Well, the easiest way to get instant (but not free?) research is to open the Gameplay.constants file in notepad and change the second line.

    researchSpeedData-Fast
    researchRateGameSpeedScalar -0.15

I'm not exactly sure what will give you instant research, but I'd try -0.00 or something. Remember you'll need to set the research speed to fast in the game options menu before starting each game, and you'll probably want to make this a mod if you want to play online or easily revert back to normal.

Also, you can play the game in the developer.exe and there is an option to give all players max research.

Well damn, I tried it.

It didn't seem to have an effect.

I changed the one in the Entrenchment folder in my program files. I figured that would be the one. :/

I just tried one of my mods and Gameplay.constants isnt a file in either so idk what to do.

Remember the number of credits per second is related to the population of your planets, so change each planet maximum population, it will increase the number of credits per seconds

Same as with the number of asteriods as well as the number of crystal or metal per second can be changed for each planet type.

way to make it complicated guys... why not just use the dev.exe????