R&D (not to be confused with the RD) consists of scientists spending automatically generated research points on a tech web to unlock technology that can be used for various departments.
Essentially this means that a scientist in this modern world doesn't actually have to know any of the concepts he's working with; it's all about pressing science buttons and playing with the resulting toys! Ain't life grand?
Scientist is actually multiple roles mashed together into one. These include:
R&D will gain research points passively and your job is to spend those points before the roboticist can. You should always try to get mining tech first, then the best parts (Tier 4), and then whatever is requested. A Security Officer may ask for weapons technology and an AI may ask for AI technology or cyborg upgrades. People will come to your front desk to ask you to print them some parts or boards and give it to them (do this unless you want to get greytided). You will usually also be tasked with upgrading the station's machines (see the construction paragraph on this page). On Monkestation, none of the nodes explicitly require experimentation but will benefit with point reductions for doing them!
Play slime rancher, make Ian sentient, get banned for "accidentally" releasing a hoard of slimes, make a hoard of golems to do your every bidding, become the most specialiest snowflake on the station and more at The Guide to Xenobiology!
Another job for the xenobiology lab. Find biological samples in the station and use them to grow creatures. See the guide to cytology.
Make and explode a bomb for research grants, discounts, or node unlocks. Burn down your department by accident, get banned for blowing up medbay "by accident", cry because you still don't know how atmos works, more at The Guide to Ordnance!
Highlights of the subdepartment include:
Research points are generated at a static rate by the R&D Network and can be spent on Technology Nodes at the console.
This is what your console will look like at the start of the round.
Under each technology, there's a panel showing the items it unlocks. By clicking "details", you may see what technologies it requires (irrelevant in the default "available" tab but not if browsing the "future" tab), and what technologies it unlocks. You may research a technology by hitting the "research" button
The console will update the screen to reflect your new research and send out a notification in chat.
At the start of a round, if you don't have any other research directives you should strongly consider aiming for:
Industrial Engineering is available as soon as you get your first 7500 research points, unlocks tier 2 stock parts for machine upgrades, and unlocks the RPED. It's also a pre-requisite for ALL of the other research items suggested here, so it's probably a good idea to consider doing it first of all. You can discount this by 5000 points by performing a simple experiment. As points will be scarce early on, this is highly recommended.
Mining Technology and, later, Advanced Mining Technology will give mining the tools needed to bring back much more ore to stock your protolathe. That makes these high-priority topics for most rounds. To research Mining Technology (2500) requires Industrial Engineering (7500) first, then Basic Plasma Research (2500). Advanced Mining Technology requires a bit more work and you will research most of the tier 3 stock parts or their prereqs on your journey to researching it.
Applied Bluespace Research allows miners to get Mining Satchels of Holding and also opens up the Bluespace RPED, which makes machine upgrades (your responsibility!) trivial. This technology is available for 5000 research points after unlocking first-tier research topics Industrial Engineering (7500) and Basic Bluespace Theory (2500). This is also a Tier 3 stock part technology.
The Tier 3 stock part technologies are listed above.
Certain round circumstances may call for different research early on, talk to your fellow scientists and listen to your Research Director!
The progression is not linear and many research options require multiple pre-requisite technologies.
If you want cheaper technologies (and to make the crew happier by having techs sooner), you need to conduct experiments!
Experiments can be anything from Human Dissection (a surgery you must perform next to a surgery computer), to Reactionless Explosions (which requires you to detonate a bomb), to analysing upgraded machines or glass toilets.
This is an experiment usually done at the start of the round in order to get a discount on Industrial Engineering.
It requires you to grab an Experi-Scanner, accept the experiment by clicking it (you will see the blue tab around the experiment's name turn green), and then click on the listed objects to scan them. In many cases, you will need to build them first.
Usually, this will be something easy to build, such as a chair, made out of an easily obtainable material like iron or glass.
You should grab a stack of the required material, and use it to open a construction menu from which you will be able to build chairs, toilets, and the like.
In the case of tables, you may use your screwdriver on an existing table to remove its cover, and then click the table frame with the desired material.
