Ascension Research

Ascension research is a catch-up and completion branch for G3-and-up players, with its gated nodes landing between R&D Department levels 18 and 39. Its job is to source ships and blueprints you may have skipped, and to add officer, station, and combat upgrades on the side. This page lists every ascension research with what it does, the Operations level it unlocks at, the number of levels, the cost to max, the research time, and prerequisites.

What Ascension research does

The heart of the tree is the Ship Commission nodes, which reward blueprints for a long list of hulls, from the Augur, B’rel, D3, and D4 up through the Botany Bay, so mid-game players can finish or re-source ships they never completed. Around those sit officer research that grants shards and stats to help you rank crews, station-defense damage for holding your base, and a set of all-ship damage and mitigation lines. Prioritize the Ship Commission nodes for the specific ships you want to build or top up, since those blueprints are the reason to invest here, then take the officer and combat lines that fit how you play. Treat it as a completion tree first and a power tree second.

Every Ascension research

All 61 research projects, sorted by unlock level (most projects gate on your R&D Department; some use Operations or another building). Cost to max is the full resource total across every level. Research time is the base time before your research-speed bonuses, which cut it heavily in play, so treat it as a relative gauge between projects rather than a real-world clock.