The research groups define what blocks are included in a group for a block to be unlocked. The research blocks are a block or blocks that are unlocked by building one of the blocks in a research group.

If you only have a single block you want in the tree, you do not need a research group, only a research block section to define what Keen group you want your block to show up under.

If you have multiple blocks and want them nested you will need to create groups for them, and each group will need a unique id either a number or a name.

The last group in your chain or branch does not need a group defined as it does not need to unlock another block after it.

Apologies in the video I said Advanced door, and showed airtight door, advanced door is correct.

Research Groups are the groups that are set as blocks to be used to unlock other blocks, this is an example of groups for the nanite control facility mod. One of the devs pointed out that the groups don't have to be numerical, and could be characters, so I went with naming my groups to make it easier to set things up properly. You can add this code into your cubeblocks or a separate file. If you separate into a separate file, don't forget the other tags.
Research Groups:


In that example you will see two groups: NaniteController and JumpDrivePlaceholder. The last one is there to set the nanite factory to be unlocked after the jumpdrive is unlocked if it is not there and linked to the first mod block you will get what is below, or your block will be at the root level. You also don't need a group set for the last blocks in the tree as they are not set to unlock any blocks.(in this case the upgrade modules and beacons for nanites)


and this one shows the main block in the mod set to unlock after jumpdrive.
Take note that in the above code the BlockId has to reflect what type of block your modded block is, if your block doesn't show up where it should be, then you may have the wrong objectbuilder.

The next section will explain how to assign those groups you created from this section and get your blocks to unlock on the right blocks.

The research blocks tags work a little differently than the research group tags, the research blocks have to be separated by each individual block in your mod, you can't group them together, it will only lock the first block in the list if you do it that way. This is the correct way to arrange the blocks in your mod to unlock in a certain order.

This is only some of the blocks in the nanite mod, but illustrates the correct way to arrange your blocks and unlock groups.


You can either use any of the numbers from keens ResearchBlocks.sbc file to set where your blocks show up in the progression tree or create your own groups with either number values or names, I would suggest names to help with lessening the confusion.


To assign a group of blocks (like the group from previous section [JumpDrivePlaceholder]) that group name goes into the <UnlockedByGroup> section, this can also be numbers like what Keen used to define their groups by.

For the nanite mod I have the JumpDrivePlaceholder group that has to be built for the Nanite Control Facility to be unlocked, and then the NaniteController group that needs to be built to unlock the rest of the nanite blocks.

Building any of the three blocks (jumpdrive, spaceball, or arificial mass) unlocks the Nanite Control Facility

Build the nanite facility and the rest of the blocks unlock with this set.