How do you traverse the tech tree?

[bilbous]

I like to run threads along the top and bottom lines, filling in the middle only once I have the galactic currency market and titans. By this time the game is nothing more than mopping up operations.

[Captain Keen]

I decided LONG ago that the tech tree is essentially meaningless - I fill it out tier by tier, prioritizing only what I pick first.

[seabo_76]

My Research Priority:

Fast tech to Jump Gates.
Battleships
Interplanetary Administration
Core Waste Dump

And then straight along the top all the way to Currency Exchange before just letting it autopick.
Can easily get all 4 Techs within 90-125 turns on Fast or VF Research

[Captain Keen]

Originally posted by seabo_76:

... on Fast or VF Research

That's just a plain admission that it takes way too long, and that rushing technologies simply isn't viable unless you twist the arms of the game to make it so.

[bilbous]

I always seem to get bogged down whenever I have to research the middle lines of tech too soon.

[killerproblem]

Mostly, I just plod along, but i tend to push ahead one or two teirs for sheilds and armor tech, and one ahead for pollution control when I'm pushing the edge on more than one or two colonies...
End result is i can't move my fleets around as fast for a while, but when it shows up you'd better be able to put out a lot of damage to stop me.

[bilbous]

One thing about the tier by tier approach it lets you simplify things by just setting emerging technologies as your only target.