Breakthrough

One of six lines of Research available through the game **Breakthrough** research has no particular area of impact but tends to be more powerful than the standard research.

Research is completely randomized as far as position in the track is concerned with no Breakthroughs showing up in all games. Anomalies can lead to more Breakthrough technologies being available for research if investigated by an RC Explorer.

## Normal Breakthroughs

**Advanced Drone Drive** - Drones move 50% faster. (Our engineers have unveiled the first motor design to replace the old engines of our drones that were created in Earth laboratories so long ago. This time we've combined all that is now known from having hands-on experience in dissecting a drone that has been doing field work on Mars for quite some time.)

**Alien Imprints** - Uncovers new Anomalies - Alien Artifacts - which provide a boost to all research when scanned. (Hard as it is to believe, our observations suggest that intelligent life has visited Mars long ago and that remnants of these visits could still be here. These artifacts could help us improve and expand our understanding of the universe.)

**Artificial Muscles** - Drones carry two resources at once. (Nature has long provided inspiration for technological advances. Muscles made from carbon fiber are the latest example of cutting-edge biotech and, mixed with Mars's low gravity, our Drones have basically doubled their carrying capacity.)

**Cloning** - New Spire Building: Cloning Vats (50M 20P 10? 6H) - creates Clones over time. Cloned colonists grow and age twice as fast. ("Clones can think creatively. You will find that they are immensely superior to drones." Unnamed Martian Scientist)

**Core Metals** - Uncovers extremely rich underground Metal deposits. (Increased detail in reading traces of tectonic activities from eons ago has enabled us to accurately predict where to find high-grade metal's deep in the crust, only relatively recently pushed up from the Martian mantle.)

**Core Rare Metals** - Uncovers extremely rich underground Rare Metal deposits. (Applying new principles to chemical analysis of ancient crystalized magma has made it possible to locate several exceptionally potent Rare Metal veins deep underground.)

**Eternal Fusion** - Fusion Reactors Upgrade (Eternal Fusion) - Fusion Reactors no longer require workers and operate at 150 performance. (Our understanding of the once holy grail of energetics - Fusion Energy has reached the level where once a fusion reaction has been triggered, it can be left to regulate and sustain itself on its own... within a confined and safe medium of course.)

**Extractor AI** - Metals Extractors and Rare Metals Extractors can work without crews at 50 performance. (Extracting algorithms have been successfully implemented by new our Extractor AI, allowing for a certain degree of autonomy in mining operations.)

**Factory Automation** - Factory Upgrade (Automation) - Lowers the amount of Workers needed in factories. (Robots are poised to take our jobs here on Mars as well.)

**Forever Young** - Seniors can work and have children. (The golden years have officially been postponed indefinitely as a recent breakthruogh has finally unlocked the fountain of youth. Every man woman on Mars has now the ability to remain with their most productive and fertile age forever.)

**Frictionless Composites** - Wind Turbines Power production increased by 100% (Through clever application of grahpene and carbon based trictionless materials, we have managed to maximize the path of the Martian wind while minimizing the friction which slows down the rotor's rotation cycle, thus delivering far more bang for every buck of wind.)

**Hive Mind** - Residents in the Arcology get a bonus to work performance based on the number of unique perks and specializations of colonists living in the Arcology. ("The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants." Clay Shirley)

**Hull Polarization** - Buildings require maintenance less often. ("Don't confound static electricity with ecstatic eccentricity. One will leave your hair up, the other will live up in the air!" Ana Claudia Antunes)

**Inspiring Architecture** - Colonists in Domes with a Spire have increased Morale. (Even on the seemingly most ordinary of days, Colonists on Mars must never forget how extraordinary their lives actually are. Every time they pause from their newfound routines on this alien world and gaze upon the man-made spires that rise proudly towards the Martian sky, they will be reminded of the incredible feat their lives are a part of.)

**Magnetic Extraction** - Extractor Upgrade: (Magnetic Extraction) - Production increased by 50%. (We have progressed upon fringe mining technologies, developing safe ways to bring Magnetic Extraction to our mines on Mars.)

