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Research Guide

Follow the documented technology tree and supporting research-library and component systems without relying on a JavaScript-only wiki viewer.

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wiki/Technology_Tree.md, wiki/Research_Libraries.md, wiki/Components.md
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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:

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. 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.
  4. Per-battle cap — The combined pool is capped so a single megafight cannot dump an entire tech tree’s worth of Components at once.

Exact tuning can change between rounds; the Battle report page (Analytics tab) shows Enemy wreckage (losers) (recycle from the wiped side across that fight, the same basis the server uses before scaling), Components pool (total pool for the finishing report, when tracked), and Your share (your portion after the hull split, when tracked).

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.”

Ready for command?

Put the guide into practice.

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