Guide for Fast Research

A guide for developing a scaling research infrastructure as your empire grows.

Changelog

6/3/2016 - updated to Patch 1.1 (Clarke) research changes and revised some numbers made in estimates.

Keeping research up with population

So I've seen a lot of people complain that research speed drops too quickly as your empire expands. As of patch 1.1 (Clarke), every planet you have beyond your first adds +10% research cost, and every population you have beyond 10 imposes +1% research cost. This scaling tech cost makes many players wary of growing their empire too quickly in fear of their research slowing down by too much. But you really shouldn't have to! By building your empire properly, it is perfectly reasonable to research techs within 3 years (maybe up to 4-5 years for those really tough endgame techs) even when you have hundreds of population.


Researching tier-3 tech Sentient Combat AI with over 500pop? Just 26 months.

Consider your early-game research power. You receive +5 to each field for free; and if your 10 starting population all work Basic Science Labs, you'll receive 15/15/15 research at exactly 100% research cost. Of course, that's impossible since you need power and minerals; but it gives a nice starting number. Let's compare this to the say 50pop, when your fledging empire is starting to set up nicely.

For a good early game position, let's assume with 50 population on 4 developing planets (+10% x [4-1]planets + 1% x [50-10]pop = 170% tech cost). After food/energy/minerals you can still afford to keep 15 POP (30% of total population) on research. Assuming tier-3 research buildings (i.e. physics lab II: 3/1/1), this'll generate 25/25/25. Add in 5/5/5 for tile bonuses (assuming a +1 for every research building tile), the base 5/5/5 your empire gets, plus some orbital research stations (let's assume 8/8/8 = 24 points is reasonable) and we'll arrive around 44/44/44 at 170% research cost, or just below an effective 26/26/26.

Keep in mind this is an optimistic estimate. Chances are you won't have full tier-3 research buildings or 24 points of orbital station research.

Given that outside your tier-5 research buildings (6/1/1) can only be built on your Capital (due to requiring Empire-Capital Complex), your best research buildings effectively become 4/1/1, or 2/2/2 if you balance out the three types of buildings. Planets range from size 8 to size 25; but given most of our planets will be less than full, I'll take an average planet population of 14 (+24% research cost per planet). To maintain our early game 26/26/26, we would need 6.24/6.24/6.24 for each additional 14POP planet. This is easily achieved by 3POPs on upgraded research buildings (6/6/6 total) plus just a +1 tile bonus. 3/14POP is only 21.4% of your workforce! This is easy to achieve!

Of course, a 14POP planet is a planet well on its way to maturity and it takes a while for a planet to grow that much. What about earlier? A planet with say, 3POP, will add +13% research cost (requiring 3.38/3.38/3.38 = 10.14 research points to counterbalance). Not a problem; a basic science lab (1/1/1) can be built even without Planetary Administration; add 1-2 points of tile bonus in and 2-3 orbital research stations that the new colony puts into your territory, and you've already matched the research points needed to counterbalance the colony. Of course, in this case, 1POP represents 33.3% of the new colony's workforce.

By taking the average between these two values (27.35), we can conclude that as long as you put around 25-30% of your population on research and make sure to upgrade their buildings as soon as possible, you'll have more than enough research to keep up with your growth.

The key thing is to make sure that you tell every sector to focus on research. You shouldn't be having energy/mineral problems after the first 40 years anyway and sectors will always try to build enough energy/minerals to keep its income positive. The sectors may require a little more resource injection at start so they can construct their buildings faster; but once they get going, they'll make enough energy to maintain their research.

The other thing to keep in mind that is that slaves (and robots/droids) are terrible at research. So before you think of slaving an entire civilization to your will, keep in mind they're increasing your population count for not much research gain. Very unenlightening behavior.

Early Game Research Optimization

• At the start of the game and until you settle your first planet, turn on the Encourage Free Thought edict. This gives +10% research speed for +15% ethic divergence cost (except your capital gets a -10% ethic divergence modifier), so it gives you a great boost for your early-game years for little cost; its influence cost is also paid back easily as it helps you grab those early game +1 influence technologies. Turn it off once your first colony is down though, as otherwise the dissembled ship building + edict would result in +35% ethic divergence for the new planet -- not something you want this early.
  
  
• Build at least one extra science ship + hire an extra scientist as soon as you can afford the spare minerals. Try to make sure 1 of your 5 scientists has a trait that decreases anomaly failure chance (or failing that, improved experience gain speed). This is because many anomalies -- when successfully surveyed -- grants a +150 or higher research gain. During early game, this is a huge bonus equivalent to many months of research. More science ships = not only faster exploration (finding the best planets faster than your competition), but also more chance of encountering anomalies, at which point you should switch the scientist on scene to the one that has the lowest failure chance.
  
  
• Special projects that do not have a cost in research points can be performed at the same time with no penalty. For example, you can delay research the alien contact/lifeforms' research until after you've encountered 3-4 of them, then research all those projects at once. The same also applies to the surveying of multiple ship debris.
  
  
• Settling the first few planets will reduce your research due to the +10% research cost per planet. However, unless you are planning an early game military rush, it is still worthwhile to settle up to your core planets limit (5 normally) as soon as possible. Sure, your research will be hampered for 3-5 years. But because population growth is independent for each new colony, you will quickly catch back up. Also take advantage of the fact that basic science labs are the only 'normal' building other than Frontier Clinic that a new colony (<5POP) can construct; otherwise, colonies can only construct subpar farms/powerplants/mines.
  
