Terra Invicta Guide - Science and Research 

I stare at this guide. I stare at my current play-through. I stare again at this guide. ... I have regrets.

*Intro* 0:00 Intro 1:13 Basic concepts 1:43 Mistake 1 - Overinvestment in engineering over global research 3:23 Multithreading research bonus 4:04 Tech tree *Early game goals* 6:55 Early game goals 7:42 Target 1 - Organizations 9:17 Target 2 - Space Mining 10:59 Target 3 - Boost 10:59 Target 3.a - Interplanetary rocketry 12:30 Target 3.b - Nuclear freighters *Further space expansion* 13:18 Further space expansion 14:00 Target 4 - Industrialization of space 14:36 Target 5 - Anti-RNG space techs 15:02 Target 6 - Tier 2 modules 15:49 Target 7 - Directed space research 16:06 Target 7.a - X Research Centers 16:57 Target 7.b - Research Campus *Middle game goals* 18:12 Middle game goals 19:10 Covert Operations 19:57 Trap - Social Media Campaigns *Categories of research* 20:18 Sidegrades and bad decisions 21:20 Sidegrades - missiles 22:48 How to use sidegrades well 32:20 Unification technologies 25:03 Militarizing space 25:33 Early game warships 26:27 Colony ships 26:47 End game warships 28:28 Early game engines 30:03 Middle game engines 30:44 Late game engines *Late game* 32:50 Target 8 - Colony habs + ring habs 33:12 Target 9 - Nanofactories 34:26 Target 10 - Layered defense arrays 35:23 Lasers and phasers 36:27 Trap - high-tech missiles 36:55 Target 11 - Strategic deception + arrival security 37:32 Target 12 - Xenology *Conclusion* 38:13 How to learn the tech tree better 39:23 How to generate more science and tech on earth 42:04 Future video plans and summary

The thing i underestimated the most is just how many faction projects are utter garbage and worthless and that main research will trivialize your stuff extremely fast. The tech tree is intimidating and vast and yet most of it is an actual, genuine waste of research. There are way too many engines that are just small trade-offs of the same numbers, way too many reactors that are a trade-off of the same numbers, there are too many weapons that all do largely the same thing. But also: better missiles don't require prior missiles, coilguns don't need railguns, etc etc. So getting the next global level is vastly superior to trying to optimize your existing stuff.

8:02 You can save even more research by skipping the techs to spawn more orgs by instead relentlessly targeting the other factions with hostile takeover missions. Generally the AI will spread their admin boosting orgs among all of their counselors so you get an opportunity to stack every single admin boosting org on one counselor who can do hostile takeover missions to begin hobble the other factions. There is a snowball effect in that admin both counts as both defense and offense in hostile takeover missions so the faster you can boost one counselor to 25 admin the better. Once you take every single admin org you can then move on to taking every other org you want from them as your percentages to succeed more hostile takeovers easily become 95%+ as early as 2023 without any cash to boost the roll.

Everytime Perun does a guide, I need to start a new game... This game feels a bit like a job. Thank you for this guide, please more of them!

A quick comment on optimizing the research minigame: Don't be too greedy monopolizing the research slots. The AI will invest quite a bit more research to stay in the lead, in the hope of picking the next research, but lose interest once you overtake it. If you want to micromanage it, you can try to push another faction ahead of you to maximize their contribution and scoop them in the end - they will never learn. If you don't want to bother with the micro, try to get a faction with somewhat sane research picks to take over one slot, and contribute if you like the tech, to get them to put in a bit more. Exodus is great because they like engines and lasers, Resistance and Humanity First are decent if you play the other one, and want ships and weapons, and Academy will also do, if the other factions are hopeless at tech. Initiative gets you some space economy mixed with a fair bit of junk. Just don't let Servants or Protectorate hog a slot, they will waste it on pointless Social Science stuff.

