Frustrating challenge...

[bakalov]

hm, if you put your population to starve on the second turn you will not have 8 research, because you will have only 7 colonists available ....

[bakalov]

Anyway there is a chance to play it but without save/load you must have tons of luck :-)

[Ashenai]

I never use save/load, and we'll see :-)

You have to take the starving colonists off Food or Industry, not off Research. That way, your colony will be bleeding away at a steady -73k, and you'll have 8 research until the number of colonists goes below 4 (or until you get Automated Factories, which will hopefully be sooner than that).

[bakalov]

I'll have to try it myself but it sounds too masochistic :-)

[The Mad Monk]

I would go for factories before labs, especially if there are other exploitable worlds in system.

One 'hidden' advantage of cybernetic is that you can colonize without freighters.