You may perform these experiments by putting a dead body (human or non-human, respectively) on an operating table next to an operating computer. There's one in the Robotics subdepartment, and more in Medbay.
It is common to ask the roboticist if he will perform this experiment, as some of the nodes that benefit robotics are locked behind it.
For specific instructions, see the Guide to Surgery.
Also see: Guide to Ordnance
An experiment performed in Toxins (also known as the Ordnance Lab).
It requires you to detonate a TTV explosive made from a tank of superheated ("furiously hot") plasma and a cold gas such as nitrogen.
A thermomachine is able to cool the nitrogen to the required temperature, but, in order to superheat the plasma, you will require an upgraded thermomachine.
Alternatively, you can use the burn chamber to generate hot plasma, and scrub it out into a canister.
Once you have a tank of cold nitrogen and another of furiously hot plasma, attach both to a TTV (tank transfer valve), as well as an activation switch (such as a remote signaller or a timer).
Place your bomb inside the mass driver (if you chose a timer, set the timer - it is recommended to increase it past the default 10 seconds), set the auto-launch to 00:00 and hit "Start" (make sure you are not standing on the mass driver or you will be spaced). If you chose to use a signaller instead of a timer, wait a few seconds for your bomb to arrive and then send the signal.
Once your bomb explodes, the tachyon-doppler array will output a message. You must now publish the research paper.
The robust way:
Also see: Guide to Ordnance
This experiment is also performed in Toxins. Producing BZ requires you to mix Plasma and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and cool the mix down. This is usually performed in the Ordnance Lab's Freezer Chamber.
Note that you must both open the valve and turn on the injector via Ordnance Chamber Control.
Be sure to create a bottleneck (either by limiting the injection or by not maxing out one of the gas mixers' pressure), as BZ forms faster in low pressure.
In order to actually cool the gas, you will need to set up a cooling circuit. One is already in place, you may complete it by attaching a canister with a gas, such as nitrogen (which will make it easier to do Reactionless Explosives as you will already have cold nitrogen, which you can remove from the circuit when needed), or carbon dioxide. Remember to turn on the thermomachine and set it to the lowest temperature.
Once the BZ is formed, you may extract it by wrenching an empty canister into the output port and setting the air alarm to scrub BZ (and only BZ) in an expanded radius. Don't forget to turn it on.
The unrobust way:
Alternatively, you can ignore everything said above and just order a canister of BZ from Cargo.
Once you have the BZ:
Once you have a canister with over 100 mol of BZ, wrench it down on the gas compressor's input port. Grab an empty O2 tank (scrub one at the air scrubber or print one at the lathe) and put it inside the gas compressor.
Turn the gas compressor on. If you brought enough BZ, the tank will fill until it either starts leaking (in which case you should let it empty itself until around 10 kPa or less and eject the tank) or it explodes (in which case the experiment will instantly conclude).
The tank compressor will output a message when it is done. You must now publish the research paper.
Once either the gas compressor or the tachyon-doppler array has recorded an experiment, you must insert a disk in the machine and save the record to the disk.
You must then remove the disk and insert it into a console (PDAs also work). Go to file management, and download the experiment file onto the console. Remove the disk from the console.
Download NTFrontier (the paper program) into the console (usually contained inside a purple disk near the ordnance lab), and open the program.
You should be able to select the experiment you completed. You must select options for all the drop-down boxes. You may fill out the other fields, or not. They will be automatically filled if you simply hit 'Publish'.
Decon.png Deconstruction is done through the Destructive Analyzer:
The primary use for this is to allow you to get Syndicate technology from Syndicate items and Alien technology from Alien tools.
The computer will show you the name of the object, if it unlocks any tech nodes, and how many materials you get from deconstruction.
The Destructive Analyzer will recover a portion of the materials contained inside scanned items and transfer it to a connected protolathe. Upgrading it will increase the amount recovered.
See here how to build machines out of the components you discover. This is where advanced technology you discovered by increasing tech trees will be made. Nothing exciting at first can be built, but you will get increasingly more fun devices as tech trees increase. You will unlock items for the Exosuit Fabricator as well.
