User:Kirie/research

Know what is coming

You should know what techs are possible as well as what the techs currently going will unlock (both building and tech wise). Then you can look at all of those techs and see what they actually enable people to do or what lies beyond them. This should give you a good idea of what the next techs people are going to try and unlock are. If this is your first time playing or you have never paid any attention to research before this way be harder, but most of the information is on the wiki (even if you have to go back to previous wikis).

Once you know what likely next researches look at what they require to put them on a timer. If the tech looks like it barely needs any resources, go and look at the T8 wiki or T9 wiki. T10 had a different system that had 10-50x less items needed at the university itself.

You should also keep track of the current number of labs (well, pip capacity) and how many pips techs currently take. That is, will new labs need to be built or upgraded soon. The answer is most likely yes, so what do those labs need to be upgraded or built? This varies by House, so if you don't know ask your House.

Prepare for what is coming

You know what techs are about to finish and what the useful bits of them are, prepare materials to make the new buildings and produce what they are useful for. Generally, what is needed to research something will also be used for buildings or to use the buildings so this should happen automatically. If blacksmithing and casting unlock and you have never steeped a canvas or wool cloth before it will take you a while to be able to do anything useful. Do it ahead of time.

You often need to grind skill XP to fully utilize a new tech. Plan ahead what you are going to do to get the experience you need and have resources already for it.

Since you know ahead of time what the next techs to be researched will be and what the university requires figure out what is needed to make those materials and prepare as much as you can ahead of time.

Use public works

Making a compound and trying to keep 1 copy of every building is resource and time intensive and generally not efficient. Most things are either used sparingly (so not worth bothering with a personal one) or benefit greatly from scaling up (so it is much more efficient to use a large number that you personally cannot make). You likely do not need a Master Casting Box. Having 1-2 student forges and casting boxes may sound like a good idea, but you are much better off just donating the materials you would spend making any to your public works instead. Nearly any time you want to use forges--especially in the research context--you will want 20 of them not 1.

If your public works does not have enough of something, work towards building it up. If you are worried that the public works will not have buildings fast enough after they are unlocked work with them to make sure they have what is needed and if you can just build it yourself.

Coordinate with others

Your local public works guild likely has people that work on research in it. You might even have a research guild specifically for your House that you can join. House chat probably also knows. There is probably a discord for your House as well. Any questions you have about research can likely be answered in all of those places.

If you don't have a place like that, make one.

Don't limit yourself

Physically producing materials and handing them to a university is not the only way to contribute to research.

Just because a university isn't accepting donations right now doesn't mean you can't make a warehouse (likely made public stashable and donated to your local public works or research guild) and leave materials right next to the university and tell people you have done so.

Even if you cannot personally make some item that is needed for a tech, find someone else that is working on it and offer them help or materials. You can't make Sun Steel Sheeting: Insulative, Corrosion Resistant? Well, there is someone that is making it and could use more wood, charcoal, metals, alloys, or whatever.

Often things have been produced but need to be transported to the university--offer to deliver them.

Just because some resource is not currently needed for research right now does not mean you aren't contributing by working on it now. If you are working on making a citrus grove now with a large variety of fruits, that will be helpful for research when we need it for Perfuming. You could be bothering people to pick up a sea lily from the university and record what they got on the wiki. You can collect sea lilies from other people and grow and multiply them (specifically Silken, Vampire, Energy, Fracture). You could be collecting large numbers of the mushrooms for Toxin_Extraction and Arsenic. You can build and run watermines as large numbers of uncut gems will be needed both directly and turned into cut gems, but they are not something that you can easily scale.

You can make sure the wiki pages on the status of technologies are updated and list the correct requirements when they show up at the university.

You can keep track of research and when people ask what is needed for research direct them.