TheNightingale's Guide to Research and Development V2

=== TheNightingale's Guide to Research and Development - /tg/station13 ===

Hey. I'm Cadence Meme, Research Director aboard SS13, and I'm going to teach you how to do R&D properly.
Well, not properly-properly, but I'm going to teach you how to do R&D - without using the RD's intelliCard, and with minimal reliance on other Science subdepartments.

First, go to Robotics and pick up a flash and a health analyzer. Then visit the Testing Lab, if your station has it, and take a sheet of plasma. If not, go to Xenobiology for a plasma sheet. Then go back to your lab, and find a blue toolbox. Take the screwdriver, use it on the welder, then pocket it for later. Make two metal rods with a sheet of metal, then use one rod on the welder to make a flamethrower. With the other rod, use it on some cable restraints (made from a cable coil) and then add wirecutters to make a stunprod.
Put the health analyzer in the Deconstructive Analyzer (DA), go to the console's DA menu, and press Deconstruct Item. This is known as 'deconstructing' or simply 'deconning' something. Good work. Do the same with the flamethrower, and then the stunprod.
Next, take a capacitor from around the lab (there will be a few on a table), a high-capacity power cell, and a micro-manipulator. Decon them in that order; capacitor, cell, micro-manip. Take a wrench from the toolbox you used and decon that too. Now go to the console again, but this time to the Protolathe menu. From 'Stock Parts' (or just type it in the search bar), make an advanced capacitor and a nano-manipulator. Deconstruct them both, and then make a tracking beacon. Decon this as well, and then your plasma sheet. Print off a welding gas mask from the Protolathe's equipment menu, and deconstruct it. Now take the glass and metal stacks, and put 10 to 15 sheets of glass in the Circuit Imprinter, and the rest in the Protolathe. Put all the metal you can in the Protolathe too, but make sure you have some left for later. Now put the beaker of sulphuric acid into the Circuit Imprinter (don't spill the acid), and go to the console's Circuit Imprinter menu. Print and deconstruct a Sleeper board, and then print a portable chem dispenser board. Don't deconstruct it! Build one. Use five sheets of metal to make a machine frame, add cables and the board, and then add a power cell (from around the lab), a capacitor, two matter bins, a manipulator and a console screen. Screwdriver the frame to complete it. By putting a beaker in here, you can fill it with sulphuric acid for your Circuit Imprinter. Do this now.
Now print another portable chem dispenser board, and deconstruct this one. This gives you enough research to have super matter bins and pico-manipulators; build ten of each, as well as a Rapid Part Exchange Device (RPED), a super-capacity power cell, an advanced scanning module and an advanced capacitor. Click them all with your RPED to load them, then screwdriver each of your machines, including the portable dispenser (except the console) and use the RPED on them. This upgrades them with better parts, so they work better. Relink the machines in Settinges --> Device Linkage Menu, and print and decon another advanced scanning module. In the Circuit Imprinter menu, print a teleporter console board and two Durand weapons and targeting control module boards. Deconstruct all three. Sync your machines in the Settings menu ('Sync Database with Network'), and ask Robotics to give you a mech syringe gun. Deconstruct it, and then two super-capacity power cells and a super matter bin.

The guide splits in two here, depending on if you have miners or not.
If you do, deconstruct a diamond sheet, then two bluespace crystals. Put some uranium, gold and silver in the Protolathe, then build some ultra-lasers and a phasic scanning module. Upgrade the DA with them and your RPED. Deconstruct an ultra-laser, then a hyper-capacity power cell. Finally, go to the Teleporter Room and dismantle the teleporter hub (screwdriver then crowbar). Take and deconstruct its board - but remember to replace it afterwards.

If you don't have miners, ask the AI for either their Paladin module, their Purge module or their OneHuman module. Deconstruct it, and then sync to the server and deconstruct a wormhole generator from Robotics. Take apart two teleporter hubs (the Teleporter Room and the AI Satellite each have a hub) and deconstruct the boards - again, replace them afterwards.

Finally, ask Cargo for a crate of combat shotguns, and deconstruct one for Combat 6. If you can find an illegal item (such as a suspicious-looking toolbox), deconstruct it for Illegal 2. For Illegal 3, you can either deconstruct another illegal item, or put a sheet of diamond into the Circuit Imprinter and make and deconstruct a TYRANT module.

And that's it! You've finished Research and Development for this shift. Send a message to Central telling them how well you did, take your RPED and a lot of parts, and upgrade Robotics' exosuit fabricators, Medical's sleepers, cryo tubes, freezer, DNA scanners and cloning pod, the Kitchen's microwaves, and Cargo's autolathe.

There are a few items you can find that will raise your numbers even higher, but don't count on it. Adminspawn-only mecha teleporters are Bluespace 11 (ask Central nicely). An alien brain (from any player-controlled non-larva alien) rewards you with Biotech 8. Adminspawn-only mech pulse rifles are enough for Combat 7. A C20r SMG, should you manage to find one, will give you Illegal 9, but the less rare Syndicate beacons (bomb and singularity) reward Illegal 8. Pyroclastic anomaly cores are sufficient to give you Plasma 6. With all of these, you'll need to find multiple to reach the maximum level, and they don't actually unlock anything new. But either way, well done.

=== THE SHORT VERSION ===

Health analyzer / Flamethrower / Stunprod (2 Biological Technology, 2 Electromagnetic Spectrum, 2 Plasma, 3 Combat)
Capacitor / High-capacity power cell / Micro-manipulator (3 Power Manipulation, 2 Data Theory)
Advanced capacitor / Tracking beacon / Nano-manipulator / Wrench (4 Power, 2 Bluespace, 3 Data, 2 Engineering, 2 Materials)
Plasma sheet (3 Mats, 3 Plasma)
Welding gas mask (3 Engi)
Sleeper board (4 Mats, 4 Engi, 3 Biotech, 4 Data)
Build a portable chem dispenser.
Portable chem dispenser board (5 Mats, 5 Engi, 4 Plasma, 4 Biotech, 5 Data)
Advanced scanning module (4 EM)
Teleporter console board (3 Bluespace)
Durand weapons board x2 (4, 5 Combat)
Sync with Robotics; mech syringe gun (5 Biotech, 5 EM)
Super-cap cell x2 (5, 6 Power)
Super matter bin (6 Mats)
===
{Miners}
Diamond sheet (7 Mats)
Bluespace crystal x2 (4, 5 Bluespace)
Upgrade DA, then Ultra-laser (6 EM)
Hyper-cap cell (7 Power)
Teleporter Hub (from the teleporter) (6 Bluespace, 6 Engi)
===
{No miners}
One of: Paladin/Purge/OneHuman (7 Mats)
Wormhole generator (4 Bluespace)
Teleporter Hub board x2 (5, 6 Bluespace, 6 Engi)
===
Combat shotgun (6 Combat)
Syndicate item (2 Illegal)
Another Syndicate item, or TYRANT board (3 Illegal)

Got all that? Good luck. Now just don't put together two bags of holding, and you'll be a great scientist in no time.

-Cadence Meme, Research Director (SS13, Sector code 'TG').

(Special thanks to the following guides: http://pastebin.com/EnE75ekC, http://pastebin.com/bsYCGTqQ, http://pastebin.com/uSN8sLTq, as well as the helpful Research team of singulo.io. Accurate as of 05/04/2015, use and improve at will. Forward any questions to my NTRC address: cadence.m@waffle.notahostilecorp.nt)