why does it take so long to research

[Menzue]

im early/mid game researching things and it just takes forever. I have automatic production of red and green bottles with 2 labs and 1 speed upgrade and it still takes an average of 25 minutes to research something. Is there any other way to do this besides just making like 6 labs?

[Bentalaux]

Build more labs, in the beginning I try to have 10 -20 for fast research late game over 100 with mods and becons for the realy big resarch

[ZomBeGone]

Yeah, you make 6 labs, or 10 or .... Each lab you add will cut down the time. Automate it and keep the bottles supplied to them. Its pretty much the goal of the game, to build the research.

Later in the game you will want many labs as the cost for research goes up, like 1000-5000 bottles of up to 7 colors. I think I have 30-40 labs in my current game.

[MisterSpock]

Researching speed modules and only having 2 Labs sounds more like a "marathon challenge". Just build more sciencelabs instead. And yeah, stuff becomes very expensive in the lategame.

[Ledow]

Factorio is not a game of small-scale. I play mini-bases (wall myself off right at the beginning, launch rocket without needing anything from outside), not the huge things people build.

Even for me the general rule - in terms of research, raw-materials, power, refining and smelting - is build in groups of 10.

Put down 10 labs. If it's not enough, speed-module them until you can put down another 10.

Put down 10 boilers / steam engines. If it's not enough, put down another 10.

Right at the start, yeah, you have one lab, then two labs. But from there you should be thinking about going to 5 labs and 10 labs before you've finished the red-only sciences.

It doesn't mean you need a thousand labs at the end of the game. Pretty much 10-20 labs with speed modules, beacons will suck up a large flow of science items, but 2 of anything is really pathetic. The only things I ever have one or two of are things like: A factory producing railway signals. Things you literally never exhaust no matter how quickly you put them down in the course of normal play, and can store thousands of in a little box.

[Menzue]

Alright, thanks for all the tips guys. They mustve really changed this up since I last played. I used to be able to go with 2 labs till I reached the purple bottles. I added another 2 labs for a total of 4 and upgraded my automation to handle double the intake and its going decently while I work on other things, Thanks!

P.S : any tips for organization? I always find that everything I do looks like someone's playing a puzzle with it, with everything just kind of cramped together and in different places.

[Timberwolf]

When I first start a game, I put down 2 labs and supply it with hand built red flasks. But as soon as I start researching I start hand building all of the components to produce 2 red science per second and build (usually) 24 labs to consume them. As soon as my red science factory is built I begin working on green, again with a production of 2 green science per second.

Doing this, early and midgame research takes no time at all.

[MisterSpock]

Here is my factory for med game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1140073405

[BitterSwede]

Yeah, they changed things up. Also, make sure you didn't make tech expensive or added a modifier above 1 to reserach requirements. If you're still on the first two science packs, even with a single lab it shouldn't take 25 minutes, unless you're going for things like Research Speed 2 (which would take 50 minutes without speed modules for 2 labs)

On the Load Map screen, select your save and click "Map Exchange Key", copy the string, go back to the main menu, start a new game and paste under "Map Exchange Key". This will copy ALL settings from your current save. Check the last box in the last tab to see your research difficulty and modifier. If it's anything by "normal" or "1", then there's your problem.

[Menzue]

Originally posted by MisterSpock:

Here is my factory for med game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1140073405

jesus, if thats considered mid game then the biggest thing ive built probably took you an hour. I'll post my current fac if I can figure out how without leaving the game

[Menzue]

Heres my current factory. in the picture it doesnt show where my iron comes from but its just an iron vein with like 5 electric drills on it

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1170221304

[MisterSpock]

Originally posted by Menzue:

Heres my current factory. in the picture it doesnt show where my iron comes from but its just an iron vein with like 5 electric drills on it

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1170221304

Dont worry, just keep on. Thats the fun.

[bendezium2003]

I originally started by using Labs 10 at a time after the very early game where I use 2 labs to eat red sciences until I get the blue assemblers.

Depending on my builds I can expand to something like 16-24 labs with modules in.

[still__alive]

Originally posted by Menzue:

Originally posted by MisterSpock:

Here is my factory for med game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1140073405

jesus, if thats considered mid game then the biggest thing ive built probably took you an hour. I'll post my current fac if I can figure out how without leaving the game

Originally posted by Menzue:

Heres my current factory. in the picture it doesnt show where my iron comes from but its just an iron vein with like 5 electric drills on it

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1170221304

I think you can reach the point you did in your screenshot in about 30 minutes. As long as you are not taking into account what you've researched - to reach a similar research point might take a little longer. You could be researching your last green/red tech after 7 or 8 hours for all we know. :P

If you are interested in seeing how you could play faster, check out this little guide I made about early game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1172273910
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Anyway, on the original topic, here is some of the math determining how long your research takes.

The wiki tells me the research speed formula is:

time = (time cost * units / lab)

For Automation 2 (5 seconds and 80 red packs) that means 1 lab would take 400 second to finish researching. If you add another lab that cuts the time in half to 200 seconds. Double your labs again (so 4 labs) and you'll cut the time in half again to 100 seconds.

For the Solar Energy tech (30 seconds, 250 science packs) 2 labs will take 3,750 seconds (about an hour). Four labs will do it in a half hour. Twenty labs will do it in 375 seconds, or about 6 minutes. This math is without the lab speed tech. (Feel free to correct my math if I'm using the formula wrong guys.)

So basically the key is to have a bunch of labs, the more you build the shorter research takes. For every doubling of research speed you need to double the amount of labs you have it would seem. To go from 6 minutes to 3 minutes on the solar energy tech you'd need to go from 20 labs to 40 labs. So at some point it isn't worth adding more labs.

I like doing somewhere between 30 and 40 labs myself. The hard part isn't really crafting and placing the labs though. Being able to supply those labs with the potions so they can actually have enough potions* science packs to research at that speed is where the difficult of research lies.

*Does anyone else think of the science packs as potions? LOL

[Warlord]

Originally posted by still__alive:

*Does anyone else think of the science packs as potions? LOL

I call 'em Science Juice.

[BitterSwede]

edit: I know the math around the lab speed mod is wrong, I just can't figure out what I did wrong with the conversion there... The formula is still right though!

The speed formula is correct for BASE speed. Remember, before Solar you can get 2 Lab Research Speed upgrades as well. That's 50% faster speed for each lab.
Your solar example above, at 20 labs, would then be cut down to 187.5 seconds, or 3.125 minutes. On top of that, later research can use speed modules.

The formula should be Time = (((TimeCost * Units)/Lab) * LabSpeedModifier) * SpeedModuleModifier.
For the solar example, using 20 labs, it would be (((30 * 250) / 20) * 0.5) * 1 = (7500/20) * 0.5 = 375 * 0.5 = 187.5 seconds, if you have Lab Speed 2 researched.