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)

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)