Ancient mine fields... I like!
How about racial research aptitudes... the Abbidon might be good at researching the social sciences while the Xiati might be good at researching weapons. An idea I had is that each tech area could specify zero or more research categories which would match ones in some sort of Racial Traits file. Thus, if Point Defense Cannon tech is categorized under Weaponry and Military Science, and it normally costs 10,000 points for some particular level, and your race has 120% aptitude in Weaponry research and 110% aptitude in Military Science research, then it would only cost you 10,000 / 1.20 / 1.10 = 7576 research points. (You could alternatively multiply the research points you put into it by the appropriate modifiers, but I think it's clearer to the player if the cost is changed instead - that way any 5000 point tech you see on the list takes the same amount of time to research as any other 5000 point tech, it's just that which techs are 5000 points may change from game to game
)
Another method to this is simply to assign aptitudes to each of the "theoretical" sciences and then let the applied sciences "inherit" any aptitudes that their prerequisites have - so if you have an aptitude in Physics, then that aptitude will apply not only to Physics but also to Energy Stream Weapons, Shields, Cloaking, etc. This is less flexible in that you can't assign aptitudes to specific techs, but more powerful in that you can affect a whole tech tree with just one change in the data files - sorta like the change in the "one component level, one entry" in SE4 to the "one component family, one entry" in Starfury
Or you can have the best of both worlds and assign aptitudes to any tech that is flagged with an "aptitude" marker, and have techs with a "propagating aptitude" marker propagate their aptitudes through their child techs!
Did that make any sense? Anyone have any other ideas on tech aptitudes?
(Other implementations, reasons why they shouldn't be in the game in the first place, etc.)