I prefer it this way.

Just remember, the Titan will continue to build up to the point where you have the tech.  Therefore, if you remove one tech center, the Titan will stop at 75% until another lab can be built.  

Now, if someone is building a Titan at a regular or slow pace, it should matter too much because most likely he already has more than four labs already.  The notification for other players is not necessarily too big a deal, since they either already have their Titan or are probably on the way to get one anyway.

However, if someone is rushing a Titan, this creates a perfect opportunity for harassment (unless it is the econ player).  I mean, they have to scramble to get a new lab up, possibly scuttling a civics lab or other important structure (such as a Trade Port or culture centre).  

I'm not saying it will happen in every game, but on smaller maps this really creates some great opportunities, especially 1v1s...

the techs arn't pointless in reality they increase the cost and production time of ultimately a deciding factor in your play style, I don't really care much for the leveling system of titans but having that research is a good idea either having it your way or the way it is now doesn't matter people are still going to get all four before they're titan is used anyway so why change the wording of the hot tip.

In fact I think we should give the titan its own tree in the research tab.

The very first planet can have four tech buildings. Easily so if you add the asteroid nearby. The limiting factor is cost, not tech buildings.

First of all, the AI won't do this, so it seems irrelevant for single player games.

And in multiplayer, attacking the tech buildings is only a viable strategy in perhaps 1 planet matches where a fleet can blockade a planet - but in that case the game is won anyways.

Otherwise, while your fleet of ships tries to overcome the Titan builder's (likely smaller) fleet and kills one-two tech buildings, the Titan builder would long have removed buildings on 2-3 other planets and replaced it with more than sufficient tech buildings to complete the Titan. He could even start doing that preventively after the Titan starts building. You simply won't stop that.

Have you even tried this?

Assuming you're on normal / quick research, it doesn't even really matter right now. The research completes quickly relative to how slow the Titan builds anyways.

And if research was very slow, guess what you have to do? Right, complete the exact x initial percents of the entirety of the 4 stages (-something really no one should have to learn first-) and only at that correct moment start to build the factory and Titan. This will minimizes the amount of time spent with resources locked up. There's however no element of "microing well" or any other such thing involved, as far as I can tell.

I prefer this way too. But the techs seems way too cheap. The titan is strong and should be available late. It should require alot of pretechs. Meaning there should be a few other military techs you need before you can start researching the titan. Only thing you need now is really 4 research stations. It should be atleast twice as hard to get.

The techs also help to make the Titan easier to fund. If you had to pay the combined amount once, for some "supertech", you would need substantially longer until you could even start working on the Titan. This way you can take sort-of babysteps.

Although I like the idea with the "unfinished" Titan sitting there working as a sort-of mega-turret.

I'd go the opposite way, though.

Stage 1: Husk. No shields, minimal firepower.

Stage 2: Full firepower

Stage 3: Shields

Stage 4: Movement + Abilities + Levelling, full Titan

That is an indicative that the wrong approach was taken. Bottom line is: You need to push ALL four research buttons before the Titan does anything at all.

If you take "baby steps" with delays in between, you certainly used the entirely sub-optimal path with resources tied up for nothing at all and delayed arrival of your massive chunk of firepower...

No shields until later is probably a good idea... but firepower and abilities are the main points to having a Titan, these should be the last two upgrades. Especially because "Provoke" and repair ability ships can cover very well for the lack of shields, in particularly so when the enemy fleet goes "pop" rapidly.

Sure. But if the last step simply took 3 minutes less, it'd all be the same, really. You still need to pay in full and you still cannot afford to do only half as-is now, as you get absolutely nothing for doing only half.

You can have weapons and abilities unlocked by tier 1, 2, 3 research, but that means you can get a titan built with just that first lab and even if it has 2 weapon systems and 1-2 abilities or upgrades, it is still on the field of play.

Stacking the research and setting them all to tier 2 (which means 3 labs) might not be much help either.

Can't see much of an opportunity there except on slow research or normal research with fast/faster build speed. And even then the window of opportunity for investing the resources, exploiting that advantage and earning back the money is really quite short. (Foundry + Titan needs to be at 75% when tech 4 completes, actually try it with various settings, if you feel like it).

Well, if this stays, I'm sure the "pro" players will figure out how to do this nicely without delays. And since the only real potential here is to fall over one's own feet (no significant external disuption possible, really), it won't really matter in "pro vs pro" games other than being yet another boring chore.

But I guess with the "slow" research settings it will probably be exploitable when playing "pro vs noobs". The "noobs" will mess something up and research inefficiently while having a Titan construction started.

Perhaps someone gets distracted by some fighting at the frontline, perhaps they did not notice they lost a tech center to a sneak attack, or perhaps because the titan builder doesn't know that he/she REALLY has to scrap and replace buildings on planets if the tech level is threatened to fall below the Titan research's required threshold... things a "pro" couldn't fall for.

Either way, a situaton ensues where a foundry, and 2-3 tech levels worth of expenditure are locked for a prolonged while serving absolutely not purpose at all. Then the "pro" can certainly feel so much more "pro" for having had more than 15k worth of resources extra for many minutes. It will be... fun?!

giveing the titan a research tree is a better idea then a leveling system

actually, I'd rather keep the 4 techs, but doing the research is how you build a titan. Yes, increase the cost of each layer of research so that the total cost is the same. This helps the idea that it's a prototype and you have to research as you build it.

I don't understand what is wrong with making it a single button but just givving it four tiers.