I saw the question being asked in cc about how we like this new building, so i thought i would post here. Thor/Odin made a good suggestion to have this building unlocked sooner than Ren as people usually run out of these items way before they hit Ren. Sadly, the response was quickly dismissed, saying that one can 'catch up' once they unlock the building.
So let's take a look at the timing for a bit. I would say that i'm slightly faster than the average player when it comes to research. Even so, it took me approx. 2 months with my first hero of this beta to hit Ren age (this is without wasting a lot of time and resources on building a huge army or fighting and losing resources to retraining, etc). Normally, without buying figs to level up, i can get to about level 23-25 before i run out and XP starts to build and i'm just waiting to find figs in dens, etc. I can normally reach this level near the end of Classical age, or the beginning of Medieval. So that means i'll have to wait almost 2 whole ages of research before i can start to 'catch up'.
But now things have changed quite a bit. Monster drops have been reduced to nearly nothing, so highly unlikely we'll be picking up figs there anymore. Even before the drops were reduced, it was a good week if i got 2-3 figs that week. I've also noticed that the spawning of chests has been changed as well. Each 10 levels, you unlock a higher level chest. However, i have been finding that even at level 40 with my first hero i am getting far too many wooden chests and barely any of the age appropriate chests.
So let's say i can scrape by and make it to level 30 through some miracle by the time i reach Ren and have unlocked the building. As mentioned, this will take me about 2-2.5 months to get there. So this means i'll still be short (3x10) + (4X10) = 70 figs to reach level 50. If by this time, i have 6 towns, i will have to craft about 12 figs in each town. With each fig taking 7 days to craft, this means i will have enough figs to reach level 50 in about 3 months.........Oh WAIT. We have only 5 months to play the game before we are wiped!
So, long story made shorter, no, i doubt this building willl help much, and it is a very steep price to pay 15% resource losses in addition to keeping on your research as well, and with each item taking so long to craft, it would be a constant burden to resource and science. If it were introduced in an earlier age, resource production can also not support a 15% loss while being able to also maintain a decent research level. I know my request and post will probably be ignored, but i would ask that a) building is unlocked sooner b) resource loss isn't so dramatic and c) that the time to craft is reduced a bit also.
(Oh, and it seems a bit like a slap in the fact to ask that we need a blueprint to get to level 10!! I know this is how all the buildings work, but come on, the building was introduced because we don't ahve enough of them in the first place!)