yanman, it used to be that you had to research alien autopsies. You even got a damage bonus for doing it. The best way to understand why Chris made autopsy/ufo research automatic is to make them not automatic. In your researches.xml file, look for: Researches.CaesanAutopsy, Researches.SebillianAutopsy, Researches.AndronDisassembly, Researches.AlienLightScoutDatacore, Researches.AlienScoutDatacore and Researches.AlienCorvetteDatacore, which are the early game alien lore researches. In each case, set the days research from 0 to say, 10 or 15. Then restart the game with that adjustment. If you want to know more about that decision, here's the discussion that lead to it.