Tech Trees

The Tech Trees
The following four tech trees have been announced:


 * Trade Skills
 * Combat Skills
 * Fleet Control
 * Science Skills

Each of the four tech trees have six tiers, each with two skills, totaling 48 possible skills. At one point ZarkSoft had announced nine tiers, but it looks as though this has been cut back to six tiers.

The game mechanics were created to encourage players to focus on two of the four available tech trees. In a standard game, a player should be able to reach tier six in two of the tech trees halfway through the game.

Tech Tree Combinations
A player is not required to select two tech trees, but this is expected to be a common path.

Fleet / Combat - Both mobile and extremely deadly but economically weak.

Combat / Trade - High income and Tough units are great combo but this build lacks mobility and will feel more like a lumbering juggernaught.

Trade / Science - Very strong economically and a good range of methods for subtly wearing down and evading other players but it’s very weak in an open conflict.

Science / Fleet - A highly mobile setup well suited for hit and run tactics with moderate combat and resource options. It isn’t particularly weak in any one area but it’ll take skill and stealth to win a conquest victory and probably won’t win on the economic front either.

Trade / Fleet - Good mobility, strong economic options, but it’s combat strength is only moderate.

Combat / Science - Information not provided by ZarkSoft on this combination.

Skill Time Requirements
Tier 1 - 0.5 days.

Tier 2 - 1 day.

Tier 3 - 2 days.

Tier 4 - 3.5 days.

Tier 5 - 6 days.

Tier 6 - 8 days.

Upgrades to learned skills take 1 day per rank to learn for all ranks other than tier 1 skills which takes 0.5 days to upgrade.

It takes one less skill than the tier rank in an a given category to learn a skill of that rank. (So a tier 1 has no requirements, a tier 2 skill requires 1 skill in that category already, and a tier six skill requires five skills in that category already, etc..) Rank increases do not count towards this requirement.

So the fastest someone could earn a T6, skill at rank 1 is 21 days.