I gotta say, and many would agree with me, that attempting discoveries is expensive. And making enough attempts to make a discovery is VERY expensive. Because of the high cost, and the low chance of success, I am not very motivated to attempt discoveries in the lab. I think that the research cost to attempt a discovery should be based on rank, that is, it would be less expensive for lower ranks (because they don't have as much research production) and as expensive as it currently is for higher ranks. Plus, I think the chance of success should be at least a little bit higher.

Also about the lab, the artifact cost of making special lab artifacts is pretty expensive. I think that too should be based on rank. Lower ranks don't have as much artifact production, so these artifacts should cost less for them. For higher ranks, though, it should cost as much as it currently does.

The discoveries are really meant as a sink for research points once people are close to or have maxed out their research trees. Odds are if the cost is too high for you now (as it is for me) then it is likely that this content is not meant for us yet.

Yeah, I've sunk a few million research into our latest discovery, but then, I don't want Heavy Quasi-Chaotic Blasters quite yet, or Proxy-Universe Reactors, or Topopolis Rings, and I've finished hull, shields, defense, and scan, so there's not much else to do with it.