I'm sure I saw this before in the forums, but since I couldn't find in the approved / disapproved lists nor doing a search ( sorry, only looked for the last 2 years) I decided to post here.

How about creating an alliance research? It could be used to increase the researches already available or implement new options (like cargoes or recyclers capacity, greater mine production or increased moon forming chance, for instance).

It could use the labs from all members or be bought with some currency given to the allied top of the week we already have.

I believe most old players choose their alliances based on friends and newcomers look for the big ones for protection. Maybe in time new groups would form based on playing style and shake things a bit.

Would the research only be in place for player whilst under the umbrella of the alliance as a global thing, if they were to leave would they lose that global technology?

Oh, surely! That would increase the loyalty to the alliance. Also, retaining it would make quite a mess if a player jumped from one alliance to the other looking for researches (for both the dev team and the other players).

So it would be like plugging in to a terminal. Having the benefits of that terminal whilst at that alliance. If you leave then the use of that communal knowledge would be lost to you as a player? That sounds like quite an idea.

I'd plus one that......+1!

If this suggestion were to be implemented, I think that it should definitely try to make the Alliance Combat System have more options or more places to expand, rather than a one-track upgrade that only increases the number of fleets able to participate in an attack or in a defense.

This is a really good idea . Not too difficult to implement , and adds value to alliances

This could also be affected by wars etc (to actually give wars a purpose )

How could wars affect alliance technologies? They don't affect individual technologies, so this would be a completely new precedent.

Spin it around the other way. Players in an alliance who are at war, they might leave those said alliances, that might then have an adverse effect on that alliance technology.

If Alliance Research is a communal thing, then one of that community leaves, the participation in that communal activity also shrinks.

However, this would treat technologies as something that is not permanent after it has been researched. Given that members leaving an alliance cannot deplete an alliance's knowledge, I'm not sure whether lowering research levels because someone cops out is a very good option.
I would say that a member leaving would penalize times and materiel available for conducting research, but not research that is already done.

But this doesn't stop the individual player researching his/her own technologies, that will always stay with that player, whether they are tied to an alliance or not.

The being in an alliance part is the bonus, the reason to be in that alliance. If you leave you lose that bonus.

I have researched so much stuff, that is permanent. If my alliance was to have researched something then that is the bonus. If I leave or that alliance ceases to exist, so does that bonus.

Looking back at what has already been written, perhaps it wasn't clear enough.

I can see where any confusion my have arisen. When a player leaves, the detriment it puts the alliance to is the fact that any more levels that would be researched might take longer as a: the next level of research is longer and more costly, b: Less players putting in to the communal pot, the more time it would take.