More researches at once

[Mango]

When you have more than one lab I think you should be able to research more things at the same time. As the research is automated i don't see the reason for limiting the player to just one at time.

I imagine that every lab has it's own research and in the right upper corner you have more than one bar with the research progress.

What do you think

[BurnHard]

Hmm. What would be the real advantages?

There are no limitations at the moment how fast you can research, only the limited supply of research packets. If you produce too much of them, just build more labs.

[Mango]

Well I have problems with this at the start of game. I usualy go for the solar energy and acumulators with kinda small base and sometimes i forget to research some of the basic ones.

Let's say I'm researching some upgrade that will take 30 minutes and I need underground belts to increase production.

I know these things are avoidable but i think it would make more sence with independent labs as they're not linked together.

[n9103]

So what you really want, is persistent progress when switching research topics?

...You do know you can switch to a different topic, right?

[Mango]

I know you can switch to differrent research but then you lose progress you made and all the resources you spent to make that too.

The point is not to stop the first research and be able to sart different at the same time

[ssilk]

Hm. Well, first I wanted to say, that's the price for forgetting things.
But then I thought from gameplay perspective this is a good idea. Because now we need go on and on if we have decided to go that way. And only one research can be done, step by step.

I mean having two "researchings" could be useful and is from gameplay a good design: one for short term development and one for long term. One only with red/green potion, the second also with blue etc. for example. This is more or less the same concept as for assembly 1 (two items craftable) vs. assembly 2 (four).

And the trick is now, that the research-requester (control what to research) distincts then between those two types of buildings, they are completely independent, but one can research only low level stuff and the other for the rest.

I could imagine many usages for that, for example the advanced research works only at day or you that only with the items that are left.

[BurnHard]

but which research needs 30 minutes? with maybe 6 to 10 labs and sufficient science packs every reseach is a matter of 1-2 minutes, isnt it?

[ssilk]

With low resources this takes much longer and it is even a problem to power them.

But also with high resources this suggestions are an advantage, because you can research faster in total.

[FreeER]

quoting myself from on 'upgrade' research back in march.

I believe the main point of having one lab was because if you have multiple types of labs (ie one for upgrades and one for researching new stuff) you'd be able to research two things at one time and the way it is now you have to balance whether you really need those robots to go faster or if you want that rocket speed 3

As for boosting the speed of the lab, I wouldn't mind an advanced version that consumes more power but researches faster.

Basically, make sure you think about what is important before you've already done half the research on something else

[zomsteffen]

Hello fellow factory engineers,

I know this subject was already mentioned at least two times, but since infinite researches became a thing and there are even more science packs now this subject gained new importance.
With the introduction of infinite researches constant research is now a thing.
But since one can only ever research in one direction at once the other infinite researches will be left behind.
For example I could be researching Gun Turret Damage all day long.
But at the same time I would not be able to research Mining productivity which is a shame since I now also produce those production science packs for nothing.

Therefore it wold be plausible to gain the ability to research multiple things at one time.
My suggestion on how to tackle that problem would be to implement lab groups.
By default every placed lab would be in the default group and act as normal.
But once one creates a new group and adds at least one lab to it one would be able to select a seperate research for that group.
For this a new tab in the research GUI would be usefull where all groups are listed with their respective research and progress bar as well as a button to toggle the visibility of the progress in the main GUI.

With this kind of addition it would be easy to set up multiple research locations for the multiple infinite researches.

Thanks for reading this suggestion and keep on overengineering your factories .

[Rseding91]

Wouldn't that just be the same as having all of your labs research one thing for half the time then another for the remaining half?

[zomsteffen]

Yeah it would be a bit like switching around from time to time, but you would not need to switch.
Also the infinite researches do not all use all kinds of research packs so it would stress ot more production chains at once.

[ricktor16]

Yeah, I do like the idea of having a main technology researching, with maybe the option to individually go into a research lab and change the tech it is researching. This way you could set up a group of 5 or 10 research labs doing one research that only requires red and green packs, while another group of labs could be doing some research that requires 6 different packs. It does make sense to be able to automate technology research.

[DTank_Zero]

TL;DR

Allow designating a different research for some of the research domes.

What ?

When selecting a research dome you could choose a separate research from the currently active research, but it only progresses based on the research items you put into that specific dome.

Why ?

It would allow you to research less-than-priority research options, like upgrade research, over a longer time while still researching towards other tec.

[ickputzdirwech]

I don’t really see the use case to be honest. Researching things after each other is always better, since it takes the same combined time and amount of science pack, but you get the effects of the first technology earlier. If one if the science packs is lacking behind but you have enough science packs to research a cheaper technology than make a buffer for the more expensive science packs so they keep producing and research the cheaper technology first.

I once wished for this in a modded play through with different labs for completely different sets of science packs. There still applies the same I have written above however. If you use buffers and a few more labs, you don’t lose any time or production capacity. And labs are generally quite cheap.

Therefore I doubt this will get implemented as it would be quite complicated to implement I imagine and because there are easy ways around this issue.

[ssilk]

That suggestion is about the common misbelieve that producing two things at the same time is faster than producing one by one.

Do you have an example, where that really makes sense to put as player that effort into this? Remember: if you split the research into half, then for both it will work half as slow. Isn’t it much simpler to just put that rear hatch in between?

And how would you like to see/display that ongoing researches?

[DTank_Zero]

I guess the main intention for this is for multiplayer. One player might be planning how to grow the factory so chooses research to do that, but another player, in charge of the defenses, needs to improve weapon damage. So the second player could set up a small research facility to get the upgrades they need.

[ssilk]

It has the same named issues in multiplayer.

[ickputzdirwech]

[ick] Merged two topics about researching multiple technologies at once.