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.

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.

The faction that contributes the most research to a particular principle will select what is investigated next. Contributing research also increases the chance a faction will unlock projects related to the tech.

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.

Council Engineering Projects
With sufficient infrastructure, factions may research up to three private engineering projects simultaneously. Projects will typically either trigger an effect or unlock a new component for your ships and habs. A scientific principle might be "Directed Energy Weapons Doctrine," and it's one prerequisite for the "60 cm infrared laser battery" project, which in turn unlocks a new weapon system for your ships.

Not every faction will get access to every project. Each project has a trigger percentage for each faction. While certain critical projects will always be available to all factions; for many, only a few factions may have access to it, and it's possible some non-vital techs may not appear in a particular campaign at all, simulating that it's unclear whether some real-world ideas will actually work.

Projects won't always become available immediately after the world hits the prerequisites for them. While public techs are locked in until completion, factions may change a project you are pursuing at any time and bank the completed research. Some projects are also repeatable, but cost more for each time a faction completes it.

Some councilors may steal completed projects from other factions.

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.

The number 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. Multiple orgs or hab modules with project income values provides bonuses to all projects the faction is working on.