Research queue availability - What is it?

[Pongard]

I find a lot of threads regarding the research queue availability, but I don't understand the basics - what even is a research queue, and what does this setting do?

[eradicator]

It automatically starts the next queued research when the previous one finishes.

queue.png (115.22 KiB) Viewed 15577 times

[Pongard]

Thanks! So all it is is a quality of life function?
Why is it then choosable in the first place, and not just turned on?
And what does this strange option "after the game is finished" mean? If I finished the game, why would I want to research something anyway?

[eradicator]

Thanks! So all it is is a quality of life function?

Yes.

Why is it then choosable in the first place, and not just turned on?

Because some people think it's too powerful.

And what does this strange option "after the game is finished" mean? If I finished the game, why would I want to research something anyway?

In freeplay that probably means "after launching at least one rocket with a sattelite in it". Many people enjoy making their base even larger after that.

[astroshak]

The first games you play, you don’t know what’s what. It can be beneficial to choose each research as the last one completes. There’s a setting (or used to, turned it off and haven’t looked back) that brings the research screen up every time the research is finished just to allow for the selection of the next research. I would imagine that that screen only pops up if there’s nothing left in the queue to research?

Veteran players can use the queue and focus on building. Newer players can keep the queue off and focus on building, and building what they just researched.

As for the “after the game is won” setting, the game is “won” when you launch a rocket (with a satellite in it?). So all this means is, turn the queue on after that point. Many players keep going and build ever larger factories, turning them into megabases. The game never truly ends, after all - not until the player decides they are done with that map.

Also, there are some mods out there that deal with after the first rocket is launched. Space Exploration (have not played) obviously deals with after launching the rocket. And there’s the SpaceX mod that has you launching a lot of rockets with different payloads as well.

[Pongard]

Thanks for those great answers, now it's clear.