Abandon "Research"

[Amaror]

In the future I hope to have research focused on particular objects. For example, you acquire an assault rifle. You research it. After a while, your weaponsmith can now make similar assault rifles. With a lot more research, your weaponsmith can make better versions of that assault rifle.

Similarly, once archeology is in, research may focus on found artifacts and work a bit like the "identify" function in many RPGs. You ident an artifact and discover if it's a weapon, a tool, or just a piece of junk. Maybe it wakes up and does something surprising when you research it.

If your going with this kind of system, might i suggest a system that was used in Evil Genius and it was pretty neat.
Mainly that researchers have to find something to research first. So when you ordered them to research something then they will do that, but when they supposed to do research and either have nothing to research or no research benches availible, then they will walk around the map and take notes of stuff. So they may take notes of that assault rifle and open up research for it. Maybe they take notes of a dead body and open some health research. Maybe they take notes of that artifact you found.
It adds a bit of flavour to the research aspect and gives your researchers more to do, than stare at a desk for a few hours.

[Bizz Keryear]

Research is needed, (maybe in a different form [like different things that are known and unknown]) cause just because its researched in general it doesn't mean the settlers know how to!
If you don't agree then go on and build a table (in RL). And while you are on the way start with bare hands and build all the tools along you need with starting to cut the tree...

Or make a carpet on your own. Or color one just with materials you find in nature.

And you have to also figure out how to make stuff in your environment (not all planets have the same plants)

[murlocdummy]

Research is pretty primitive as a game system right now. It's the bare minimum to serve its purpose, which is basically to avoid overwhelming players with options right at game start. It also adds another reward schedule; something else to progress towards and look forward to alongside finishing constructions, training people, and any other goal a player might set.

...

It's good to have these discussions, though. When I reopen research I'll definitely be thinking about what's been said about it in these kinds of discussions.

I think that Stickle's idea of logarithmically decreasing gains has some merit, as well.  As great as the X-COM-styled artifact identification and research tree is, I think that it's also important to try and find some sort of method of integrating research into early-game, mid-game, late-game, and even very-late-gameplay.  A relatively cheap method of doing that is to make the weaponsmith/manufacturing engineer utilize the Research skill.  The skill would probably have to be renamed to "Technology" or "Science" or something, but it would definitely change the entire dynamic (or lack thereof) of researching colonists.

You could probably even add quests into the Research tech tree, with mysterious artifacts that, once researched, randomly give you bits of resources, act as small light sources, or become mood improving furniture and decor.  They could be random drops from enemies, fall from the sky, or arrive at the colony in many other random, but reproducible ways.  More complicated Cassandra quests could involve random characters approaching the colony with a prefabricated mysterious artifact and conducting a proper quest story arc with a beginning, middle, and ending.

Personally, I'd prefer having an algorithm that lets players continuously research newer, better techs with decreasing gains, but giving players the occasional researchable bauble or trinket would probably be better accepted by the players.