Technological Advancement
The players' home colonies (nations) start at TL 1 and advance through the levels in consecutive order. The colony's TL determines the highest TL unit that can be manufactured by the factories in the colony; thus, a factory in a level five colony can manufacture units TL 1 to TL 5. A factory's TL concerns only the output of units, not their TL. Once a unit has been manufactured, its TL can not be changed. A ship or colony's TL, however, can be improved in three ways.
One way to improve a colony's TL is to issue a build change order to a factory group, changing it from manufacturing to doing research. The factory group will complete its work in process, before beginning the research. A factory group ordered to do research will produce one research point per factory unit (times its TL) per year. The following table shows the number of points required for each increase.
Research Point Requirements
| Level | Research Points |
|---|---|
| 2 | 100,000 |
| 3 | 200,000 |
| 4 | 400,000 |
| 5 | 800,000 |
| 6 | 1,600,000 |
| 7 | 3,200,000 |
| 8 | 6,400,000 |
| 9 | 12,800,000 |
| 10 | 25,600,000 |
The second way to improve a ship/colony's TL is by transferring the technology to another ship/colony. Each ship/colony established has the same TL as the ship/colony that established it. More than one TL can be transferred at a time; a TL2 colony could receive TL No.'s 3 through 6, and thereby rise to TL6. A ship's TL only applies to the TL's it transfers; in order to transfer a level 6 technology, the ship would have to be TL6.
The third method is to buy technology at a market or trade station.