So, let us imagine that the player - you - decides to cut the size of the hyperspace motivator. How could that work ?
First, we'd have to go to the Research panel and check if the Science Council agrees to check the project. This being the beginning of the game, they will agree to take a look at your requirements. By the way, what is it exactly that you require ? Lets take another look at the motivator :
Hyperspace Motivator :
allows you to blink through normal space and "instantly" transfer your
ship to a specific point anywhere in the Universe
So, you can either chose to improve on the size (smaller), on the mass (lighter), or on the conversion rate (more tons per GW). Of course, influencing either of them is likely to have an influence on the rest also (make it smaller and it'll weight less, but will likely use more power to make the jump, or take longer)
We wanted to have a smaller motivator to gain hull points. We submit to the Science Council that the parameter Size should go down, preferably by 50%. Then we wait for the analysis of the Council and its proposal.
The Council comes back saying that 50% is not feasible, but they expect a possible 25% in six months with an outlay of 5,000,000 credits. This is the beginning of the long trek towards a smaller hyperspace motivator, one that could fit in a mere fighter. You give the go-ahead, and all that is left is to wait for the completion of the project.
While you manage the rest of your budding Empire, the scientists
toil and, after six months, present their results : a new model of
hyperspace monitor that has these characteristics :
Hyperspace Motivator Mark II:
As you feared, the welcome decrease in size is accompanied by an increase in energy consumption and a delay in jump time. But there is a gain of 4 hull points compared to the previous version, meaning that an additional blaster can now be fitted into the frigate, and the power requirements for the jump have globally gone down.
This is the essence of my idea. By giving the player the means to determine how much he is willing to pay in time and resources, the player can explore many different ways of defining the vessels he can use. Everything is virtually possible, at the same time (ie slowly), or in focussed efforts (quickly, but on one subject). Sometimes, the result can seem useless at first (ex: the power generator gets a 12% power boost at the cost of a 20% mass increase), but by persevering it can always be possible to have a breakthrough that changes everything (ex: found a way to get 220% more power with a mere 1% mass increase).
This system will need tweaking to correspond to an actual game world, of course. The developers wishing to implement an idea like this will have to define which elements can be researched, what the cost will be, what level of success can be expected, how often does a breakthrough happen and how the global economic level affects research.
Other ideas that can be included are spying elements - how easy is it to steal the results of research, how hard is it to do research securely and how does that impact the speed of the research. Trading technology will take on a whole new dimension, as players who share their research results will not necessarily be able to implement a 30% improvement on a particular element. The mechanics of science can even be pushed as far as managing the science team, with recruitment and evaluation of competence, and the impact of one scientist's character on his collaborators and on the group. These and other possibilities will need to be carefully assessed by the dev team to decide if and how the function should be implemented.
My opinion is that there are undoubtedly a lot of 12-year-olds that play games, but there is now a recognized portion of the gaming demographic that is adult. Among these adults there is certainly a number that may have fun on the latest shooter or arcade driving simulator, but want more. Shooting everything that moves is satisfying, I do not deny that (certainly not with the collection of FPS games I have). Team play and objective games are also a lot of fun, I agree. But deep and complexe simulations, with a heavy dose of randomness and replayability are also a good part of gaming, and I'm sure my idea will appeal to a fair portion of the Civ group, and a part of the RTS fans too.
Kids are understandably not interested in research except as a means of bringing the next big gun to the game to win it. Adults, I'm sure, are more willing and able to understand a system where they decide what to research and what to implement.
It is therefor with great anticipation that I hope to see this idea translated into a game of some sort in the not-too-far future. I would love a space colonisation game where I get to draw my own ships in a simple, in-game 3D editor, and research my own upgrades to the basic tech I have. Discovery and analysis of alien artifacts could bring new areas of research (like, say, shields). Even if the basic premise is standard and already defined by the genre since 15 years ago, the newness of self-defined research (even without self-designed ships) would be quite a treat in my opinion.