Their Light Will Be Ours [Stellaris]

RESEARCH AREA: ENGINEERING
HIGH PRIORITY RESEARCH (+1 Hand Size, all subfields)

Void Engineering:
Director of Void Studies: Kaltanash Drekxa
Trait: Driven (+1 Research Options)

COMPLETED: ASTEROID MINING
Asteroids are not as easy to mine as we'd like. For one thing, you have to get to them. For another, they're a lot more like flying clouds of rubble than solid chunks of harvestable ore, at least in most cases. Though early concepts proposed something like a harpoon, our teams have finally settled on a solution more like a giant net or sack.

When combined with the Torch Drive, this will allow us to harvest the closer asteroid orbits of most systems with reasonable efficiency.

Unlocked Ship Module: Asteroid Harness
Size: 15
Maximum Asteroid Capture Size: 1000 or 2x Size of ship, whichever is smaller.
Range: Point-Blank
Reload Time: Unreloadable (Requires Warpdock)

Unlocked Orbital Industry Project: Asteroid Mining Bay
A dedicated section of this orbital habitat allows it to process asteroids for useful ore. Though the required technology is still in its infancy, even this early refinery pays for the fuel expended in an asteroid's capture several times over.

Cost: 100 Raw Materials
Adds Asteroid Storage: 10,000
Adds Manufacturing: 50 Asteroid -> 10 Raw Materials

Polity Benefit: Orbital Surveying
Survey jumps will now update the system's Raw Material count to include asteroids!

Innovation Cards Decked:
Asteroid Fusion [Void Engineering]
Microgravity Electrolysis [Void Engineering]
Minimal Delta-V Expenditure [Void Engineering]
Interstellar Ore Prospecting [Void Engineering]

PROSPECTIVE TECHNOLOGIES:
Orbital Shipyards
The experimental assembly yards of the Clawpair habitat will not suffice in the long term. We need to develop proper orbital shipyards if we're ever going to have a jumpship navy comparable to the Lights'.

When completed, unlocks the "Orbital Shipyard" Industry Project. A required technology towards larger ship classes.

K-Killer Spawnshield
Concerns about potential defenses against relativistic weaponry have resulted in this proposed defense - a network of broadly-scattered drone platforms, each not much more than a can of fuel and an engine, ready to leap in front of any incoming relativistic weapon. Theoretically, it ought to be cheaper than throwing even a single torchship at full speed. Theoretically, the sensors are the expensive part. Theoretically.

When completed, unlocks the K-Killer Spawnshield system defense.

Jump-Capable Shuttlecraft
Though Brillance gave us the designs for a much smaller Warp Drive, we don't have a hull design similar to the Sparks' lightweight shuttles yet.

Though some of us prefer to work on larger and more powerful ship classes, following the Stargazer approach, Brilliance makes the case that smaller ships are more useful for exploratory and military purposes, and therefore should be pursued first.

He still isn't sharing the Sparks' schematics for their own shuttles, though. Apparently even his trust only stretches so far.

When completed, unlocks the Shuttle ship class. (Hull Size from 50 - 150.) A necessary technology towards even smaller ship sizes.

Voidborne Salvage Operations
Given our encounters with multiple abandoned Precursor craft, the topic of how to efficiently perform salvage operations in microgravity has been brought up more than once. If four non-professionals can extract a Warp Core that's better than anything we've ever manufactured, what could we do with some real training and equipment?

Grants the Void Salvagers Polity Benefit, and unlocks the Salvage Bay ship module.

Fusion-Pumped Lasers
Though until now, nuclear-powered lasers have had difficulty reaching high intensities and short wavelengths, the same precision-fusion technologies that the Lights use in their Torchships are readily applicable to the focussing of intensely powerful X-ray lasers. Beyond the obvious weapon applications, these would be useful to our materials science and industry, and could even be used as a form of spacecraft propulsion.

Unlocks the Fusion Laser Battery Industry Project. Of theoretical interest for further research into directed energy weapons.

Microgravity Electrolysis [Dangerous]
Now that we can capture asteroids, it's worth considering how to get the best use out of them. One of the most valuable components thereof is water, which can be separated into hydrogen and oxygen - major components of Reaction Mass.

However, concentrated hydrogen and oxygen have a nasty tendency to spontaneously light on fire - and fire in microgravity is no laughing matter. It stays lit even at far lower oxygen concentrations, spreading rapidly towards any source of air.

So. Safety precautions are going to be necessary. However, refining our own fuel in space is a crucial step towards becoming a truly interstellar civilization.

Unlocks the Orbital Refinery and Orbital Fuel Silo Industry Projects.

The Darkstar Array [Permanent, Unique]
Many proposals have crossed your desk to use the Jagta Singularity's gravitational lensing to form the "mirror" for an astonishingly-precise telescope. This is the one of the best. If it were to be realized, it would have a resolution bordering on the supernatural… assuming it worked as planned.

Unlocks the Darkstar Array Wonder.

Void Engineering Cards in the Innovation Deck: 7
Never-Drawn Technologies: 6
Hand Size: 7