Hi everyone,

Glancing at the forums it seems apparent that the tech tree is not universally adored, but equally the forums have not been constructive in explaining why. So, like a great mathmatician or philosopher perhaps, I pored over the tech tree to figure out what was what.

I undoubtedly learnt alot about the tech tree and have pretty much memorised the various locations for the techs. Which, in of itself, is part of the issue with the tech tree - to fully utilise it, there is a big emphasise on having an encyclopedic knowledge of techs and position. At any given moment there could be more than twenty techs to research! Divided into two sub techs! With nothing to tell you other than a small icon! Without individually hovering over every tech there is very little to tell the player what each tech might do. And that could be quite alot: Passive benefits, improvements, ships, weapons, the market, specialisations, colonization, anomolies etc. etc. It is almost inevitable that something will be missed amongst the array of choice. For quite a while I thought, 'Its a shame that they don't have privateering in ES2, maybe it'll be added later'.

The most significant issue with the tech tree at the moment is its organisation. Take a look at the military quadrant.

I haven't looked too much into the tech tree, but I feel like changing the visual interface on hover... highlight techs in the same "area", make the lines identifying perquisites more prominent, magnify FIDSI and manpower icons, etc. etc. 

You don't want them on all the time (then it would look to cluttered), but making the relevant information pop-out when hovering a technology would make understanding the tree more approachable.

Organize the techs more logically too. Ship type upgrades do not belong in the diplomacy area, they belong in the military zone. It feels like you are tyring to force there to be 4 quadrants even when it doesn't make sense.

The privateer tech is first left from the middle, era 4.

Completely agree here. The organization is a huge misstep, as I do think it lends to the difficulty in understanding it. 

I like OP's suggestions and I will be talking about in an upcoming podcast about ES2. 

I don't like the names of some of the techs, either, as they don't make sense to a native English speaker when you see what the techs are. Xeno Linguistics has nothing to do with Xeno Linguistics. 

I'd just like to throw my hat in this and say I agree that the Tech Tree needs an upgrade. As for what form that upgrade will take, I'm not sure. Organisation is definitely a concern. Perhaps the community's desire to harken to the "golden days of ES1" is more a detriment when it comes to the Tech Tree. I've found the older version a bit less overwhelming than the current one -- however the previous one gave no room for the research discount lines. The concept of a "Tech tree" might need to be reinvented to make it work in ES2. Any game designe/architects/artists/etc around who could maybe look at this at an angle that us non-artistic folks might not see?

Also, I thought it was weird that the Gas Giant colonisation techs were in the Economy Quadrant. I understand the possible reason why, but it still felt odd.