Science is the process by which new blueprints are created.

Research can be immensely rewarding and is essential to advancing the game. Try it, experiment, and enjoy.


To do science, you need to do two things to start:

* Hire scientists at one or more colonies
* Build or construct a Research Lab

Note: You must have have a research lab at the same colony as the scientists with whom you will be using for doing research. Once you select a lab to use, only scientists at that colony are available for research.

After selecting a research lab, select the type of research project you wish to research.

Enter the research budget you wish to use.
Note: The suggested budget is a balance between estimated project duration and the quality of the result. A higher budget may well be beneficial, but prolong the project.


The next step is to select the scientists you wish to use. Each scientist has scores in a number of skills. See Scientist for more info.

A research lab has a fixed maximum number of scientists that it can employ to do the research. For example, the starter garage lab structure, let's you add 1 or 2 scientist to the project but no more. Later research labs will add more scientists as the power of your research teams increase. To add a scientist, simply click the button to the left of the scientist name.

Once you have added the desired number of researchers to the project press the start button and hurry up and wait.


Power; The output that determines factors such as number of workers, power, and armor and shield factors, is determined by the skills of the scientist primarily. Effectiveness is primarily determined by the effectiveness of the research lab running the project. Budget plays a small part in effectiveness and quality of the blueprint as does a random quality value that gets factored in.

Cost and resource requirements for a print generally move linearly with the power and effectiveness output of a blueprint with a 10% random variation.

Mass or capacity of a blueprint is a combination of ingenuity and total print power.

Scientist level up their skills at the end of projects through conversations with other scientist. Depending on the type and ratios of skills needed for a blueprint. The number of scientists on the team, each scientist can potentially increase their skills. The longer a project runs, the more conversations occur and thus likely more skill level ups.

Research run times show three values: current, best effort, and deadline. Current shows you how many game days the project has been running. Best effort shows the likely ideal run time although that is only an estimation. The deadline specifies the longest a project can run before completing.


* Researching is expensive, particularly at the start of a round, so if you are serious about researching you will have to accept that it will consume most of your credits and resources. The best researchers will likely be funded by their empires or factions.
* Scientist salaries are very expensive so do not hire a lot of scientists without adequate income. Hiring them on high tech colonies will make them demand less compensation in monetary terms, allowing you to hire more for less.
* It is not worth using budgets of more than 10 million generally. Budgets at the start should not exceed one million credits. As you add more scientists you can increase the budget. Mid game budgets of 5 million credits are fine. Later budgets can hit hundreds of millions of credits.
* Running research labs one after the other is the best current known way to improve the blueprints. A serious researcher should ALWAYS be running a new research lab.
* A colony's high tech index can influence how long a project runs, how much the scientists demand in salary, and how much they learn. Over 100% will generally reduce the time a project will run. A high military index will improve the quality of ship hull blueprints. A high urban index improves general buildings. And a high industrial index improves resource structures.
* Scientists age in game years and have a chance of dying after age 55. If a scientist dies while working on a project, the project will still finish but without that scientist's contribution or conversations.
* Scientists can be transferred from one colony to another for a hefty price thus allowing grouping of scientists to run on particular colonies.
* Scientists will occasionally demand raises after a project runs. If you don't agree you can always fire the scientist.
* Hybrid blueprints occur at higher levels of ingenuity. Blueprint groups that can have hybrids are buildings, mines, ship hulls, and shields/armor. Hybrids will only use other blueprint types within the same blueprint group (example hulls). So you can get fighter/ bomber hybrids, police station/academy hybrids as examples.
* If you destroy a research lab while a project is running it will cancel the project and you still lose your investment of time and credits.

Aegis/Taikon