Hm. So my playthrough with this mod is definitely fun, novel, and different; but good *god* is it difficult.

I've ended up having to set the research-speed to 300% in the storyteller to make any progress at all, or have any chance of my technology-level keeping up with my wealth/resources/threat … but, even at 300%, it's kinda a nightmare. Which maybe isn't a bad thing, it's still fun!

The problem is mostly that, in the games that inspired this like Stellaris, there's a *weighting* system: really important, key technologies that gatekeep overall game progression have much higher weight than random tertiary stuff you can live without.

For example, I'm 4 years into my current colony; well-established, have mostly reached a steady state … except that I just, continuously, cannot progress, because Microelectronics will. not. show. up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, implementing this for the core game wouldn't be *too* hard; but doing so with enough mods available could be … uh … problematic to write enough patches for?

So here's my though: What about weighting the built-in research tree by hand; and then exposing an API for other modders to set weights for their modded techs?

(Also, not enough to open a second thread for, but: in Stellaris, you're guaranteed to *never* see the same research-option twice in a row, no matter how highly it's weighted; that is, all previously-ignored techs from the previous hand of cards have their weight temporarily set to 0 for the next hand. This helps both helps 1. ensure variety, and 2. add a bit of a trade-off to some of the draws: "man, I *really* need both Mortars and Medicine Production … but whichever one I don't take, I'm guaranteed to not see next time, either!" I think this mechanic is worth cribbing, too.)