Alternative competitive research quest mod.

A more readily implementable version of a competitive quest that rewards a technology via research.  It can probably be done in the current game engine via a mod.

1) Competitive Quest: A private research opportunity.  A well connected industrialist in your empire seeks an audience.  He has a project proposal that he claims will produce better research results than the current empire science effort.  It will require an investment of dust as well as a commitment of a portion of your empire's science output.

1.1) Industry: Pay 1000 dust (can tune) in startup costs.  Apply a -50% malus (can tune all the way up to 100% to make it a hard commitment) to empire science production for the duration of the quest.  The science lost is instead applied to X units of private research.

1.2) Science: You turn down the industrialist's offer.  Your empire scientists get word of this and become highly motivated by your faith in their ability.  Empire science output gets a 10% bonus for 10 turns (can tune bonus amount or duration).  This ends your involvement in this quest.

2) Reward Podium:

1st: Technology Y + 50% of X science (can be tuned) + Z dust/strategics/etc.

2nd: 75% of X science (can be tuned) + Z dust/strategics/etc.

3rd+: Science and/or dust refund based upon how many units of private research were accomplished.

2.1) Note that the value of X can be set to match getting half of it back as science (to honor the industrialist's claim of being able to produce better results) and the research cost of Technology Y.  Technology Y can be just about anything.  It can be one of the existing ship modules or system/empire improvements that can be found in curiosities.  It would be nice to add new modules to the game this way.  My personal opinion is to pick from a list of available non-researched technologies that matches the current technology advancement of the galaxy.  Is the game engine able to use the omniscience levels of the various technologies to make a smart decision about what participating empires would consider an upgrade?  For example, if only one empire has researched tier 3 Basic Phased Beam and no one has researched tier 4 Advanced Positron Beam, can the game engine conclude that tier 3.5 Advanced Phase Beam is a good reward?  Should the reward be a vanilla (no strategics) module that is not researchable (like Basic MAGGIE Laser)?

There is some decision making to be made.  For starters, if an empire is not confident in its own science output, it can simply opt out of the quest and get a 10% bonus.  Since empire science output is only halved, it is possible to try to research system science improvements and then buy them out on your systems to try to increase your empire's science output while the quest is active.  It is also possible to enact laws such as Cram Exam Act and Brains over Bucks which have their own tradeoffs (then again, this is actual motivation to enact these laws in the first place; does anyone ever use them?).

Also note that within this structure, there is a little room for counterplay.  From a military standpoint, you can blockade/invade enemy systems that have high science output.  From a diplomatic standpoint, you can make ridiculous diplomatic demands in order to apply the economic sanctions malus (-15% basic, -30% advanced).

-HP