Research

Research is how you acquire new technology. Without technology, your empire will be stuck in the stone age (well, at least the early space age), and will easily be defeated by more advanced empires.

There are a variety of technologies in the game. Not all of them can be researched from the beginning of the game, however. Many of them have prerequisites, either in the form of other technologies, or in the form of empire traits. You can also define your own custom prerequisites using formulas like in SE5, though currently this will slow the game down significantly.

Technologies can be used to unlock many things. (Not peanuts, though; for peanuts you need money.) For instance, components, facilities, mounts, and of course other technologies.

If you want to mod technologies, the file you need to edit is TechArea.txt.