Is research supposed to be that slow mid-game?
I've just picked up this game over the weekend and spend about 10 hours getting to what I think is roughly mid-game. In research tree I have got to around level 3-4 I think (just got Medical Centre in social for example). And I have noticed that, unlike early game, my research got suuuper slow. For example that Medical Centre took something like 100 days I think?
My base research output is quite small for that level. I think it's something like 140 blue, 240 yellow, 60 green. And I wonder what is the expected way to rectify this mid-game?
I relealise that there are some building that increase that (I've just research some labs for colonists), but they are quite deep in the tree imo, already at the level where I have started noticing the slow down.
I know there are one-off time-bound bonuses for money from CRUST and also repeatable bonuses from local research labs, also for money.
What I need to understand is, what is the expectation from the game design on how to progress one's research capabilities? It seems like using money is the only way for me to go further, at least until I build more buildings, which is fine I guess... it's just feels that "throwing money at the problem" is not the sustainable solution, but rather an ocasional help.