Research Lab & Intergalactic Network Guide — OGame

The Research Lab is not just another building you rush to level 1 and forget — it is the single most time-sensitive structure on every colony you will ever own. Every minute you shave off a Hyperspace Drive or Plasma Technology research translates directly into fleets launched sooner, combat won more cleanly, and resources compounding faster. Pair high-level labs with the Intergalactic Research Network (IRN) and the numbers get genuinely dramatic. This guide covers the full picture: how research time is calculated, which lab levels unlock which technologies, how IRN linking works across your empire, where to build labs, and how to squeeze the most out of OGames' boosted speed settings.

How Research Time Is Calculated in OGame

Understanding the formula stops you from making expensive mistakes. The base research duration for any technology is derived from the cost of the next level divided by the speed factor of your best available lab, expressed roughly as:

Research Time = (Metal + Crystal cost) / (1,000 × Lab Level) × Universe Research Speed Factor

Two things matter here. First, the formula uses your highest single lab level as the base, then the Intergalactic Research Network adds the levels of your linked labs to that base. Second, the universe research speed multiplier applies on top of everything, which is why OGames' universes cut research times so aggressively — Andromeda runs 100× research speed, Nebula at 198×, and Proxima at a staggering 400×.

What this means in practice: a level-12 lab in Proxima linked to three level-8 labs via a level-3 IRN is performing research at an effective lab level somewhere around 36, then that value is multiplied by 400. Technologies that would take days in a standard 1× universe resolve in minutes. The compounding effect of IRN on already-fast universes is why veteran players build labs early and everywhere.

There is one important caveat: only the highest-level lab on any given planet counts as the primary; the rest of your empire contributes only through IRN linking. You cannot run two independent researches simultaneously unless you own the Admiral commander, which grants a second research queue slot. Prioritising the Admiral early — available through OGames' commander system — is a core efficiency play.

Lab Levels and the Technologies They Unlock

Every technology in OGame has both a lab-level prerequisite and, often, prerequisites on other researches. Below is the minimum Research Lab level required to begin each major technology. Hitting these thresholds is the first gating problem a new account faces.

The critical path most veterans follow looks like this: rush Energy Technology → Combustion Drive → Espionage Technology to five or six → Computer Technology to increase fleet slots → then split attention between Impulse Drive and Shielding to enable Hyperspace Technology. From there, Hyperspace Drive opens large cargo and battleship-class hulls. Everything else layers on top.

Lab level 10 is the hardest gate for newer players because it requires Computer Technology 8 and Hyperspace Technology 8 before IRN becomes available at all. In OGames' fastest universe, Proxima at 200× economy speed, you can reach this milestone in a long weekend. In Andromeda at 50×, expect one to two weeks of active play before the prerequisite chain completes.

One non-obvious tip: Astrophysics, which governs how many colonies you can own, scales in usefulness directly with your lab count. Every new colony is a potential IRN lab, so Astrophysics and IRN form a positive feedback loop — more colonies means higher effective lab level means faster research means faster colonisation of more planets.

The Intergalactic Research Network Explained

The Intergalactic Research Network is a technology, not a building. You research it at your main lab once you meet the prerequisites (Research Lab 10, Computer Technology 8, Hyperspace Technology 8). Each level of IRN you research allows one additional planet's lab to contribute its level to the active research calculation.

The exact mechanic: when you initiate a research on your highest-level lab planet, the server looks at how many labs IRN allows you to link, then automatically selects the next highest-level labs across your empire and sums their levels onto your primary lab level. You do not manually choose which labs link — the game always picks the strongest available ones. This means the only variable under your control is how high you build each colony's lab and how many IRN levels you have researched.

Here is a concrete example. Suppose your empire has labs at levels 16, 12, 10, 9, 8, and 8 and you have researched IRN to level 5. Your effective lab level for research time calculations is:

16 (primary) + 12 + 10 + 9 + 8 + 8 = 63 effective lab level

Compare that to a player with only a level-20 lab and no colonies: the IRN player is researching roughly three times faster despite their individual labs being far lower level. This is the core insight that separates competitive accounts from passive ones.

IRN also interacts with the Admiral commander's second research slot. With Admiral active you can run two concurrent researches — each uses the same IRN-linked effective lab level. The throughput gain is enormous, effectively doubling your long-term research output. On OGames, where creating an account already gives you Dark Matter for commander access, stacking IRN with Admiral from early game is the expected meta rather than a luxury.

Which Planets Should Get Labs and How High

The strategic question is not whether to build labs on colonies — you always should — but how to allocate resources between deepening one lab versus spreading levels across many planets.

