The lab decides what you are allowed to build.

Building and unit access is checked against Research Lab level. Programs also have their own caps, and each lab level raises the cap you can currently research. A program whose maximum is 100 gains five available levels per Research Lab level. Programs with a smaller maximum gain whole levels in proportion, and they reach that maximum at Research Lab level 20.

Research you pay for enters its own queue. It applies when the server timer finishes, not when you click.

Branches

Each of the seven resources has a production branch. Every research level on that branch adds 5% to the resource’s base production, up to program level 100. Every unit has cost and combat branches. Construction Engineering reduces building time. Three trap-engineering programs unlock and improve Defence Grid traps. Survival research does not reduce incoming damage; after combat has decided the deaths, it converts a percentage of those losses into injured survivors. That part is described with the rest of combat in the squads manual.

Putting a building down

Missing facilities are constructed from the Operations Center. The project shows its Research Lab requirement and its cost. If it is locked, upgrade the lab, then submit construction. Facility functions unlock at level 1. You can queue further upgrades while the building is still level 0; they run after construction completes.

Higher Operations Center levels reduce construction time. Construction is one sequential queue. Successive levels of the same building finish in order. Read the queue before you add another upgrade.

Every completed building upgrade adds population equal to the new level. Going from level 4 to level 5 adds five population.

The queue fee and the refund

Work that starts immediately has no queue fee. Adding construction or an upgrade behind work that is already active costs 20 Gold plus the resources. Cancelling work that has not started refunds all of its resources and does not refund the 20 Gold. The confirmation for that fee can be disabled for the current player; other players keep their own setting.

Started work refunds 75% multiplied by the fraction of construction already elapsed. At 50% complete, the refund is 37.5%. Later levels that depended on the cancelled job are cancelled too, and those are refunded in full.