Scientist I

criteria
 Reward
 Goal

*"Attempt modifying the portal to harvest resources when travelling. Until you perfect the technique, you will start with 11500 science but will be unable to research or hire scientists. Choose your upgrades wisely! Clearing **'The Block' (11)** with this challenge active will cause you to start with 5000 Science, 100 Food, 100 Wood, 10 Traps, and 1 Foreman every time you use your portal."*

**Note**: More general information about the Scientist challenges can be found here.

Unlocked by reaching zone 40, the Scientist challenge becomes available for completion. The player starts with **11500 science**.

## Rules

Gaining research points is fully disabled. The player can't work on science, and Trimps can't be assigned as scientists.

The player is limited to an amount of science total until the completion of the challenge. There is absolutely no way to gain additional science until the challenge is completed. Once the challenge is completed, all of the disabled functionality is unlocked, and scientists are unlocked again as a possible job, as well as missing Speedscience awarded.

## Strategy

For this challenge, you have a limited amount of science, so you need to be very choosy about all upgrades that cost science.

Suggested buys:

* Battle (10 science)
* Bloodlust (60 science)
* Miners (60 science)
* 9 Coordinations (8001 science)
* Mace II (1400 science)
* Breastplate II (1900 science)

Rationale:

* Battle. You can't progress without it.
* Miners. You don't want to sit on mining the whole game without any Efficiency.
* Bloodlust. This way you can idle for most of the run.
* At least one health and one weapon prestige upgrade. Depending on your perk levels, you may need to get just health upgrades. Prestiging later equipment pieces may be preferable to prestiging earlier equipment pieces due to a higher stat increase.
* Bear in mind that earlier pieces can help you better bridge zones 6-9. Polearm II (1550) and Pants II (1600) are also a great option
* As many Coordination upgrades as possible.
* Purchasing all of these leaves you with exactly 69 science remaining (nice).

Things to skip include:

* Trainers and their upgrades.  Block will be very low for this run, so it's better to focus on health.
* Blockmaster. Same reason.
* All the Speed upgrades. You can make up for them by idling; to contrast, you can't really make up for Snimps one-shotting you.
* Efficiency. You won't be working on science, and your native building speed is fast enough, and your workers will be so much faster than you that you can't really catch up.
* Potency. At these early levels, you shouldn't be sitting on a breeder counter too much.

All of the above said, you'll get to The Block and be grinding with a little science left over.  Take Coordination or Prestige upgrades if you can. If you can't, then things to consider are:

* A little bit of speed mining or lumber. These will help you build up your equipment levels faster.
* Trainers and Blockmaster. Even with block being low, a few thousand block is better than just leaving the science sitting there doing nothing.

Near the end of this run, you will be out of moves except to grind up equipment levels. It's not unusual to have to idle on the last few rows of the map as you slowly ramp up equipment levels to level 20+.

The reward for this challenge is a minor convenience upgrade. As such, it is not essential to do it as early as possible.

For comparison, see the guide for Scientist II. The strategy is similiar, but you can afford to spend more on Coordinations.

## Trivia

* Before patch V2.75 this challenge did not give 10 Traps.