Blah-blah-blah, now back to the topic.

Any new system shouldn't make research process harder than the current one - new players already have an disadvantage due to decreasing kernel droprate, implementing and then removing grand observers (and decreasing their kernel droprate too), decreasing droprate of tiered stuff aswell. Current perpetuum life became more harder than that one we have right after release. And btw any changes were already made didn't affected players knowledge base in any way - thats about any rewards you're asking for.

Back to the pool idea - to prevent any not-too-useful-to-spend-research points-to issues, all the technologies may be linked somehow, based on logic or even adding brand new technology lines. Says, to get sensor amps t2, you should learn more about electronics - so you should learn all these cargo and chassis scanners to get an advantage with that.

Guys...
RP idea was taken from the WoW. There you can learn recipes from trainers and with using of scrolls. Crafting with difficult recipes (marked orange) you can raise skill of craft.
If you take an idea from this game, I suggest to add paladins and elves. (why not?)

Ok. Then I suggest a separate topic with a discussion of this idea.

Honestly I do not understand the essence of your question. In the first post, I described a system of movement of money in the game. Obviously the movement and accumulation of money at the miners. If you increase the amount of materials the flow of money to the miners will increase too. Therefore, I am against the increase in material cost. Why do I need to repeat that has been said already?
About barrier study was an important point. Now the man who overcame the barrier of research can relax and do nothing. This is bad because the person is deprived of purpose. He can just dig materials to make prototypes. Materials that are missing, he can buy (cheap).
Kernel of the first level learn quickly and become useless.
First-level decoders generally not used except for begginers (try).

I propose to make the system of research as a process instead of the ultimate goal.

So you want to add kernels and decoders to a construction process? Correct me if I'm wrong.

If so, why don't just add cortexes to a mk-1 robots? They can be farmed instead of arties, or even maybe separate them to Usual (for mk-1) and Uncommon (for mk-2). That will add the necessary of farming in bots production, not just mining.

You forgot about CTs of prototypes. They will creates without any materials except kernels and decoders.

That is a lot clearer! (I was not able to extract that from the initial post, but kudos!) Hunter, can you confirm this is what you meant?

I'm not sure why the research speed has to be adjusted though. One can add a kernel requirement for making prototype, and simply add the option to make an expensive version if you do not have the research. However, I need to point out that the prototype is a small fraction of the per item cost when producing, so in order to balance this well, the unresearched prototype must be extremely expensive in terms of kernels needed.

To demonstrate what I mean, with one prototype you can probably get close to 100 modules (depends on decoder blah blah, just approx). If the researched prototype costs 10M to make, and the unresearched one costs 15M, the average cost on the actual item is 5M/100=50k higher off unresearched prototype. Clearly 50k is a very small efficiency gain given the investment, so the unresearched prototype would need to be very, very expensive.

NOTE: If this is what Hunter meant I think it could be good if that's not clear, but one has to make sure the unresearched prototype is indeed very, very expensive, as otherwise there's no point in researching.

So at the end:

1. To create a prototype, you should use kernels and decoders.
2. To create a CT from a prototype, you should use kernels and decoders.

Is that correct?

Seems we have more of an agreement then. However, I do not think your idea requires research to be done faster (doing that would just create a long balancing act as we've talked about extensively).

Edit:
Can we clarify this whole prototype vs prototype CT thing? I thought it was just Researched VS Unresearched prototypes, where the unresearched one is far more expensive?

IMO creating a prototype CT will be too expensive, cuz you may need a REALLY lots of kernels, to balance the prototyping cost, making the whole idea useless in most cases - still, it will be better to research kernels you have, sell plasma you got from farming and buy a materials or a prototype you need.

So that doesn't change research system at all, just an useful add-on. Research Pool idea sounds good still, and may be linked somehow with Hunter's system. Says, RP-points can be used to unlock tech, or (with increased price ofc) can be used to create a CT. Or kernels can be used to create a prototype CT or to add RP points to a pool. Or something like that.

I dont like RP, because it will lead us to buying desired tech for kernels (believe me, players will demand "tech-shop" anyway). Research should have some kind of randomness. Devs, if you will remove it from research system... well... you can bravely begin to implement "tech-shop" then