Currently the game slows down the progress of technology on larger maps. IMO, it would be far better to slow it down based on abundance of planets than just galaxy size. A small galaxy with abundant stars, planets, and habitable planets will have way more habitable planets than a large galaxy with all settings on rare. I modded the tech tree so that everything costs 10x as much as it normally does, and on large with all abundant this feels about "right" even with the tech rate at game start set to very slow. Before even on very slow once I started going down the weapon lines I would sometimes get as many as four techs in one turn, which doesn't seem "very slow" to me.... On large galaxy with abundant I can easily get industrial sector researched before I am done colonising, which makes starting colonies take FOREVER to develop. It's almost not even worth colonising them, except to deprive the AI the use of them.
