Advanced Research Communications Network
The Advanced Research Communications Network, or ARCNet for short, allows your scientists on multiple planets across your empire to work together on a new technology collectively. Each level of ARCNet researched allows scientists from one extra Research Lab to join in the research.
Effect
When researching a new technology, the time required is as follows:
| Time(hours) = |
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Without ARCNet, the level of the Research Lab which initiated the technology is used. With ARCNet, the levels of a number of qualifying labs on other planets are added, up to the level of ARCNet available.
Example A player has a Level 10 Research Lab on their Homeworld and a Level 8 Research Lab on a colony. They wish to Research Level 10 Armor Tech (cost of 512,000 Ore) from their homeworld. Without ARCNet the time required would be:
| Time(hours) = |
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T= 46.54 hours.
With ARCNet Level 1 (making the effective Research Lab Level 18 rather than 10) the time required would be:
| Time(hours) = |
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T= 26.95 hours.
Important Notes
- ARCNet will automatically use the highest available Research Lab Level to help decrease times.
- With ARCNet, only Research Labs with levels high enough to research a tech can be included. For instance, Shield Tech requires a Lvl 6 Research Lab to research, so no Research Labs of level 5 or below will be included in researching any Shield Tech, regardless of ARCNet's level.
- For each additional level of ARCNet, you must have an additional research lab to take advantage of the bonus. The level of the additional lab is added to the part of the equation labeled "Research Lab Level". In the example above, another lab at level 8 would make the "Research Lab Level" 26, in turn lowering the research time to 18.96h.
*Adding workers in your additional labs does not reduce research times. Only workers assigned to the lab you begin research in will reduce research times. This is possibly the most valuable place to put an Android or Human Crew, with its 4% boost instead of the worker 2% boost.
- You will only be able to research from one lab at once.
- In Starfleet Extreme, the denominator is 2000 * (Research Lab level + 1)
Costs
| Level | Ore | Crystal | Hydrogen | Additional Labs | Approx. Time to level |
| 1 | 150,000 | 200,000 | 80,000 | 1 | 29:54:32 |
| 2 | 300,000 | 400,000 | 160,000 | 2 | 57:15:00 |
| 3 | 600,000 | 800,000 | 320,000 | 3 | 109:27:16 |
| 4 | 1,200,000 | 1,600,000 | 640,000 | 4 | |
| 5 | 2,400,000 | 3,200,000 | 1,280,000 | 5 | |
| 6 | 4,800,000 | 6,400,000 | 2,560,000 | 6 | |
| 7 | 9,600,000 | 12,800,000 | 5,120,000 | 7 | |
| 8 | 19,200,000 | 25,600,000 | 10,240,000 | 8 |
There is currently no benefit to researching ARCNet beyond Level 8.
The time to level is affected by a number of factors, including Lab Droids. So listed time should be used for loose planning only. To advance it from L2 to L3 will take around 109 hours (4.5 days real time). Remember during this time, as with other research, no other research can be conducted.
Requirements
- Research Lab Lvl 10
- FTL Tech Lvl 7
- AI Tech Lvl 8
Please note that ARCNet also decreases times for its own upgrades. Therefore, the time to build may be substantially reduced by upgrading research labs in advance of researching ARCNet.
