Research Lab

Function
Research Labs are installations that your lead scientists to work on research projects advancing your empire's theoretical knowledge as well as resulting in practical applications.

A research lab produces the racial research rate per year modified by the assigned lead scientist's research bonus. A scientist working within his or her field quadruples his or her bonus.

Operation
Research labs are managed on the Reseach tab of the Economics Screen (F2 at the main menu).

New Projects
Select the category of research from the category dropdown box and then select the desired lead scientist. The allocated research labs textbox can be used to change the initial number of assigned labs to something other than the default of one. You cannot assign more labs than five times the administrative rating of the scientist Then click the Create' button to start research.

New projects require a lead scientist in order to be created.

Current Projects
Clicking on an existing project allows you to increase or decrease the number of assigned research labs (to a limit of five times the scientist's administrative rating). Projects can be cancelled, freeing up the labs, lead scientist and funding for the project. Projects can also be paused, which just frees up the funding, but not the labs or scientist.

Research Queue
By selecting an existing project and a new project, you can use the queuing interface at the bottom left of the research screen. This will cause the selected scientist to immediately start work on the queued project upon completion of his or her current project. All assigned labs are automatically transfered to the queued project.

Shutting Down
Research labs can be mass-shutdown via the Civilian / Ind Status tab of the Economics screen. This will immediately shutdown all research on the planet and remove any Wealth costs associated with the construction as well as freeing up population for other industries. Shutting down in this way will require a 6-month warm-up time to restart operation.

Pausing Research on a project by project basis by project basis has the same effect without incurring the 6-month restart delay. This does not free up any workers for other projects however.

Misc
Research labls require 500,000 tons of cargo space (100 cargo holds), making them one of the largest installations.