Research

Research points

Research costs neither resources nor time: it is paid for in research points (RP). Each level of your ship's Research Center adds RP to your budget, from 2 at the first level up to 101 in total at level 20. Upgrading the Research Center is therefore the only way to get more technologies.

The budget belongs to each mothership: if you own several, each has its own Research Center, its own RP and its own choices. A technology applies to the ship that researched it.

The choice is made in two steps: you build a draft in the Research screen, then you apply it. An applied technology is permanent and takes effect at once. The only way back is the reset, which wipes all of the ship's technologies for 50 coins and returns all the RP for a new distribution. A Research Center out of service (too damaged) refuses any new application, but the technologies already acquired keep working.

The research tree

The tree has a common trunk of five levels and 4 specialisation branches of ten levels: Production, Military, Defense and Technology. In each branch, levels are taken in order: level 4 requires level 3. The first level of each branch requires the first level of the common trunk.

The whole common trunk costs 15 RP, each branch 80 RP. With 101 RP at most, a ship can complete the common trunk and one branch, and still has a few points left for the first levels of a second one. Nobody can have everything: that is intended. A ship specialises, and the alliance brings the specialities together.

The common trunk

The common trunk is useful to everyone. It extends your ship's vision, opens the chat between players and the map markers, reveals the richness of the deposits and unlocks the two reconnaissance units. Its last level shares the vision of your whole alliance, warns you of AI movements in your field of view and starts the automatic repair of your buildings.

Vision does not stack: the best value reached is what counts. Level 3, which displays the yield of every tile, changes the way you choose your extractors and your moves: a rich deposit is often worth two poor ones.

The Production branch

The Production branch grows your economy. Extraction bonuses apply to your extractors, farm bonuses to your food, and the two big steps of levels 7 and 10 to all your production. Cost reductions affect the energy and silicium of your constructions as well as your units.

Bonuses of the same type add up (extraction: both levels add together), then the stages multiply: the extraction bonus acts on each extractor, and the total production bonus on the sum. Level 8 makes the merchant's conversions free; otherwise they cost 3 coins each. Levels 5 and 10 make your resource shipments instant, first at short range and then across the whole map: an asset to resupply an ally in the middle of a battle.

The Military branch

The Military branch strengthens your units in combat and lowers the cost of your army. Its bonuses apply when attacking as when defending, unless stated otherwise, and combine with the auras and the other effects described on the Combat page.

The two group bonuses (levels 5 and 7) do not stack: only the best step counts, provided your side fields the required number of units. Level 9 saves part of the losses after each combat and lets you choose the type of AI building to target in an attack. Levels 7 and 10 only apply in attacks with several players: coordination is the heart of the late game.

The Defense branch

The Defense branch protects your ship: building HP and resistance, tower power and range, energy shield, automatic repair. It also has two alliance effects: level 7 brings your nearby allies' shield vessels and towers into your defence, and level 9 weakens the AI when it attacks a nearby ally.

The building HP of the five levels add up. The energy shield of level 6 is a reserve of 1,500 points that absorbs damage before your buildings and recharges on its own, for free; level 9 enlarges it. The automatic repair rates of the common trunk and of this branch add up, to as much as 15 % of HP per hour.

The Technology branch

The Technology branch opens the special units and the weapons against the AI's economy. It unlocks the production of the Colonial Vessel, the Admiral Vessel and the Shield Vessel, pushes vision to the furthest, reduces the upkeep of your units and gives two unique tools: the jammer and the virus.

The jammer works as long as your ship is landed: every AI VM in your field of view produces less and pays more, in resources as in time, for its constructions and units. Several jammers do not stack on the same VM: the strongest penalty applies.

The virus requires you to expose yourself: your landed ship infects the AI VMs whose detection radius reaches it, which therefore see you and can raid you. An infected VM loses 40 % of its production and 20 % of its DEF for 48 hours (divided by the server speed), and the infection jumps once to the healthy VMs within 5 tiles. The last level gives you the vision of every player on the server.

Stacking rules

• Within one ship, bonuses of the same type add up: two technologies giving +5 % and +10 % building HP give +15 %.
• Best only for vision, the jammer, the range of instant shipments and the group bonuses: the highest value replaces the others.
• Between coordinated attackers, the combat engine keeps the strongest value of each bonus among the players on the same side: a single ally with Military level 8 gives its bonus to the whole attack.
• Between allied defenders, each ship keeps its own technologies; only the alliance effects (allies' shield vessels and towers, fortress aura) cross from one ship to another.

Four specialisation profiles

1. The economist completes Production. They feed the alliance with resources, afford a large army despite the upkeep and resupply the others instantly. It is an excellent first choice for a new player.
2. The attacker completes the Military branch. Their bonuses benefit every coordinated attack they take part in: they lead the assault on the VMs and, in the late game, on the Core.
3. The defender completes Defense. Their ship becomes a bastion that protects its neighbours with its towers, its shield vessels and its fortress aura.
4. The technician completes the Technology branch. They open the special vessels, see the whole map and weaken the AI's economy with the jammer and the virus.

A balanced alliance brings these profiles together around one area: the economist resupplies, the defender holds the position, the technician jams and infects the nearby VMs, and the attacker strikes with bonuses the whole attack shares. Coordinate your choices before applying them: a reset costs coins.

The AI's research

The AI has its own tree, in four branches paid for by three buildings. The Core branch is global: it is paid for by the Central Processor of its central VM and applies to the whole AI. The other three are local: each extraction VM pays for the Extraction branch with its Analysis Module, and each combat VM or Secondary Core pays for its two combat branches with its Tactical Core. Two neighbouring VMs can therefore have very different research.

The Central Processor goes up to level 20 (168 RP), enough for the whole Core branch (168 RP). The Analysis Module goes up to level 10 (28 RP) and the Tactical Core up to level 15 (80 RP), with at most 76 RP per combat branch: a combat VM can complete its attack branch (76 RP) or its defence branch (76 RP), never both.

Two limits add to the budget. The Core branch is capped by the AI's tier: the table gives the first tier at which each technology is allowed with the default settings, and the AI can go one step beyond this cap when its Grey Zone is attacked. Each local technology requires the Core to have reached a certain level, shown in the « Requires » column. The « Building level » column gives the level of the research building that pays for the whole chain up to the technology (for combat, counting only the branch concerned). Finally, a technology only works while the research building that paid for it is in service: damaging a VM's Tactical Core suspends its combat bonuses.

Core branch (global)

The Extinction Protocol only activates when the AI's force reaches 67 % of the force ratio that would give it victory: its production is then multiplied by 2, and the effect drops if the players regain the upper hand. Keeping the force ratio low therefore protects humanity twice.

Extraction branch (local, extraction VMs)

Combat branch — attack (local, combat VMs)

Combat branch — defence (local, combat VMs and towers)