What exactly is happening when pawns “Research”?

[Zombull]

Research as it is is a mysterious conjuring of knowledge from thin air. You are stranded on a planet, with no access to civilization and no means of communication. You sit down at a big wooden desk and...what? Think about the universe and stuff? Or did you crash-land with a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica?

[Oblitus]

Research as it is is a mysterious conjuring of knowledge from thin air. You are stranded on a planet, with no access to civilization and no means of communication. You sit down at a big wooden desk and...what? Think about the universe and stuff? Or did you crash-land with a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica?

It's a post-industrial world. So I guess a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica is a part of emergency supplies. Kept in the same place with a radio to talk to chased refugee.

[Syrchalis]

Serious answer? They sit down with a problem and think about how they can solve it with the limited supply (mainly manpower) they have. Deep drilling, building a space ship... not exactly the easiest things to make from raw resources with a handful of people.

So they need to draw special designs for these things that a single person can operate (e.g. deep drill).

And for lower tech stuff: How to cultivate trees, devilstrand, what soil they need, how much water etc. / how you actually form plate armor or blades out of raw steel... etc.

[Razzoriel]

They sketch and doodle around on solutions for they day to day problems. If they research "smithing", they then apply concepts and read and theorize on how to make items made out of metal. The only thing that's missing from the equation is the material cost for the theoretical and experimental areas.

[Zombull]

The point being, none of those things is ever done without information resources of some kind. Unless we're talking about someone sitting down and independently repeating the entirety of human technological innovation and discovery. In which case those progress bars should move a LOT slower.

[RodrigoI]

They're using Google; they just have crappy bandwidth.

[Zombull]

They're using Google; they just have crappy bandwidth.

The bandwidth isn't the problem. It's the centuries-long ping time.

[XeoNovaDan]

Yeah, it must be difficult trying to access Wikipedia from the edge of the known universe. Or StackOverflow for 'Spacer' projects.

[Gfurst]

The point being, none of those things is ever done without information resources of some kind. Unless we're talking about someone sitting down and independently repeating the entirety of human technological innovation and discovery. In which case those progress bars should move a LOT slower.

Its entirely feasible that they're spending time designing and developing simple things, along with having some sort of previously knowledge of those technologies, like actually having encyclopedias isn't that far fetched.
But on the topic of realism, what about being able mine ready to use "steel" and "components" from mountains.Along with that, harvesting cloth pieces directly from cotton plants. Eating frozen meals straight up. Never needing a single cup of water.... and so on, you get the idea.

[Zombull]

The point being, none of those things is ever done without information resources of some kind. Unless we're talking about someone sitting down and independently repeating the entirety of human technological innovation and discovery. In which case those progress bars should move a LOT slower.

Its entirely feasible that they're spending time designing and developing simple things, along with having some sort of previously knowledge of those technologies, like actually having encyclopedias isn't that far fetched.
But on the topic of realism, what about being able mine ready to use "steel" and "components" from mountains.Along with that, harvesting cloth pieces directly from cotton plants. Eating frozen meals straight up. Never needing a single cup of water.... and so on, you get the idea.

I believe the lore explanation for compacted steel and machinery is that they're the remnants of crashed ships or other technological ruins. Harvesting usable cloth directly from cotton plants and leather directly from corpses is just a short-hand for the full process. Not having to manage water for the colonists doesn't mean they don't drink. It just means it isn't represented in the game, like how they also don't have to defecate or urinate. They're all there...they're just "off camera".

Also, whataboutism is deflection. It isn't a very interesting answer to the question. If it were the answer, then nothing would ever get changed or fixed because something else is still wrong or broken. I didn't post this to argue for realism. I posted it to point out that "research" is a complex process that is dumbed down to filling a progress bar when it could be a lot more interesting.

[Jibbles]

I posted it to point out that "research" is a complex process that is dumbed down to filling a progress bar when it could be a lot more interesting.

You could say the same thing with just about any job in this game.  Why are there so many comments/complaints about research today? (not even the points, but the process itself)

I think it would be cool to obtain blueprints or buy research projects, but not rely on those two. 
So how could we make research more interesting? The suggestions I've seen requires lots of work and added rng. 

[Zombull]

I'm sure it would be a bigger-than-a-breadbox kind of project.

Question is whether Tynan views a more intricate research and tech progression system to add enough value to be worth the work. And, of course, prioritization considering other work already on the devs' backlog.

The "progress bar grind" fills the functional need of throttling the pace of tech progression. It just does so without adding much flavor. Sort of like corn starch thickening a stew.

[Greep]

Clearly we need to mass produce 100s of miniturrets to research autocannons.  Something's wrong with this game.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Science_pack

[Zombull]

Ah my other favorite game.

[Boston]

Canonically, the colonists have all the tools they need to survive on a Rimworld: tools from axes to hammers and shovels, weapons and clothing, to seeds and cooking utensils. It isn't out of the realm of possibility to assume whatever organization organized the colonization effort sent along some form of reference manual. In fact, it is probably very likely they did so.

In my fic, the colonization organization organized a whole spread of human knowledge (farming techniques and advice, animal husbandry and butchering, medical procedures, technical manuals: from blacksmithing and carpentry to mechanical and electrical engineering to everything in between, weapon use and maintenance, so on and so forth) into stamped-plastic books called CDC (Colonial Data Codexes), meant to essentially give prospective colonists the knowledge they need to survive. About 20 8in x 11in x 2in books in 10pt font, all together, and effectively worth their weight in gold.

As for what the colonists are "doing" when they research..... they are probably trying to figure out how to do things on their own, things that are usually mechanized in the 'modern' day.

Think about it. Do you think the average American/European knows how to brew their own beer, assemble a dynamic generator (including wiring it and assembling batteries to store the power generated), weave a rug, sew their own clothes, tan leather, weave cloth, etc etc etc?

Of course, I would prefer it if 'we' had to either trade for tech, or alternatively, be able to 'sacrifice' something to be able to research a tech faster.

For example, you could trade with the tribes for knowledge on how to grow a particular crop (that happened in the real-world colonization of the Americas), or you could destroy a firearm, so you understood how it worked and therefore unlock machining and firearms faster. So on and so forth.