (Laboratory Breakthroughs and War Economy cost 150 Components)

You must meet both requirements to unlock a node:

1. Reach the required empire tech level.
2. Have enough Components on your user account.

TECH 2000 Effects

The shared TECH 2000 unlocks now have direct gameplay effects:

• Stargate Construction unlocks stargate construction and stargate autobuild.
• Nuclear Warfare unlocks nuke research, nuke plants, nuke unit production, and nuke autobuild.
• Planetary Ion Cannon unlocks ion cannon construction and fire-control configuration.
• Planet Shields unlock charged planetary shields.

Each branch also adds its branch-specific Branch Bonus node:

• Miner - Industrial Extraction: exium extraction improves from x1.5 to x2
• Technologist - Design Exchange: allows sharing unit designs, weapon designs, and tech levels with eligible allied empires
• Warmonger - War Logistics: allows donating fleets and armies to eligible players
• Expander - Frontier Command: command scaling improves from x1.03 to x1.05

Unlock progress is still saved per player and per empire-type branch, so changing empire type later does not transfer TECH 2000 access or branch unlocks to the new branch.

TECH 3000 Effects

• Enhanced Production is the live TECH 3000 unlock in lane 1, the Stargate lane.
• It requires Stargate Construction first.
• It upgrades housing into Cities and increases city credit income by 15%.
• Wormhole Stabilizer is the live TECH 3000 unlock in lane 2 and requires Nuclear Warfare first.
• It lets each player stabilize one active wormhole pair so it no longer relocates or collapses.
• Select the unlocked card and enter either endpoint ID, such as WH-44A or [WH-44A]; clicking a wormhole ID on the system map also fills the card's field. Either endpoint stabilizes the complete pair.
• The first stabilization creates a replacement unstable pair, preserving the natural network size. Moving the stabilizer later resumes the former pair's paused timers and does not create another replacement.
• Stabilization and reassignment are announced in Galaxy News.
• Ghost Fleet is the live TECH 3000 unlock in lane 3, the ion lane.
• It requires Planetary Ion Cannon first.
• It reduces detectable scanner signature to 50% of normal for fleets with the Offensive label.
• The effect applies to the fleet owner's unlock and stacks virtually with unit cloak without changing ship designs.
• Defense Matrix is the live TECH 3000 unlock in lane 4, the shield lane.
• It requires Planet Shields first.
• It lets idle, non-mission fleets with the Defensive label auto-route to your own or occupied colonies when incoming enemy fleets are detected.
• Select the unlocked Defense Matrix node in the Technology Tree to set a user-wide response margin from 0% to 100%. The default margin is 15%.
• The system picks the nearest reachable defenders until committed defensive hull reaches 100% plus your response margin of detected hostile hull (115% with the default setting).
• The branch-bonus lane becomes a branch-specific building discount at TECH 3000 and requires the TECH 2000 branch bonus first:
• Miner: Exium Mine Optimization reduces Exium mine build cost by 10%
• Technologist: Laboratory Optimization reduces laboratory build cost by 10%
• Warmonger: Factory Optimization reduces factory build cost by 40%
• Expander: Command Center Optimization reduces command center build cost by 5%

TECH 4000 Effects

• Blitzkrieg is the live TECH 4000 unlock in lane 1, the Stargate lane.
• It requires Enhanced Production first.
• In battle, units owned by the unlocking player gain +15% combat.
• The bonus is checked per player during battle resolution, so allied players in the same empire do not automatically share it.
• Barrage is the live TECH 4000 unlock in lane 2.
• It requires Wormhole Stabilizer first and increases attacking colony-battle shots by 15%.
• Deep Strike is the live TECH 4000 unlock in lane 3.
• It requires Ghost Fleet first and upgrades ion cannon range to 2.0 sectors.
• Fortify is the live TECH 4000 unlock in lane 4.
• It requires Defense Matrix first and increases defensive colony-battle durability by 15%.
• The lane-5 branch apex unlock now costs 100 Components for most branches and requires the TECH 3000 branch optimization node first:
• Miner: Silo World Expansion lets silo worlds support 100% more silos
• Technologist: Laboratory Breakthroughs improves laboratory efficiency from x1.5 to x3 and costs 150 Components
• Warmonger: War Economy improves unit discount from 15% to 25% and costs 150 Components
• Expander: Frontier Mastery improves command scaling from x1.05 to x1.07

