Research Lab

The Research Lab is the building that lets you research. Every technology in the game comes out of a lab, and a technology belongs to your empire rather than to one planet, so once you learn it every planet you own gets the benefit.

You build it from the Buildings page of whichever planet you have selected. It has no requirements of its own, so it is available on a fresh colony from day one. Your homeworld starts with a Research Lab already at level 1. Every colony you settle starts at zero and needs its own.

What the level does

Two things, and nothing else. The lab produces no resources, burns no energy and defends nothing.

It gates technology. Most techs need a minimum lab level before they appear at all. Espionage Tech wants level 3, Shield Tech wants level 6, ARCNet wants level 10. The full list is further down this page.
It sets research speed. The higher the lab, the faster every research runs.

Research time

Time (hours)	(Ore cost + Crystal cost) / (2,000 × (Effective Lab Level + 1))

Hydrogen is part of the price of a tech but it is not counted in the time. Only ore and crystal are.

Effective Lab Level is the level of the lab you research from. Once you have ARCNet it is the pooled total of your best qualifying labs instead. Research has the full pooling rules.

A worked example straight out of the game. Espionage Tech level 9 costs 51,200 ore and 256,000 crystal. On a level 8 lab with no ARCNet that is 307,200 / (2,000 × 9), which is 17 hours 4 minutes. Pool a level 10 lab with it through ARCNet level 1 and the effective level becomes 18, so the same research finishes in 8 hours 5 minutes.

Two other things move the clock. An alliance that has bought the Research Relay perk divides the time further, down to half at the top level. And nothing ever takes less than five seconds, however small the numbers get.

Finishing a lab upgrade does not speed up a research that is already running. The clock is set the moment you press Upgrade and it does not move after that.

Resources come from the planet you research on

A research is paid for out of the stock sitting on the planet you start it from. A lab cannot reach across to another planet's warehouses, and ARCNet does not change that either. If the crystal is on the wrong planet, ship it over with a cargo run first.

One research at a time

You can only run one research at a time, and that limit covers your whole empire, not one planet. Two labs do not mean two researches. What extra labs buy you is speed, and only once ARCNet is up.

The lab and your research also block each other, in both directions and across every planet you own:

While a research is running you cannot build, upgrade or tear down a Research Lab anywhere. The row reads Cannot upgrade while tech research is in progress.
While a Research Lab is upgrading anywhere you cannot start a research at all. Every Upgrade button on the Research page greys out and the tech rows read Cannot research while Research lab is upgrading.

research-lab-upgrading-blocks.jpg 274 KB

Cancel or finish whichever one is in the way. Cancelling refunds every unit of ore, crystal and hydrogen you paid, for a research and for a lab upgrade alike, so there is no penalty for backing out.

Cost and effect

Every level costs exactly twice the one before it. The last column is how long a research takes at that level compared with a level 1 lab.

Level	Ore	Crystal	Hydrogen	Research time %
1	200	400	200	100.00
2	400	800	400	66.67
3	800	1,600	800	50.00
4	1,600	3,200	1,600	40.00
5	3,200	6,400	3,200	33.33
6	6,400	12,800	6,400	28.57
7	12,800	25,600	12,800	25.00
8	25,600	51,200	25,600	22.22
9	51,200	102,400	51,200	20.00
10	102,400	204,800	102,400	18.18
11	204,800	409,600	204,800	16.67
12	409,600	819,200	409,600	15.38
13	819,200	1,638,400	819,200	14.29
14	1,638,400	3,276,800	1,638,400	13.33
15	3,276,800	6,553,600	3,276,800	12.50
16	6,553,600	13,107,200	6,553,600	11.76
17	13,107,200	26,214,400	13,107,200	11.11
18	26,214,400	52,428,800	26,214,400	10.53

There is no cap. The pattern carries on for as long as you can pay for it, and the last column is always 2 / (level + 1) as a percentage. The saving is huge at the bottom and small at the top: the first four levels take research down to 40% of what it was, while going from level 17 to level 18 shaves off half a percent and costs 26 million ore.

Tearing it down

More Info on the Research Lab row lists what the next several levels cost and holds the Teardown button. Teardown drops the lab one level, hands the field back, and costs a third of what that level cost to build. It takes time and it uses the planet's one build slot while it runs, exactly like an upgrade.

Dropping a lab is worth thinking twice about. Every tech you have already researched stays, but any tech that needed that level to unlock disappears from the Research page until you build the level back.

Techs and the lab level they need

Without ARCNet the lab on the planet you are standing on has to meet the number on its own. With ARCNet only labs that already meet it join the pool. Most of these techs have tech requirements on top of the lab level, listed on Research.

Lab level	Unlocks
1	A.I. Tech, Energy Tech, Jet Drive, Laser Tech
2	Armor Tech, Pulse Drive
3	Espionage Tech, Expedition Tech
4	Particle Tech, Plasma Tech, Weapons Tech
6	Shield Tech
7	FTL Tech, Warp Drive
10	Advanced Research Communication Network

Nothing else in the game asks for a Research Lab. No ship, building or defense has it as a requirement.

Where you cannot build one

Research Labs cannot go on a moon. Only the Lunar Base, Capitol, Oracle, Lunar Dock and Warp Gate build there, so the Research page on a moon always shows the locked panel above. They cannot go on a Hephaestus Class Attack Platform either, and you cannot start a research while standing on one.

Worth knowing

Every level takes one field, the same as any other structure. A high lab competes with your mines for room.
A planet builds one structure at a time, so a lab upgrade queues against your mines on that planet.
Any lab upgrade with under five minutes left finishes free. Longer ones cost 1.12 credits a second to rush.
Four quests pay out for the lab. Research and Development I wants a lab at all, then II, III and IV want level 3, level 6 and level 12. The last one hands over 224,200 ore, 42,300 crystal and 53,500 hydrogen.
Resources spent on the lab count toward your rank, the same as anything else you build.
Most players push one planet's lab as high as they can afford and treat it as the research planet, then add ARCNet later to bring the rest of their labs into the pool.