Research

Research allows you to unlock new buildings, transports, vehicles, edicts, recipes and ship upgrades. After selecting a research technology in the research screen, you can also queue up other technologies, which will be researched afterwards. The number of technologies in the queue is represented by the "+X" number next to the current research in the research bar. It is possible to remove items from the research queue by selecting them, and clicking remove from queue, however it seems that you need to remove the last added research from the queue first, before you can remove any other research from it. You can also cancel the whole research queue by cancelling the current research, which will also clear the whole queue.

Research Points

Each Research Lab produces a certain amount of research points every month. Each technology has a "difficulty rating", which defines how many research points you need to research in order to unlock the technology. The difficulty rating can be seen next to the technology name in the research screen, e.g. "Construction III[9]". The difficulty rating is not directly linked to the amount of research points needed to research a technology, as in for a technology with a difficulty rating of 10, you need exactly 100 research points. However, you can assume that each difficulty rating increases the research points needed by 27. Meaning that if you want to research Construction III technology, which has difficulty rating of 9, you will need to generate approximately 9*27 = 243 research points to unlock it. Although, the actual amount of research points needed for difficulty rating of 9 is 234. This means that to unlock the Construction III, using a single Research Lab II, which generates 4 research points per month, you will need to wait approximately 243 / 4 = 60 months, and use up 243 Lab Equipment.

Research speed per lab

Research labs	Research speed
Research Lab	3.2
Research Lab II	4
Research Lab III	4.8
Research Lab IV	5.6
Research Lab V	6.4

Difficulty Level	Research Points Needed	Game Speed x1 & Research Lab x1	Lab Equipment Type Needed	Lab Equipment QTY Needed
1	18.4	00h 05m 45s	None	None
2	36.8	00h 11m 30s	None	None
3	70.4	00h 22m 00s	None	None
4	98.4	00h 30m 45s	None	None
5	125.6	00h 39m 15s	None	None
5	128	00h 32m 00s	Tier 1 (White)	128
6	155	00h 38m 45s	Tier 1 (White)	155
7	182	00h 45m 30s	Tier 1 (White)	182
8	210	00h 52m 30s	Tier 1 (White)	210
9	237	00h 59m 15s	Tier 1 (White)	237
10	264	01h 06m 00s	Tier 1 (White)	264
10	265.2	00h 55m 15s	Tier 2 (Yellow)	221
12	320.4	01h 06m 45s	Tier 2 (Yellow)	267
13	346.8	01h 12m 15s	Tier 2 (Yellow)	289
14	375.6	01h 18m 15s	Tier 2 (Yellow)	313
15	402	01h 23m 45s	Tier 2 (Yellow)	335
16	429.8	01h 16m 45s	Tier 3 (Red)	307
18	484.4	01h 26m 30s	Tier 3 (Red)	346
19	511	01h 31m 15s	Tier 3 (Red)	365
20	539	01h 36m 15s	Tier 3 (Red)	385
21	567	01h 41m 15s	Tier 3 (Red)	405
22	593.6	01h 46m 00s	Tier 3 (Red)	424
24	648.2	01h 55m 45s	Tier 3 (Red)	463
26	702.8	02h 05m 30s	Tier 3 (Red)	502
32	866.6	02h 34m 45s	Tier 3 (Red)	619
36	977.6	02h 32m 45s	Tier 4 (Purple)	611
38	1032	02h 41m 15s	Tier 4 (Purple)	645
40	1096	02h 51m 15s	Tier 4 (Purple)	685
42	1150.4	02h 59m 45s	Tier 4 (Purple)	719
52	1424	03h 42m 30s	Tier 4 (Purple)	890