Tips and Tricks : Research

[warmaninger]

What are you guys tips and tricks to maximize research output in the different stages of the game ?

[Flamio]

i'm still learning but i usually do a lot of manual crash researching in order to use my max research cap on a regular basis. i'm sure there are more ideas out there but that is getting me to mid game with good research so far.

[stax]

My rules of thumb:

- Low priority projects get crash researched at 75% completion, as long as the cash required to do so is less than 10% of my savings. Almost all tech falls here.
- High priority projects get crash researched at 50%, regardless of cash (assuming i have enough to do it at all of course). High priority is usually just a new warp drive tech, plus some specifics here and there.

Reason being, if you immediately crash research from 0% completion, you basically give up on the chance to get a free critical success (saving you money and possibly getting a positive event like gaining a scientist).

There of course is the possibility of a critical failure, but the cost of that is almost nothing in the beginning phase of the research (you lose very little going from 5% completed to 3% completed for example) while the benefit of a crit success is very large. As the research progresses, the failure becomes harsher and the benefit of crit success smaller, so at some point you absolutely want to crash research, you just need to find a spot you are comfortable with.

And finally, ALLWAYS crash research a project that has a very high stage of completion, even if it is just a few days from finishing, because doing so prevents a crit failure (you don't want to lose 99% progress on a project your spy just stole).

[Gopher]

Income is the most important thing. If you don't have enough money to support research, then your max research doesn't matter. So I focus a lot on economy and use colony ships to get planets pop up

[Vincini]

So population growth and research share the same budget. Automation will typically leave it at 50/50

You can manually set it so you maximize research when your colonies are all generating income, and lower it back to 50/50 when you need population to get out of the net loss of newer colonies or whatever the situation is.

If you are playing a "good" race, then diplomacy to get research agreements helps.

The cheese used to be tech trading. Youd focus one tree and trade the advanced tech for all the other tech from another friendly faction(s). Why this isnt so great anymore is because some factions(its like always the dhayut) will steal the advanced tech with ease and become a problem galaxy wide. Of course, theres always that YOU are dhayut and find another dhayut faction whos big enough where you take over the galaxy together!)

I personally, even since DWU, have made sure im exploring the galaxy early to secure research bases and then i park raid fleets at them to not only protect them, but also act as starting points to harass enemy factions from different places(which also involves either destroying or capturing THEIR research stations haha)

All in all, early game is mad rush to find research bonuses and build RS everywhere, even places far away. Mid-game is a balance of taking out RS of enemies and replacing them with mine or beginning to plan out end game scenarios and if i need to start focusing on specific research paths(like ill focus area weapons if gizurean are eating up the galaxy). Finally, end game is usually just straight weapons and shields, and reactors if i need the extra power. If i need other stuff, ill trade for it or get it from conquest/salvage.

[Nightskies]

The secret to successful research is firstly a good exploration operation.

Find the research locations fast, and grab them before the others do.

And when you can, steal the research locations others have claimed by any means. Capture them by marine assault, use spies, buy them, destroy and replace, or outright eliminate an empire to assimilate them.

This is especially important for the Quameno. They're isolationist, not pacifist.

Then other things like funding are 2nd important. You can get by with sheer quantity of research bases without funding. Its only half efficient research output without funding, but it allows you to field much larger armies, space navy, growing colonies and facilities. Operate in the red for prosperity!

[Ax4711]

Exploration is king. Aiming for a hundred explorer ships on 700 stars by mid-game is about right. And keep watching the new research locations tab, ordering to build them immediately and stay ahead.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Vincini:

All in all, early game is mad rush to find research bonuses and build RS everywhere, even places far away.

Really? Always preferred to let others do that job. Guess, I've been playing the game wrong, then =(

[VoiD]

At game start I max research funding manually to get the first stuff done asap

Hyperdrives>Labs>Hyperdrives so I can leave the solar system, after that it's about getting the techs necessary for colony ships, then it varies.

At this point I often give more priority to pop growth instead.

You'll probably want some medical tech asap, but you'll also want to find luxury resources to develop your planets very early too, finding good planets is also essential, and so is finding research boost locations.

Pushing through to the next research module tech is always worthwhile, if your economy can support it, sometimes that means 7+ years of research doing not much else of value, so you really need to be stable.

Other very high priority techs are government buildings & colonization tech, specially for your main planet type(s), get those ASAP.

Terraforming tech is pretty great too, but the costs are insane, don't waste time on this unless you can support spending millions on this and then maintaining a negative income of hundreds of millions, potentially, for at least 3+ years, that or you found a super planet with very high quality but heavily damaged and you want to repair it asap.

As for combat, pick a weapon of choice and stick to it, you'll want at least destroyers and talassos shields before you can even consider a ship capable of combat, if ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan you'll have to fight with the junk you got, but ideally, you should get to that tier and equivalent weapons before you start declaring wars.

Keep in mind that low tier weapons deal almost no damage per shot and are often neutralized by decent armor/shields, and low tier shields don't even block shots reliably.

Depending on the situation, IE: If you get stuck in a war against an enemy that hard counters everything you built for war, you may need to just buy time, throwing ships into the meatgrinder as you start over and research a completely different weapon's path.

Oh, and long range sensors are "essential" for war too, but getting enough research bonuses to even unlock the tech is not always easy.

[Dray Prescot]

KEEP your CASH FLOW POSITIVE, so it can be used to add to your Research Point production, with enough cash coming from your Cash Flow you can DOUBLE your production rate for Research Points.

IF your Cash Flow is NEGATIVE, from spending too much on maintenance fees and Protection Treaties for Pirates, then there is no cash income left to be devoted to increasing the Development of your Colonies and to support additional Research Points.