  
• Once you start accumulating spare minerals (usually after you have 2 colonies down and a modest fleet to drive off the early game pirate events), start building research stations everywhere possible. It's arguable whether planets/asteroids with only 1 research is worthwhile, but any location that has 2 or more research points should have a station orbiting it. 2 research points for 1 energy maintenance is roughly the same cost you incur with research buildings anyway.
  
  
• Have your scientists take turn surveying. A scientist currently not researching his field of expertise is a good candidate for a tour onboard the science vessel. Switch them out for higher level scientists as needed when you encounter anomalies to reduce failure rates.

Mid/Late Game Research Optimization

• The biggest difference between mid-game and early-game is that minerals have stopped being a problem. In fact, if you've been good about building mining stations everywhere, you're likely to constantly overflow minerals (or having to dump them on station upgrades that you don't need). This means that on planets, you can afford to switch out any tile that has 1 mineral bonus or lower for another resource -- either more research labs, or more power plants to fund them.
  
  
• Build Observatories (+10% research) on the space station orbiting any planet that's set up (if they're producing at least 25-30 research points, the observation post is worth it).
  
  
• Establish specialized research planets. This is most preferable on a large planet (size 20+) with a planetary modifier that either provides a research bonus or a happiness bonus (i.e. Titanic Life, Atmospheric Hallucinogen, Natural Beauty). Focus on building lots of research buildings on this planet. This centralization will be handy for assist research, as a lvl5 scientist + Improved Assist Research = +50% research bonus for one planet. Fanatic Materialists also receive the Spirit of Science planetary edict (+20% research). The planet will likely be a huge energy drain as it produces little on its own (only tiles adjacent to the capital or those with really high tier bonuses), but it'll be able to output hundreds of research points! Try to establish 2-3 of these specialized research planets to give your scientists something to do when all accessible star systems have been surveyed.
  
  
  A Titanic Life planet dedicated to society research with lvl5 scientist assisting; this example produces 32/158/39 = 229 research points by itself
  
  
• Use the research grants to gain the tech you really need faster. The +30% research speed to one field (at the cost of -10% to other two fields) really makes a difference. Working on Sentient AI or Synthetics? The next FTL upgrade or the next colonization tech to settle that key border planet? All good reasons to use the pertinent research grant edict.
  
  
• Oligarchy government elections have a good chance to receive a candidate with the 'Scientific Leap' agenda (+10% research speed). By switching to a monarchy after winning the election, you can ensure that this agenda lasts for the rest of the ruler's life rather than just the next 40-50 years. Best if you have traits/policies that extend leader lifespan.
  
  
• Not all debris are worth surveying. Keep in mind the surveying debris pauses your engineering tech progress. AI Constructors / Science Ships / Colony Ship debris will never yield any technology gains worth the pause. Most space monsters do not either, due to how weak most space monster weapons are in the current balance. The exceptions to this are the space amoebae (Amoeba Breeding Program and Regenerative Hull Tissue) and the elite crystalline entities (Crystal Forged armor).
  
  
• Once you research Gene Tailoring and Targeted Gene Expressions, you receive an extra +2 trait points to spend. Use this opportunity to give your main race the Intelligent trait if you haven't already. Use other absorbed races (or branch-offs of the main race) for more specialized genetic modifications (like Strong for army recruitment; Conformist for distant worlds colonization; etc)
  
  
• Consider leaving 1-2 core planet slots that you can use to rotate in sector planets -- aka once a sector planet to close to being fully populated, it's time to remove it from the sector for a few years, straighten out its buildings for maximum efficiency, then give it back. Hire a governor with the Architectural Interest trait to make this go faster (and cheaper; but again, minerals not a problem).

[Marisa Fan]

zanaikin you should probably add some pictures to lively up the guide and probably fix up a grammar mistake or two... oh and to update it.

[RedPine]

Outdated for 1.5. Debris no longer pauses research, and gives massive bonuses with the right tradition. Unity in addition to science scales with population.

[Kathistos Moggolos]

Excellent and very solid advice.
I would also add, if not already mentioned, to try and find a race that can live in tomb worlds. Either synths or an uplifted species with the ''irradiated'' trait will do. Put them in that world and DO NOT erase every ''irradiated wasteland'' ( I think that's the name of it) as it gives a +2 adjacency bonus to BOTH physics and society research. Build labs around it! Massive research points.
The same can be done with planets with ''stone-age primitives'', round them up to 3 or 4 enclaves and then encircle them for +2 society bonus.

[IPWIW]

nice boat

[zanaikin]

Hey hey, please keep your mouth clean while you're in my guide.
Though I don't talk to ppl who are too lazy to do their own math. If basic math is beyond you, don't play Paradox games.

[SpeedOfLight]

@zanaikin, please answer me!!

[SpeedOfLight]

Answer this please. I have 13 planets and 180 POP (so +%300 tech cost).

How much I have to produce of science to fulfill the counterbalance?

Please show your calculation!

Thanks you very very much!

[Vergans]

@zanaikin thanks a lot. I was looking at the overall output of my empire so maybe that's it.

[zanaikin]

@alessandro: I haven't played since 1.2 patch (been too busy), but currently Stellaris' tooltips are kind of terrible. It's really hard to tell at times if a bonus is working or not. =\
I've always [felt] like it works, but... could just be a placebo effect.
Intelligent and research bonus traits you should be able to tell by hovering over planetary tile yields.

[Vergans]

Also I took intelligent and natural physicists as species traits and those don't seem to work either.