Research Projects

Some problems don't fall to a single skill check. What's turning the station crew into something else? Why does the "water" tick? What actually jams every comm north of the relay? A Research Project is how a squad buys the answer, one sample and one lab shift at a time.

A Research Project is a structured investigation the GM builds in advance. The squad chips away at it across a mission (or several); every stage completed pays out intel, and the finished project pays out the prize: a cure, a countermeasure, a schematic, a truth somebody paid to bury.

Research Levels

A project is divided into Research Levels: R1, R2, R3 and so on. The default project is three levels; sprawling campaign projects can run to R10.

Each level requires one increment to complete. An increment is earned by:

1. Meeting the level's requirement; a sample, a dataset, a component, a witness. Requirements are physical things found in the world; if the level needs husk blood, someone has to go and take some.
2. Passing the level's skill check vs the project's TL (usually the Mission TL) in an appropriate facility; a science lab, med bay, research trailer, workshop. No facility, no increment; improvised setups work at Disadvantage per the toolkit rules, if the GM allows it at all.

Some levels list only a requirement (bring the sample, the rest is bench work), some only a check (analysis of what you already hold).

Reveals

Completing a level reveals two things:

• A slice of intel. Each Research Level should tell the squad something true about what's going on. A project is a drip-feed of the mission's secret; by R3 the squad should know enough to be worried.
• The requirements for the next two levels. The squad can always see two moves ahead; never the whole board. This turns research into an itinerary: the next sample is at the relay, the one after that is in something's bloodstream.

Failure, Crits, and Partial Results

• A failed check loses no progress. It burns the lab time, and if the GM rules the sample was consumed in the attempt, someone is going back out for another one.
• A Critical Success on a project check, or on a closely related field check at the GM's discretion, earns one free increment. The medic who crit-cures a patient of the very thing being researched has learned something the lab hasn't.
• Percent projects. Long projects can track output as a percentage: on a 10-level project each level is +10%. Partial results are usable at the GM's discretion, and should be worse than the real thing; a 30% cure suppresses, a 60% cure stabilises, only 100% cures.

Building One (GM)

• Scatter the requirements. Put them where the squad is going anyway, and one or two where they aren't; a requirement is a quest hook wearing a lab coat.
• Make every reveal load-bearing. If a level's intel doesn't change what the players want to do next, merge it into another level.
• Set the TL once. Project checks run at Mission TL unless a level is genuinely harder (use Threat Bands).