Factorio Forums

I'm curious what the community thinks about bringing back the research progress bar.

For me, it was an important part of the game's progression. One of the main goals was to optimize your labs and get as much value as possible out of every research flask. Finding ways to increase research efficiency felt rewarding, and the progress bar gave immediate feedback on whether your setup was actually improving.

Another thing I don't understand is the current situation with productivity modules. Pretty much everyone used them in their labs—they were the standard choice. If they no longer have any effect on research, why is it still possible to install them in labs in the first place? That just creates confusion.

Personally, I would like to see the research progress bar return. It made optimizing research feel meaningful and provided clear feedback on the effectiveness of your lab setup.

What do you think? Should the research progress bar be brought back?

Edit: I did some testing, and I can confirm that productivity modules do still affect research as expected. The only thing that's missing is the progress bar that used to visualize the increased research speed.

So the modules are working, but without any visual feedback it's difficult to see the difference at a glance. That's why I still think bringing back the progress bar would improve the research experience.

Edit2: Thank you for the reply, here are some pictures of what im talking about: credit to "Wenihal".
Before 2.1 - The progress bar, together with the productivity bar, is visible, and the effect of the modules is clear.


After 2.1 - There is no progress bar or productivity bar. This is confusing, and the effect of the modules is unclear.

You should probably post a picture of what you mean

If I understood previous dev posts about the productivity bonus bar on labs, it is/was purely cosmetic.

Hi computeraddict,

Sure, I saw this, but isn't this the case for all buildings?

And isn't it confusing if the bar is missing only in the lab? This could lead to confusion about whether the modules are actually having any effect.

This is why I wanted to bring attention to this topic and ask the community for their opinions on whether this should be changed, so that all buildings display the same UI for these modules.

Dan222 wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2026 6:51 am but isn't this the case for all buildings?

No. On machines that actually produce a product, an extra set of products is produced when the bonus productivity bar fills to 100%. The productivity progress bar on labs doesn't work that way. Lab productivity bonus is applied continuously, not discretely.

Issue with the bonus progress bar is that in case of a lab it was all fake just to show extra progress, its state had absolutely no extra meaning on top of that since labs are not producing research in a discrete step (adding 1 research unit at the end of craft) but they increase research progress each tick. Those bars make sense in case of assemblers and drills because once it fills up you get extra products so you can predict when extra products are going to be given. Labs are not working like that since they all work towards a single goal set by research queue, because of that they report progress crafted and bonus progress crafted each tick to advance the research. Given that lab gui was getting congested with circuit's "set research" and technology conditions, this gui was refreshed and fake bars got removed.

Thank you for the clarification.
Maybe it was just confusing for me as a longtime player to suddenly see the bar missing from the lab. It made me question whether the modules were still working as intended.

I think it would help a lot if it showed the extra productivity inside the GUI of the lab.
Like so: (could also call it "Extra Productivity" or "Bonus Productivity")

@worph
I also find this helpful.

We already have the productivity information in the info panel, but since all other buildings have an additional indicator for productivity, the lab should have one as well.

Looking deeper into it, this should probably be done for all buildings that can accept modules.
The module effects are only visible when hovering over the building with your mouse.
Once the GUI of the building (assembler, beacon, etc.) is opened, you can no longer hover and by extension see the information.
So every building should show efficiency, bonus production, speed, quality at the place in my suggestion, or somewhere similar. IMHO.

The picture makes it all more clear x) i was confused with the research bar for the science on the top right.
I know it's not the default settings, but i play with the info pannel as a tooltip, there is an option for this in "interface", ever since i learned it was possible : I understand how the progress bar for the lab could be confusing for when the bar finishes, nothing happens.

worph wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2026 7:49 am Once the GUI of the building (assembler, beacon, etc.) is opened, you can no longer hover and by extension see the information.

you can !
I do find it a bit weird that you can't see that sum in the gui inside the part that opens when you select it, as like you select to have "more information", but it's also the case for all the machines that do have the productivity bonus bar, they don't show this sum. They do show the bar because you don't want to deconstruct your assembly maybe if you just need 1 craft to have a bonus product, at least that's how i use it. For labs i don't mind.

Not when using the interface setting "Entity tooltip on the side".
Edit.: Wrong.

But this is super clunky, moving the windows around.

worph wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2026 8:17 am But this is super clunky, moving the windows around.

Yes, i agree with that version x), that's why i use the other setting :p

Edit : it can do things like this which helps for when you have a small screen , if you click on a lab that isn't hidden by the opening GUI :

+1 I'm a fan of the original green/purple bars. Them being "fake" (nothing special happened when they hit 100%) wasn't really their point. They are the analog gauges so players could quickly see the speed & productivity rates based on how fast those bars were moving from 0% to 100%. For productivity, it was the difference in the speed of the bars that told us how much productivity was being applied. The speed of the bars was not fake.