It replaces vanilla enemy evolution with a new mechanic: unlocking technologies increases biter evolution.
I really liked the idea but the mod had issues, and it was unnerving that you couldn't see how research would effect evolution. Well, the original author was happy for me to take it over. I've done a complete rewrite and it has a bunch of new features. It now shows the effect of technology in the research tree, so you can plan ahead. It also let's you decide whether the effect of technologies on evolution is weighted towards early game, late game, or equal throughout. The default is "early" to give the familiar effect that evolution increase slows down as the game progresses.
Enjoying the way it plays so far and it's a candidate for my "must-have" mod list. It means you can keep biters for the logistics challenge, rather than as a significant time pressure. Particularly helpful on games with expensive recipes, e.g. marathon settings. You've still got a small time pressure because you must claim new territory before resources run out, and build up defenses before pollution reaches spawners. But you don't have the time pressure on research itself. Quite the opposite in fact. There is now a sense of picking technologies in a tactical fashion and spending time in each tier of technology. It's certainly not an easy mode; with the default settings you can easily end up past 20% evolution without being ready if you research stuff you don't yet need.
That really changes up the game and breaks some bad habits. There's a tendency to rush mid-tier technologies, so they become obsolete before you really experience them or automate their recipes.
Admit it, you've run out of useful research to do before you've had chance to automate the next science pack, haven't you? Well, you'll have to rethink that approach if you're using Research causes evolution, especially on a deathworld