Only recently started playing, and honestly, your guides and gameplay episodes have, in my opinion, the best material for actually learning the "why" rather than just the "how". Very informative. Just learning about why to micromanage has shown me a great deal of mistakes in my early game. Thanks, I will delete all my current games now and cry in the corner.

I thought I already knew how technology worked but I soon realized that there was a lot really important stuff I didn't know, thanks for making such a comprehensive video.

I've been listening to you play this game while I'm doing other stuff around the house. Today was the first time I spent more than a couple of minutes actually looking at the video. I love a good god game, I really do. I now know why people would get a glazed look when I tried to get them into Star Fleet Battles and I pulled out 3, three inch, three ring binders and told them that was the rules.

You lose some research bonus if you pursue multiple things in the same area at the same time. I did not know about the right-click. Extremely useful.

Those story line techs can often be critical - everyone doesnt have a MAX operative who can coup any nation or assassinate any aliens automatically. There are several techs to give your armies +25% damage against alien armies and xenoflora (awesome when you dont have the US Military), DOZENS of techs to reduce alien terrorize/abduction/pubbliccampaign missions, which can be useful if you cant keep the aliens off of earth, and of course the MC Reduction techs.

Really enjoying and appreciating your guides/playthroughs, your understanding of the mechanics of this game is simply astonishing.

Bro i wanna play this game so bad. But i only have a couple hours a night. And dude its such a chore once you hop in. Like ck3 is too basic, but this is way too complex. What the actual F am i looking at. The fact it takes the better part of an hour to QUICKLY explain one tab on the screen is wild

It would be great if you could add timestamps/chapters to the guide videos, so that we can find and refer specific topics easily!

The lag when opening certain windows in this game (intel, tech tree, etc), needs to be fixed by the developers. It's borderline softlock territory in some cases.

Another fine example of Perun in action and also that this game is mean to play in a tall strategy, instead a wide one. Such QoL improvements are needed in the research screen to make MORE clear the range, power and fuel class of every engine and make more obvious which project are side projects. I have no problem having the full set of Australian pets in the missile area, but having and idea of what swarming, HE or penetrator will help a lot.

Love this so much! Thanks for your amazingly insightful guides on this fantastic game. It's cut through a LOT of the garbage and helped put me on the right path. Your "kill your first ship" guide was fantastic. Most wanted topic? ------- National Priorities and what they actually mean and do. The game would have you believe you need them all, but that's crazy :D

"Don't just research it to clear . . . your list" but I am sooooo tempted by this game

Thanks you so much! I needed this terribly. I can already tell, you've helped my gameplay immensely.

Please keep up these awesome guides! one every 50 min or so would be perfect! seriously though you are awesome!

Wonderfully done Perun!

I think this game has a massive problem with the tech tree, especially the weapons and engines. Maybe would be a good idea for the devs to prune it down a bit and make it more straight forward. Giving a 1000 different options for weapons and engines sounds good on paper but it makes it a nightmare to navigate as a new player. There's just no need for this many variants when they barely differ between each other.

Awesome work. Great clues and very useful advices you gave! Straight to the point and never ruined the game by giving out your peronal opinion. Ty! Best video out there!

Love this guide. Huge thanks. Really like how u explicitly described the "what, where, and why" for building a research space eco. I used to not understand why ur research was really high around year 35-40. Like 3x my own output. Didnt know there were tier 3 versions of science and i definitely dodnt tske advantage of all the orbits in mercury. I did mostly mines on mercury with some modules.

I’ve been playing TI pretty much nonstop since it hit Early Access. I consider(ed) myself fairly knowledgeable about the game. I am 5 mins 17 second into this video and I’ve already learned two things that will change how I play the early game completely. 😂. Keep up the great work Perun. We need you

This really helped me with my play-through. Your videos are really great.

