Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Let us Research multiple Technologies at once.

What?

Give Labs the Ability so select a Technology. It will then research that technology (if supplied with Science Packs). Labs without a Technology selected, will continue to behave as they do now. This ability to select techs would be gated behind a new tech requiring all 7/12 Science Packs. For infinite technologies, labs with it selected automatically move on to the next level when one level finishes.

Why?

Especially now with Space Age adding so many new infinite technologies we want, that require a large variaty of Science Packs, there will often be times in the very late game, where entire planets factories will shut down, because the science has already backed up, and the currently researching tech does not require it.
So the only way to fully utilize every Science is to research the one technology that does require them all, but at the same time, we don't only want to progress just 1 infinite technology. Letting diffrent Labs research different technologies in parallel would nicely solve this.
(The only other way is to manually change the researching technology every few minutes, which in my opinion goes against the spirit of an automation game.)

I like this idea, also for the earlier techs. Because if you skip many things that require only red/green or maybe blue you will end up in the same spot where 90% of your factory is idle if you still decide to research those skipped techs. Maybe labs can prioritize research that is first in the queue and then move to progressing the next one if some science packs are missing. After every research cycle (bar reaches 100%) the check is done again.

This is not gonna be easy to implement tho because we also have productivity. What will happen if the lab switches to a much cheaper research on the next cycle, will the productivity bar be lost? Theoretically we might already have this problem now, thinking about it. What if you have all labs running in sync, start research a red/green tech, then right before the prod bonus procs switch to a expensive research, then back again. But that can't be automated.

This is not gonna be easy to implement tho because we also have productivity.

The productivity bar (and the regular progress bar) on labs does nothing already, other than be a representation for players. If you have 20 labs, and research a 10 cost tech, it will finish when all labs reach half progress in their progress bar, and productivity is just a simple multiplier to that.

This seems like it would be tricky to implement in a way that is intuitive to the user without cluttering the research UI. What I would suggest instead is an option where if a lab doesn't have all the science packs to research the currently research, it checks the next item in the queue and starts research on that if it does have what it needs. I've found it a bit cumbersome in the mid game to constantly switch sciences when my Gleba packs come in and then switch back when they run out so I would love an optional system like this. It has the added bonus of just requiring a checkbox to enable for the player and theoretically having a pretty straightforward logic flow for developers (Or maybe the research handling code would need an overhaul to allow this functionality, you never know).

I created an image showing what it might look like.

Also take notice that the research in the top right and in the lab are not the same.

Yea, I had to set up some alerts for when the Mariah Carey Slough arrives from aquillo, or my Gleba Glop is in stock.

I think it would be more managable with the proposed drag-and-drop research queue, but I do feel like I'm micromanaging a lot more than I should when I'm fiddling with my spaceships while I want my factories to keep going.

Heck, this can happen quite early game : consider that only some techs require military science.

This QoL request is quite related to these issues too :
Make holding shift move the research move to the front (or as much as possible)

This would be a really great feature... If the research could be controlled through the circuit network.

I feel this sort of feature would be a tremendous enhancement to the game, specifically Space Age.

In my only run where I managed to produce agricultural (Gleba) science so far, getting it fresh to the labs was so hard that the need to micromanage science immediately arose, until I decided to let the Gleba base rest for a while (which was a poor decision, but that's another story).

My thought before I found this 'Idea and Suggestions' thread was a way to control research with circuits, but it didn't entirely make sense.
I really like the idea of having labs go to "next in queue" when some science packs are unavailable, and would suggest to let the player control the behavior with circuit conditions (rather than simply "missing pack" triggering it).

Maybe if it was implemented with a Groups feature similar to trains and logistics settings? Any lab assigned to a given research group would follow that group's research queue.

Then you might assign a group of labs on Gleba to research technologies that only use packs you can make locally, while a space platform or Nauvis group uses a wider range of packs.

Have a "general" group that all labs default to when built and configurable in blueprints like train stations. The general group could behave as research currently does, with manual queuing. But all groups could have a checkbox to auto research one or more infinite technologies in a cyclic order, just like moving between train stops. I feel like that would fit and flow well with the existing game, and it makes logical sense that an in-game character that can set up multiple logistics networks and train groups would think to set multiple research groups to maximize and optimize resource use and system performance.