The occupation of colonists can be set to research in the biodome management screen. Colonial researchers spend their time exploring their home world and solving problems. The more colonists allowed to research, the greater a colony's chance of making a research discovery. Discoveries are bonuses that will remain with that colony forever. Every colony has its own, independent list of discoveries, even if they're owned by the same character. These are the possible research discoveries that can occur on a colony:
| Discovery | Effect |
|---|---|
| Weather Prediction | Better reproduction |
| Geothermal Refrigeration | 2x Organics harvest |
| Industrial Complex | Double Flak Cannon Production |
| *Military Tradition | Double Military Workforce |
| Native Plants | 2x Medicine harvest |
| Advanced Architecture | 50% faster construction |
| Advanced Engineering | 2x Equipment harvest |
| Spectroscopes | 2x Uranium harvest |
| *Commodities Market | Liquadate Resources |
| Drilling | 2x Oil harvest |
| Ecological Equilibrium | Reduces pollution |
| Advanced Aerodynamics | Double Missile Production |
| Superconductors | More research output |
| Bacteria Farming | 2x Anaerobes harvest |
| Spice Mining | 2x Spice Harvest |
| Channel Descrambling | Improves Morale |
The symbol "2x" means double. If you harvest 0 before the research you still harvest 0 after.
Researching takes a bit of luck. You need to set your colonists to work on research, and then give them a day or two to come up with something. There is an element of chance to how soon a discovery will be made, but the more research output the colony has, the greater the chances of making a discovery with each passing hour.
- Commodities market allows you to sell any resource in the refinery at a reduced selling price.
- Military Tradition doubles the effectiveness of a colony's defense. For example, a colony with its military workforce set to 25% would defend itself as though it were set to 50%. Remember that the maximum defense strength for any colony is 2,500 colonists, so with Military Tradition and a 5000 population colony, you would only need to set the military to 25% to get the maximum defense strength. This discovery does not effect the Weapons Factory.