The Research Action lets your civilization develop new Tech.

The Research Action allows you to Research new Techs. Each Research Action grants you the number of Research Activations indicated by the Research Action Icon on your Species Board. For each Research Activation, you may Research one available Tech Tile from the Tech Tray by Paying its Science cost . Place the Researched Tech Tile on the leftmost available space of the Tech Track of its category (Military , Grid , or Nano ) on your Species Board. If a Tech Track is full, no more Techs of that type may be Researched, nor may Rare Techs be placed there. You are not allowed to Research a Tech already present on your Species Board, nor are you allowed to discard a Researched Tech Tile from your Species Board.

Each Tech you have in a category gives you a discount on further Techs Researched in the same category (indicated by the lowest discount value visible in that category on your Species Board). However, all Techs have a minimum Science cost regardless of discounts available.

There are four types of Techs:

Ship Part: Gives the ability to Upgrade this Ship Part (see the Ship Part Tiles section of the Action Phase section for details on Upgrading).

Build: Gives the ability to Build this Ship or Structure (see the Build section of the Action Phase section for details on Building).

Instant: Gives a one-time effect when Researched.

Permanent: Gives an ability that is active until the end of the game.

Researched Techs can also be worth VP. At the end of the game, each Tech Track (Military , Grid , or Nano ) scores the number of VP shown in the leftmost VP symbol that has not been covered by a Tech Tile.

Trade: At any time, as many times as you choose and are able, you may Pay the number of one Resource indicated by the Trade Value on your Species Board, to gain one Resource (Materials , Science , Money ) of any other kind.