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The Idiots Guide to R&D

Written By: Hortensia Harrison

Fiction
An Idiots Guide to R&D

So you wanted to do R&D huh? Good, because R&D is one of the easier sciences to do, and you're less likely to blow up the station or get killed by ravenous slimes, yet still be able to potentially give the AI laws to believe everyone is a monkey. If you're simply looking for things to deconstruct, jump to the Cheat sheet, if not, read on.

GETTING STARTED

So first of all, at the beginning of the shift, you should do two things : Hassle robotics for two mech syringe guns, and steal a sheet of plasma from xeno. Next, rush up to the R&D room before anyone gets there, and go over to the console. There, go to the settings menu and go to device linkage. Sync up all your devices, and now you can finally use all your machines. Load up the protolathe ( the giant grey box ) with 20 sheets of metal and 15 sheets of glass, and fill up the circuit imprinter ( the thing that looks like a table with a beaker on it) with some sulphric acid and 15 sheets of glass. Alright, almost ready to get started. Now make a metal rod out metal, take a toolbox and use a screwdriver on the welder that should hopefully be in there. Now use it on the welder and hey presto - A partially functional flamethrower. You'll need this to deconstruct later. Hopefully during this time, Robotics have brought your mech guns. If not, yell at them
THE CHEAT SHEET

Got your mech syringe guns, plasma and flamethrower? Alright, time to get onto what stuff to deconstruct. You see that red like box in the corner? That's a destructive analyser. You deconstruct things there, and get research from them. Simple enough right? Right, now deconstruct these things in order.
  • Micro manipulator
  • Capacitator
  • High capacity cell
  • Analyser
  • Flamethrower
  • Plasma sheet
  • Hydrophonic board
  • Pandemic board
  • Tracking beacon
  • Mining drill
  • Exosuit fabricator board
  • Communications board
  • SMES board X2
  • Durand Combat and Periphrals X3
  • Exosuit syinge guns X 2
  • Portable chem dispenser board
  • Telepad console board
    Almost finished! Now to finish off research, you'll need at least uranium and diamonds from mining, to max out materials. If you do get them, deconstuct one sheet of uranium (by clicking it in your empty hand while holding it in another), put the diamonds in the protolathe , and then make a diamond pickaxe. Deconstruct that. Now, we need to get bluespace up. Easiest way is to deconstruct the telepad board in telescience, and nick that to get bluespace 4. You can then make two telepad boards, one to deconstuct to get to bluespace 5, and one to replace the one you stole. Failing that, go ask robotics for a wormhole generator. Make sure to sync up using the sync button in the menu! Then you can deconstuct a teleporter hub for bluespace 6. To max out combat, you'll need a combat shotgun from cargo. GOOD LUCK GETTING SHITCURITY TO COOPERATE. If you get all these things, research is offically maxed!

    SO WHAT NOW

    So now.. I bet you're guessing what to do.Well you see those fancy pico manipulators and super matter bins you should be able to make? Those can be used to upgrade machines. Build an RPED (Rapid Part Exchange Device), go to the machine you want to upgrade, and use the RPED on it. You should get a list of components. Pico, super, phasic and ultra high power are naturally the best, while micro and basic are the worst. To swap parts out without deconstructing the entire thing, put the upgraded parts you want to swap in in the RPED (REMEMBER THE RPED CAN PICK UP STACKS OF THINGS OFF THE FLOOR), use a screwdriver on the machine you want to upgrade, then use the RPED on it, and you should get a readout saying which parts were swapped. Doing this can make medbay a lot more efficent, borgs will be able to charge faster if you upgrade the charger, the fabricator in robotics can be made a lot faster and more efficent, and the multitude of machines you can build can be made much better.
    END NOTES

    You should now have a lot of fun things you can make. R&D can be VERY powerful when full researched, and a lot of chaos could be wrecked if you make the right things. Find a way to unlock the lockboxes that weapons are hidden in and you could have some fun. They need armoury access to open however. You can also try fiddiling around with power turbines. Sure they ruin the atmos, and cause engineering to be angry at you, BUT SCIENCE! is always a good excuse for everything. Failing that, the best way to go out, is simply to put two bags of holding together, and wait for the [REDACTED] to BSA your ass

    Penned by Hortensia Harrison