How do you overtake the AI in technology?

[Soto_Black]

I tried optimizing my civilization to be all about technilogical superiority, but even the military dictatorships I am equivalent to, and some civilizations have more advanced technology, even though I am doing everything in my power to be a powerhouse of technological development.

I have numerous labs on all of my planets. I haven't expanded too much, at least not enough to take a huge hit in that department. What am I missing? Why can't I get ahead of any of the AI?

[Llamedos]

the ability to cheat

[Jetoilio]

Often, the only way to overtake them is long-term. If they started at the same time as you, expect to remain mostly equivalent to them. While yes you do take a hit for each planet and pop you have, more planets means more space for labs and more systems to build research stations in.

[Soto_Black]

Originally posted by Jetoilio:

Often, the only way to overtake them is long-term. If they started at the same time as you, expect to remain mostly equivalent to them. While yes you do take a hit for each planet and pop you have, more planets means more space for labs and more systems to build research stations in.

That's just the thing though. I've pretty much gotten to the end of most of the research, now it is just add 5% to this or that, and add more core sector planets. Never once in the whole game did I overtake anyone, and I am pretty much near the end of any significant tech to study. I have about +200 to all different areas of research. Still never overtook anyone.

[Jetoilio]

Well, if they are your allies, you don't need to worry about surpassing them technologically. If they're your enemies (or at least not your friends), try to surpass them in fleet strength. If you can get your fleet strength higher than theirs you can take a few of their worlds, reducing their ability to stand against you. If you can't be their friends, and can't surpass them technologically; try instead to surpass them militarily.

In my latest game, I had another empire very close to me from the start. We stayed equivalent in research right up until I conquered him (no choice, they were fanatical purifiers).

[Soto_Black]

Originally posted by Jetoilio:

Well, if they are your allies, you don't need to worry about surpassing them technologically. If they're your enemies (or at least not your friends), try to surpass them in fleet strength. If you can get your fleet strength higher than theirs you can take a few of their worlds, reducing their ability to stand against you. If you can't be their friends, and can't surpass them technologically; try instead to surpass them militarily.

In my latest game, I had another empire very close to me from the start. We stayed equivalent in research right up until I conquered him (no choice, they were fanatical purifiers).

Logically that would make sense to play like that in making the best decisions for your empire to survive, but I more wanted to just see if I could surpass them.

Of course I surpassed the subjigated smaller empires and such, but none of the independant ones like myself. I just wanted to see if I could do it rather than trying to play to win.

It's frustrating that they can seem to out do me, but I can't out do them.

[Rakeela]

Grab early research agreements with friendly powers. Use frontier outposts to claim science resources. Consider stealing science resources from neighbors using frontier outposts; you can push and refortify using (and then dismantling) frontier outposts sequentially to gain more systems by this form of peaceful conquest or to retrench the most critical ones. Explore aggressively. Consider going to war if an enemy stands in the way of exploring the galaxy. Whenever you do go to war, use the opportunity to kit a Knife-fleet of corvettes and hunt their science ships; gale-speed admirals help. Remember to make use of "Assist Research" with scientists in science ships at every research planet. Prefer governors with the "Intellectual" trait. Engineer one species for intelligence and use them on your labs; engineer another for energy and use them on your energy buildings, letting you tolerate more maintenance costs for your laboratories and research stations. Think about techs in terms of what they can do to give you techs. When you pin a partial tech by scanning it out of debris, don't necessarily research it at once; it's no longer going to block up your Research Alternatives, so you can hunt for things with a better tech-to-tech reward.

A grab bag of possible tactics.

[Soto_Black]

Originally posted by Greyscale:

Grab early research agreements with friendly powers. Use frontier outposts to claim science resources. Consider stealing science resources from neighbors using frontier outposts; you can push and refortify using (and then dismantling) frontier outposts sequentially to gain more systems by this form of peaceful conquest or to retrench the most critical ones. Explore aggressively. Consider going to war if an enemy stands in the way of exploring the galaxy. Whenever you do go to war, use the opportunity to kit a Knife-fleet of corvettes and hunt their science ships; gale-speed admirals help. Remember to make use of "Assist Research" with scientists in science ships at every research planet. Prefer governors with the "Intellectual" trait. Engineer one species for intelligence and use them on your labs; engineer another for energy and use them on your energy buildings, letting you tolerate more maintenance costs for your laboratories and research stations. Think about techs in terms of what they can do to give you techs. When you pin a partial tech by scanning it out of debris, don't necessarily research it at once; it's no longer going to block up your Research Alternatives, so you can hunt for things with a better tech-to-tech reward.

A grab bag of possible tactics.

This is some great advice. Thank you!

[Burnin-Teddy]

Originally posted by Soto_Black:

I haven't expanded too much, at least not enough to take a huge hit in that department.

If I had to guess this would be your problem. Adding more colonies can increase tech speed. That's obviously true for your first colony, as it's easy to see that having two planets usually leads to faster tech progress, even if it means the techs are a bit more expensive.

What you could do is calculate your effective tech rate, that measures how much science per month an empire with base tech cost would need to match you in research speed. You can get a rough estimation by doing the following:
1) Add all your science gains for each of the three fields of science
2) Divide that number by your science cost multiplier (which you can look up when selecting a new tech and hoving over its costs)

Basically, as long as your effective tech rate increases it's beneficial to add more planets. For comparison, my latest science empire achieved the following effective tech rate values:

Year 2234 ::  77 effective science per month
Year 2248 :: 103 effective science per month
Year 2272 :: 119 effective science per month
Year 2285 :: 124 effective science per month
Year 2300 :: 149 effective science per month

That's probably still far from optimal and I was more busy with purging the meatbags to make space for my synths than to actually maximize my science. But at the current point in time this empire is the galaxy leader in technology on hard difficulty.
Also it's possible to do more precise calculations as well as calculate how many total science a new planet needs to make in order to not slow down your tech. That'd be a bit more complicated though.

[ElanaAhova]

one other 'trick' from the bag of tricks. Pay attention to the specialities of your scientists. When they are researching a tech in their area of expertise, thay get a 5% (or was it 10%) research speed bonus. Don't forget to check your scientists on ships - they might have the expertisde you need back at central.. Don't be afraid to swap them around.