I haven't seen anything like that either.

Personally, I rather like having to choose my next project - it forces me to have to stop and take stock of what I need, rather than just blindly continue with a queued project.

Maybe I am playing the tech research angle all wrong but I do like the thought of being able to queue up research. I don't trade techs a lot and I have my favorite path of techs to research. I do change them up between games to make things more interesting. Maybe I should start trading techs. Add a different subtlety to the game play.
Thanks for the information... and the ideas.

I don't trade techs either. I just find that it's a good idea to re-examine all my planets and see where I'm falling short of my goals - dropping approval ratings, poor production levels, weak military - and adapt my research policy accordingly.

I could see how you could use a queue system. I guess it's just a bit of micromanagement I enjoy

Nope. I wish that when you clicked on a tech a few down on the tree, that it would try to research to there. It's amusing how often I go to research defense, and want shields or point defense, but end up getting the first 3 or 4 armor tecs all in that one turn.

The only way around it is to tinker with the research slider so you don't waste money researching something you don't need.

I've often wondered if this causes the AI to pick lasers more often. (if you over research space weapons, you get the 1st beam weapon) It probably doesn't, since the AI probably constantly sets it's sliders.

As far as the queue for research production projects goes, even if it were in the game, I would not use it. I find that with each given game my needs change, and even in mid game I sometimes find I tend to break away from my current research project to focus on another because the need arises.

What we really need is to be able to save queues on planet improvements. And then be able to reuse them.

This is a good idea and I would use this feature consistently. However, there would be times again, during game play, where my needs would change, thus forcing me to change my build queue.

The computer would need to be smart enough where to place the factories--on the bonus mfr tiles first and other other bonus tiles last.

This is the only downfall as I see it. If there were a 700% manufacturing bonus tile in the early game, and you allowed the computer to queue the build, your economy would fall out from under you and you would surely end up in the streets with a tin cup and pencils.

One thing that i think would be nice would be to be able to zoom in or out on the tech tree. It would be much easier to navigate if I could zoom out to see more of the tree at once.

This is already in DA

If we could do in Stars! at a little over 1 meg for the whole game, we should be able to it here.

Ahh yes, Stars!   Still play it now, with all the trimmings, like the Notebook etc, great game that i use while recording all my CD's as it never hogs resources.

Darkspire