Maintenance Fees, from your Cash Flow, are paid on ALL STATE owned Facilities (on Worlds or in Space), State controlled Star Ports, Research Stations, and Defense Bases, AND State owned Ships, i.e. Warships, Explorers, Tankers, Construction Ships, and Colony Ships, and ground military units.

Maintenance Fees for Private Economy owned and controlled assets (Freighters, Mining Ships, Passenger Ships, Mining Stations, and Resort Stations) are paid by the Private Economy and NOT from your Cash Flow.

It is very easy to build too many State owned assets and have their Maintenance Fees eat up all of your Cash Flow.

In additions, ALL PROTECTION TREATIES from Pirate Factions are paid from your Cash Flow, at the rate of 125 per month or 1500 PER YEAR.

In the opening to early stages of a game, such as a Pre Warp start, if you have met a lot of Pirate Factions and are paying them Protection Treaty Fees, They can and WILL drive your Cash Flow Negative. A couple of Protection Treaties is about all you can afford to pay early in the game.

So there are a lot of demands on your Cash Flow, which mostly comes from Income Taxes on your Colonized Worlds, minus Support Costs for the populations on those Worlds.

[Dray Prescot]

Originally posted by HugsAndSnuggles:

Originally posted by Vincini:

All in all, early game is mad rush to find research bonuses and build RS everywhere, even places far away.

Really? Always preferred to let others do that job. Guess, I've been playing the game wrong, then =(

Here is an example from my current game.

The year is 2790, Spiral Galaxy 2000 Stars, 10 by 10 Sectors. MANY Nebulae, Home System very close to the Center of the Galaxy

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1531540/screenshots/?p=1&browsefilter=mostrecent

this shows only part of my total of 29 Research locations, i.e. 15 Research Stations on Research Sites, 2 old damaged and repaired Research Stations found by my Explorers and repaired by my Construction Ships, and 12 Space Ports (located at Colonized Worlds).

It would take 2 more Screenshots to show all of them.

I have 15 Research Sites being used. Plus 1 under Construction, 1 ordered to be built, and one more near a Gizurean Empire.

Plus 12 Space Ports with 1 Enhanced Research Lab each. (Base rate of 20 points per year per Lab).
The Research Stations have 2 Enhanced Research Labs each.

Total 1223 Research Point Potential and Actual Output (per YEAR) which costs me 23,055 credits (per Year) from my Budget, i.e. from Cash Flow .

So over half of my Research Point production comes from Research Sites.

This is what looking for Research Sites can do for you, after you build the Research Stations on them.

[SgtScum]

To add to others: Exploration exploration exploration. You should be bending your entire economy and research tree early game to spam out as many exploration ships with as fast a hyperdrive and as advanced survey modules as you can. This is especially important for the end game super techs because you reaaaaallllly want those to fall in your hands not the AI. Also to quickly find debris fields and solo deserted ships to claim and retire for the tech bonus. A couple of large fields can really turbo your early and mid game research.

[Dray Prescot]

You want to get past the Tier 0, Basic Resource and Survey Component Techs.
Those components do not do much for you to Explore with, plus they do NOT upgrade automatically when you get better Techs

You need to research the Tier 1 Techs for Resource Scanners and Survey Components, which reach better/higher levels of Exploration and will be upgraded when better Techs are researched. Then put them in your Explorer ship designs, and THEN REFIT the old Explorers to use them.

Once you have the Techs, you need to build Explorers and explore all of your nearby Stars.

[SgtScum]

I do explore with the t0 techs right at the start because I am prioritizing other techs at the same time. Once I fill out all the missing t0 techs for economy etc I go right for warp bubbles and as soon as that is done I bang out 20 small scouts and let them rip so I can get info on the surrounding systems. By the time I get my t1 base fully researched and start advanced survey they will have pretty much exhausted the nearby systems and will be ready for mass refits.


This is also the time I start building more scouts with the higher capacity fuel cells and such so that as the early wave of explorers is coming in for refits a new wave is spreading out. Keep up that type of rotation where you send out new scouts as the old ones come in and you will quickly outpace the ai on getting the goodies first. Debris fields especially because you can get some carriers and battleships long before you can build them and they are great for clearing out exploration sites that have massive amounts of space monsters protecting them.

I typically save warship related tech for last after economy and expansion techs because I can get a decent pirate defense and monster bashing fleet going from salvage which can be retired later for the tech bonus once I get destroyers unlocked and start to build up real fleets. Since I prioritized economy and new colonies when I get to destroyers I can just spam them out constantly due to the huge resource base I had built up.

[madpraxis]

... I click the button that says 'Build research station here'.

[Nightskies]

I think the Resource Scanner (Exploration Scanners) should be a higher priority than the Advanced Survey Module (Planetary Exploration). A ship with only a Resource Scanner will comparatively rapidly finish preliminary scans on objects - 45 sec vs 110 sec, and if the Adv. Survey ship explores twice, that's 220 sec on an object. A fair portion of the research bonuses can be found with 5 (Resource Scanner) to 15 (Basic Survey Module) Exploration Level, largely thanks to ruins, which are usually easy to find. For the handful that require 20 Exploration Level, a Mining Station will explore objects up to 25, same as an Adv. Survey Module. Eventually, you can replace the Resource Scanner exploration ships, but even they can be occupied for a century or more. Depending on the size of the galaxy.

Regardless, throughout the game, build a few Exploration ships from time to time, with a small extra surge when you upgrade the survey module. I'd say 25 is bare minimum by mid-game, with 60 being closer to ideal.

Oh, a ship with both primarily uses only the survey module- asteroid fields are the exception.