All the locked research options and where to get them

Tells you where you have to look for those elusive research opportunities

Introduction

Starcom Nexus has plenty of research techs that are locked at first and have to be found in the world to be utilized.
This guide aims to provide the knowledge of where to look for those.
The order is very loosely based on when you'd usually find them, except for the quest ones which are at the end. Because Starcom is an open world game, you could get them in nearly any order.
As most people are probably curious about one specific research they're missing, refer to the following image. The number corresponds to the chapter in this guide.

1. Missiles

Probably the first tech many unlock.

What they do:
Gives you an additional weapon, missiles.

How to get them:
You have to find 3 parts of missile launchers. Those get dropped by any ship that fires missiles at you, first of them probably being Chitik Frigates or the larger Battlecruisers of the same race.

2. Additional deep space speed

What they do:
Give you a speed boost as long as you're not near a star system.

How to get them:
Quite soon during your travels, you will see a flash and your officer will note that "warp geometrics went off the scale". A small, damaged warp vessel arrived. Investigating it gives you the quest "Primitive Vessel": To find the planet that launched it (no quest target marker). Finding the planet (anomaly called "Pre-Spacefarers") and then landing on it will give you three points of additional tech research for void travel speed.

The location of this planet is random, see last section of this guide.

3. Less turret energy consumption (Bose-Einstein-Condensate)

What it does:
Decreases the energy consumption of turrets by 10%

How to get it:
Visit the Entarq's Citadel. It's slightly off the beaten path at 15.65 X 7.51 (Easiest reached through the portal sequence starting at 10.50 X 0.48 if you've never been there). They will ignore you if you initially land there.
Search out an Ulooquo trader, there usually is one in the same system or the one a wormhole down. Purchase "The Story of Entarq's Citadel" for 35 platinum from them, which will give you the password needed for the Citadel. Upon revisit, purchase "A Progent Turret Mount" for 225 Titanium. This will give you the ability to research this tech.

4. Energy increase when near star (Solar Converter)

What it does:
Provides a modest amount of extra energy generation when close to a star.

How to get it:
Unlock/Visit Entarq's Citadel. How to do that is detailed under "Less turret energy consumption"
Purchase "Unusual crystal shard" for 187 Titanium to unlock this tech.

5. Havoc

What they do:
Automated defenses against small objects like asteroids, rockets and drones.

How to get them:
Random location. Somewhere is a Planet with an anomaly titled "Excavation". It's description is of a massive downed starship that is already partly plundered. One area is still fine thanks to automated sentry turrets. Have your team try to destroy those turrets to access the area. There your team will acquire a small turret device that lets you research this tech.
The location of this planet is random, see last section of this guide.

6. Warp Hopper

What they do:
Gives you a hopper drive that enables you to make small ultrafast jumps for plenty of energy.

How to get it:
At 6.40 X -25.49, next to the Pulsar, you'll find the remnants of a drive system. After you found it, return to Kite Station and talk to Pilman. Exit Kite Station, wait a bit or just exit the system and come back and talk to Pilman again and he'll unlock the research for you.

7. Comet Detection

What it does:
It gives you a message when you're within a certain distance of a comet. No indication where that comet is, but comets usually fly in elypses around the sun in the system were you've got the message.

How to get it:
At 10.55 X -0.47 is a planet with the anomaly titled "Frozen Observatory". Surveying this planet will give you the quest "Lost Probe" which includes a map marker. Find the probe at the given location (which is random) to get this research project.

8. Laser Weapons

What they do:
Gives you an additional weapon, lasers, possibly the most useful one in the game.

How to get them:
Like Missiles, "part of a beam weapon" gets dropped by enemies that use lasers. Three of them give you the research possibility.
Examples of enemies that drop them are Sentinel Cutters and Sentinel Cutter Scouts.

9. Drones

What they do:
Gives you the ability to build drone modules, which allow you to send miniature attack craft against the enemy. Like missiles, only reusable and less strong.

How to get them:
Like missiles and lasers, you got to collect 3 drone components from enemies. There are only a few enemies that carry drones, one but not the only one of them is the Chitik Carrier:

A good way to quickly get all three parts is to invade the isolated system at -19.50 X -27.55. Judging by the number, size and frequency of Chitik spawns, this is probably their home system. Be prepared for heavy chitik resistance.

10. Axial Ultragun

What it does:
Long charge time, high damage type weapon. Reminds me of the main laser of the death star.

How to get it:
As with all the other extra weapons, you're required to collect 3 parts of this weapon to build it. As far as I can tell, there is only one enemy that drops its parts: The so-called Sentinel Super Stations.

There are more than the needed 3 Super Stations around, but their position seems to be static, so have a list of locations: 41.53 X 11.40, 33.44 X 20.56, -21.33 X 30.22, -40.10 X -3.83, 21.40 X -53.39
After it, talk to Pilman

11. Shields

What it does:
Provides you with your normal scifi energy shield. Running the shield needs no energy, charging it does. Must-have in my opinion.

How to get it:
There is a desert-looking planet with an anomaly called "The Bubble". It's a single city preserved in a force field bubble on an otherwise dead planet. Help them fix it for 55 Adamantine and they share the shield tech with you.
The location of this planet is random, see last section of this guide.

12. Debye Sheaths

What it does:
Plasma Bolts that have not yet used up all their damage (eg you have 15 damage/bolt but the enemy had only 10 hp) the plasma bold continues to fly.

How to get it:
Destroy Uloquoo ships. Thankfully, other than missiles etc, you only need a single drop. If they are of friendly disposition (probably achieved by bringing them the egg from the citadel), you might even manage it without them turning hostile. If you can't seem to target them with lasers or hit them with plasma, ram into them. Targeting worked fine afterwards for me.