Research Libraries

Within the research menu you will find four types of libraries (or five if you are at 2000 tech level or higher). The libraries are as follows:

• Weapon Library
• Soldier Library
• Ground Unit Library
• Space Unit Library
• Nuke Library (after 2000 tech)

Within each library you will find all of the designs that are owned by your empire of that type. Note that whilst soldiers are technically ground units, they are classified differently.

Each library offers you the chance to see and organise the technology at your disposal including specific details of each design. By clicking on the design name it is also possible to share it with another empire.

There are two other options on each library for designs:

• Active - By checking this box you will indicate whether the design is in active service in your empire. Any design that is not marked as active will not be build-able. This helps to clear your colony unit lists of old or poorly designed units.
• Shared - This check box decides whether the unit can be accessed by empire members that only have the rank of Governor. This allows you to provide your most powerful technology only to your trusted senators.

Components

Components are a scarce salvage resource earned from decisive victories in battle.

When a battle fully resolves and one side is wiped out, the winning side can recover Components from the wreckage of destroyed enemy forces. The payout scales with the recycle value of enemy units destroyed during that continuous fight (material from wrecked ships and armies), not with your own fleet’s hull size. If several players share the win, each player’s share is based on committed battle hull on the winning side. If the defeated side’s empires had a higher peak tech level than the winners, a tech-gap bonus can add extra Components.

How Components Are Awarded

• Components are only awarded when a battle is fully decided and one side remains.
• Ongoing multi-turn battles do not pay Components until the simulation finishes with a clear winner.
• If several players are on the winning side, the Components pool is split according to each player's committed battle hull (not raw fleet size elsewhere).
• Mutual destruction does not produce a Components payout because there is no surviving winner to recover the battlefield.

How the amount is calculated (overview)

The server builds a Components pool from the battle, then splits it among eligible winners:

1. Enemy recycle — Losses on the losing side are converted to a recycle score (same idea as unit salvage / debris: hull and build cost drive the value). If a fight spans multiple battle turns, this includes the losing side's wreckage across that continuous fight, not every historical battle on the planet.
2. Base share — That recycle score is scaled down using a recycle divisor, then passed through sublinear math so extremely large wipes do not explode the payout as fast as a straight linear formula would.
3. AI counterattack adjustment — Wreckage from an AI counterattack earns 50% of its marginal Components value. In a mixed battle, ordinary defeated forces keep their normal value and only the additional value attributable to the counterattack force is halved.
4. Tech-gap bonus — If the losers’ highest empire tech exceeds the winners’, a modest random bonus is added, capped so it cannot dominate every fight.
5. Per-battle cap — The combined pool is capped so a single megafight cannot dump an entire tech tree’s worth of Components at once.

The AI counterattack adjustment changes only the Components reward. The full physical wreckage remains visible and debris Exium, technology capture, and contract plunder are not reduced by it.

Exact tuning can change between rounds; the Battle report page (Analytics tab) shows Enemy wreckage (losers) (full recycle from the wiped side across that fight), Components pool (the adjusted total pool for the finishing report, when tracked), and Your share (your portion after the hull split, when tracked). When counterattack wreckage is present, the estimate identifies its reduction and shows the pool estimate from before the modifier for comparison.

Where To See Them

Your current Components total appears in the self-only resource panel on your User profile. Other players cannot see this number on your profile.

Open a Battle report and use the Analytics tab for those KPIs; older battles without stored payouts may show N/A for pool and share until the live database has been migrated.