All machines are composed of components. There are better versions of many components, attained through research. They are organized in 4 tiers, and upgrading the tier of a machine's components will have different effects for each machine.
Without minerals, you can achieve up to tier 2-3; to go further you'll require ores for production.
Tier 2 parts are all unlocked with "Industrial Engineering," which also unlocks the RPED. Others are unlocked as noted.
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Usual Effect | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | Micro-Manipulator | # | Nano-Manipulator | # | Pico-Manipulator1 | # | #Femto-Manipulator5 | Improves speed and efficiency. |
| # | Basic Matter Bin | # | Advanced Matter Bin | # | Super Matter Bin1 | # | #Bluespace Matter Bin5 | Improves capacity. |
| # | Basic Micro-Laser | # | High-Power Micro-Laser | # | #Ultra-High-Power Micro-Laser2 | # | ##Quad-Ultra Micro-Laser6 | Improves speed and efficiency. |
| # | Basic Scanning Module | # | Advanced Scanning Module | # | #Phasic Scanning Module3 | # | #Triphasic Scanning Module5 | Improves scanning precision. |
| # | Basic Capacitor | # | Advanced Capacitor | # | #Super Capacitor4 | # | #Quadratic Capacitor7 | Improves power efficiency. |
1: Unlocked with High Efficiency Parts
2: Unlocked with Advanced Electromagnetic Theory
3: Unlocked with Applied Bluespace Research
4: Unlocked with Advanced Power Manipulation
5: Unlocked with Miniaturized Bluespace Research
6: Unlocked with Quantum Electromagnetic Technology
7: Unlocked with Bluespace Power Technology
Once you unlock advanced components, people around the station will probably want you to upgrade the machinery. Overall, the process is simply replacing obsolete stock parts with higher-tier parts.
The least efficient way is to upgrade by hand (and break silo links everywhere, dont fucking do this unless its a last resort measure):
As a much more efficient alternative, you can use RPED (Rapid Part Exchange Device), which unlocks with the Industrial Engineering topic. That is, the RPED unlocks as soon as you actually have your first upgraded parts, so you should pretty much always be upgrading with an RPED. The RPED replaces each component in a machine with the highest component of its tier that's loaded in the RPED.
Load RPED with parts, such as stock parts, loaded power cells, beakers and vendor restocking units.
Screwdriver on the machine.
Click on it with RPED.
Screwdriver again to close the machine.
The best alternative is to use the even more advanced Bluespace Rapid Part Exchange Device (BRPED), which functions just like an RPED except that you don't need access to the machine, screwdrivers, or even adjacency! That's right: BRPED works even through camera views. Consider building a camera console in R&D once you have a BRPED instead of running all over the station. This device is unlocked with Applied Bluespace Research and operates as follows:
Load Bluespace RPED with parts, such as stock parts, loaded power cells, beakers and vendor restocking units.
Click on the machine to upgrade with the Bluespace RPED. That's it! No screwdrivering or asking the AI or people to open doors into their departments.
Robotics starts with two of these. This machine will build everything a roboticist needs to do his job, aside from circuits. To update its research levels:
Sync the R&D Research Console.
Sync the Robotics Research Console.
Sync the Exosuit Fabricator.
Can be used directly, without the Research Console.
The Circuit Imprinter requires glass and occasionally gold or diamond. Here you will find circuits for most of the station's machinery and robotics' exosuits. With gold and diamonds, you can also make AI law modules.
Information on how to construct machines is available at the Guide to advanced construction.
Circuits cost 1000 glass each, becoming cheaper with upgrades
The departmental Protolathe requires materials such as metal, glass and mineable minerals. Each sheet gives 2000 units when inserted into a Protolathe or its connected Ore Silo. It allows you to build objects such as stock parts, power cells and much more, depending on department.
Building 5 or 10 of the same item is faster than building it one at a time for 10 times; if you need lots of a particular item, mass produce them!
The departmental Techfabs are circuit imprinters and departmental protolathes combined.