BlockFactory:Research

In Block Factory you do not craft science packs. You deliver the products your factory already makes to a research center, where Goblins or Golems study them and pay research points. The center turns the points into Knowledge Scrolls, and the Outlanders at the Outlander Test Site use the scrolls to test new technology. Once a test is done, the technology is unlocked for your team.

The research loop

1. Make products: plates, gears, circuits, belts, later engines and rune modules.
2. Deliver them to a Goblin Research Center or Golem Research Center. Each item pays points into your team's account.
3. Set the center to write Knowledge Scrolls from the account.
4. Bring the scrolls to an Outlander Test Site, choose a research, and wait for the test.

Research eats your own production, and it rewards variety. It pays to automate early.

Research centers

	Goblin Research Center	Golem Research Center
Epoch	0	2
Unlocked by	Start	Golem Scholars
Size	4 × 4	4 × 4
Points	Gob	Gol
Studies	2 items per second	1 item per second
Writes	Knowledge Scroll I–II	Knowledge Scroll I–V
Rune module slots	2	2
Health	500	250
Recipe	2 Trapped Goblin, 40 Stone Brick, 20 Iron Gear, 20 Iron Plate	1 Golem, 40 Stone Brick, 20 Steel Plate, 5 Gold Bar

Research centers need no power. The creatures for them come from the Portal of the Ancient. Two Goblin Scholars stand in front of a Goblin Research Center while it works and wander around it when it is idle; a Golem works at the Golem Research Center.

Delivering items

• Bring items by hand (crouch and use with the stack in your hand), with the Deliver button in the window, on a belt pointing into the center, or with a grabber.
• Each center only takes items with a value of its own kind: the Goblin center takes Gob items, the Golem center Gol items. Raw materials are worth nothing.
• Up to 20 items wait in the queue. When it is full, the rest stays on the belt or in the grabber.
• Only the speed effect of a rune module counts in a research center. Speed modules make it study faster.

Point values

Gob item	Points	Gol item	Points
Copper Cable	0.75	Concrete	0.5
Iron Plate, Copper Plate, Cartridge	1	Plastic Bar	1
Pipe T1	1.5	Steel Beam, Gold Bar, Silicon	2
Stone Brick, Brick, Glass, Rail	2	Battery	3
Meat, Hide, Tallow, Bone	2	Engine Unit	5
Iron Gear	3	Advanced Circuit	6
Belt T1	4	Golem Core	10
Electronic Circuit	5	Rune Slate	12
Steel Plate	8	Electric Engine	15
Brick Walls	12	Low Density Frame	20
Grabber T1	15	Processing Unit	30
		Rune Module Speed / Efficiency / Productivity MK1	40
		Uranium Fuel Cell	50

As a rule, more processing steps give more points per unit of raw material.

Curiosity

Each center has a curiosity for every item it takes, starting at 100 %.

• An item pays its value times the center's current curiosity for it.
• Every piece the center studies lowers its curiosity for that item by 1 % (down to 0 %).
• Curiosity recovers by 1 % every 6 seconds (10 % per minute) for every item, up to 100 %.

In the long run a center only pays about one full value per item kind every 6 seconds. Feeding one center nothing but your best product soon stops paying; deliver many different products, or build more centers. Each center keeps its own curiosity.

The window shows a wish list: every item the center takes, sorted by what it would pay right now, with the current curiosity of each. The Goblins murmur when you deliver something; below 50 % curiosity the murmur gets low and quiet, because they are bored of that item.

The shared account

Points do not stay in the building. They go to one account for your team (or for the whole world when you play without teams). Your centers can stand anywhere, and any center can write scrolls from the account. The window shows the account as Gob and Gol.

Knowledge Scrolls

Scroll	Epoch	Cost	Written by	Unlocked by
Knowledge Scroll I	1	60 Gob	both centers	Start
Knowledge Scroll II	2	300 Gob	both centers	Goblin Scholars
Knowledge Scroll III	3	400 Gob + 150 Gol	Golem Research Center	Golem Scholars
Knowledge Scroll IV	4	300 Gob + 600 Gol	Golem Research Center	Rune Scholars
Knowledge Scroll V	5	200 Gob + 1,200 Gol	Golem Research Center	Core Scholars

Late scrolls still cost Gob, so keep your Goblin centers fed to the end. From Epoch 3 on you need at least one Golem Research Center, because only it writes tiers III to V. It can pay a Scroll III with Gob points that your Goblin centers earned.

