I’m not sure if this is intentional, but Researcher seems like a very challenging role to get into. For example, when learning how to play a medical role, all you have to do is read the wiki, then memorize colors, some names, and surgical steps, and you’re practically platinum-level skilled. The researcher’s role isn’t like that; instead, the wiki has a dictionary’s worth of information and new custom game mechanics. If you want to learn Botany, it isn’t the intuitive plant seeds, pour with water, spray with fertilizer, and grow the plants; instead, you need to use a complicated customized step sheet to get the optimized amount of plant growth so you can create the chemicals needed to complete more complicated orders. While you’re trying to figure this all out, the match is still progressing, xeno bodies are piling up, and you’re still reading the thought-out guide on the forum on how to grow these plants. You still don’t know how to make stems, and basically, I’m saying, how long is it supposed to take you to learn how to become good at this?
To me, the role seems really cool, but I feel like I need to study it like a university prerequisite class to play it. I don’t know, maybe I’m not the player that the role is for, but the learning curve seems so extremely high that unless you dedicate time to studying it, you’ll be lost.
I’m glad it isn’t just me lol. Someone should fix that so more people can play it, don’t have to main it, and don’t have to dedicate 70 hours to it before deciding if they like it or not. By achieving a good enough understanding of the game mechanics.
If you want a actual answer as someone who has almost 300 hours in research realistically if you mean “good” as in someone who can make a stim and or something else useful by themselves without the help of another researcher probably like 20-30 hours maybe less if you have some other experienced researcher teaching you every round. If you mean “good” as in able to capitalize upon everything by themselves ie every contract, every botany chem, every body, and every IO paper and do it quick enough to not get overwhelmed then like solidly 100-150 hours if not more/never I know some plat researchers who aren’t very good or quick at botany simply due to not caring to learn to do it better or not liking it at all to do it very often.
research is like a steep cliff where at a certain point (generally after learning how ADD/Relate functions alongside paper ODs, as well as paper tiering) where you “get it”, and have enough tools to branch off ideas purely based on your growing understanding of how properties work. It is still, regardless of any of that, the hardest role in the game with the most amount of absurd esoterica to learn. That’s part of the charm, honestly. I’ve seen quite a few people go from relative unknowers to genuinely proficient in the span of maybe… 1-5 rounds. Usually requires some teaching though.
I am by no means super good at researcher, but I think I’ve gotten most of the basics.
For botany, just follow the rollout guide (this one Botany Rollout for Research Contracts, Visual Guide - #4 by Megaddd ) it’s what I use. Botany is just for points and is sadly a necessity if you want to make anything good. The guide shows you why you do specific steps; but it basically boils down to: “These plants are good, modify them with genes from wheat and limes to make them better, then plant them up and pour radium until they yield chemicals we need to scan, dump Diethylamine and congrats; If you don’t get it GG go again.”
For the actual meat and potatoes, the best way is to have a teacher or at least shadow someone who knows what they’re doing. Besides that, the best way to learn is to actually understand what the papers mean, what properties do what, and what are good properties to add onto a base (and what a good base paper is for that matter.)
Once you get that, the giant synthesis machine becomes a bit more clearer to understand; but the real way to get it is just to add something onto a paper, or relate it for a similar property just to see how it works. There’s no substitute for experience, if you’re really hesitant just go during a solo researcher round/after marines win, do some easy contracts for points if you’re missing some, and just play around with the machine - hell you could just go on a test server and give yourself a research grant of like 999999 credits.
Also don’t worry, processing xenos is easy peasy. Just cut them open, shove the organ in the blender, and boom now you can make some cool shit.
Holy shit that’s me!!!
One day we will remove this blight on research
Jokes aside yea it can take some time to understand well the mechanics behind research. Tho unlike some others have said, I strongly disagree in trying to learn things on an offline server or by code diving. Learning IC with the aid of professors ingame is the purest form of research HRP (and used to be the norm back when it was closed source). It can be sometimes complicated in finding a mentor but I strongly believe that the whole experience is much better in the end than by simple code diving.
You will know when you made it as researcher when you teach the next generation
Idk, its difficulty in a different way compared to the rest of the game. Runner if just by time investment is more difficult, and has a higher skill ceiling
you have to practice it significantly longer to have any impact because it has 230 hp and no armor and very fast speed and a combat ability. This is because it’s pvp, the complexity is in the layers of counterplay between you and the other person or group of people.
In research the mechanical complexity lies in walking fast, clicking right, routing. The rest is just memorizing concepts. While the concepts can be difficult (especially needing practice to do without needing to tab out every few seconds), once you learn them you have effectively met at least half of the skill ceiling, and the mechanical complexity is learned just from repetition and practice (which you probably have practiced enough by then). And by that point once you have met that skill floor to get products out, your impact is at least 5 times greater than the rounys on any round with good RNG, with even greater returns as you practice more and understand more.
There’s a reason research is constantly nerfed and made more difficult - instead of removed outright. And it’s because research mains love the role a lot, which I can understand because it has interesting gameplay design, but also it should be part of the PVP in a way thats conductive to good gameplay especially if it has such absurdly overtuned impact on the PVP of the server. It’s like mining in base ss13, people may spend hundreds of hours on it, but that doesn’t justify bringing OP mining loot from hell to ruin the round. Mining is less bad then research tho imo.
Or well honestly i never understood that argument fully that mining is bad in base ss13… i think the op loot is fine outside of niche cases bcus ss13 is a sandbox and u should be able to get cool stuff. CM is different, it’s pvp.
Research is easier then runner. You can argue research has a billion more concepts to learn, but to apply those concepts is pretty simple gameplay-wise compared to runner - further to actually gain perspective on those topics you have resources like guides, the wiki, etc. The skill curve is much less steep for research then for runner aswell. The enemy you fight is much more static with less factors of variability to attack, less risk, and much easier to practice against.
A large amount of the skill in research is learning to do the best irregardless of circumstance, alongside working quickly - but for a new (but one who has a base knowledge of the role) researcher, all it takes is good RNG to do really well in a round and have more impact then almost any other marine with no real counterplay. It doesn’t have to deal with and learn to understand the resources the game usually restricts you of - health, terrain, positioning (includes spacing, zoning), group size, cooldowns, information, alongside other layers of counterplay. because these are not valuable to a marine who does not interact groundside.
You can argue runner is far easier if you have easy opponents. This is true. This is player RNG. You are still incredibly likely to die very quickly though. The skill comes in lowering the probability of this occuring - which takes learning new perspective in unintuitive ways, alongside practice to gain skill at applying the concepts, and ping honestly.
You can also argue research is far easier if you have good RNG. This is true. This is RNG
One thing you can say is runner has transferrable skills to the rest of CM13 - this is true. Research is more transferrable to like TGstation or base ss13 skillsets.
