[FT] Tech Trees

I've seen some people simulate older FT 
designs (Dean G?) using waste space. This is 
fine if all you are simulating is dated tech across 
the board. It sort of is a good generic way of 
handling older designs, though it would have 
been nice to see some % quantification on how 
much more space you should use per year or 
whatever to give an across the board fair use.

OTOH, what if you're trying to simulate different 
tech progressions? You have (as I see it) two 
areas you can approach this from: Limiting 
system types by "tech level" and affecting the 
costs and or masses by the same degree. 

As I recall in Stars!, the tech for shrinking things 
was miniaturization and became very important 
in a tech tight universe. 

I'm sure someone out there has an URL to 
some tech tree ideas along either of these lines. 

My main concern is I'd like to get something 
that lets different nations progress at a very 
slightly different rate in different tech areas, but 
not enough so as to throw the whole shebang 
so far off balance that one nation is 
UberStrong. I find this a common flaw in tech 
trees - once you figure out the advantageous 
progress route or if you luckily get two or three 
potentiating or synergistic advances (J.U.M.P. 
into the Unknown comes to mind here), it 
actually means you've got a huge advantage. 

So, anyone want to offer up some URLs for 
thought? :)  

Tomb Raider
Spacially Perplexed Gropo 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
"In God We Trust... on Cold Steel We Depend."