Build and Conquer Research

Unlock is a permission, not a unit

If the HUD shows a node as done, you have permission to produce. You do not yet have the object. Spending the last coins on research while shops are empty is the same stall as placing a factory on day-one dirt.

Vehicle names stay TBA unless a session pass confirms them. Community recaps talk about drones as a later unlock-then-build loop. Treat those names as Community / Unverified. Haul versus combat roles sit on vehicles.

The next question is timing: when the pad is safe, not which invented cost to pay.

Park it near the spur, not on the housing ring

Community layout parks research next to factories so unlocks are not walked across the neighbourhood. That is a habit, not a listing blueprint. Exact footprint size stays TBA.

Community recaps also name medium and large research pads under a military menu. Those HUD labels stay Unverified. The listing kind is still “research new technology.” Place the kind when the city can pay; do not hunt a fan-wiki silo for a cost.

Once the pad is live, you need a way to read the tree without inventing nodes. That is the Community tier frame — labelled as Community on purpose.

Label Community every time you use it

If a friend says “rush Tier 3,” they are using this wiki’s reading aid, not The Slop Company’s listing. Copy the order: basics that keep the meters alive, then production that can actually manufacture, then military technology. Skip a tier in conversation and you will skip a bill in the city.

Four other Community route labels sometimes appear in recaps — economy, military, defense, transport — and they all still start at infrastructure. Intelligence / spy trees belong to lookalike MMOs, not this Place, unless a session pass shows them.

Drones and vehicles still wait on unlock then production. That queue is the next section, not a hidden cost table.

Do not paste a cost next to “Start research”

If the recap HUD flashes a number, treat it as Community / Unverified. BETA menus move. Publishing that number as a wiki stat would be an invented node cost.

Missiles are listing manufacture, not a research-only drop. The military-base quest chain (SRBM → GLCM → MRBM → Hypersonic BM in one recap) belongs on missiles. This page only reminds you: unlock, then still manufacture, then the army page.

If the HUD uses names the listing never used, fence them before you plan the whole tree around them.

Why the fence exists

BETA UIs move. A recap that says “click military, then the medium research facility” is one player’s HUD, not official node copy. Promoting those strings as required tech would mix this wiki with Command & Conquer trees and iOS BNC Studios research.

If your session shows a research pad under military, you may place it as the listing research step and still treat stats as TBA. If your session does not show drones, do not hunt a fan wiki for a build cost.

Scan the mistake table so a wrong name does not become a spent treasury.

One habit that prevents most of them

Before you press research, name the bill: unlock now, manufacture later, army after the city can feed it. If you cannot name the later building that will produce the design, you are not researching — you are hoping.

When that split is automatic, open military so tunnels and defense are not a surprise after the first unlock.