bear in mind this lets you get things like boron parts before the boron have even been opened to the galaxy.

@Andro I don't think the price is high, but the amount of other resources you have to gather becomes a burdensome step, which it might be even more convenient to just buy the bp with original price, which challenges the meaning of this mod, but then, it's not for me to judge but for me to opinion to sway the consideration.
As said, claytronics and hull parts are fully short all the time within the circle, whilst there are other abundant resources such as food / meds / and energy cell.

@DamnedCaptnBlue within "steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extensions", some mods needs extraction if it's zipped as .cat files, and you'll need to download XRCatToolGUI from the official website.

I don't get this discussion, to research a blueprint for e.g. a L ship (e.g. Argon destroer, don't know the exact name) you need materials worth of ~10m, the ship itself is around 5m if you buy it from another faction and the blueprint costs 47m. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH?!?!

@Virkful how exactly would i find that xml file

@Admirable Snackbar well luckily the materials can easily be edited at wares.xml

Seems if you stay at the research page, when research's done, it'll create another empty research of the same type, if you research that again, the whole type of research will be bugged entirely for the save, no salvation to it.

Agree with Virkful and Wryson Rose's comments. The research costs are so high, that you can use the same materials to make enough money to buy the blueprints multiple times over. Otherwise I love the idea of the mod.
If the blueprint acquired was something that is otherwise unobtainable then the very high cost would suit as an endgame goal/mechanic representing an empire-level effort to push forward the state of art technology.

would prefer easier materials rather than claytronics and hull parts... the whole space is short on them.
the inconvenience of gathering such materials and the cost pretty much resulted rather just buy the blueprints from the representatives...
could've balanced by research time and amount of energy cells.

Yeah I had to reload my game and it showed up, thanks for your help

You need to open the research pane in your HQ logistics, Same place you would go to do any other research normally.... it shows up as a special project in the middle left.

When I select a project it just says it started researching and when I ask for the status it gives me the name of the research, nothing about what it costs

Go to the HQ manager (Not Boso-Ta) and talk to them. Select a research project and you can then see what it will cost to research. You can cancel the project through them as well if memory serves.

Where can I see the progress/requirements for the research?

With that one it seems to work. Thanks for the hint.

even if you use the "extended conversations" mod?

FYI, there appears to be a mod incompatibility with "Sector Satellites" (mod nexus mod 4). With that mod activated, the blueprint research option is not available when talking with the station's manager. The workshops light version of sector satellites does NOT cause an issue.

I'm using the research mod to provide a realistic way to learn blueprints, not to cheat by buying them or importing a custom station. Some of the research tasks, like for the scrap recycler or habitat, make sense cost-wise and feel logical.

However, asking for the equivalent materials to build and then discard entire structures five times just to learn a blueprint doesn’t feel like proper research — it feels like excessive grinding for no real purpose.

I’m not looking for a cheat or an easy way out. I’m simply looking for a more realistic, balanced approach. If I wanted to bypass the research entirely, I’d use the editor or spawn the items. But that’s not what I’m after.

As I said before, It was said earlier when I brought up something that WAS messed up:
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Andro [author] Apr 24, 2024 @ 12:37pm
No it looks alright. It is based on the blueprint cost and build cost for the modules. Of course i had to classify the blueprints and use some average values so you might find some blueprints which seem too expensive while others seem too cheap.
----

Sooo you should make your own mod that does it.
Or EMP the blueprint.
Or use the editor.
Or spawn with the BPs.

Your hangup here is entirely that its breaking your immersion. So do something about it.

I understand the logic behind having a meaningful investment in research, and I’m not arguing that it should be free or trivial. What doesn’t sit right with me is the sheer scale — requiring five times the materials to research something compared to actually building it feels excessive. That’s like paying the price of five cars just to take an auto repair class.


Even if the numbers work out as a net savings compared to buying the blueprint, it still feels like an artificial difficulty spike — especially when the game's economy already offers plenty of natural challenges.

I’d be more than happy with a research cost that’s still meaningful but closer to something reasonable — say, 20-30% of the actual build cost. That would still encourage thoughtful resource management without feeling wildly disproportionate.

I appreciate the perspective, and I get that some folks may prefer the challenge. But right now, it feels less like a challenge and more like an oversight.

The "amount of physical material this eats up" is really immaterial, because the mass it consumes in meatspace is irrelevant. You are getting in a tiff here because you cannot decouple your immersion logic from how exceptionally broken and cheatyface it would be to make it cost the same as just producing the thing yourself...


And again, nothing stops you from using EMP bombs to just steal the BP in the first place... and bypass the things you don't want to research.

Far as I can tell, this is largely aimed at allowing you to get access to BPs that you otherwise couldnt due to faction or plot reasons. Getting boron station BPs before they are unlocked as an example. And nothing really stops you from importing a station at universe generation, which automatically will teach you any and all blueprints required to create that design...

...I don't think you understand whats going on economically here. Ship fab S/M blueprint is around 100mil if memory serves.

Even if you cant produce the materials yourself, and buy all of the materials at the absolute worst possible prices, the blueprint will cost you 61,655,308 in material costs via:
18,216 claytronics
36,410 EC
66,616 hull plates

Net savings 38,344,692.

This is absolutely still a better deal than buying the blueprint. If you can't produce even a modicum of the materials it requires, or acquire them (and borking up the economy for wherever you are draining those materials), then there is no way you can really expect to build anything or repair much of anything yourself, defeating the entire purpose of having the ability to make ships.

