pleegwat My ideas are mostly for open-world game modes. Campaign is something too linear for my taste, and once you finish it, very little changes, for that's the idea of a campaign. But for open-world singleplayer, or even multiplayer, a tech tree would be an awesome adition. But mostly it would be for crafting the parts, in my opinion, which would require some sort of base. I think buying parts should be done at specific places, and specific places should sell some specific parts. parts could even have some small tweaks depending on where you bought it. be more efficient, have more damage, dispite of doing, pretty much, the same thing. it would just do it better or worse. Would be a very important part of multiplayer server-based gameplay. and crafting the piece (therefore giving a reason to research them in the first place) would be better than the average bought piece.
note i said "average", because you COULD find a piece that is only available in a certain place that performs better than a player made piece.