What changes in my observatory when I upgrade it?

From the workshop I can upgrade the observatory via the "Astrolabe" upgrade, which has as description:

Improves Observatory effectiveness by 50%

There are multiple things that an observatory can do, that are the following four things:

  • Increase max science
  • Increase science output
  • Auto-observe astronomical events
  • Increase astronomical events

However, in the relevant part of the code in workshop.js there is the following code:

name: "astrolabe",
    title: "Astrolabe",
    description: "Improves Observatory effectiveness by 50%",
    effects: {

    },
    prices:[
        { name : "titanium", val: 5 },
        { name : "starchart",  val: 75 },
        { name : "science",  val: 25000 },
    ],
    unlocked: false,
    researched: false,
    handler: function(game){
        game.bld.get("observatory").effects["scienceMax"] = 1500;
    }

From here it seems that only the max science is upgraded (scienceMax is normally 1000 for each observatory), and not the other three things. Am I right, or do I miss something? I really need more scienceMax to continue in the game, but I would also like to have more auto-observations and astronomical events (and it should be, according to the description).


I don't believe there is any other change, the text for the upgrade is slightly misleading but the code is clear. I certainly observed no change from that upgrade myself, besides a significant increase in maximum Science. Most notably, my science/second output did not change.

There is a very late game upgrade that gives a 100% auto-observe chance, though - although more Observatories still help cause the events, they're now background events, they just happen with no log entry and are always observed.