Many of the items you use in PlateUp are extremely straightforward and easy to comprehend. One of the more confusing items every player will be using often is the Research Desk, and it’s one of the critical items you have to use in the PlateUp kitchen.
There are several details about this item that are difficult to master when you’re first playing the game. This guide will go over how the research desk works, and every item you can upgrade using while playing PlateUp.
What is a research desk?
While you’re playing PlateUp, the Research Desk is one of the best early items the game drops. It’s better to look at the Research desk as something that will have more payoffs in the future, rather than anything immediate while you’re in the kitchen. There are far more investments in this item than in the other items you use in PlateUp.
Sometime during the round, you can use it to upgrade certain items and make them into more helpful appliances, like turning a washing basin into a dishwasher. PlateUp’s Research Sesk is a helpful way to get around the RNG of the game’s random drops, especially if you’re trying to go after certain things in the game.
How does the research desk work?
This is easily the hardest part about using the Research Desk in PlateUp. How the Research Deck is not entirely clear. Rather than walking up to the Research Desk to use you, you need to place the Blueprint Cabinet in your restaurant and place the upgradeable appliance next to the Blueprints Cabinet. After you have those two details sorted out, you can actually use the Research Desk.
When you start your in-game day in PlateUp, save a little bit of time to walk over to the research desk and use your interaction button to upgrade the appliance. Once you’re done, a new item should have appeared in your blueprints cabinet. After the round, you can remove this appliance and buy it.
What items can be upgraded?
Given how many items and appliances are in PlateUp, there’s a wide variety of options to upgrade throughout the game. There are 2 main types of upgrade: Linear and Cyclic.
Linear upgrades are ones that either have a single upgrade path or if they have multiple ones, you can not cycle between them. Once you’ve made the upgrade, you are committed to it.
Cyclic upgrades are ones that can be repeatedly upgraded and cycled between all options in a fixed sequence.
So, here’s a list of all the items and all their upgrades in PlateUp.
Linear upgrades:
- Oven -> Microwave
- Counter -> Workstation or Freezer
- Prep Station -> Frozen prep Station
- Plates -> Auto Plater
- Dinging Table -> Bar Table or Metal Table or Table-Simple Cloth or Table – Fancy Cloth
- Mop -> Lasting Mop or Fast Mop -> Robot Mop
- Floor Buffer -> Robot Buffer
- Dumbwaiter -> Teleporter
- Ordering Terminal -> Specials Terminal
Cyclic upgrades:
- Research Desk -> Blueprint Desk or Discount Desk or Copying Desk -> Blueprint Desk or Discount Desk or Copying Desk
- Hob -> Safety Hob or Danger Hob -> Danger Hob or Safety Hob
- Bin -> Compact Bin or Composter Bin or Expanded Bin -> Composter Bin or Expanded Bin or Compactor Bin
- Sink -> Power Sink or Wash Basin or Dish Washer or Soaking Sink -> Power Sink or Wash Basin or Dish Washer or Soaking Sink
- Conveyor -> Grabber -> Smart Grabber or Grabber – Rotating -> Grabber- Rotating or Smart Grabber
- Mixer -> Rapid Mixer or Heated Mixer or Conveyor Mixer -> Heated Mixer or Conveyor Mixer or Rapid Mixer
Every upgrade is basically just a faster/ automized version of the base appliance, besides one. The Research Desk. As you see in the cyclic upgrades, the Research Desk is indeed upgradable and it’s upgrades do the following:
- Blueprint Desk -Cycles through blueprints to be available the next day
- Discount Desk – Reduces the cost of blueprints in a surrounding Blueprint Cabinet by 50%
- Copying Desk – Upgrades blueprints in a surrounding Blueprint Cabinet
Whatever upgrades you end up with, they can be some of the best additions to your restaurant, and can even save a dying run of a game.
