Most of the time there is a small percentage of work that continues on purely mlitary tech.  For aurora perhaps a roughly 1% of the labs can be used to research military related tech.  Perhaps a 5% limit on the total number of such projects.  As they would be generally in the 1-5 lab per project and only a few projects would be worked on.  Any system used by commercial ships could be reasearched without any rp penalty.  For systems that could be considered dual use. (active or pasive sensors ect)  Only 1 project with no more than 1/2 the labs available able to be set on the project.  Actual system prototype would for military stuff come under the 1-5 labs limit which would tend to increase how long it takes to prototype.  Also retooling of shipyards could only be done during wartime for military designs, or when major upgrades are possible (ie engines, fire control, ect) then there could be 1 shpyard retooled every few game years (sya three to five years between starts for retooling).

All of ths would allow some upgrade of military tech, just not a lot of it when a nation was at peace.

Brian

To take it along a Star Trek Federation route, with regards to alien races attempting to follow the Prime Directive in these circumstances would be interesting.
Probably crippling, but interesting.

Maybe something like a set tonnage or number of hulls per population would be a good limit too.

The grace period is a good idea. I had fleet replacements in mind, just neglected to put it down

One I've had puttering around the noggin for a while.

Your researchers may only research "civilian/infrastructure" type techs. Missile reload, weapon calibers, etc are verboten, except when there is a war. Then all research is available. When the war is over, back to the civilian only research. Research in progress when the war ends may be completed.

Ships may be designed, but only refits may be done in peacetime (under 50% cost). Only new construction would be civilian (grav survey count as civ for this purpose). The only new military construction that may be done is when a new sector command is created. Planets use PDCs and ground troops for protection.

Troops may only be created in sufficient quantity to garrison colonies.

Any thoughts on what the starting parameters should be? NPR count, etc? And any other restrictions you can think of?

In time, for now we wait for the next version. Some things need fixing and making a scenario only to have to remake it later when Steve gives us a patch seems kinda pointless.