Technology research cost jumps astronomically

This isn't a bug- you have no defense against Intelligence attacks, and one of the empire's you are at war with is hitting you with attacks that set your research back by a LOT of points. (10,000,000 or so).

So- balance problem, but other than that working as intended..

Researching Intel and building at least a few facilities is pretty much essential as the AI likes to use Intel as an attack form especially if it doesn’t think it can take you on militarily but would like too. Fortunately Intel is not all that expensive and it fits nicely on small resource poor worlds the same sort you would put one facility research colonies on. You don’t need much and can develop it off and on if you would rather follow other paths

This really doesn't solve the core issue, which is the fact that the hit from the intel action is not performing correctly. It is probably intended to subtract that many intel points, down to a particular minimum. Instead, it pushes him way past the zero point, into negative land.

Forewarned is good, but four-armed lets you hit everyone at once.

What seems to happen here is that you lose credit for research already done thus giving you an astronomical increase in the time it takes to get the next level. I don’t know if it’s supposed to work that way which would be the nub of the bug or not bug issue.

Personally I don’t think it’s a bug as it’s easy to prevent it from happening as Intel research is cheap and can be done before you meet any one who can launch attacks

I think that that specific intel attack is bugged. Losing 10,000,000 points in a research is ridiculous. Instead, it should zero a research, or at best take it down to the cost of the tech in the negatives (a 50,000 tech would be taken down to -50,000 accumulated point).

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With all these people, you would expect one of them to carry an iguana around...

Yeah, it's deffinatly bugged, I understand that it's supposed to make you have to start over, but it should drop the tech level back to 0 or calculate the accumulated points and make you reseach it all again.

But really, I don't think that it should drop you down 10 million points on a level 2 tech, which is what happened to me, twice.

It’s a bug if it doesn’t work the way it was intended to by the programmer and you don’t like it. It’s a feature if it works as intended by the programmer and you don’t like it. With SE if it’s a bug it will get fixed, if it’s a feature some one will crate a mod where it works more the way you would like it to.

In either case it’s a case of waiting and the way round it is to make sure that you keep Intel on research in the background and build one Intel base per system as if you have enough defence it really doesn’t matter as it relies on an attack working and with sufficient defensive Intel it won’t

I don't know if you got a log message, but you didn't just get hit. You got hit ninety-nine times over the course of the game!

Not all of those were tech attacks, but some were bound to be. I've put over a million points into a low-level research project without issue.

EDIT: Yes, you got hit. In the log:
"All of our current work on the technology of Medium-Light Hull construction has been destroyed by spies. We will have to start again from scratch, sire."

Medium-Light hull construction is the technology you had issues with..

You realize you got hit about the same turn you sent the save-game in, right? You do see it, but you have to keep an eye on the Intelligence section of the log.

It is a bug because "start from scratch" doesn't mean start from scratch minus 10 million. It'll supposedly be fixed someday.

Its a weird feature, but its working exactly as the design specifies..