How do you stay technologically ahead of the AI?

[Solas Irae]

Got btfo'd by a smaller empire because they had better tech than me, how do I stay ahead?

[Avalanche]

Well, i always try to build atleast 3 research buildings on each colony and then specialize them for one of each department.

Also, research production doesn't speed up research as much as the research speed stat, you can not even bother building research buildings and you will still research fast with research speed bonuses, but i get my bonuses via my own modified edict, so it might be different for you.

For me, even with a 100% tile bonus on research, it can still take 40-60 months to research something, but add on 20% research speed bonus and another 10% from the researcher's trait and that goes from 40-60 months, down to 20-30 months.

Also, your research performance is hampered, the bigger your empire is......so if you are that much bigger, your research will be that much slower, so that could be why the AI was more advanced.

[Lactose the Intolerant]

Keep building research buildings, tell your biggest sector you want more research. Or just have a gargantuan navy with long range non-missile weapons that'll smash them regardless of tech differences.

[ElanaAhova]

I try to specialize my colonies, with home world usually becoming a research haven. Then the decree (science) helps, and the starbase observatory build.

[Deep One]

What is important is how efficient you are at generating science per amount of population. Bigger empire is also actually better if you can keep up the efficiency, altough it levels off when you get really high amounts of pops.

[Lyle]

Research pool. Labs and Research stations. Tech. Starting Traits and Gov type. Edicts.

[Coffeecool]

You cant.
AI gets Tech and Eco advancements.
You will always have less Research output than an equal developed AI, and like already said that has nothing to do with size. If you grow in pop size your research times grow at the same time.

But you have 1 good advantage before the AI... a RI.
So you will always make the smarter choices in Tech development.

[Coffeecool]

Originally posted by Karl X:

What is important is how efficient you are at generating science per amount of population. Bigger empire is also actually better if you can keep up the efficiency, altough it levels off when you get really high amounts of pops.

I had +1200% penalty for my Techs last time :)
But also had a Sector with 10 Worlds that generated a summary of 600 Research Points on its own.

[Optimus Princeps]

I am having this problem myself with one of my neighbors (thankfully friendly) having 50 or so techs more then me while I only have 8 or so he does not have... D: he views me as a weakling even tho I have more planets. I have been doing my best to combat this problem as I am playing on hard and basically everybody has higher tech then me. When you pick a research look at which trait your scientist has and pick a tech that she will have a bonus researching, build lots of research stations and planet research buildings, make this as high of a priority as minerals are. In the end tho the AI gets bonuses especially on higher difficulty so they will have an advantage in these things but you are a human so will find a way to beat them (Expand) their tech is irrelevant when you are twice their size and twice their numbers.

Oh and obviously research agreements if you can get them. The 25% bonus is really helpful.

[Coffeecool]

Originally posted by Emperor Trump:

I am having this problem myself with one of my neighbors (thankfully friendly) having 50 or so techs more then me while I only have 8 or so he does not have... D: he views me as a weakling even tho I have more planets. I have been doing my best to combat this problem as I am playing on hard and basically everybody has higher tech then me. When you pick a research look at which trait your scientist has and pick a tech that she will have a bonus researching, build lots of research stations and planet research buildings, make this as high of a priority as minerals are. In the end tho the AI gets bonuses especially on higher difficulty so they will have an advantage in these things but you are a human so will find a way to beat them (Expand) their tech is irrelevant when you are twice their size.

Yea and at least 25 of those are not important for you.
Ai seems to spread in Tech and not focus on a specific tech tree (energy,kinetic,rockets,shields, etc)

[Xcorps]

https://redd.it/4jaeun

[DCBenton]

I started next to an advanced start race of angry democrat crusader cat people. They had superior/overwhelming tech at the beginning but I have managed to catch up to them by maximising researh buildings and stations, and I also spammed as many research agreements with other empires as I could.

[Blinkicide]

Originally posted by Karl X:

What is important is how efficient you are at generating science per amount of population. Bigger empire is also actually better if you can keep up the efficiency, altough it levels off when you get really high amounts of pops.

Not sure how strictly you meant that statement, but you can bring down your average research per pop and still research faster.

I worked through this example here to prove it to myself:

Hypothetical 2000 base cost tech.

Lets look at how much tech cost an additional pop unit costs us:

- Cost at 60 pop: 2k * (1 + (60-10)*.02) = 4k
- Cost at 61 pop: 2k * (1 + (60-10)*.02) = 4k + 40.
- Or more simply marginal cost is just = .02 * 2000 = 40

So you are adding 40 tech cost per pop at the margin. As long as whatever pop you're adding can research 40 tech over your current time to research your reducing research time.

So lets say it takes your empire 40 months currently to research 4k of tech. That means its monthly research is 100, and its current research per pop is 100/60 = 1.666...

But it only takes 1.00 research per month to create 40 research over 40 months. As long as a pop is adding more than 1.00 per month, its adding more research points than it's adding in tech cost. Net gain.

So our current average 1.66, but we'd be researching faster by adding more population even if the nitwits we're adding bring down the average by researching a hair over 1.00 per month.

[Coffeecool]

Originally posted by Blinkicide:

Originally posted by Karl X:

What is important is how efficient you are at generating science per amount of population. Bigger empire is also actually better if you can keep up the efficiency, altough it levels off when you get really high amounts of pops.

Not sure how strictly you meant that statement, but you can bring down your average research per pop and still research faster.

I worked through this example here to prove it to myself:

Hypothetical 2000 base cost tech.

Lets look at how much tech cost an additional pop unit costs us:

- Cost at 60 pop: 2k * (1 + (60-10)*.02) = 4k
- Cost at 61 pop: 2k * (1 + (60-10)*.02) = 4k + 40.
- Or more simply marginal cost is just = .02 * 2000 = 40

So you are adding 40 tech cost per pop at the margin. As long as whatever pop you're adding can research 40 tech over your current time to research your reducing research time.

So lets say it takes your empire 40 months currently to research 4k of tech. That means its monthly research is 100, and its current research per pop is 100/60 = 1.666...

But it only takes 1.00 research per month to create 40 research over 40 months. As long as a pop is adding more than 1.00 per month, its adding more research points than it's adding in tech cost. Net gain.

So our current average 1.66, but we'd be researching faster by adding more population even if the nitwits we're adding bring down the average by researching a hair over 1.00 per month.

That seems not true in many ways.

From what i was observing, different techs have different penalties for pop.
And i dont notice any penalty below about 40 pop, whitch means your equasion cant be true (the (60-10) thing).

Even with a pop of 80 i have no penalties when researching high tier tech.
Could be also a sign of incorrect Tooltips, but that is what i saw so far.
But i will investigate that, now im curious :)

[Blinkicide]

Originally posted by Coffeecool:

That seems not true in many ways.

From what i was observing, different techs have different penalties for pop.
And i dont notice any penalty below about 40 pop, whitch means your equasion cant be true (the (60-10) thing).

Even with a pop of 80 i have no penalties when researching high tier tech.
Could be also a sign of incorrect Tooltips, but that is what i saw so far.
But i will investigate that, now im curious :)

I'm just applying the equation listed in the wikipedeia at face value, let me know if you find a better one.

http://www.stellariswiki.com/Technology#Technology_cost