RESEARCH AND YOU - HOW DOES IT WORK?
In the game start, each Research Lab provides 200 Research Points (RP) annually. I will not customize these for each nation, it's enough that they don't have an equal number of them to begin with. These labs depict secret, government-funded research and information about them is not published in the yearly Global News Networks - unless the invention is such that its impossible to keep secret, or that its usage has become so commonplace that neutral analysts have figured it out. For example, a new method for generating energy in engines will remain secret as long as it's only prototyped in labs. As soon as ships utilizing it are built, the name and general proficiency of such engines becomes common knowledge. However, other players cannot know the details of the engines in use nor can they know how many engines each ship utilizes without espionage or active sensor data.
That initial 200 RP can be augmented by further research in the Construction and Production field. More importantly, the scientist in charge of a project adds a number of RP's on top of the annual production, depending on his/her bonus. Thus a scientists with a 10% bonus leading two labs would generate 440 RP each year. Exception to this rule is that if the scientists is working a project from his/her field of speciality, then the bonus is quadrupled (x4). Using the previous example, the RP-bonus would be 200+200*(10*4/100)=160 RP, added on top of the normal production of 200 RP per lab, giving us 560 RP instead of 440. So it's quite important to utilize the proper scientist in the proper field, though not mandatory.
In addition to general research that is available to all, there exist race-specific (player-specific) research, that is basically taking the established principles and then turning them into working prototypes. So it's entirely possible that all players use, for example, Magneto-Plasma Engines as a generic tech but each players utilizes a slightly different version in their ships, depending on their generic tech level and what they need. These player-specific technologies can be stolen through Espionage just like generic technologies can. Also, this means that a player need not only to research a generic engine level but he might have to research several different actual engines - one for missiles, one for fighters, one for fast attack craft, one stealthy military engine, one fast military engine, one commercial engine and so on. When it comes time to design player-specific research, I will give you the choices you have at that moment and you'll either give me a very specific project you want or at least general requirements: "This engine must be as fast as possible, who cares about explosion probability or fuel economy".
You can always peruse the Aurora wiki for the nitty gritty details:
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
I will, in later turns, provide you with the exact RP costs of techs available to you so you can sort of figure out the value of them each. This will also be useful for diplomacy. RP 2000 Tech is not quite as valuable as RP 5000 tech - unless you desperately need it now...
Also, since there will be specific models for sensors, fire controls, engines, jump engines, shields, missiles, missile launchers and all the beam weapons, it would be nifty if you think of suitable names for them, which you can then give me when you design these system. "10cm Railgun C1/V1" is a boring default name whereas "10cm Oerlikon-R11" is a name with character!