Research

Knowledge as a currency

Field work collects research data — surveys, geological readings, analysis and lifeform studies all pay into the colony pool, and every genuinely new find pays a packet of data on the spot. Data alone unlocks nothing: a Laboratory with a staffed research position picks one offered node as its project, and its team spends the pool into it every turn until the cost is paid. More seats, better Scientist skill or a second laboratory on the same project all pay it down faster.

Projects are careers, not errands. Early studies take months of one seat's work; the deep flagship nodes take years even for a gifted researcher, and an average one pays longer still. A scientist who has closed projects in a field works the next one in that field faster — and an experienced instructor at an academy passes a taste of that familiarity to science graduates, so research strength is something a colony raises across generations.

Every project also carries its own reference staffing — how large a team the work actually calls for. A field station's handful of hands runs the starter studies at full tempo, while the flagship questions want the fully staffed laboratory of a grown settlement; that is what makes research capacity a reason to grow, not a constant. The ceiling is relative too: parking a crowd on a small project cannot rush it past its nature.

Switching projects never burns what was already invested — progress stays banked per node.

Discoveries open research

There is no fixed tech tree that every game shares. A research node comes into sight only when something raises the question: finished research leads to its follow-ups, a recognized local material asks where more of it hides and how to work it, a discovered geothermal manifestation opens geothermal power by itself, a troublesome water source poses the problem of drinking it, a creature studied in the field makes life itself a discipline, and what the colony lives through can demand its own science. What nothing has raised does not exist — not even as a locked row — and an opened node tells you what opened it.

Once a question is in sight it never disappears, and where knowledge genuinely builds on knowledge, a node still names the research it requires before it can start. The planet decides which questions it will ever pose — a world without geothermal activity never offers that branch — while the core of the discipline stays reachable on every world through research alone. Exploration drives research twice over: it brings home the data and the questions.

Running research itself can rarely produce a breakthrough: the project leaps forward, the researchers who sat on it carry the moment in their records — and once in a while the insight brings a whole new question into sight ahead of its chain. It cannot be planned, only earned by keeping laboratories at work.

No laboratory, no progress

A colony without a working laboratory only accumulates data. The building, its seated researchers and the chosen project are what turn raw findings into permanent knowledge — an unstaffed laboratory stalls loudly and says why.

Instruments matter

Some discoveries need more than data — they need the right instrument physically present in the colony. An expedition that left a key rig in orbit locked itself out of a branch until it can fabricate a replacement. What your ship carried down is a research decision, made before the first turn.