The general principle is diminishing marginal returns from your primary lab and increasing marginal returns from IRN additions. Going from lab level 15 to 16 on your homeworld costs roughly 26 million metal and 6.5 million crystal. That same resource expenditure spread across two colony labs going from 8 to 9 each adds two levels to your IRN pool instead of one to your primary. As long as you have IRN levels available to link them, spreading lab investment is usually more efficient once your primary lab is past level 14 or 15.

A practical framework by empire stage:

• Homeworld only (early game): Push your main lab to level 10 as fast as possible. Nothing else matters until IRN is unlocked.
• 2–4 colonies: Get each colony to lab level 6–8 before deepening further. This provides meaningful IRN contribution at relatively low cost.
• 5–8 colonies (mid-game): Balance. Push your main lab to 16–18, keep all colony labs at 10+, and research IRN to at least level 6 or 7.
• Full empire (8+ colonies): Specialise one or two "lab worlds" — planets with extra fields dedicated to deeper labs — and keep the rest at 8–12 as IRN contributors.

Field count matters here. A planet with 200 fields has room for everything: mines, storage, shipyard, and a lab at level 14+. A cramped planet of 80 fields forces hard choices. In OGames' Andromeda universe, the +500 bonus planet fields effectively eliminate field constraints on homeworlds, letting you build an enormous primary lab without sacrificing mine depth. Nebula's +200 bonus and Proxima's +500 both ease this tension significantly compared to standard 1× servers.

Moon labs do not contribute to IRN. The IRN mechanic only links labs on planets. Do not waste resources building a deep moon lab hoping it will accelerate research — it will not.

IRN Strategy on OGames' Fast Research Universes

Speed changes everything about how you sequence lab investment. On a 1× server, getting from IRN 0 to IRN 8 takes weeks. On OGames' Proxima universe with 400× research speed, the entire IRN research chain — including its prerequisites — can realistically be completed in two to three days of active play. This collapses the strategy timeline dramatically.

In standard OGame, players often delay IRN because the prerequisite cost is steep relative to their account stage. On Proxima or Nebula, the opposite is true: you should treat IRN as an emergency priority and funnel resources into its prerequisites the moment you are stable enough to stop building combat ships. The payoff period is measured in hours, not weeks.

Specific universe notes for OGames players:

• Andromeda (100× research): IRN pays off quickly but not instantly. Target IRN level 5 within the first week, then grow it as you colonise. The 50× fleet speed means you are also shipping deuterium between planets fast, so fuelling colony labs is not a logistics bottleneck. The 5,000 DM signup bonus plus 1,000 DM weekly makes early Admiral access realistic, so plan your research queue for dual slots from day one.
• Nebula (198× research): IRN prerequisites clear in roughly half the time of Andromeda. With 10,000 DM free weekly, players consistently run commanders. The 55% ships debris field and 30% moon chance make combat frequent, so you need combat techs (weapons, shielding, armor) levelled fast — do not let IRN ambitions delay your combat-tech ladder or you will be outgunned by raiders.
• Proxima (400× research): Research is so fast that the IRN prerequisite chain is almost irrelevant as a delay. By the time your mines are producing meaningfully, you may already have Computer 8 and Hyperspace 8 done. The 20,000 DM signup and 50,000 DM weekly mean Admiral is essentially always active. Focus energy on getting enough colonies online to feed a wide IRN network rather than deepening any single lab. With 80% ships debris and 40% moon chance, recycler fleets and moon-building are constant activities — do not let the economic pace tempt you into ignoring lab investment entirely.

One Proxima-specific trap: because research resolves so fast, players sometimes queue long chains of low-priority researches and burn Dark Matter on speed-ups they do not need. Slow down. At 400× you rarely need to rush; use that DM on commanders and officers instead.

For deeper context on how universe speeds compare from the ground level, see the guide on 1× vs speed: how game speed changes OGame — it covers the compounding effect of multipliers on every resource system, including research.

Lab Mistakes Every Intermediate Player Makes

Recognising and avoiding these errors is what separates accounts that plateau at a mid-tier rank from those that reach top-50 in their universe.

1. Treating the Research Lab like a mine. Mines scale continuously; every level adds more raw output. Labs work differently: each additional level reduces research time by a percentage, but the curve flattens. A level 20 lab is not twice as effective as a level 10 lab in isolation. Combine it with IRN, and the math changes — but you must actively research IRN levels or that primary lab is underperforming.