Just thinking about it - I could see an investment into a side-grade engine be worth it later into the game to split the strain of fueling ships between two resources if the need for ships is outpacing the economy

Fantastic video. Thanks! Signed up as a patron. :)

Oh thanks! i also didn't bother with Arrival Security during early game, will do that from now on.

Loved the guide, but seeing the academy run still in 2025 made me sad :( Thanks for all the quality content!

I've been waiting thanks pal

I'd love to someday see a video that shows every variation of faction-specific story events, including the endings. Preferably arranged by faction. I understand that would be incredibly difficult to make, though.

Mission to Mars-> Industrialization of space -> Mission to The Moon. Here is how it works. You research Mission to Mars (Or let the AI do it as Humanity First loves rushing it), as it is researching you start Industrialization of space. When Mission to Mars finishes you send a probe and a station in orbit. Until the station hab gets there, you dump all research in Industrialization of space, so it finishes and you get Construction Module project ASAP. In the meantime get Mission to Mars and settle a mining base on a spot with water (there are 2 of them). All the boost you ever need is to send the first hab with a mine, a second hab and the mars station. Having an org giving boost is useful. When first mine is operational you quickly set down a second base and get the second mine build in space so it costs minimal boost. The second base must be placed in such a way that you get some of every resource! Even 0,1 fissiles/precious metals is enough, but you must have some. Provided you sent a probe and a station as soon as Mission to Mars finished and timed your construction module (build in space while the hab is still traveling) you should just barely have a trickle of every resource from your 2 Luna bases and a station with a construction module around Mars about the same time (or even slightly earlier) than you would usually get your first mining base on Mars. At that point you don;t need boost as you can build all the habs you want on Mars in 30 days no boost needed. So you can settle every single base and have it mining as early as 2025 while never investing in boost on earth. The reason you need every resource is that mines and power sources use trace amounts of rare resources and if you don't have any then you must wait over a year for a damn 0.00something precious metals to get there from Earth ruining the whole plan. I even had to build a whole third base on Luna to get this plan done. As a side note when colonizing an outpost or a station the game must be changed so that travel time to destination and picking a place to settle are split up. When you send the hab from Earth you select Mars (or another destination) and when you are 30 days away (time when hab arrives and actual construction begins as per building time in space) only then you pick a destination and lock it in. And if the one you wanted is no longer free - tough luck [pick another landing site. No landing sites left? Well you just wasted a hab and the resources to get there so get out off of my planet! I am not pissed or anything but when my construction module finishes I sure as hell am settling where I want. I will not wait politely a year and 3 months staring at the empty site I wanted for some other faction to get their hab to Mars from Earth while I already filled all other spots. Especially when it's the damn servant calling dips on Olimpus Mons. I am building a base there and if you want it when you get there in a year go ahead and try to take my already mining base with a hab on a rocket...... No I am not pissed at all. ;D Speaking of infuriating things we ned to be able to abandon control points in a nation on per-control point bases, not per-nation bases. It's stupid if I am in charge and I want to abandon all control points in a nation except the executive, to save on my control limit but retain control of the executive of a nation and not being able to. All or nothing just makes no sense here.

This was very helpful, thanks!

It would be cool if there were terraforming techs to say let you build habs on Venus and I wonder how the full tech tree will look when the earlier start gets released

You saved me countless hours of my life, thank you sir

Great time to release such a comprehensive guide. Next patch is going to change all tech strategies by introducing a lot of RNG, so timing was perfect :)

I was looking at the wrong tech tree, game should come with instructions like those in the vid, thank you.

One thing that might also drive a "Mission to X" tech choice that I have found useful is: how much STUFF can I distract the AI with? Unlocking the Mission to Asteroids gives the AI faction oodles of targets that aren't my things to play with and as the AI can't seem to handle a space economy all that well will pretty much ensure your rivals all wither on the vine in a few years, leaving you in peace. Mostly.

