tech not unlocking

[benkenobi1996]

I'm trying to get the advanced pulsar drive to upgrade my navy. According to the tech tree, I have all the requirements, but after 2 years I still don't have the option to research it. Why can't I research it?

[ArcticISAF]

You have a percent chance of unlocking it in the course of a playthrough, it's not guaranteed to unlock. You can increase the odds by contributing more to the main tech that unlocks something, more science on your councillors, having the innovative trait on one of them, researching autonomous research groups.

[sevetheuniverse]

The bottom 3 tech spots unlock "randomly" sort of. There is a tech to boost the locks. Also science on your Crew at 5/10/15/20/25 gives a 1% chance to unlock. Hover over science to see the tip.

[gimmethegepgun]

There is the possibility that someone else will unlock and research it. If they do, then you can Steal Project from them to unlock it for yourself.

[debott]

Please correct me if wrong: I think after some time of failed unlocks, the rng will decide that the project will never unlock (unless stolen from another faction). Does anybody know how long it takes for projects to get permanently locked?

Shouldn't this perhaps get mentioned in the project, like "Our engineers/researchers have given up on solving the complexity behind this project" or something?

[mk11]

Originally posted by debott:

Please correct me if wrong: I think after some time of failed unlocks, the rng will decide that the project will never unlock (unless stolen from another faction). Does anybody know how long it takes for projects to get permanently locked?

Shouldn't this perhaps get mentioned in the project, like "Our engineers/researchers have given up on solving the complexity behind this project" or something?

I believe that having that option is one of the settings you can make in a custom campaign.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by debott:

Please correct me if wrong: I think after some time of failed unlocks, the rng will decide that the project will never unlock (unless stolen from another faction). Does anybody know how long it takes for projects to get permanently locked?

It does it the moment the project becomes available for you to research.
It has two chances it rolls. One is the overall unlock chance, which is what's shown on the tech tree, and is affected by how much of the unlocking global research you contributed to. If that rolls a failure then it won't unlock. If it rolls a success, then a monthly chance will start firing to make it actually available to you, which has a base chance, a monthly growth to that chance, and a cap on the monthly growth.

[Ericus1]

To give some details here. Every project has a base unlock chance. This is increased by:

• Having certain traits on councilors like Innovative which adds a flat 10% for each trait.
  
• Your council's overall science total - which is 0.2 per Sci point across all your councilors.
  
• The Autonomous Research Group (ARG) faction project, which adds a flat 10%.
  
• Your % contribution to all global techs that are direct requirements for unlocking the project. If there are multiple direct requirements these are added except when they are alternative requirements in which case only one is used. Contributing much to the requirement globals helps to ensure you unlock the critical projects, like Nuclear Freighters. Projects that have no direct global requirements to unlock but are instead unlocked by other projects - for example the FIrestar drive - get nothing here so it is important to maximize odds from the other factors.

The first 3 and the base are included into the % shown for the project under its requirements. The contribution bonus is not shown but is added at the moment the tech unlock roll occurs. Many techs start at 100%, and most you can easily reach 100%.

Provided you pass that first check, the projects then get a starting monthly unlock chance (which actually occurs as a daily check spread across the month). This is increased each month by a monthly unlock chance increase (again, normalized over the month) until it hits the maximum monthly unlock chance. These values are specific for each project, and for some can be quite low which means it may take a very long time to actually unlock.

This starting monthly unlock value is increased by your contribution bonus and your council Sci bonus, and can actually exceed the maximum monthly unlock chance but will then never grow. The ARG project increases the monthly increase by 1%.

So, if you have a project with a base unlock chance of 10%, have one councilor with Innovative, the sum total of your councilors' Sci stat is 72, you have the ARG project done, and you contributed 23% to the globals, your initial unlock roll would be 10+10+12.4+10+23 = 65%. Provided you passed that check, and the project's starting unlock base was 20%, increase was 5%, and maximum was 80% your monthly check would start at 20+23+12.4 = 55%, and it would grow by 6% each month until it hit the cap of 80% or you unlocked it, whichever happens first.