More "fun" techs

Hes right, Often ships do not go as fast as they could...(all cases whatsoever)
and, possibly a tactic that can "Boost" the engine power (making it faster by force like Force March or somthing) however, it could hurt the engines temporaily (so it can be good if your loosing a war for your remaining few fleets to scatter with this and rush to planets and hide). Any other ideas?

I don't really like the "random distance" engine idea.

I would really like to see some advantage to using older engines on a model (like lower cost maybe, or smaller size?) as it is really pointless to manually choose the newest engine from a list when it is obviously always the best choice. The game should just pick the newest engine automatically if it is always the best one.

First of all, the newest engine isn't always the best for all circumstances. There should certainly be times when it is the best, and there's already times when it isn't the best. For example, once you get Ion drive, there's no time you'd use any of the earlier engines, since they're all larger and/or more expensive. However, when you get Impulse Drive I, it's more expensive and larger, so unless you need the extra speed, you're often better of going with Ion drives over Impulse Drives. The same is true of Impulse Drive II, though at Impulse Drive III, Ion Drive basically becomes obsolete. Things get more interesting in Warp Drives. For certain hull sizes, Warp Drive V is smaller than any other drive, including Hyperwarp Drive III. The cost is the same, making HDIII more cost effective for the amount of speed added, and HDIII adds more speed per unit of space used, so unless you're seriously size-constrained, HDIII is the way to go, but that still doesn't change the fact that there have been times that I had room for a WDV but not a HDIII.

Still, I'd like to see more variables introduced. But I have to agree with ProudCanadian, I don't like the idea of the "random distance" engine.

Engines that are bulkier, same speed, but cost less.

Engines that are "sports car" designs. Smaller, faster, much more expensive (we've got that with weapons, why not drives?).

Engines with a sprint mode (like Lowa11's idea, double the engine bonus for one turn, ship takes damage, can't be used in consecutive turns).

Engines that are designed for high reliability. Normal cost, but lower than normal maintenance cost (this probably wouldn't work, as it would mean a totally different method for computing the maintenance cost of a ship).

Personally, if it were up to me (be glad it's not, the game wouldn't be as good if it were), I wouldn't make a single drive available with each new technology. As soon as you researched, say, Impulse drives, You'd get the baseline impulse drive, the sprint version, the sports car version, the hotrod version, and the high-reliability version. Then, you could go on to research Warp Drives, or you could spend time researching techs to improve Impulse drives (a percentage of such research could count towards Warp Drive, on the assumption that if you need to know Impulse Drives to invent Warp Drives, having a better grasp of Impulse Drives would make it easier to grasp Warp Drives). I'm talking multiple branches with a few levels of each tech type. One to reduce the cost, one to reduce the size, one to reduce maintenance costs, and maybe one to increase performance.

Now that's a tech tree that even if it were easy to grasp couldn't be printed out and hung next to your computer

Its been mentioned before, but all the intereations (I,II ...) of technology are not very interesting

I thought this was going to be a plug for we need more morale boosting techs.

We need more Xenobiology Techs for making Space Sharks!

We need more Xenobiology Techs for making Space Sharks!

You Son of a B*tch!

One, the tech tree needs more creativity. There's a wealth of ideas from decades of science fiction. Also I'd like to see more combination techs; e.g. something that improves mining and defense.

Two, multiple requirements. Right now it's basically a bunch of deep un-related technologies. Which not only makes for a more boring experience, but also a more unrealistic one.

Three, better planetary defense. It seems rediculous that you can make a starbase teeming with weapons, but planets get no such bonus.

Four, given 3, it should be much easier to invade other planets. This technology comes way too late.

Yes, exactly as Orion Adrian said. I can't agree with one and two more. The tech tree is very very bland, and needs to have better variety. For example, with drives alone you can make up a variety of names instead of the usual(plasmetic rockets, gravimetric warp drive, exothermic atomic implosion drive...etc.). Make up names that sound cool instead of impulse drive I,II,III...etc! The numerals get boring.

And about the drives, yes, there could be some variety added to them, but not in the form of random drives. For example, you have your standard drive with a set distance, and then you have your more costly drives that can be set to double speed, in return for having no movement points the next turn. Perhaps a drive as well that is cheap and goes fast, but has a chance to breakdown(that gets lower with tech level). My thoughts anyway.

Yeah, more "fun techs" would be great, I agree. We need some exaggerated, over-the-top, totally-unbalancing techs that allows us to really blow stuff up
It would improve the fun factor.