Dyson Sphere Program Research: how Research works, Matrix Labs and Cubes explained
Master new technologies in Dyson Sphere Program
Research is the backbone of Dyson Sphere Program. To progress and enhance your factory you'll need to unlock new technologies, and each technology requires a certain number of items of different types. Soon the quantity of items becomes far too great to manually produce, so you'll need to let Matrix Labs do the bulk of the work. But these buildings can be pretty confusing for new players to understand.
This Dyson Sphere Program Research guide will explain how Research and Matrix Labs work, before diving into the different Matrix Cubes and the materials required to craft each one.
On this page:
- Dyson Sphere Program Research explained
- Tech Tree & Upgrades Tree
- Manual Research vs Matrix Labs
- Matrix Cubes & Recipes
Dyson Sphere Program Research explained
In a game of Dyson Sphere Program, the big button in the bottom-right corner will open the Tech Tree. Each technology has a recipe, just like items in the game. For example, the very first tech you can research (Electromagnetism) has a recipe of 10 Magnetic Coils. Once you've queued up this technology, the game will take 10 Magnetic Coils from your inventory and slowly work through them, one at a time, until the research is complete. In essence, this is how all research in Dyson Sphere Program works.
Tech Tree & Upgrades Tree
Aside from the main tech tree, which unlocks new buildings, items, and recipes, there is also the Upgrades tree, which you can view by clicking on the Upgrades tab at the top-left of the technology screen.
The technologies in the Upgrades tree work in exactly the same way as regular technologies. They go into the same research queue, and they require certain numbers of items just like normal techs. The only difference is that the upgrade technologies, as you may have guessed, directly upgrade your mech, along with your building abilities, and the functions of certain buildings, items, and overlays.
Manual Research vs Matrix Labs
When you start a new game of Dyson Sphere Program, you'll have to manually research new technologies at first. This means researching technologies by taking the required items straight from your inventory. But this is very slow when the technologies start asking for hundreds of items, particularly when the techs start requiring Matrix cubes, which are more costly to produce.
This is where Matrix Labs come in. You'll unlock the Matrix Lab very early on (with the Electromagnetic Matrix tech). These buildings have two modes: production, and research.
- In Production mode, a Matrix Lab will automatically produce Matrix cubes if it is fed the appropriate ingredients.
- In Research mode, a Matrix Lab can be fed Matrix cubes, and will consume them to further research.
A single Matrix Lab in Research mode does the equivalent of what you were doing with manual research. But the beauty is that you can have multiple Matrix Labs working at once in Research mode, which speeds up the process enormously.
The other reason Matrix Labs are so important is that they're the only building that can automate production of Matrix Cubes. Assemblers aren't allowed to produce Matrix Cubes, so Matrix Labs act as your assemblers when it comes to these cubes.
Once you set a Matrix Lab to production mode, you can choose the type of Matrix cube you'd like it to produce (out of the cubes you've unlocked so far). Then supply it the required materials and it'll busily get to producing those cubes. You can then feed those cubes into your other Matrix Labs that are set to research mode.
Matrix Cubes & Recipes
There are 6 different types of Matrix cubes in Dyson Sphere Program, and they get progressively more difficult to make. But you'll need to figure out how to make them, because you'll need them in order to reach the end of the tech tree.
Here are the 6 Matrix cubes and their recipes:
Electromagnetic Matrix (Blue)
- Time to produce: 3 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 1x Magnetic Coil
- 1x Circuit Board
Energy Matrix (Red)
- Time to produce: 6 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 2x Energetic Graphite
- 2x Hydrogen
Structure Matrix (Yellow)
- Time to produce: 8 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 1x Diamond
- 1x Titanium Crystal
Information Matrix (Purple)
- Time to produce: 10 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 2x Processor
- 1x Particle Broadband
Gravity Matrix (Green)
- Time to produce: 24 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 1x Graviton Lens
- 1x Quantum Chip
Universe Matrix (White)
- Time to produce: 15 seconds
- Ingredients:
- 1x Electromagnetic Matrix
- 1x Energy Matrix
- 1x Structure Matrix
- 1x Information Matrix
- 1x Gravity Matrix
- 1x Antimatter
And with that, we'll wrap up this short introduction to Research in Dyson Sphere Program. If you're hankering for more top tips and strategies, you'd best head over to our tips and tricks page.