I was able to examine this issue yesterday afternoon and you're probably right; the tree develops its structure at merely random pace.

The only common situation is that it remains the same from game to game; thus, an underneath procedure which dictates how the framework is setting up all these boxes.
Unless i can get my hands on the source, there's no way to determine the exact conditional routines.

I think this may well have everything to do with the incode_hidden ID numbering schema though... which i asked for a few days ago without any luck, it seem.
Take a look at a sandbox finished_game report file; the tech-section has all these numbers listed there in all their mysterious format.
And since, the Tree --must-- have a grid with GDI coordinates on it, the research screen ---must--- also tap some referencing schema from that unknown matrix.

It's certainly simple and yet complex enough to be much more than a top-bottom-left-to-right type of distribution.

Nothing better than an image to illustrate a theory or prove some detailed comments about this issue... so;



This excerpt from the upcoming update to the pending X-Worlds' tree is relatively direct about many things;

The alpha parsing method isn't really obvious in the actual snapshot for a number of reasons or hints...

1) The IDs are *XWw#...* and aren't lined up by any alphabetic processing.

2) Similarly, Elerium-115 & Alloys *names* do not adhere to any top-down schema.

3) The older default techs locations are re-organized according to the newest connections, so to speak.

And, so the mystery goes on!

The Catagory-Tag might also be involved.

I'm not convinced, the ordering is by string length. It would narrow the choises of tech_id string--shortest first.
Has anybody tried, if reordering the technodes in the xml affects the display?

I did a test, and it sorted the techs I made in this order:

Longest -- 7 chars
Shorter -- 7 chars (I guess not shorter after all)
Short -- 5 chars
1
2
3
A
B
C
--__
----

Since the last 2 entries were pushed to the bottom despite being longer, I guess that longest to top isn't a perfect solution. Despite the flaw, its still possible to predict how, and arrange the tech tree using "Longest first" as a guide line.

Sorting alphabetically and other stuff can be the next deciding factor afterwards.

See what I mean ^^ , since ordering alphabetically is the simplest solution in Visual Studio

Arrrrggghhh - this whole analysis is really getting me a bit frustrated.

In theory, we could run a huge amount of tests to determine the exact solution to the OP's problem... and yet, somehow realize the entire concept is simply located in a SD-coder brain just about ready to be revealed -- IF, they could solve that mystery for us in flat seconds sharp.

At first, i thought this was gonna be a smooth ride in investigation paradise.
Not so, it seem.

Now, the question is which genius if any will hit this thread first with THE key to unlock us all from an infinite loop starting with A followed by a B-Minus, ID'ed & all what that really implicates!

@DivineWrath

No, I'm not argueing against you, peace It got late last night... and if I was a GC2 Dev, I would at least be critical, concerning a by length algorithm.
Its maybe both?
I just suspect the techtree doing some things by alphabetically ordering, connected with the tech_id, techrequirement and maybe category.
Since DL came out, I always wondered, whats the thingy with the Xeno techs. They might got named, because of the beginning "X"?
My theory....

root
|
level A --> alphabetically sorted branches --> branch 1 ...
|
level B --> alphabetically sorted branches --> branch 2 ...
|
level C --> alphabetically sorted branches --> branch 3 ...
|

But level A-Z get also alphabetically sorted by some criteria, I'll test after work tonight.

Its difficult to display with ascii, but you might understand what I mean...

Well, not really.
Cuz, Elerium-115 and Alloys would actually show up in reverse order since 'XWw2..' is ABOVE 'XWw3..' in the xml file!

First script:


And First Screen:


After fliping order in xml (Node flip)
Script:



And Flipped ingame screen:



And if You use Twilight of the armor, Make sure the order in Data\English\TechTrees. Each civilization has its own Tree.

Are you using Twilight Of The Armor?

Now i realy got it. You can't make that ored.

Root-FirstOrder-5 Childes
-SecondOrder-3 Chileds


As abouve diagram, any item will bi top as long it has more childs than the lower one.