also if you link the ritual to a location you could have 3 tiers of research success,
tier 1 failure
tier 2 time
tier 3 time+location

but to keep things interesting you could make the requirement for tier 3 very high or have it spit out multiple possible locations and have your players try to deduce the correct one based on what they know about the opponent or the ritual etc.

I've done some things similar to the second suggestion and i have found it to be a very fun and rewarding moment for both players and story teller, the general feedback has been that it really makes you feel like a part of the world.