One ongoing goal for every NovusCorp NARV is to develop the technologies of NovusCorp in such a way that they can both sustainably replicate existing technologies without requiring access to starbases, stations, or homeworlds, and develop new and exciting technologies based on prior discoveries. There are currently three primary ways to make scientific progress:

1) Replicating existing technology. Scanning a functional item gives research towards the technological precepts it is based on; destructive analysis gives even more research. Manufacturing prototypes gives further research, and deconstructing those prototypes to figure out what went wrong gives even more research and improves further prints of that item.

2) Conducting science experiments. The AI will have some optional goals for departments to complete in order to advance scientific interests; if successful, they will boost scientific research in an appropriate category. For example, radiation collectors may be switched to Trit-Oxy tanks instead of Plasma tanks to produce research instead of power, or the botanist may have a legitimate reason to grow potency 100 marijuana for a change.

3) Making new discoveries in the fields of Xenoarchaeology, Xenobotany, Xenobiology, and Diplomacy. (No, really!) Meeting new life and new civilizations will naturally increase our understanding of the universe and what is possible within it, and may have surprising developments as a result.