Research and Development

Research and Development
Research and Development (commonly called R&D or RnD) is the job of the scientists. The department typically lies behind purple and grey doors. In the department typically exists a set of Lathe and R&D machines. Often you will see lockers with lab equipment in them.

R&D Computer
In the R&D computer new technologies can be unlocked via points. To research a technology, click on it if it's in the Unlockable technologies column. Technologies in the Future technologies are locked behind others, requiring you to research a previous technology (in the Unlockable technologies column). Technologies in the Unlocked technologies section have already been researched.

Autolathe


The Autolathe doesn't require any research but only makes engineering and botanical tools as well as low-voltage cables. Requires plastic, steel and glass to use.

Example recipes:

Protolathe


The Protolathe is a machine capable of printing most of what you've researched. It can make things such from beakers or ammo. Requires steel, glass and sometimes plastic to use.

Note that for some machines (such as the Cloner), higher quality parts can be used to improve the quality of the machine. For example low quality components for a Cloner results in a 50% chance of failure to clone. A low-capacity power cell has less charge than a high-capacity power cell.

A lot of the parts available in the Protolathe are used to craft something. Use the Craft hotkey to open the Craft dialog. By default this should be 'G'.

Example recipes:

Circuit Imprinter


The Circuit Imprinter is a machine capable of printing machine boards used for creating machines and computers. They require steel, glass and sometimes gold.

Plan of action
Your main priority at the start of the round is to use the RD computer to research medical machinary & basic parts manufacture, and then everything else. Then it's recommended that you build cloning pods for medbay, chemical dispensers and ChemMasters for chemistry or just hoard them and hand out tricord foam bombs to clowns.

Well, how do I get points?
You need to preform Xenoarcheology, refer to that page for more.

"I can't get any points/I can't print anything"
The likely cause is that the RD Computer/Protolathe isn't synced up with the RD server.

To fix this in the RD Computer/Protolathe click Server list, click on ID x || RDSERVER and then exist the window. Now when you click Sync it should (hopefully) work.