Research
Research is how your forces grow beyond their starting kit. Spending science unlocks the parts, drones, brains and buildings you can field, and climbs your faction toward its heaviest cores. This guide covers how the tech tree is queued and paid for, how it's organised into tiers and faction branches, and the chassis series that steps your cores up in size.
Science and the queue
You don't bank science; it's used constantly and immediately. Each turn your science income - from your provinces and any research buildings - is poured into your research queue, advancing whatever node sits at the front. Fill the queue with the nodes you want, in order, and research grinds through them turn by turn at the rate of your science output. A bigger science economy simply reaches the good tech sooner.
What research unlocks
A completed node makes new things available to you across the whole game:
- Components, cores and weapons for your Icaroid designs.
- Brains and modifiers that change how units behave and perform.
- Drones you can manufacture.
- Buildings - most upgrades and every faction signature structure are gated here (see Buildings).
Research is what your manufacturing catalogue is drawn from: you can only build the designs, drones and structures your tech has unlocked. Until you research a part, any design that needs it can't be produced.
Tiers and prerequisites
The tree is layered into tiers, roughly one through three, marking early, mid and late technology. You can't leap ahead: a higher-tier node only becomes available once you've completed the earlier nodes it depends on in the same line. Some research also has prerequisites, so effective research may involve considering not just the goal, but the steps to reach it.
The research panel shows every node's status at a glance - completed, in progress, queued, available, or still locked - so you can see what's within reach and what you'd have to build toward.
Branches and factions
Nodes are grouped into branches: a set of universal ones (like the shared infrastructure line that upgrades your mines, factories and workshops) that any commander can pursue, plus a branch specific to your faction. You research your own faction's branch and the universal ones - you can't reach into another faction's signature tech. That's what makes each faction play differently over a campaign: you're climbing toward your distinctive units and buildings.
The chassis series
One line deserves special mention: the chassis series that unlocks your faction's cores. Rather than a single unlock, it steps up in power with each version, and each stage of the technology opens the next, larger core tier. Researching it1 repeatedly is how you graduate from light frames to heavy ones. Eventually, you'll reach for1 your faction's Titan at the top of the tree. Keeping the chassis series moving is usually the backbone of a good tech order.
Planning a tech path
Plan your research carefully, and be prepared to change your plans in response to enemies' decisions. Consider regularly researching or upgrading the chassis series for bigger cores, pick up the universal infrastructure upgrades to compound your economy, and branch into your faction's signature units and buildings as the campaign matures. Everything you unlock only matters once you can pay to build it, so keep research and your economy growing together.