2. Neglecting colony labs entirely. A common pattern: player builds homeworld lab to level 18, gets IRN to level 3, and then never builds labs on colonies because "colonies are for ships." Each un-levelled colony lab is a missed IRN link. Even a level 6 lab on a production colony contributes meaningfully once linked.

3. Building labs on moons. As noted above, moon labs do not contribute to IRN. If you have built a high-level lab on a moon, that was wasted field space. Moons are for sensors (Phalanx), jump gates, and occasionally fleet storage. Nothing else.

4. Rushing Graviton before your economy supports it. Graviton Technology requires level 7 Research Lab and enormous energy production — specifically, the energy output of your entire planet must be dedicated to the single Graviton research. Many players sink resources into this prematurely, crippling their mine output for days in a 1× game, or wasting field space in a fast universe. In OGames, where fields are generous and speed is high, Graviton is affordable earlier, but it still competes with building the lab depth needed for better combat techs. Get Plasma Technology to level 8+ before worrying about Graviton.

5. Ignoring Astrophysics after early colonisation. Astrophysics costs scale with level, but each level either adds a colony slot or improves expedition outcomes. More colony slots means more potential IRN labs. Players who cap out at five colonies because "I have enough planets" are leaving a significant IRN multiplier on the table. For a more thorough breakdown of how buildings interact with your overall economy, the Robotics and Nanite Factory guide and the Shipyard guide cover the related construction-speed buildings that free up your time to focus on lab investment.

6. Queuing low-priority tech to fill the slot. Because Admiral enables two simultaneous researches, some players fill the second slot with whatever is next in their tech tree without considering ROI. On a fast server, low-value researches you will never use still block the queue. Prioritise ruthlessly: combat techs, drive upgrades, Plasma Technology, and Astrophysics have the highest per-level value. Anything else should be queued only when the high-priority chain has a gap.

The underlying principle across all these mistakes is the same: research is not a passive system. It rewards players who actively manage lab levels, IRN investment, and research queue composition. Treat it like you treat your fleet management — deliberately, with a plan — and your account development will consistently outpace opponents who treat it as an afterthought.

If you are mapping out your full economic development alongside lab progression, the Metal Mine guide, Crystal Mine guide, and Deuterium Synthesizer guide give the mine-side picture so you can balance resource generation against research consumption in each phase of your account.

FAQ

Does building a Research Lab on a moon help with IRN?

No. Moon labs are completely excluded from the Intergalactic Research Network. Only labs built on planets count toward your IRN effective level. Building a lab on a moon wastes fields that could be used for sensor phalanx or jump gates. Keep moon construction strictly functional.

How many IRN levels should I target in each OGames universe?

In Andromeda, targeting IRN level 6–8 over your first month gives meaningful returns given its 100× research speed. In Nebula, push IRN to 8–10 within the first two weeks — the 198× speed means prerequisites clear fast. In Proxima, the real question is how many colonies you can sustain, since IRN usefulness scales directly with colony count; aim for IRN level equal to your active planet count minus one.

Can I run two researches at the same time without the Admiral commander?

No. Dual research queues require the Admiral officer. Without Admiral, only one research can be active at a time. On OGames, where free Dark Matter is distributed weekly (1,000 in Andromeda, 10,000 in Nebula, 50,000 in Proxima), Admiral is accessible from the first days of play. Activating it early is one of the highest-ROI decisions you can make.

What is the most efficient level to build colony labs to for IRN contributions?

There is no universal answer, but a practical benchmark is level 8–12 for most colonies. Below level 8, the contribution per resource invested is low relative to what those resources could do for mines or shipyards. Above level 12 on a non-specialist lab planet, costs escalate steeply and you often get better returns deepening your primary lab or researching another IRN level to link an existing colony. "Lab specialist" planets dedicated to deep labs (level 15+) make sense only when you have maximised mines and have excess fields.

Does the research speed multiplier apply before or after IRN is added?

The universe research speed multiplier applies to the entire effective lab level after IRN links are summed. So if your effective lab level (primary + IRN links) is 50 and the universe runs at 198× research speed, the formula treats the situation as if you had a level-50 lab running at that speed. IRN and universe speed are multiplicative in their combined effect on cutting research time, which is why building a wide IRN network in Nebula or Proxima produces such extreme results compared to a small, deep lab on a standard 1× server.

OGames is built for players who want to experience these research systems at their full potential without the months-long grind of a standard server. All three universes — Andromeda, Nebula, and Proxima — are live and accepting new players. Register your account on OGames, pick the universe that matches your available time, and start building the lab network that will define your empire's research ceiling. The IRN advantage compounds with every colony you establish, so the best time to start is the first hour you log in.