Spending Components

Components can now be spent in the Technology Tree on the in-game tech tree screen. The main live unlocks are at TECH 2000:

• Stargates: 50 Components
• Nukes: 50 Components
• Ion Cannon: 50 Components
• Planet Shields: 50 Components
• Branch Bonus: 25 Components

These TECH 2000 unlocks grant direct gameplay access and branch-bonus upgrades. At TECH 3000, Ghost Fleet and Defense Matrix each cost 100 Components, while the branch-optimization lane costs 50 Components and unlocks a branch-specific building discount. At TECH 4000, all five lanes are now live: Blitzkrieg, Barrage, Deep Strike, and Fortify each cost 150 Components, while the far-right branch-apex node costs 100 Components for most branches and unlocks a branch-specific late-game perk. Technologist Laboratory Breakthroughs and Warmonger War Economy cost 150 Components.

Technology Tree progress is saved per player and per empire-type branch, so switching empire type later does not transfer earlier unlocks.

Strategy Notes

• Components are meant to stay scarce, so the biggest payouts come from finishing off valuable enemy forces rather than skirmishing forever.
• Defeating stronger, higher-tech opponents can improve the tech-gap portion of the pool when their tech peak exceeds yours.
• The decisive battle run processes the whole simulated fight in one pass; salvage is based on cumulative enemy losses in that resolution, not a single arbitrary “last tick.”

AI Unit Research

Open AI Research from a colony's Research Panel to describe a soldier, ground unit, or spaceship. Generation is free, has no cooldown, and allows one active run per player. Researching the generated blueprint costs credits and exium at the selected colony.

The Research Command layout matches the other unit and weapon designers. Use Identity for the unit type, hull, and artwork, Design Brief for its role and description, and Target Intelligence for an optional enemy. Expand Budget Limits beside the brief on desktop or below it on smaller screens. Select Generate to start the run.

Write the brief

You can request one main cannon plus a separate anti-fighter weapon. The exact main-gun count is retained, and the separate anti-fighter weapon keeps high accuracy and the requested minimum rate of fire. Weapon and equipment requirements must still fit the hull, technology, and budgets; shield penetration does not guarantee a battle victory.

Choose a name, unit type, hull, description, and existing artwork. Soldiers always have hull 10; ground and space designs use their normal hull limits. Describe the role and any equipment that must remain, such as a hyperdrive or minimum hangar capacity. The AI uses these requirements and your empire's current technology to create your design.

Optional budget limits cover credits and exium separately: the total research price includes the unit and every distinct new weapon, while production per unit estimates building one finished unit at the selected colony. Blank fields mean no limit. Production estimates reflect the colony's buildings, occupation, player bonuses, taxes, and penalties. Your design must meet the budgets and interpreted requirements; impossible requests stop with an explanation so you can adjust the brief.

Use enemy intelligence

Scanners are optional: request a scanner, sensors, or scanning capability in the role or description to include them. Combat roles and enemy intelligence do not add scanners automatically. Requested scanners still require the normal technology unlock.

Paste a battle-report link, choose Load report, and select a compatible enemy unit. You can use reports you are authorized to view and valid shared reports. Only statistics visible in that report guide generation. Space designs target space units; soldiers and ground vehicles target ground combat units.

The design is a proposed counter. The selected enemy provides guidance for design choices. The result explains how the observed hull, protection, mobility, and weapons guided the choices; it does not guarantee victory against that enemy.

Follow progress

Generation does not consume your units or resources.

An animated progress modal opens while your design is being prepared. Choose Continue in background or press Escape to dismiss it without stopping research; View research progress reopens it. Cancel run stops the run. The modal closes when the result is ready or the run ends. The status indicator and progress bar animate by default, including when the browser reports reduced motion.

The modal highlights the current stage—Waiting, Designing, Refining, or Validating—with an animated activity indicator. Measurable stages show actual completion; interpretation remains indeterminate.

