I've spent a decent chunk going through the new update and wanted to give a bit more detailed feedback.

I've taken two different characters up the tree, one to just starting T5, one to T3.

I've found myself stalling/stopping on each playthrough, or deliberately looking for exploitable mod interactions, finding alternatives in companion mods, or bypassing the entire exploration paradigm with my second character (Kirhos, trading for everything instead. Actually somewhat interesting and I think I'll write a guide for it soon.)

I'm searching for fossils, I'm doing the secondary missions. By grabbing Shellguard armor/weapons and doing those missions I get passive research income for T6-10 missions.

And things still feel very slow progressing when I hit ~T4 and that slowness doesn't really stop.

I don't necessarily think the numbers need adjusting, though some parts of the tree have some stickier prerequisites - but I think there's room for some additional ways of gaining research.

That aside, the tree is a fantastic resource for understanding the tech path, and also for a general knowledge of "Where do I go to craft X." FU benefits substantially via it's addition.


Current Mechanics:
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Passive Gain - Designed to promote active play, and active exploration, but not necessarily pushing towards exploring new places. (The tree does much of that, but can be bypassed by trading, for example.) It works, it keeps people from stalling out in the early-game if they go the wrong way on the tech tree. (Not choosing STL/FTL/Computers if the only research is finite could lead to softlocking)

The main problem I have with passive gain is not really having an idea if I'm keeping it optimal or not. I don't have a deep understanding of when it kicks in or how outside of the more difficult the area the better it gets. The armor sets with research bonuses don't appear to change the rate much.

I'd really like to see a handheld tool that can tell me things like 'Maximum rate possible in current location'/'Current rate', etc.

Research Computers - I hate these things as it stands. The trade-in value of items feels awful. I imagine this is because at the higher end of play, especially if one has an established base manufacturing something automatically, this can spew out research, but it causes the early game computers to be, in my opinion, completely useless. I'd really like to see a higher-trade-in / slower processing type machine available earlier vs faster processing at low value. (10%/1minute per item or something along those lines.)

I normally collect cosmetic items in starbound, I'm a hoarder in these kinds of games, and I threw every single one of them (5000 base sale price is decent) into the computers for some extra research progress for a good 250~. I'd really have liked a basic machine for high-value trade in there.
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Presenting additional ideas:

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Research gain on first item scan/addition to 3D printer blueprint set.

-10%+ of item value added as research, only available once.

Pros:
Reinforces the primary vanilla play loop of traveling through planets scanning things to progress the story. Encourages exploration of new/untraveled biomes, building new machines, doing something you've not yet done. Does not give any bonuses for repeating something en-masse, does nothing for you if AFK at all.

Rewards finding especially valuable items without having to immediately scrap them for research.
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Planetary Probes

Buildable deployable consumables.

Reward a one-time/area/character research bounty based on where they were deployed. (Tier, difficulty) Potentially can reveal information about the biome/planet as an alternative for players without an extra navigation info addon mod, such as ore spawns, minidungeons, atmosphere, etc.

Possible options include surface probes (Main planet area), biome probes, upper atmospheric probes (Reaching planetary asteroids is a mid-game challenge), core probes.

Pros: Encourages explicit top-to-bottom exploration of new, previously unexplored planet types.
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