13. Swarm Probe Suppressor

What it does:
Helps you capture swarm probes easier.

How to get it:
At one point when visiting Kite Station, Lt. John Chiang tells you he saw a swarm probe zipping around the system. He couldn't catch it but noticed it signaling somewhere. This gives you a quest with a quest marker pointing to -40.14 X -3.93 (might be random, quest log does not save location). If you investigate the control station there, it will give you the research.

14. Side Quest Researches - Kolnar Treatment

What it does:
It heals your team from a specific disease. No use outside that specific side mission.

How to get it:
At a random locations you'll find the anomaly "Strange Jungle", one of those where your option is "Send in a team on foot". This is a repeating anomaly, you can find it a total of four times. If you send your team in, there's a chance they get spore'd by a fungus. (if you're determined to get this research, reload an older save if you weren't "treated to a spray of sticky red spores". you can quicksave right before landing on the planet, the scene that plays is random each time you land). Shortly afterwards you notice your people getting sick.
Ask Pilman back on Kite Station about it and He'll be the usual jerk but tell you to ask other races. Do just that and ask your old pals the Saurids and you learn about a treatment using the leaves of a kolnar tree. Off to the citadel you go (if you haven't been there yet, refer to "Less turret energy consumption"), to purchase a "Potted Shrub with Silver Leaves" for 325 Titanium. Talking to Pilman afterwards unlocks the research.
The location of those planets is random, see last section of this guide.

15. Side Quest Researches - Phage counter molecule

What it does:
Counters the Phage, duh.

How to get it:
Visit a phage system to the north-west of kite station, like the one at -2.52 X 6.42. After encountering them, return to home base and talk to Pilman. Return and visit the forbidden planet, Red Ooze Prime, at -9.58 X 3.58. Land repeatedly until you got the research data, run. Go back to Pilman to unlock this research. Bring it back to the forbidden planet to complete the quest.

16. Main Quest Researches

CMB Signal, Sentinel Key, Lunae Communication
Those three are revealed just by doing the main quest. Look up a walkthrough.

Finding the pesky random anomalies

This is cheating a bit, but you can find the anomalies marked at random in your world.
This is by looking inside your save file. Even if not discovered yet, the location of those planets should be fixed as soon as a game is started.

Go to your savegame directory, which is at C:\users\(your username)\AppData\LocalLow\Wx3 Labs, LLC\Starcom Nexus\saves
Find a save of your current playthrough, doesn't have to be the most recent one. Finding the correct file is not that easy if you started multiple plays already, so it's easiest to just make a new one in game and then sort by date.
Each save consists of two files, QUICKSAVE_(timestamp)_info.json and QUICKSAVE_(timestamp).json. Open the one without "info" in a text editor.

Near to the top, you should see your playerName and shipName to confirm it's from the playthrough you want.
Then just hit search (ctrl-f) and look for the name of the anomalies mentioned in the guide. Make sure to search case insensitive.
You should find an object ({ to }) with type being set to "PlanetData". Scroll just a bit down to the coordinates section. uX and uZ is the approximate position of where you'll find that planet in 'your' universe. That location is not perfectly accurate, it seems it can differ by as much as 0.5 more or less in both dmensions, but it should be easy to find the planets then.
According to commentor cuadro, it's variation can actually be up to one, not just 0.5

[Akhlys]

nah. you can do those at any time. And as detailed above, you don't unlock comet detection by going close to a comet but by finding the anomaly.

[Yes]

so basicly if you dont do exactly like in this guide show with first run you cant unlock later ? and start all game from scratch agone ? cos for me comet detection didnt work and i saw comet flyng. but research is still locked.

[Akhlys]

This is for universe xeno. How you got them in universe rho I don't know. Are you still in the tutorial or something?
If you have a better method, I'm all ears, but this one, while not precise, worked for me and others.

"anomaly": "Excavation",
"coordinates": {
"universe": "xeno",
"uX": -32,
"uZ": 0,

"anomaly": "Shady Trader",
"coordinates": {
"universe": "xeno",
"uX": -12,
"uZ": 30,

[Ichthyic]

about random anomalies:
your process is incorrect. ALL anomalies have the SAME uX and UZ.

example:
"Excavation":
"coordinates": {
"universe": "rho",
"uX": -40,
"uZ": -19,"
"Shady Trader":
"coordinates": {
"universe": "rho",
"uX": -40,
"uZ": -19,"
try again?

[Slippery Jim]

there's a bug w/ swarm probe suppressor in the current build, it doesn't spawn in all saves for some reason. someone posted a guide on how to fix it
https://steamcommunity.com/app/863590/discussions/0/3199240675528678564/

[JimmyTheCannon]

The mission log would have an entry mentioning excavation and the ship and turrets if I'd already encountered the Havok defense one, right? Looking for that now and hoping I didn't encounter it and screw up before finding this list.

[Akhlys]

good luck!

[Vredesbyrd]

Okie doke, thanks for the response. I'll try a few more times and then just forget it.

Thanks for the guide!

[Akhlys]

I don't think there was such a change, I made that guide when the game was pretty much finished , according to the news tab only localisation updates came after it. of course, there's still a chance, didn't go and check. Maybe you got bad luck with RNGods? I don't remember how often I had to reload until I got the drop.
It's honestly not that useful, so if you don't just want to unlock all of them (I know the feeling :D) you don't miss out on much

[Vredesbyrd]

Anyone know if an update might have changed the Debye Sheaths drop?

I've destroyed a bunch of Uloquoo ships by allowing them to be destroyed by enemies, crashing in to them, and then just blasting the, but the Debye Sheaths just don't drop.