Writing scrolls

1. Open the research center and pick a tier under Write scrolls. Off stops writing.
2. The center writes one scroll at a time while the account has enough points, the tier is unlocked and the output has room. Each scroll takes 2 seconds.
3. Finished scrolls collect in the output slot. Take them with the Take button, by crouching and using the center with an empty hand, or with a grabber.

The window says why nothing happens: the tier still needs its research, the account is waiting for more points, or the output is full. The Goblin Scholars laugh when a new scroll is done.

Scrolls are normal items. A belt from the center's output straight into a test site keeps research running without you.

Outlander Test Site

Outlander Test Site

Epoch	0
Size	7 × 7
Noise	20 per minute while testing
Health	600
Research	Start

The Outlander Test Site is where research actually happens: the Outlanders try out the technology in the field before you may build it. Recipe: 1 Trapped Outlander, 60 Stone Brick, 30 Iron Plate. It needs no power. An Outlander Tinkerer works in front of the site.

Running a test

1. Open the test site. The techtree fills most of the window, one epoch per tab.
2. Click a research to see its cost, what it needs and what it unlocks. If it is available, press Research this.
3. Deliver the scrolls: with the Deliver scrolls button, by crouching and using the site with the scrolls in your hand, on a belt or with a grabber. The site only takes scrolls of the right tier, and only as many as the research still needs.
4. When enough scrolls are in, the test starts by itself and uses them up.
5. When the test time is over, the research is done. The Outlander cheers and fireworks go off over the site.

Rules

• A test site runs one research at a time. Build more test sites to research several things in parallel.
• A research that is selected or running in one of your team's test sites cannot be picked in another.
• You cannot change the selection while a test runs. Before that, Clear selection lets you switch.
• Delivered scrolls stay in the site as a stock per tier. Switch to another research of the same tier and you lose nothing.

The techtree

• Lines lead from a research to the ones that need it. Green: done, gold: available, orange: selected or testing, grey: locked.
• Prerequisites from an earlier epoch are listed on the node as "Also needs".
• Each node says what is missing: the right scroll tier, or the research it still needs. A heading shows how many researches of the epoch are done.

Test duration

By default a test takes 30 seconds per scroll: Goblin Scholars (5 scrolls) takes 2 minutes 30 seconds, Great Portal (10 scrolls) 5 minutes. Server operators can change this in the mod's own config.json (see World Settings):

• SecondsPerScroll: seconds per scroll (default 30).
• ResearchSeconds: test time in seconds per research ID.

On start, the mod adds every research that is missing from ResearchSeconds with SecondsPerScroll × scrolls and saves the file; existing entries stay. So once the file is written, a new SecondsPerScroll only affects research that has no entry yet. The file is read only at start.

Research Capsules

A Research Capsule holds knowledge of the old world. War Golems that guard the ruins drop one when defeated, Elder War Golems drop two (see Enemies).

1. Bring capsules to any Outlander Test Site. Press Deliver capsules, or feed them in by belt or grabber.
2. For each capsule the window offers two alternative recipes you have not unlocked yet, above the techtree.
3. Pick one. It is unlocked at once; the other goes back into the pool and may be offered again.

Alternative recipes are unlocked for the whole world, for every team. Once every alternative recipe is unlocked, the test site takes no more capsules. All of them are made in a Fabricator and take 1 second:

Product	Alternative recipe	Normal recipe
Iron Gear	3 Iron Ore → 2 Iron Gear	2 Iron Plate → 1 Iron Gear
Iron Gear	1 Steel Plate → 3 Iron Gear	2 Iron Plate → 1 Iron Gear
Copper Cable	2 Copper Plate + 1 Tallow → 6 Copper Cable	1 Copper Plate → 2 Copper Cable
Cartridge	2 Copper Plate + 1 Coal → 5 Cartridge	2 Iron Plate + 1 Coal → 5 Cartridge
Electronic Circuit	1 Iron Gear + 4 Copper Cable → 2 Electronic Circuit	1 Iron Plate + 3 Copper Cable → 1 Electronic Circuit
Belt T1	2 Stone Brick + 1 Iron Gear → 2 Belt T1	1 Iron Gear + 1 Iron Plate → 2 Belt T1

Multiplayer

Each team has its own account, its own scroll tiers and its own completed research. Test sites of different teams never block each other. Alternative recipes from capsules are the exception: they count for everyone. See Teams and Raids.

See also

• Research Tree – every research with cost, prerequisites and unlocks
• Epochs
• Outlanders
• Goblins
• Golems