Researching Something
Paid up front, timed in game hours, gated by day and by slots.
WHAT A TECH COSTS
Every tech has a fixed cost paid in full from the shared pool when you start it. Money, steel, oil and manpower appear from the first rung; electronics early in most lines; advanced materials from about T2.0; Research Points only from about T2.6. Costs are tuned so the scarcest resource in a tech takes about as long to earn as the tech takes to research. Air Superiority Fighters, as an example:
| TIER | FROM | COST | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| T1.0 | Day 1 | 171 money · 111 steel · 73 oil · 39 manpower · 60 electronics | 4h |
| T2.0 | Day 6 | 244 money · 116 steel · 80 oil · 25 manpower · 81 electronics · 48 adv. mat. | 5.4h |
| T2.6 | Day 12 | 261 money · 111 steel · 77 oil · 23 manpower · 100 electronics · 59 adv. mat. · 26 RP | 6.6h |
| T3.6 | Day 30 | 391 money · 109 steel · 82 oil · 22 manpower · 135 electronics · 107 adv. mat. · 58 RP | 9h |
HOW LONG IT TAKES
Research runs on game time. Each line belongs to a weight class; its first rung takes the class's base time and the last rung its maximum, with the tiers between growing smoothly. The longest tech in the game takes 10 hours.
| WEIGHT CLASS | T1.0 | T3.6 |
|---|---|---|
| INFANTRY | 1h | 3h |
| LIGHT VEHICLES | 1.5h | 4h |
| SUPPORT / RADAR | 2h | 5h |
| HEAVY VEHICLES | 3h | 7h |
| AIRCRAFT | 4h | 9h |
| NAVAL | 5h | 10h |
| MISSILES & ORDNANCE | 1h | 4h |
DAY GATES
Separately from prerequisites, every tech has an available day — it can't be started before the game reaches that day, even with every prerequisite done. Day gates are what pace long-term progression: T1.0 techs open on day 1, the last ones around day 50.
RESEARCH SLOTS
How many techs you can run at once is set by your highest-level operational Research Laboratory anywhere in your nation — not summed across cities. Losing or downgrading that lab shrinks the count; research already running keeps going.
| LAB | SLOTS |
|---|---|
| NO RESEARCH LAB | 2 |
| RESEARCH LAB L1 | 2 |
| RESEARCH LAB L2 | 3 |
| RESEARCH LAB L3 | 5 |