one of the ideas EmakeP suggested was to make research only dependent on the eras, so you research dark empire technology from rotj for example this greatly simplifies research and makes a progression of the ships that are available

 

you would still be able to choose the era you want as the starting era or limit it to ships for just that era

 

given that what is a good division of eras?

 

old republic (kotor era ships from comics and from the games)

clone wars (EPI - EP3 ships)

A New Hope (some of the older ships plus all of the basic trilogy craft)

Empire Strikes Back (primarily a tech advance for the empire, ISD II, executor, new ties)

Return of the Jedi (this would include ships like the mon remonda and mc80a, dominator destroyer)

Dark Empire (lots of new ships here)

New Jedi order (the vong would have an independant research tree based on the power level of the ships)

Legacy (eventually)

i think that would be a great idea.  what also would be cool if some ships would get replaced with time. and some wouldn't.

 

like the venitor would vanish after the clone wars. along with the acclamators. VSD's would stay for a while untill the VSD MK III came out and it would replace them.

 

i think this would be very nice since you could have ships appering and dissapering based on timeline. as well some era upgrades should cost more or take longer the resurch like going form kotor to clone wars.

 

but none the less a solid idea

there would be a 'all' research option as well

Sound really good. The only problem would be to implement this for the Vong and Rebels

I like the idea of era research, howerver, could you also keep class research as well?  Such as: destroyer designs, frigate designs, etc.  Still more streamlined than the old system with all the tech research, but allows for slower, deliberate games that advance from fighter swarms to corvette/frigate skirmishes to big guns duking it out at the end (if the battle last that long).  For me, at least, that is one of the qualities that made warlords so fun to play.  Having all ships from the start takes away the buildup and variety, as the ai will use the best ships in its fleet, forcing you to do the same.

Class research can be done, the era research is actually not working as well as planned so it may be scaled back a bit in favor of a simple class based one

That sounds like a good plan to me, at the moment the eras are kinda bugged. Like Howlrunners being in the Imp. tech on ANH setting.