I'm hoping the developer will reconsider the resource costs for research. I understand the need for it to require materials, but asking for five times the amount needed to build the actual structure feels excessive.

As a bonus, I ran the numbers, using the great pyramids of giza as an example:

Great Pyramid Volume -- ~2.21 million cubic meters
Quarry Size (football field footprint) -- ~442 meters deep
Total Weight of Stone -- ~5.75 million tons

Per the numbers here to LEARN how:

Requires the equivalent materials for 5.5 Great Pyramids.
That’s: 12.155 million cubic meters of stone.

Your quarry would be a football field-sized hole, dug 2,430 feet deep — nearly a half mile straight down.

You could almost fit the entire height of the largest building on earth into it, which is at 2,717 ft.

And that's not building it. That's thinking really hard about how.

@Chroma Hydra:

Maybe I'm crazy here, but these numbers make absolutely no sesne.

According to the station calculator, a S/M fabrication bay takes:

3,312 Claytronics
6,620 Energy Cells
12,112 Hull Parts

That's to build the fabrication bay.
The research to learn how would cost you FIVE and a half times more!

That's akin to to making a model of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramids at Giza, or some other monument to study its design. Only problem is: You end up using enough material to build the thing you were studying. Five Times. With change left over.

The numbers make absolutely no sense.

The materials cost was discussed earlier in comments I think. It seems heavily focused towards someone running closed loop rather than universal. You might want to consider setting up the scrap recovery stuff to provide the materials for those if your own factories are not producing enough hull plates. I would say that roughly the claytronics and hullplates cost is fairly on par with what makes sense due to the costs associated in actually building them anyway. If you can't research the stuff, you probably dont really have enough to build the things in the first place.

Also you can always try to use EMP bombs to force a blueprint theft on parts, but I dont recall if that will work on bays....

Since I can't edit my previous message, only delete it...

Edit: I'm a doofus. It didn't click until JUST NOW that the research isn't just time, but also resources. Don't know why it didn't. I blame coffee deprivation.

Either way, I realize now that resources are needed, though I would suggest looking more closely at the materials needed.

The small/medium construction bay research is 66,650 hull parts alone. Claytronics clocks in at just over 18k, and the energy cells check in at 38.3k.

Of those, the only one even remotely feasible is the energy cells, as you produce those quite well. The rest...I may be a good guy, but with the small/medium construction bay alone being that expensive, I'm questioning whether it's even close to worth the costs.

Is there a way to determine just how long a research project will take? I've left the system running for nearly a full eight hours, and there has been no completion of the small/medium ship construction bay research.

what is in the new version that would need an update? Sorry I haven't played this game for a while now and not up to date, are there new factions incoming?

will this be getting updated for the new version ?

Where i can find Defense for my Station ? Sorry im a little bit new :)

Looks to be working fine for me with the Reverse Engineering mod also installed, although now it has become somewhat redundant.

I don't think anything needs too change in the description for this mod but you appear too be able too run this mod and "Free Research No Cost No Time:" together without issue. They seem compatible with eachother. The Free Research Mod just wont apply too this mod because it wasnt built too work this mod. But it still works for the base game research.

I'm running Equipment Modifications Redone and can use Research Blueprints just fine. Idk what Reverse Engineering mod Yatogami uses, but I'm running just fine with Recycle Ships and Stations.

thanks for the report, added to list

@Andro
Sames found the conflict mod, may be the ship reverse engineering or the equipment modification redone, now the blueprint research is worked! thanks for the mod!

@Andro
I had tried select and cancel research many times but no effect.
I means in the research tab , there are many blueprint research option appear at once and wont disappear in any situation, and it actually be this mod according the reasearch name
I try to remove some mod , in a new save i can't find the research appear at once ,but the hq officer don't show research option at once, and it still not appear when i open my old save even i remove or open other mod or this mod again...
the situation of customized research tab may be my situation of all research show at once or not, in fact I haven't used this mod successfully, I will continue to try it if it work rightly in your pc,thanks for this information

yes it works as expected. Not sure what you mean with "all research options now shown ..." but maybe try selecting a blueprint at the HQ manager, then canceling it. That category should then disappear from the research tab and then you can use it normally.

@Andro
Not, I add this mod in a normal save. Does it still work in 7.10 in your save?Maybe some mod conflict

did you start custom game start with "all research unlocked"?

seems not avaliable in 7.10, all research options now shown in research tab at same time

@razorstrike

Just saw your message.

This is not the Player Restock mod page BUT, select the station from the map and go to the Personnel tab. Right click the manager there and then Comm

Hiho. Quick questions could someone explain to me the workaround for Player Restock like im five? I mean i how do i initatiate coms for a station? i know you can com the manager directly or talk to him in person but dont know how to com the station or what exactly should i do?

Hello. It isnt working here, i have no other research mod installed. Dunno know what to do.

Thanks Andro,
This mod is a liberation and finally allows me to fully enjoy it.
In my opinion the best mod to no longer be a nolife and a B4ll5 5uck3r.

hey, as a little info: the issues with custom games not being supported can be fixed by disabling the mods, loading the custom game, saving and reenabling the mod

Does this work with modded ships and equipment which are not sold

@Andro Thank you very much for your explanation. Now it takes 10 seconds to understand what it all about. Not 5 minutes. ))

Thanks

Some people..... kekw, whenever I play this game, this mod is a mandatory load, for good reasons <3

@Andro
I don't know about you, but I'm so, so incredibly confused by this dude's statements.


Your mod is a godsend, the sane community thanks you.

no it does not force you anything. It adds an option to research blueprints at player HQ (in addition to buying them from the faction representative).