LABORATORY

Laboratory - this building is designated for research and modification of drawings (item designs). Created drawings can be used to create equipment at the manufacturing plants.
The external view of this building is shown on Figure 1.
This portion of the manual describes interface of the lab and modes of operation.

Inside of the lab the following buttons will be available to its owner:

  • Storage - opens up an exchange window between the owner and the lab. Here the owner can deposit resources and pick up drawings.
  • Technologies - opens up the lab's technological tree and allows further research of new microchips based on the existing ones. Also allows the owner to remove the existing microchips.
  • Start research - starts microchip or drawing research.
  • Logs - view building history logs.
  • Exit the building - leave the building.

    • The first step involves research of basic theories. Pressing any of the microchip sockets will give you access to the following three options:

  • Technology information - view short description of available technology.
  • Insert/Remove microchip - allows you to insert into or remove the microchip from its socket (if one is present).
  • Research a microchip - research the selected microchip. You must have the required quantity of resources in the storage.
    The second step involves research of applied science. After performing this step you will be able to make drawings.
    Once you select an applied science microchip additional options will appear:
    - Drawings - shows a list of drawings available for research. If you move the mouse over the microchip the preceding microchips will become highlighted. The bottom of the windows shows effectiveness of your research. The effectiveness has a direct effect on time required to research the drawing. It increases with every additional created drawing and decreases with time the microchip has not been used.

    • Once you click one of the drawing buttons a window will appear with information regarding the drawing's cost and option to start researching it. If you press the "info" button you will be shown features of the item you are about to research.

    Once you have selected the desired drawings they will be shown in "Research queue". To start the research press the "Start research" button. Once the research on the drawing began it will be removed from the "Research queue".

    Once the lab completes the research the drawing can be picked up from the storage. Press the "Storage" button to see drawings available for pick up. You can also pick up the left over resources there if necessary.
    - Remove the microchip - lets you remove the completed microchip to be either sold or used at another lab.
    Effectiveness of research that requires this microchip will be reduced to 0.

    Please Note!
  • The time required to research a microchip or a drawing can be anywhere from 20 hours to several days.
  • For further research of microchips and drawings creation you will need the entire preceding sequence of the chips.
  • If you remove microchips that are currently being used in a research you will loose all of the resources allocated to it.
  • Once the research started it can only be stopped at the loss of the resources allocated to it.
    Drawings Modernization


    Modernization of drawing is always successful. The number of modernizations is not limited; however, every subsequent modernization is much more expensive than previous. To start the parameter improvement select "Drawing Modernization"in the UPGR menu.
    If you have special microchips you can utilize targeted drawing modernization.

    Once you select the desired drawing to be modernized from the list of drawings available for modernization, you will be shown the cost of modernization and given two options to choose from: reduce production costs or improve product quality.

    Once you have selected the desired drawing it will be shown in "Research queue". To start the modernization press the "Start research" button. Once the modernization started, that task will be removed from the "Research queue".

    Once the modernization is complete you will be shown a summary of the improvements it resulted in.