Researching Something
Flat costs, wall-clock timers, and exactly four slots.
WHAT A TECH COSTS
Every tech has a flat, fixed cost paid up front from the general stockpile. Money, steel, oil, and manpower appear from the very first rung; Electronics and Advanced Materials phase in around mid-tiers; Research Points only become required from roughly T2.6 onward — early research never needs Research Points at all. Air Superiority Fighters, opening vs. closing rung:
| TECH | COST | TIME |
|---|---|---|
| OPENING (T1.0) | 600 money · 400 steel · 250 oil · 120 manpower | 20 hours |
| CLOSING (T3.6) | 13,000 money · 3,000 steel · 2,400 oil · 600 manpower · 3,200 electronics · 2,600 adv. materials · 1,400 RP | climbs with tier |
DAY GATES
Separately from prerequisites, every tech also has an "available day" — it can't be started before the game has reached that day, even with every upstream prerequisite already complete.
FOUR SLOTS. ALWAYS.
Every player has exactly 4 concurrent research slots (2 "Main," 2 "Sub"), fixed, always — regardless of whether a Research Laboratory has been built at all, and regardless of its level. Building or upgrading the lab currently haszero effect on slot count, research speed, or which tiers are available. The lab's description text ("Unlocks Research Slots," "−20%/−40% Research Time," "Unlocks T3 Units") is unwired flavor text right now.