Research

in Interstellar Space: Genesis is split into 6 categories, each of which has 6 to 10 levels.

To open research in the next level of a category, it is sufficient to have researched a single technology from the previous level.

Within each level of each category, there is a penalty to researching other techs of the same level and category scaling with the number of that level and category already researched.

There are no prerequisites for techs per se, and for techs that replace earlier ones you gain no benefit for having researched the earlier version. If you research, for instance, which allows ships to travel up to 9 parsecs from the nearest Colony or , it no longer matters if you researched allowing ships to travel 7 parsecs from them.

For anything you can add to a ship such was or, you gain  Levels for each research level you obtain in the same category past the level of that technology. This reduces the and  of the system, and in the case of Weapons may allow additional  to be applied to them.

Various government types,, and artifacts can provide bonuses to research in one or more category.

Early Breakthrough Chance
Your empire's "Early breakthrough chance", view-able on the Empire Overview Screen, provides a chance to complete research on your current tech goal on turns 2 or 3, regardless of how long it might otherwise have taken. This can be increased by racial traits,  secondary skills (+7% at expert level stacks with multiple leaders, and available to both Ship and Colony Leaders), and by the final  in the Knowledge branch,, which alone provides a +25% bonus. By the late game this may be over 50% leading to very rapid advancement through the tech tree.

Technologies Defenses Tech Weapons Tech Economic Tech Propulsion Tech Planet Engineering Tech Construction Tech Unique Tech