bluntly, this game is extremely unrealistic. Any pretense of realism went out the airlock years ago in the name of playability. Just look at the planet/star size scales, and you'll see what i mean. That said, the most "realistic" space game I've seen was Nexus, and even then, it had it's "pffffff, no way" moments.

To address the OP's question though, if they're doing research on alien artifacts, nanotechnologies, drive technologies, anything involving a weapon, or anything involving security sensitive data, off world is the way to go. in the case of nanotech, drive systems, and alien artifacts, out of solar orbit is the way to go. ESPECIALLY alien gear.. if it's high tech enough to be interesting to a species capable of interstellar passage, it's high tech enough to be stupidly dangerous. grey goo, point singularities, relativistic drives, and things we collected from level three species, are all extinction level scenarios waiting to happen.

Think of this:
We use spaceships.
Why research stuff on the surface, witch means that you'll have to test them on the surface (or launch a costly expedition to space).
I know that this dosn't fit for ALL research, but why on earth bother to test out a new armor type in atmosphere, when it's only going to be used in space?

Exactly.
It's like testing a submarine on land p:

If anything I'd sooner complain about why we have to research how to place more structures in space when there's clearly enough room already.

Why we have to research how to handle more ships when in fact all we need is a proper command structure. In fact, I'd sooner have this linked to the amount of planets and inhabitants of those planets decide this.

Why we still get to nuke the population to ZERO when in fact it was only supposed to be the government infrastructure that was supposed to be annihilated. And yes, a developer said the magical words, not I. They just haven't made the tooltips clear enough.

Well, enough ranting now, I'm usually positive and drink lots of water.

Certain crystalline structures and molecular compounds actually form differently in a zero gravity environment than they do under the influence of gravity. This is one of the primary reasons for us developing orbital research stations. As to whether or not you would have research stations EXCLUSIVELY in space, I don't see that being realistic in any era. But hey, it's just a video game. :oP

Too many zombie outbreaks from terrestrial labs due to genetic engineering experiments run amok would be my guess.

We all know advanced genetic engineering eventually leads to zombification.

Level 4 virus labs - Earth or space? You choose.

Most of our ultra-high strength alloys, and the theoretical ones that go above them, are entirely dependent on their molecular geometry for their strength. [a macroscopic object composed of fullerenes, pick your elemental variety, any, they are all mindbogglingly, stupidly, strong

Many alloys simply cannot be made in any sort of continuous acceleration, because of hugely differing properties, and so you just don't have them here on earth. Those same alloys though are some of the strongest ones we know of. It's also much easier to make a nanoscopic structure, when you don't have to worry about bits and pieces of it breaking off under their own strain before the final structure can be realized.

So yeah, research stations in space would be good for materials science research.

The thing that irritates me the most is - why the hell are we building crap on planets in the first place?

Resources in space are HUGELY more accessible than they are on a planet, and thar be more space to boot.

Just to give you an idea of the disparity between resources in space and on earth - your average icy body of only a few dozen miles in diameter contains several HUNDRED THOUSAND times the total amount of potable water on the planet.

Your average metallic roid of only ten miles in diameter would supply enough iron/steel for the whole of human history's endeavors with metalworking, and the next 10 years of metal consumption at our current rate. That's one pretty small roid. Just send off a single Von Neumann machine, come back a month later, and you've got a mountain's worth of metal to turn into whatever shape you desire.


It might be worth mentioning that it'd actually be a pretty bad idea to make a space ship entirely out of metal - most metals actually become x-ray radiation sources because of Bremsstrahlung radiation - where high energy particles above a certain point cause radiation to be produced from the very action of decelerating them by another charged particle [high energy electron smacking a nucleus] and then you get x-rays to the face.

Not a good idea if your 5 feet away from a star's corona.

Safety and the differing environment would be big ones. Playing around with advanced physic's and something goes bang, you get a pretty light in the sky rather than a big smoking hole in the ground.
Playing around with advanced genetics, if something goes wrong you've got a decent stretch of vacuum separating you from your planet.

Also unlimited cheap energy from solar power, and the ability to great a variety of environments that can't easily be replicated on a planet, Orbital research platforms would be a god send.

your thinking to much about facts
give your fantasy a lil room... ship cost metal..... who said it's iron??? or any other known alloy?
ships cost credits.... doesnt that include the purchase of "manmade" materials?
ships cost crystal.... (as far as i know crystals are worth alot) you cac use em as superconductors ... sell em... trade em.... redesign its amic structure


anything is posible.. dont draw conslusions about what is real or not.... cuase fantasy is here 2 fill up the gaps (tough im still unsure of why icy planets are found closeby the sun and vulcano's in the outer SS)

Do remember that some of our planets are made of fire.

Also, have you looked at the planets? The have large "hubs" floating directly above the surfaces of the planets, which we can assume are "space elevators" (this is not some made up fantasy idea, as soon as NASA can build a "rope" with enough tensile strength, we are likely to see them popping up). This means that ships no longer need to be built that can exceed the escape velocity of a planet, which means it is very easy to get into space. So, when the trip from planet surface to the final frontier can be made twice daily, back in time for tea, why not build your research labs in space?

I think the research should be diffrent for each race. It makes sense for the TEC to research in space stations , sure. The Vasari however should do research from ships since they are alwayas on the move, they'd never take the time to build something so important in orbit of a planet. What if their last warning beacon goes dead and they've got the cure of Vasari AIDS in a space station, just leave it? (I think not!) Advent should be able to research should be based on total population. Once the number of civilians reachs a certain level the hive mind can research move advanced techology /in their minds! /() Can you imagine how much research you could do when it is possible to use every mind in your entire population at once on a tough problem and then release them in the blink of an eye when you're done? For real though Advent should do their research on the planets since they were orgionally discovered doing all their research on a desert planet or in their ships since they were exiled to live in space. There are certain things you could only research away from a planet, like Worm Hole techology or long distance jump drives (Which you should have to test at a star or a worm hole for example)