I know one of the stated goals for TA was to "make everything bigger", but the sad reality is that the initial techs are useless given how fast research goes. I mean, I don't even bother using any of the first level weapon techs and by the time the second level techs are on a few ships it's almost time to wait for 4th tier weapons because they aren't far away.

In other words, I rarely have a game where 1st and 3rd tier weapons are of any use/value because they are obsoleted too quickly. And this is on small/medium galaxies with uncommon stars and planets and slow tech.

I really want to be able to play some games where you can stretch out the usefulness of the various technologies instead of blinking while you research past them.

I don't want to slow down all the tech speed options, but make the Slow options significantly slower than they are now. Leave the other options at their speeds now (or make Normal the same speed as Slow right now). It's just too fast at this point, IMHO.

More planets to own = more research points.

That's just amazing to me-just incredible. What race are you playing and what are your picks? At what level was your economy running? I ask these questiosn because I've NEVER seen it take that long for ANY tech in Beta 4a unless my economy is virtually shut down.

I've played in games where I am using the very slow setting, with rare habitable planets in a medium galaxy, only two or three planets and I still race through techs, even when I'm not running my economy at `100%. Like Dr. Guppie, I don't even bother using lower level weapons or defense techs because the mid to upper levels are not very many turns away. Usually, I just explode right through lasers and go to particle beams in an emergency, i.e., a situation where I am about to be attacked or already am being attacked and I have no fleet to speak of. Otherwise, I wait until phasors before I even develop warships. In a few games, I've waited until I got doom rays (or whatever they're called) before I built a warship. The lower level techs are virtually useless because they become obsolete too quickly. It would be nice to stretch things out a bit so every tech becomes truly playable instead of just being a footnote.

Again, reasonable minds can differ and this particular attribute is almost purely subjective, but the current tech speed just makes the game less fun for me. Based on that, I stand by my position that tech either needs slowed down or needs a new, slower level or two. The latter would be my preferred approach because it does not force my subjective opinion on others but instead gives everyone (or at least more of everyone) additional options to fit their preferences.

Aye, this last game, I didn't fire a shot until I was well into Phasor tech with Droid Sentry defenses on Large Hulls.

Honestly, I want gargantuan-sized maps and extremely slow tech for nice, long games.

I think I'll see how ridiculous the game is on "Very Fast" tech

It's quite ridiculous. I had one game with 50% creativity and very fast tech, and one creativity proc gave me four or five techs at once. It was crazy.

Just steamrolled a technology victory with Terrans. Built one warship, and sold it later to the Drath for some cash

Besides, why should it scale at all, really? Isn't the entire point of more planets to have more resources to do things, like research?

This kinda makes me want a 'game pace' setting instead. "Very Slow" paced games have slower population growths, fewer resources, shorter ranges and speeds for ships, etc.