Added research branches and an advisor
A Systems Laboratory opens four research paths, and each completed study unlocks a building or a unit instead of a hidden percentage.
Research is a paused screen with four branches: construction, vehicles, infantry, and aircraft. The next study stays hidden until the one before it is done.
The rewards are concrete things. Quad slabs, the light factory and Dustrunner, the barracks line through rocket troopers and Bulwarks, then the hangar, Wisp, and Kestrel. A Systems Laboratory has to exist before the first of those studies.
“A study should put a new machine on the sand, not a plus sign in a tooltip.”
Kalea briefs the choice from the laboratory. Completing a study announces it, and a power outage pauses the queue until generation recovers.
The desert around that screen picked up drifting dust and a seamless sand texture, so the battlefield behind the menu no longer looks tiled.