Technology

In Terra Invicta, the process of research is divided into science and engineering. Factions must decide how to direct their Research income between public endeavors to advance humanity's understanding of the universe, and narrowly focused private efforts aimed at fulfilling specific objectives or improving their faction's capabilities.

Research & Development
Terra Invicta distinguishes Research from Development. "Technologies" are research into pure science, done to extend worldwide human understanding, while "Projects" are privately applied science and engineering, done to put the new theories into practice in the real world.

Global Research
The human factions collectively research three new scientific principles at once. These are broad understandings of how things like physics, or chemistry, or people, work. Only rarely do they directly lead to some specific change in how events unfold in the game. Instead, their main function is to unlock engineering projects for individual factions.

When a new technology is completed, it becomes available to all humanity.

The faction that contributes the most research to a particular global research will select what is investigated next and will have an increased chance to gain projects based on that research.

The game starts with the following global researches underway:  We Are Not Alone,  Skywatch and  Mission To Space.

Projects
Projects are based off global research, but are developed privately for your faction, to generate effects and advantages in the game, such as unlocking a new component for your ships and habs or providing a bonus to your faction. Most projects benefit only the faction that develops them, and must be independently developed by each faction that wants the benefit.

For example, a scientific principle (global tech) might be Infrared Combat Lasers, which enables factions to develop the Light IR Laser Batteries project, which in turn unlocks the 60 cm Infrared Laser Battery for your ships.

A number of projects are tied to completing objectives that move factions closer to understanding the purpose of the alien invasion or toward its victory conditions.

With sufficient infrastructure, factions may research up to three private engineering projects simultaneously.

The number of slots a faction has determines how many simultaneous projects a faction may pursue and how fast it completes them. Factions get one project slot for free. They receive a second project slot (to work on two projects simultaneously) if a councilor has an org with a project income value. They receive a third project slot if they have built a hab module with a project income value.

Unlocking Projects
Completing a global tech does not immediately make every project available to work on. Each potential project has an "unlock" percentage, which is rolled for each faction to see if they get the idea. If you don't unlock a project when the global tech is first completed, you get a few more chances to unlock it, rolled after each of the next few global techs are completed. But there is a limit to the number of retries, and for projects with a low unlock percentage there is a real chance they will never get discovered in your game. (Notably this includes several powerful late-game drive systems. The ideas are "out there", but until all the basic research is done, no one knows if they'll actually work.)

A project's unlock chance can be increased:
 * by your councilors' combined research score, at a rate of +0.2% per point,
 * by contributing to global research that it immediately depends on (NOTE: As of 0.3.102, this modifier is not shown in the UI), and
 * by the Tech social icon.pngomous Research Groups project.

"Unlocked" projects are still not available to begin work immediately, though; instead they go into a waiting pool. Each month of game time, there is another roll to see if your people have their grants and proposals written, and if it is successful then one randomly-selected project from your waiting pool becomes available for you to start work on.

Stealing Projects
Some councilors may "steal" completed projects from other factions. A project is eligible for theft if (a) you have all the required prerequisites, and (b) the rival faction has completed work on it. Most of the time, "stealing" a project just makes the idea available for you to work on, if for whatever reason it hasn't unlocked for you yet. You still have to do the work and develop it yourself, so this mission is mostly worthwhile for low-probability projects that you might not ever get, otherwise.

If you are far enough behind technologically, a stolen project might come with some research points already completed.

Energy
Energy research concerns the study of high-energy physics and electromagnetism. A focus on these technologies will lead to discoveries in propulsion, power management and directed energy weapon systems.

Materials
The study of Materials Science technologies covers areas such as chemistry, construction, and nanotechnology.

Information Science
Information Science is the study of information gathering and analysis, primary via technical means. It includes investigations into computing, artificial intelligence, automation, and networks.

Life Science
Life Science technologies concern the survival of humans in space environments, genomics, medicine, and human augmentation.

Military Science
The Military Science category covers the weaponization of new technologies and the development of both terrestrial and space-oriented military doctrines.

Social Science
Social Science technologies and projects cover a wide range of human affairs: politics, economics, media and communications, even the mechanism of research itself.

Space Science
The study of Space Science is aimed at preparing us for exploration and development of the Solar System.