Excellent guide. Very helpful. The one thing I would have liked your feedback on is the tech spread. As you mentioned, there is a bonus to contributing to all the research projects. I noticed that Tortuga is obsessively avoiding having more than one of those projects be the same type (like, don't have 2-3 space research projects at the same time). How bad is the inefficiency of researching the same category of thing compared to spreading the categories out?

This makes me want Perun to try a Brannigan style Missiles-Only playthrough.

Great guide! could you do one on councilors, what traits or missions to look for at early, middle and late game stages?

Your intro was clipped started with day everyone

Oooohh nice. 2 guides in 2 days

Thanks for the guide.

Another invaluable entry in this excellent 'Guides' series and once more I am immeasurably grateful. I am now on approximately my 8th or 9th start and am only beginning to understand how in-depth this game really is, and how no 2 play-throughs will ever be the same. Here's a question though - Lunar resources. I understand this is randomly generated as I have seen many variations but exactly when are the Lunar resources actually generated? I ask as after some serious save spamming, I have discovered that even though I was first to get a Luna probe done, the resources available were about the worst I had ever seen - pitiful only begins to describe it with one only source of water (5 units) that had almost no other resources there and the only 2 fissile sites had nothing else either. No matter how far back I reloaded I got the same probe results even with several turns before the probe arrived, I got the same. So are they decided right at the start? A great way to prevent save spamming but not so good to try & sort out a mission to Mars. Everything now depends on getting those Mars sites claimed - and somehow getting the resources. to borrow a now famous quote...'Leave it with me'.....

Thanks for all these great guides! btw, volume seems to drop a bit around the 7:00 mark.

I am so going to get this game at some point & it will take over my free time

Buildings still consume the water/volatiles listed in their upkeep even with farms, the crew upkeep seems to be separate and not listed in the colony resources.

There's also a "space tugs" engineering project in the chemical rocketry tree that also speeds up colony deployment and boost investment like Nuclear Freighters does, and its pretty cheap.

Thanks for making this, and for continuing to cover psycho-level strategy games after the real world military stuff blew up

wonderful insights. i normally research everything but now ...

So when I want to find something about Terra Invicta, then I found Perun again.

Thanks!

Tech guide this we need

thanks my dude

So I am a new player and I have to be honest that the tech tree to me is one of the more frustrating things that I have with this game. This is not meant as a criticism of Perun. I loved his series on Humanity First and Academy, but even with this guide I am still struggling to maintain a coherent research path. For example why are there so many engines? I also wish that you can queue research. For example if I wanted to go towards Space commerce and see what techs I need why not have it be queued. If I don’t get enough research to lead the next tech that is fine and the next global tech would still be siting in queue until I will be able to choose the next one. Sorry, I am not trying to bash the game, but I feel like the research can be slimmed down by a lot. Not sure if you guys agree and this was more of a rant of me liking the game but really not enjoying the tech tree.

protip 1: labs give benefits to specific tech categories protip 2: buildings are super cheap to rebuild

Personally, I take all 3 research slots asap, usually 2 until I'm out teching the other factions by a margin. The reasoning is to control the expansion into the solar system until I am ready to, by preventing the 'mission to' techs. Max pips research until you have 50% of TOTAL required research and can remove all investment pips and still win the research. You can safely max out projects and let ai finish the projects for you. Thus, getting AI to research things for you, although be aware they might not invest any points if your too far ahead and they aren't interested in that tech. This means you can ensure you have all required projects unlocked and built up enough resources to take more locations before anyone else. Initial research I usually get Augmented reality and biotech first, leads to early Councilor cybernetic upgrades. Generally, focus on nation building from there up to Great Nations. Once you've got a large unified nation or several, taking say Mars in one massive push before any other nation even gets a probe there should be easy.

I fell victim of thw Great Nations research sink when I first got the game for at least 3 saves, and I also fell victim of researching every reactor tech that I unlocked because I didn't have a guide to tell me how all drives compared to one another. Now I always rush for Adamantines and Molten Fission to get a Pegasus fast, and I never even touch solid fission reactor I.