**Martianborn Ingenuity** - Martianborn gain 10 performance. (Growing up in a unique environment, combined with some creative gene therapy, makes people better problem solvers. Martianborn are brought up in a society which thrives on the idea that every extra effort counts and the smarter the effort, the better.)

**Multispiral Architecture** - New Dome: Oval Dome (150C 150M 100P) - An enlongated Dome which has space for two Spires. ( A new, domestic approach to construction provides the same structural safety of our Domes while providing additional space for Spires.)

**Nano Refinement** - All Extractors continue to extract small amounts when their deposit is depleted. (Leaving scattered molecules of the precious resource a mining facility was tasked with extracting has always bothered scientists as being just too cynically wasteful. Luckily, with new Nano Refinement precision tools, this wasteful tendency has been remedied.)

**Neo-Concrete** - Dome Concrete costs reduced by 80% (Mixing recently discovered materials made from Martian polymers with the Martian regolith have unlocked the wonder material that is Neo-Concrete. It is vastly superior.)

**Neural Empathy** - Unlocks the unique colonist trait Empath. This boosts the morale of nearby colonists, and the effect stacks with itself due to multiple nearby empaths. The trait is also added to the pool of possibilities generated by Project Morpheus.

**Overcharge Amplifications** - Amplify upgrades grant a bigger boost to production. ("Power! Unlimited Power!" Sheev)

**Plasma Rocket** - Rocket travel time to and from Earth reduced by 50%. (Plasma engines have numerous advantages over chemical rockets. All that is left to do is make sure they don't explode on launch.)

**Prefab Compression** - All Spires can be ordered as prefabs from Earth (The ever-increasing miniaturization of technology along with different modules has made it possible to transport the structural behemoths known as Spires all the way from Earth.)

**Rapid Sleep** - Colonists need to sleep for only 1 hour and regain extra Sanity when sleeping. ("Sleep, those little slices of death - how I loathe them." Edgar Allan Poe)

**Safe Mode** - When a colonist suffers a Sanity breakdown, they fall asleep and wake up after 6 hours with 70 Sanity. Colonists can't commit suicide or gain flaws due to sanity breakdown. (Failsafe systems have been in place and used to prevent catastrophes in various fields for centuries. Until now we had no viable way of remotely detecting when the brain was headed towards a meltdown. A means to remotely render people unconcious, however, was already available.)

**Service Bots** - Non-medical Service Buildings Upgrade: (Service Bots) - service buildings no longer require workers and operate at 100 performance. (Freeing our colonists of dealing with the most mundane of chores.)

**Superconducting Computing** - Converts unused Power into Research Points. (The ultra-cold environment that is Mars, combined with several recent breakthroughs in super conductors, has made the concept of superconductor computing, while still quite costly in terms of power, now manageable, thus opening the doors to the extremely fast superconductor computers.)

**Superior Cables** - Instant and free power cable construction. Power cables do not suffer from power faults. (A hydrogel of high conductivity and electrical self-healing properties, without any external stimuli and of great strength and flexibility, has been developed based on Nanostructured Conductive Polymers.)

**Superior Pipes** - Instant and free pipe construction. Pipes don't suffer from leaks. (A pressure-induced, self-healing coating with remakable insulation properties has been developed and field-tested to be used en masse on our pipe system.)

**Sustained Workload** - Doubles the performance bonus when Colonists are working on a heavy workload. (When every citizen knows that theri efficiency more or less impacts the survival chances of the entire Colony, it becomes a matter of pride to work hard.)

**Vector Pump** - Moisture Vaporator Upgrade (Vector Pump) - Water production increased by 100%. (A new atmosphere pump design that doubles the volume of air processed by our Vaporators in a simngle Sol.)

**Vocation-Oriented Society** - Colonists gain 10 bonus work performance when all their stats are in the green. ("Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can.")

## Mystery specific Breakthroughs

Some breakthroughs are only available when the relevant Mystery is active.

**Dark Spectrometry** - A "surface scratcher" step towards understanding the elusive chemical properties of the mystery Cubes, what dangers the Cubes might pose and how to manage them.

**Dream Simulation** - Push to decipher the Dreamers' brain patterns while in trance. (Inner Light)