So i love to tinker with this game. It takes very little effort to realize the current tech system is not the greatest. In fact, the community seems to be rather divided on the tech system. Some love the Era system, and most find it ok, and would rather some serious improvements or reworks. I for one have also seen people arguing for the removal of Era systems all together, and simply bring back the tech tree. After working out this system, i can see that changing the current system back into a full tree will take some time. So i propose a bridge between the best of both worlds. Here is not only what i have done so far, but also what the Devs could hopefully do in future.

Firstly, i removed the scaling tech system. This was dumb. At the time, i was not sure why it was here to begin with. Why, oh god why. With that removed however, i noticed something that likely answers my question. Everything starts at 120 research points. Obviously the intent is to balance on the scaling system. I find this as lazy coding, as it makes me wonder if this was done to cut corners in development time. Aside from this, i was unable to find where the research costs are defined. It seems there must be some universal number somewhere, hopefully i am wrong. For me this ment that progressing the Era system to my preferred model is currently out of my reach, as i don't know how to achieve it. 

With that said, i still am determined to provide a superior model. I sat down and worked out what i would change. The Era system isnt completely trash, its nice to be able to work out where you stand in the game. However, i would make ever tech box, into a separate branch of an Era. Firstly a player currently starts with about 40RP per turn, as such that was my base figure to balance around. In the picture below, you can see how i would order the techs, and that i would like to see unlock trees for research. Currently only one tech has two paths to it, indicating that both need to be unlocked for it. Additionally, Ship hulls have been moved to the military branch, as it makes no sense for them to be neutral. With the current math, it takes 3 turns on standard to unlock a 120RP tech. What you will find is that as Eras progress people have the ablity to also jump back to previous Eras and research the Techs they missed with ease, unlike currently where it is possible to have an Era 1 tech cost more than a Era 3 tech when playing as Sophons.

This model fixes all those issues. The only thing it doesn't solve is some peoples concern over "best" research paths, this is something that is unavoidable.  Further Eras could become more complex, by demanding previous ERA techs, such as guns with more advanced materials need to learn how to use more primitive materials first. Ship hulls are a great example, i would certainly separate the cruiser hulls, from the upgraded corvettes. 

Tell me what you all think of this plan.

Key

Arrow: path way of tree
(unique): can only build once structure

this isn't actually interesting for a few reasons :

1  if you force people to research tech they don't need just to unlock some other tech it's a pain (N-Way fusion for instance, i almost never research it)

2 Some racial traits/bonus give some high branch tech from your trees without needing the lower ones so it's a bit pointless ( lumeris will start with the highest research from economy/industry researched for free [and btw it's not because it gives a national/empire wonder  that it's the top tech, the ability to buyout is a very basic ability)

3 Lastly there isn't really techs that are supposed to be above or bellow others in the current game logic (at least not in the same era)

The current system is actually the same as endless legends, so i don't think that it's just lazy coding and cutting the corners .

At least that's my opinion