I really want to see you do an Africa only run. If anyone could nail it, it'd be you.

I think merging countries is more than just cp bonus. It improves the efficiency of economy, welfare, Unity and knowledge priorities. Further, it provides extra defenses for that population. Laos is easy to take with coups or purges. However, incorporate Laos into China and it is almost impossible to take it.

It would be really interesting to see you play the initiative and never pick the tech, just respond and adapt entirely

Thanks for another awesome video. What mod is that, that let's you hide tech you do not want to research like ever?

Really good guide. There's nothing I can disagree with. There are many ways to play - I've used escorts, chemical rockets and missiles to take on big fleets (including mother ships). One thing about engine tech to consider: fuel type. Current playthrough, I'm struggling to feed my fleet on Hydrogen, so have employed alternative tech for different roles to save water for my main battle fleets.

Thanks for the info and valuable tips ;) Q : How do you unlock the 3rd research slot ?

Are the project filtering and alien threat meter on the main map features on the experimental branch? Edit: Oh, and do you have any opinion on producing boost and using orbital facilities to generate cash instead of developing Funding planetside?

27:40 Oh god, they finally patched in a way to hide useless research. I think I can finally go back to this game.

I would love to see an H-Orion drive only run. Especially as HF, the aliens would be questioning how humans have ships that can outmaneuver them before 2030 just to realize the mad lads are riding nuclear shockwaves into there battles fleets.

40:32 Cohesion very easy to ou on US, if you have 5 wars (no matter with who), 5 rivals with (control points of country - 1 or more) and advising of councilors. Its easy to 2025 up to 10 and have 1k+ research (Cohesion boost research up to 7)

IIRC, its the best Battery (layered defense) and Heavy Battery (BattleStation) which are assigned to your defenses, not the best Cannon.

I feel that this guide, while very informative, is still missing answers to some important questions players may have. Like sure, mining in space is important. But if you have a choice between more mines or better mines, how do you determine which to take? Or yes, you want to skip a couple of early engine designs. Makes sense. But how do you determine which engine is good enough to aim for? You want to plan ahead with research, but short of reloading a game how can you tell when you'll need what? How do you turn reactive use of the tech tree into proactive use of it? Like say you plan to run your ships on water. But turns out your game spawns with little water and instead you find tons of fissionables. How do you go about adjusting your research path to adapt to this new resource situation? I agree that the whole tech research screen could do with a big UI overhaul. More filter options would be great. Like for example tick a box and see only the techs that improve space mining.

Can you do one of these in detail on techniques for map painting

If you are lucky you should try to go for the nsrw or in the game called the neutron flux tourch. Extremly cheap research for the quality of the engine.

I am still very confused on why it takes research to create a super state. I can understand it from a gaming standpoint but I cant help but giggle at the idea of a bunch of guys in a lab just all staring a map of the earth pondering deeply, then one moves forward and erases a border and they go... "Ohhhhhhhhh!"

oh............. wow furiously starts taking notes

What's that? You like drinking from a fire-hose? Have I got a tech tree for you!

Did you talk about batteries (not gun kind), heat sinks, and radiators in this one? So much. I also wonder if nano factories around Venus can be cost/time effective way of making the transition to anti matter production around Mercury? Solar arrays are probably just as effective at Venus and swapping out your Mercury nano factories with ones at Venus might be the way? There’s not much building to do at Venus so nano factories could make money for longer if you build them at Venus perhaps without doing upgrades and just starting out there with level 3 Hab.

Perun, how is it that your in game windows open and close so smoothly? Is there a certain graphics setting or a mod that I'm missing? My windows are clunky and take a long time to open and close!

Just a quick tip: If the engineering project you need isn't popping out research techs (EngProj) in the same category. It SEEMS to spawn new options in the same category, so if you are waiting for a key drive, researching cheap unrelated drives will give you huge boost to finding the one you need.

