[_Kila_]

Missing a few research ticks doesn't cause your planet to blow up, but those who don't want to miss any can wake up and set their research.

I'm all for making the game more casual-friendly but features like this do damage to "hardcore" players, it just decreases their advantage over casual players. For example; massing dists hasn't really been viable since construction queueing was introduced since the people who did it successfully relied on missing fewer ticks than scanners (who don't generally get up in the middle of the night to build amps) to be ahead.

There's a delicate balance between making the game casual friendly and gimping hardcore play styles, I think that the pausing of research does this sufficiently well. If your research is going to finish whilst you're not around and you don't want to miss out on research ticks, you can pause it and start another. If you want it to finish whilst you sleep to reap its benefits (HCT and Core) you just have to sacrifice a few research ticks. It's not that huge a deal.