Intergalactic Research Network

How it works
Intergalactic Research Network is a technology that allows Research Labs from different planets to work together, decreasing research times. Each level of IRN allows one extra lab to join with the lab where you begin research, effectively adding their levels together to compute research time. Joining labs together is completely automatic and transparent: the game will join labs in order of their level (highest first). Labs below the minimum level to research a given technology will be excluded, regardless of IRN.

In order to function, each colony must be able to conduct the research independently. Meaning each world has to be able to have requirements for the IRN.
 * Example 1
 * You have level 2 IRN with your labs being levels 10, 8, 6, and 4.
 * You want to research Shielding Technology which requires a level 6 research lab.
 * Level 2 IRN allows 3 research labs to work together, and your top 3 labs all have at least the required level 6. Therefore, beginning research at any of those three labs will give the production time of a 10+8+6 = level 24 research lab.


 * Example 2
 * You have level 2 IRN with your labs being levels 10, 8, 6, and 4.
 * You want to research Hyperspace Drive, which requires a level 7 research lab.
 * Level 2 IRN allows 3 research labs to be connected, but the level 6 and level 4 labs are excluded as they are not high enough to research Hyperspace Drive. Only two labs remain eligible.
 * Starting the research at either of the two possible labs, you will still get the benefits of a 10+8 = level 18 research lab.

The research lab where the research is started (the planet you have the resources on) is always part in the network. Therefore, as Example 3 shows, this sometimes means you should use one of your higher level labs in order to gain the quickest possible research time.
 * Example 3
 * You have level 1 IRN with your labs being levels 10, 8, 6, and 4.
 * You want to research Shielding Technology which requires a level 6 research lab.
 * Level 1 IRN allows 2 research labs to be connected.
 * Starting the research at either of the two higher labs, you will still get the benefits of a 10+8 = level 18 research lab. However, if you start the research at the level 6 lab, you will only get the benefits of a 6+10 = level 16 lab.

The IRN is an extremely effective way to cut research time and is obviously a lot cheaper than upgrading one lab that high. As such, is advisable for players planning to research many higher technologies and cannot wait weeks for each to complete.

There is no need for higher than level (number of planets-1) of this, since you cannot have more than that number of planets (and Research Labs).

Requirements

 * Research Lab Level 10
 * Computer Technology Level 8
 * Hyperspace Technology Level 8