One of the first mistakes I made was playing Academy and trying to beeline for unification techs with the EU.

I just wish we could mouse-over or click us to a list of what the engineering projects and engines actually _do_ in the techtree - first playthrough is _very_ much in the dark.

About researching all the missiles: When ECM says it counters "familiar" missiles, does that mean you have to have researched them yourself?

I’ve got to sleep… but I also gotta gee Perun/Terra Invicta fix…

Perun very good and informative, thank you. Something that I am having issues with when I play is how do I unlock the second and third counsel engineering tech slots? And a interesting house rule for your play through, all space stations and colones must have at least one science building on it.

Perun your pretty damn cool

What do all the 40 different laser types do? Which ones go on your Layered Defense arrays? I still don't get it. Just the largest one, the medium one, small?

Could you make a guide to optimizeing influance gain, you have sooo much more then I do at this point in the game.

For new viewers: Research campuses (featured around 17 minute mark) now take 1 mission control and only produce 80 science per month. The MC cost is significant, beware!

Yeah guide!

I've been working on certain tech rushes using the science traits to boost relevant fields. It's kinda frustrating because it's really rng dependant because ideally you want to stack councilors. So with 2 chemists I got nuclear fusion in space done in January 2026. Great Nations rush is also really strong, I was able to get the Pan Asian Combine in 2027. The social science is much easier than chemistry as you can find social science very easy. I also had 4 computer scientist run but I didn't really gain much from all those techs. What I found over the course of these playthroughs is that these research fields are not created equal. A doctor is practically worthless. Physics doesn't really have any application until you've done a massive amount of chemistry. Military science is very strong. Computer science is almost worthless. Social science will let you control the entire world. The bonus you can get from having a councilor in the field of research is equal to all the org bonus you could get on all your other councilors, you just have to level the trait to 35. Two councilors will get 70, which means with a few good orgs you could get over 100. So the science traits can literally double your research into a given field, and you will get it twice as fast. One good way to get science councilors is to turn the academy. When another faction fires a turned councilor you can hire them. This is the best way to get new characters because they are already leveled. So find a professor or astronaut with a good science trait, turn them, and max their fail chance.

Dumbo Drive. Best engine ever. For the name alone. But jokes aside, best simpley start researching the basic tech, the more one has of those, the more options one gets later on.

How do you make it so that when you mouse over the tech, it shows the details? When I mouse over the tech in the full tree, it only shows the top part with no details. I can't tell how good components are in my game without researching them unlike in yours.

will you do separate guides on engines/generators + weapons/armor please, ist bit overwhelming

How much should I prioritize the story projects? Is it reasonable to deprioritize them until I get a bunch of xeno research centers in orbit? I guess it is reasonable to get the one that allows me to see aliens (but they are also very cheap until that point)

I want an org/councilor guide!

The real problem with engine, is that except for the ion engine, and most very end of the tree ones, all the other ones you can research are utter garbage. None of them are improvement to what you already are, they are slow, can't go anywhere, and can't be used for combat. They are cheap, but frankly, you are not killing aliens with any of them, and human faction are worthless at space superiority so... Also, I think some of the tech branch should gain a bonus for other tech of that branch: E.g. All arc laser should give a bonus to other arc laser research, same for phaser, plasma, laser(IR->Green->UV), missiles, coilgun, railgun. Similar should happen to engine from the same global tech... or just "fusion, fission, propellant" distinction. Make researching those tech have value. The only difference with the various engineering project, is just bigger guns(or smaller). Making the first one can be difficult, but any other size should be far easier after that.

Latest update changed a lot of things, either I was very lucky in my previous save, or now I'm doing something wrong.

What is the mission control cap for the aliens not hating you

Im on my 3rd paythrough attempt and its starting to make sense thanks to your help. You implied that there is an MC max by country yet i cant find any info on this topic. What am i missing?