Farm to Table Research Tree Basics

Research order from September 30

Expansion and staff gates

• Rancher hiring requires Rancher research. One Rancher can handle up to eight livestock buildings; staff capacity research adds hiring slots.
• The final staff capacity research unlocks Daily Bonuses. Paying an extra 50% of base daily wage gives 30% faster movement and work until the next in-game day, with optional daily renewal.
• Four new land plots are available at level 25 for 25,000 each. Large Shelf unlocks at level 15 for 2,000; High-Capacity Shelf at level 25 for 6,000.

What the May research footage confirms

• A Research Available notification can appear during normal play, and the research menu opens as a separate tree screen.
• The recorded tree starts from Crop Farming and branches toward early nodes such as Fast Travel, Customer Patience I, and Tips I.
• Later visible nodes include Bakery Oven, Construction I, and Handy Hazel Access, with resource icons shown on each node.

The bottleneck problem

• Keep serving the recipes you can already make reliably instead of spending coins on ingredients you cannot cook yet.
• Look for nodes that unlock a new appliance type, such as Bakery Oven, before chasing small improvements to a loop that is already working.
• Do not buy or store ingredients for recipes that are still behind a research gate.
• Pick the available node that unblocks the most recipes, not the one that only sounds more advanced.

How to choose early research

• Pick research that removes the current bottleneck: walking distance, customer wait time, cooking capacity, or building access.
• Avoid starting a project only because it looks advanced; a locked machine is not useful if you cannot feed it ingredients yet.
• When possible, record one before-and-after screenshot so the guide can explain what the unlock actually changed.
• If you are stuck at a recipe bottleneck, look for the node that unlocks a new appliance type rather than a node that improves an existing loop.

Known early tree nodes

• Crop Farming: base farming loop node.
• Fast Travel: movement efficiency node.
• Customer Patience I: customer wait-time node.
• Tips I: tip income node.
• Bakery Oven: baking route node, exact recipe effects still need verification.
• Construction I: building-options node.
• Handy Hazel Access: NPC access node, exact effect still needs verification.

Data to capture next

• Node name, resource cost, unlock result, and whether the project can be stopped or changed after starting.
• Which earlier node is required before each branch opens.
• Whether a research unlock affects farming, restaurant service, staff, construction, or menu options.