RCL

RCL, short for Room Control Level, is describes the level of any owned room. It determines how much can be done in a room, and ultimately how useful it will be to the player.

Increasing RCL

A room's level can be increased by upgradeing its controller using a creep with a work part carrying energy. The energy used will be added to the RCL at a 1:1 ratio by default. This ratio can be improved by applying any boost of the GH category to the creep's work parts. The resulting amount of points added to the room's control level is automatically added to the player's GCL as well.

Levels

After claiming a room (or spawning in) it starts out at level 1 and can be raised up to level 8. The higher the level, the more structures can be built. The full list of structures available to each RCL is available at the official docs for Control]. In the following a short list of notable structures per level. Note that many structures are not available to their full capacity from when they're first introduced. Many of them will give you a certain amount to be able to be built and add more every or every other level. One exception are ramparts, which dont have their numbers, but their maxHits increased instead.

Level 0

Roads and (up to 5) containers can be built in any room, regardless of a presence or absence of a controller.

Level 1

The most notable (and only new) structure at level 1 is the Spawn, which enables a room to be self-sufficient as it can now spawn its own creeps.

Level 2

Level 2 adds ramparts and extensions. The former is good for safety purposes, but the latter is what helps with progressing faster.

Level 3

RCL 3 is regarded as one of the "milestones", as it adds the first tower, giving the player access to passive defense that is easily implemented code-wise.

Level 4

At level 4 the storage can be built, which enables the player to manage their energy (and potentially other resources) more effectively, as they now have a much bigger buffer.

Level 5

Level 5 adds the first links, which are immensely useful for increasing a room's efficiency as they remove the need for haulers between the positions they're built in. This way spawn availability is freed up and energy for spawning said haulers is saved.

Level 6

With RCL 6 the room has access to the terminal, which enables market activities and market-independent inter-room transfers across the whole shard. In addition to that the room can now build labs and the extractor, which are important for getting economic access to boosts.

Level 7

Level 7 gives access to the factory, which is used for either compressing resources or creating commodities to be traded for credits. A second Spawn is available now, effectively doubling spawn speed, and Extensions' capacity also gets doubled, enabling spawning of much larger creeps than before.

Level 8

This is the highest level a room can reach and gives access to the Nuker and the Power Spawn. With the last Spawn and another doubling of Extension capacity spawn speed and available creep size are increased again.