when i know i'm going to play to this point, or in battle of the gods, i like to pick the +20% planet quality bonus: none of your worlds end up below 10, and most are at least 11. i don't bother specializing at that point, except on capitals. i like to build 1 starport, 5 factories, 1 reactor, 2 farms (only 1 on the smallest planet) and a counter espionage center. any extra tiles on any planet go to stock markets after that. with enough morale bonus, you can hike your taxes to like 69% except on election years, and you have virtually all your planets building stuff. at that point building starbase arrays becomes a more realistic venture since you can churn out a constructor build on a tiny hull every turn or two. maybe it's not the most effecient method to build powerful fleets, but by that point if you're still toe to toe with an AI military... well, i don't know. i'm usually just stretching out my victory by the time i research all the techs. this method works great for hordes of structors, and it's easy to implement.

i'm obviously not an MVer, but i'm curious. would you say you'd get more points by shifting research to econ and industry and supporting larger fleets? i'd assume so.

there's always the egotistical bonus of telling oneself "i know everything." moreover, it seems MV gaming would benefit from finishing more quickly and not research all the techs, since part of MV scores is how quickly one finishes. no?

RE: What to do with your labs once you have researched everything

There is a mod called the "Office Party" (I believe), where you research a tech that removes all of your research facilities so you can build new stuff.

I am (slowly) working on a "Super Techs" mod. Super Techs will be very expensive techs that give you some kind of cool product, but only after a whole lot of research. You can try to get them early in the game, at the expense of your whole research program, or late in the game when you have a huge research infrastructure with nothing to do. The techs won't be planet-shattering, because there is only so much I can mod. Right now, slated to appear are a really efficient invasion tactic, a shield that can make a world almost invulnerable to invasion, and the expected round of superlatives (super beam weapon, super range, super speed).

True sometimes, you could be on a high difficulty and leave one opponent alive while you do your researching. In that case you'll have all but 1 planet and probably a huge reseach ability.

You could also say that if you can wipe out everyone without all the techs THEN its too easy. So it just depends. I need to up it a bit next time. I find that once i get going with my military i barely lose a ship (i tend to tech-it-up to the last minute before constructing my ships).