Really enjoying this mod so far (and can't wait for some of the features that are apparently in the pipeline), but i wanted to have a discussion about how people use it, which settings they go for, which other mods to combine it with, how it affects the overall pacing of the game, etc.

Before this mod came out, I'd been using the options in the Tech Advancing mod (https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=735268789) to increase the length of time research takes, and to massively increase the time it takes to research techs that are above your faction's tech level, and then I used the Technology Blueprints & Reverse Engineering mod (https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2010527094) to mitigate that.

The tech blueprints mod adds blueprints as an item you can find or buy which adds a configurable percentage of research progress to a random unlocked but unresearched technology of a given tech level (i.e. there's separate neolithic, medieval, industrial, spacer versions of the blueprint item), and it also lets you reverse engineer buildings and items to give you a boost to the technology that unlocks the item (I think this is automatically generated from the research tree).

Together, that made for a nicely thematic balance, encouraging a gameplay based around scavenging and reverse engineering from ruins or technologically advanced enemies or trading partners - rather than just sitting at home and rapidly powering your way through the tech tree. Although the downside of the blueprints mod is that the blueprint studying & reverse engineering labours apply their bonuses almost instantly, rather than needing a lot of studying - so e.g. if you looted a stack of 200 components, you could reverse engineer them in quick succession to unlock fabrication almost instantaneously (although you would need the prerequisite techs first), which always feels a bit wrong.

Now those mods both seem to be completely compatible with this one (although the building reverse-engineering feature is sort of in tension with Life Lesson's proficiency gains from deconstruction, and arguably it doesn't make sense that you can reverse engineer something you don't have the proficiencies for), but they both have similar effects in terms of slowing down the research gameplay and gating it behind certain acquisitions, and running them together can make things very slow indeed - albeit dependent on settings as well as luck.

Anyway, I'm just curious how other people play the mod, what settings you use, what other mods you run it together with or instead of, what the mod author's vision is in terms of whether those other mods fit together conceptually, etc