Research and Development

Apart from building bombs, holding the most dangerous creatures in the universe as pets and drinking vast amounts of vendor trash space coffee, RnD is also tasked with researching all kinds of different objects and developing new and improved prototype devices and machinery.

The items that Science produces are more or less safe for use, but some of them come with hidden consequences.

Researching
In order to blueprint new devices, you need to take apart and analyze existing ones. The way you do this is simple, you can use the Disassembler in the RnD lab to destroy an item, regaining most of its components, and have a chance of discovering additional blueprints that improve upon that item. The developed blueprints can be saved on the readily accessible blueprint disks and then moved to the Assembler, which can produce a prototype of that item.

Another way to gain a prototype is to use the Technology Analyzer, which can scan one item and transfer its blueprint to an Assembler, allowing you to replicate items already found on the station or gained by other means.