As an additional research chain, there is many different effects, modules, and structures that can go into "Political Science". In the next few posts I will list a few things that might work: with name, description, effect, and notes.

Edit: any feedback is much apreciated, and can be made at any time.

Edit 2: please quote or reference the post you are reffering to for ease of use. I will give my responces by name of the poster.

Edit 3: the ideas may not be in order and are only first draft, so please note that while posting.

Diplomatic Education: "the study of inter-planetary ties in defenses and their effect on other legions." This represents research into how your planets' passive defenses can bring harm to the planets of enemy players.

(only works on planets that you have listed) With each of 3 stages, you gain a 1% increase to the legion bonus of planets that your allies own. At the same time, the planets of enemy players gain a -1% penalty to legion bonus (minimum 0%)

Not only does this increase the benefits of being in a legion, but also creates a way to make the planets of enemies more vulnerable to a small degree. Also, the bonuses and penalties can only stack to +/- 6% for any planet, to avoid abuse. However they can be used to cancel each other out.

nuh uh, i just got dan to put a cap on the legion bonuses.

I think you could rename this Homeworlds or make a seperate tree for it. In homeworlds? I posted a couple things for this tree, Capital City(make a homeworld, you can only research if you meet requirements for homeworld, I said maybe 6 colonies), Riot Control( increases hidden cap for taxes on homeworld), High-Tech Buildings( 2 tiered, first increases population by 10% on homeworld, 2nd increases production on homeworld, P.S. I didnt post this in homeworlds? and will add a * for every other I think of that didnt get posted there), I cant think of anything else, Ill add stuff as I think of it to this post.

EDIT: Increased Education*(Increases research on homeworld), Interplanetary Teleportation*(Allows you to teleport people from a crappy planet to your homeworld to increase pop. but can only be done 5min. after someone stops attacking your planet, I dont know how long it takes to regain pop so I dont know how much of a benefit this will be)

I'll put it this way
1) BIG IDEAS... How long would it take to implement this?
2) Complete overhaul of the game. (home world with many new features... making it a big chunk for anyone to learn)
3) New structures. Planet size limited. Increasing size = possibly too much production. Balancing issues for a single planet.
4) Forever home world, forever high production with 1 planet. Makes most planets look dull. Terraform home world... risk free

Here is my responces:

Robert:The use of a homeworld is as a center of govenment, that's why I used it in a politics research tree. Also, I will se if I can use those ideas in further research levels.

Barracuda:
1. I am building the research tree in a way to minimalize the requirements to use it in the game, by linking the improvements to already-used parts of the game.
2. The idea of creating a 'homeworld' is just a name. I am creating effects that do change a single planet into the equivalent of a homeworld, but do not actually make any designation, created that way for the same reason as #1.
3. The use of 'homeworld' buildings are made to be on a large atmospheric planets: not only as size is the in-character symbol of power, but out-of-character use for large gunk planets (though works better on planets with resources).
4. As I mentioned in #2, there will be no actual 'homeworld' game mechanic. so even though you can only limit some of the new buildings to one planet, all you have to do is destroy them and move them to another planet.

Lastly, as an addition to everyone:
Almost all of the buildings, bonuses, and modules of the political research chain will be designed for the purpose of protecting planets, players, and legion members. I am trying to design them for effectiveness at all levels of play, and to minimalize the effort it will take to make it work.

here is the long discussed capital city part of the chain:

Government Structuring: “the study of creating an effective political center for trade and public relations.” This (as the name suggests) represents the creation of government on planets. It has 3 stages and gives buildings for construction on planets. Here are the three buildings:

Governor’s Outpost: can be built on any planet that habitation can be on, but can only have 1 per planet. Has a small size and grants a +5 increase to the legion bonus of the planet.
This helps to more effectively protect a planet, and in-character it represents the government organizing a planet’s defenses.

Trade Outpost: just like the Governor’s Outpost, it can be built on any planet that habitation can be on, but can be any amount per planet. It has a normal size, but increases the availability of all resources of the planet by 1 level, as long as the availability level remains average or lower. Although it does not ‘fix’ bad planets, it does make poor planets better, at the cost of used space.
In-character it represents the increased range of products available as they are shipped in from other planets.

Capital City: The third building has a large size, cannot be built on the same planet as a Governor’s Outpost, can only have 1 built per player, can only be on a planet average size or larger, and can be built on any planet that habitation can be on. However, it adds +10 to the legion bonus of the planet and a boost to max population.
As a bigger form of a Governor’s Outpost, it helps to more effectively protect a planet. In-character it represents the political presence of a center of power and the population of a dense city, where a planet’s defenses can be coordinated.
As an added note, when you take the planet of an enemy and it has a capital, you may choose to either make it your new capital or raze it to the ground. (Just think of the blow to the player to find their city in ruins!)

