Talk:Advanced Research Communications Network

I am still learning the game for the first time, so I want to ask a question about the ARCNet. According to the information contained here each colony has the same research capabilities and levels of your homeworld. So, why would anyone ever bother to build a research lab on one of their colonies? It just seems like a waste of time and resources. So, if you don't have any other research labs other than your homeworld, why would you ever need the ARCNet??

Bob

• You have the same tech base on all your planets. This means that if you research Warp drive on your homeworld, then all of your colonies have access to warp technology. You don't need to research it on every planet.
• You must have a lab on a world in order to research there. If you have widely dispersed colonies, it could be time-prohibitive to ship your resources back home all the time to do research. A lab on a far flung colony would allow you to do research there, with the resources there.
• If any one lab is busy, they are all busy. This means that if you are building a lab on one world, you cannot build a lab on another world at the same time, nor can you research anything until all the labs are idle. However, without ARCNet only the actual lab on the planet
• ARCNet allows you to reduce the time required to research technology by reducing the time required. But in order to do that, you have to build additional labs on your colonies. Check the equations to see the effects.

--Rob 17:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's another question, and this isn't answered on the page (not directly, anyways): do research labs that have been added via ARCNet also add any workers that they have in them? That is, if I have a level 10 lab with 2 workers researching something and ARCNet level 1, and another lab that's level 5 with 2 workers, will all four workers count to reduce the time spent researching, or just the two from the level 10 lab? --Drake 19:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I just tested this question - I added a worker to my level 8 additional lab (with Lvl 1 ARCNet), and it did not reduce research time in my main lab. So only droids in your main (highest level) lab help with research times. --Jesse 13:29, 31 December 2009

One small correction to what Rob said. You can BUILD multiple labs at the same time on different worlds, as long as none of your labs are researching. --Charles

Participating Research Labs

Is there a limit to the number of added labs with Arcnet? Will each research lab with high enough level be added, or only the highest one?

Umm... I think it's pretty clear: "Each level of ARCNet researched allows scientists from one extra Research Lab to join in. ... There is no benefit to researching ARCNet beyond Level 8." --Rob 16:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, One more question regarding ARCNet. I had it in my mind that by researching ARCNet that I would be able to research multiple different technologies simultaneously in different labs accross my colonies (the number of different labs based on the level of ARCNet that was researched). Upon reading the description again it doesn't mention being able to do simultaneous research, but only decreasing the time required to complete research projects. Did I misunderstand that before, or is it written somewhere else? Thanks, Bob

Resources

Can the participating lab help fund the research as well as decreasing the time, or will I still need to gather all the necessary resources on the planet where I start the research?

kiml42

The resources must all be on the planet that starts the research. -- Jesse