Progress is saved, so you can leave the page and return. Cancel run releases your active-run slot immediately. After cancellation or failure, edit the retained brief and choose Retry with this brief. A server restart resumes saved progress when the game rules still match.

If the AI service is busy, unavailable, or returns an incomplete reply, your inputs remain saved. Retry the same brief; these service errors do not mean your wording is invalid. Game-rule or unsupported-equipment errors explain which requirement needs changing.

Research your design

Review your generated design’s specifications, weapons, artwork, production estimate, and combined research price. Research design pays for the unit and its distinct weapons together and adds them to your empire's normal designs. Your artwork and description remain attached; normal empire sharing rules apply.

Recommendations are tested independently for their battlefield role. Attack roles focus on their intended targets; defensive and support roles are evaluated in formations. The system can improve and recheck a design before presenting it. If it cannot establish an improvement while retaining your requirements, it saves the brief and explains that no validated recommendation was found.

When an attack design and its reference both win every intended-target test, including independent repeat tests, the system can establish improvement through consistently fewer combat rounds. The evidence identifies this as faster victories, not a higher win rate. Equal performance, draws, failed independent tests, and known counter failures cannot pass through that comparison.

Command and transport roles keep the equipment they need. Economy-focused designs compare resources exchanged, with credits and exium evaluated separately. As the laboratory discovers counters, it adds them to later tests and withdraws defeated unchanged designs from recommendations.

The completed design shows its deployment, component choices, and confidence. Detailed evidence and weaknesses remain part of internal evaluation and are not displayed on the completed design. A good result against one opponent is not a claim that the unit will beat every fleet. Combat measures protection, firing, maneuverability, command, and casualties; transport capacity and scouting remain operational capabilities. Free hangar capacity is shown separately from the capacity purchased through your design allocation.

The design laboratory retains successful and unsuccessful experiments and can reuse compatible evidence. Its findings and technology comparisons help future designs and future computer-empire spawns. Existing forces are not replaced by this process, and laboratory comparisons never spend your resources or start research for you.

Report observations remain private to the authorized player. Shared laboratory catalogs use synthetic experiments. Proposed-counter explanations identify estimated enemy reconstructions where applicable, because a report can omit important statistics.

Choose Add to queue beside Research design to save the unit and its distinct weapons in the normal research queue without spending credits or exium now. Research its weapons first, then the unit, from the Research Panel queue. Open a queued soldier and select Research remaining points to finish its unit research. Both options recheck the design, prices, and budgets; repeated requests return the same saved design. Once queued, use the normal research queue to finish it.

Prices and eligibility are checked again when you purchase. If prices changed, review the updated price and submit again. Exceeded budgets, changed technology, obsolete rules, a lost colony, or a different game round prevent purchase. Regenerate the brief when technology or design rules change. Insufficient funds or a failed purchase cannot leave partially researched designs, and repeated purchase requests do not charge twice.

Shared background research survives round resets, including learned findings, validated designs and experimental evidence. It can guide research in later rounds when the mechanics and source knowledge still match. Rules or source changes require revalidation; they do not erase the archive.

A full round reset deletes player accounts, their saved research briefs and private report evidence. Create a new brief and choose a current battle report in the new round.

Administrators can open Admin → Research Training to see worker activity, saved knowledge totals, experiment progress and failures. Pause or resume background learning and inspect or revalidate published designs there. Pausing leaves player research available, and the pause setting and learning cycle survive resets. Saved record totals and experiment progress update in the same transactions as their evidence, so opening or refreshing the status page does not recount the complete archive.

Queued weapons used by a unit design cannot be edited or deleted independently. Remove the dependent unit design first if you want to change or discard those weapons.

Choose Inspect evidence on an experiment to open its saved details and trial results in a modal. Use Next trials or Previous trials to browse evidence. Close the modal with Close, Escape, or the shaded backdrop to return to the same experiment.