Organizational Systems: “the study of advanced ship management programs for use in planetary operations.” This represents using computer programs on your ship to prepare for when you defend a planet. It has 2 levels that provide ship modules. In-character the two modules are computers, with the effect that they allow the ship better communication with people in charge of defending the planet, and it provides a relay network for coordinating strategies (combat and information respectively).

Military Operations Computer: increases the attack and defense bonus your ship provides to a planet you are defending. Has a relatively small size, but it provides no bonus to the ship itself.

Covert Operations Computer: increases the cloaking bonus your ship provides to a planet you are defending. Again has a relatively small size and provides no bonus to the ship itself.

No on so many levels
1 this would be a total revamp of the game in enough ways that im not going to list them
2 again i just got Dan to put a cap on that stupid legion bonus
3 way to easy to be abused by multis
4 =?
5 there will always be bad planets, get some scan and find some more

Cothordin: I now realize the huge effort it will take in putting it in those buildings and how they can be abused. Though I still think some sort of "capital city" needs to be impemented. Any ideas?

As for organizational systems, That was meant to be the name and description of the research stage, with the two modules lower on the post being the result of the research. Sorry I made it confusing with the underlining.

Why?
This will only create more problems while solving none and would require a gigantic amount of time to implement. This is one of things that would be "cool" to see but not worth the effort in anyway.

Yes, sorry I got carried away with the idea.

Coth, its ok if these ideas are pie-in-the-sky. How they are decided, prioritized, and developed is up to those working on the game.

I take notes on all ideas presented in the forums, be they big or small.

Alright i got a bit carried away as well, my B ill clam dw0n

After thinking about it from a different angle, and the failure of previous ideas, here is a different one. It will take a while to implement, but will hopefully it is more straightforward.

Diplomatic Immunity: “the study of using political ties to gain designation as a ambassador for the purpose of protection.” This represents all the time, favors, and red-tape that can be used to ‘shield’ yourself against being attacked. It comes with 3 levels of a ship module:

Diplomat’s Beacon (1, 2, and 3)- with this on your ship, it increases the energy needed for a round of combat against you (increasing with higher levels). In-character it represents the effort that the other pilot must go through to attack you without angering a race’s government.

On a more complicated way, (and requiring a lot more to implement) this may also have use as a building on a planet (an embassy) to increase the energy and credits to attack it. It would work as a deterrent against noobs taking valuable planets from higher players, and to make more defenses against other high players. If it is used however, it should be limited that only those who researched it gain its bonus, for when the planet is successfully taken:
In-character: those who have not studied the use of an embassy would have no idea how to use one that was on a captured planet, as opposed to planet defenses that are mostly automatic anyways.
Out-of-character: if the enemy who took the planet would also gain its benefit without the effort of researching it, it makes it just another pain in the butt to recapture the planet, instead of a strategic tool.

i just want to throw out there that i HATE this idea

Hunter, throwing out that you hate the idea, and not stating why, isn't conductive to a comprehensive and informulating discussion over a suggestion, or an idea. Constructive criticism wins over flaming.

On-topic: I do think some of these ideas are large, and comprehensive, but can be abused; I do however like the Embassy bit where you were talking about making it harder for people to attack those with it by increasing energy. That's not a bad idea by any stretch. The rest of the ideas could use tweaking, or some improvements -- and some may just be too large to actually implement -- but otherwise, it is a -solid- idea, with some faults here and there.

I beg to differ, increasing that would eventually cause attacks to cost ridiculous amounts, to the point in which to effectively pvp one might need over 300 charge (AKA +2 energy per 300 min) which considering many other ideas that have been very much well liked would be counter productive. Now as maybe a mission tier reward i could see the opposite -1/2 energy to attack, but increasing other's? no.

i beg to differ. if i really went into and spent the time to go into detail WHY i hate this idea... it would be = to flame bait, and would never end. a simple rebuke is just fine and served its purpose well. to do more is a waist of my time. to be honest i dont think these ideas will get implemented any time soon.

Hunter: I would actually like to hear what's wrong with it, as long as you can give some improvements to replace them. The reason I put this on a forum was so it can evolve into something usable. To do that I need more than just replies; I need suggestions.

Cothordin: I wasn't intending for the energy cost to get that far out of hand. However, your idea of an energy reducer would be a great countermeasure.