I also would much rather have an interesting, jumbled tech tree because it's more fun. I was planning on making one, but since techs can only have one requirement, I'll have to do some re-thinking.

in master of orion if i remember right in 3 or was it 2 i dont remember one of them tehre was chance of random technology.

what i think would been neat is if, in tech tree that it was never ending.

example

youd be able to research lasers
laser one leaser two lsaer three
it random pops up diffrent technology plasma
now you can ethere keep research laser technolgy stuff or u can move on to plasma via rsearch plasma u could possiable random at some point move pick up new technology based on plasma gun type wepaon or shield if you kept research laser beam technology move into field of phasors at random time

it really wouldnt be random there be luck involled and technology skill level of some kinda.


as for never ending research tree thing this be more then due able

example

laser level one - u just get item its big bulky heavy dosnt do much damage
laser level two - will it still dose same amount of damage but its gotten little smaller

laser level three will its gotten little bigger but it dose more damage

laser level four its samller more compact dose same amount of damage as level three

laser level five dose more damage then level three or four but agin its gained in size.

u could expand it out where you research wepaon then 4 research level you reserachin how to make it smaller then on 5 research level you research how to make it stronger wepaon whcih then starts research for making it more compact all over agin.

as for diffreint componets for each level screw that you would have compent called a laser beam or something like that its damgge, range, and size of the wepaon stats would change based on how far you go on research tree for that item.

you could abandeon laser technolgy all to gethere and move into plasma which have benfits and so forth but someone who keeps on laser track could end up wiht a really kick ass laser beam gun.


then agin if you just concetrated all ur time on one tech then you could fall behind elese where so game play wise it all levels out.