Capturing Enemy Technology

you missed some threads on that & since i've been admonished not to "cross-thread", let me just say, check the last couple of days forums.

someone else also brought up that conquering someone doesn't seem to provide the tech it should. at the very least I'd expect it to trigger a Ruin-like event where you get the tech or at least a nice haed sart.

Unfortunately, it is my understanding that o matter WHAT you do, you can't get organic OR crystal no matter how many ships you capture, if you don't have the racial tech.

CHeese, i say.

You can make it so that happens, but stock presumes that the racial techs are so alien you don't have a chance of figuring out what they do.

i sure will(make that happen)..

In the meantime, you tell stock I SAID:
But I can figure out Ancient Ruin technology?

anybody got a Progenitor Dreadnought I can borrow?
berserker berserker berserker berserker berserker

You could capture a base level of an alien tech and then apply a x2 or x3 modifier for further research to represent the difficulty of understenading that alien tech...

In my opinion, when You capture an enemy planet You should get a random tech from your enemy (an "ancient ruin"-like effect, but chosing tech from your enemy).

This way, you can play in a warrior stile, getting techs from your enemies instead of researching them.

And it would give some advance to small empires when they fight bigger ones. Right now, when an empire loses his run in tech research, it has lost the game. It´s impossible to catch a bigger empire with more planets and resources.

A smaller empire could, this way, earn some higher level techs, if its able to capture enemy planets.

I like Grendel's suggestion. Sounds pretty neat. Associate it with one heck of a research bill to start using it but in a fashion that decreases cost over time as you gain knowledge. Maybe the base level you get is to start you into Advanced Bioengineering or Crystallurgy.

In addition to capturing techs, I think it could be nice to be able to "buy" techs with other resources (minerals, organics...), or at least to boost production for a cost. This should be expensive, of course, let´s say 10.000 minerals to get 500-1000 RPs.

This way you could spent resources in "emergency researchs", and it could enforce the "diplomat/merchant" role, using trade and treaties to boost research.

I´d like to see these roles/game strategies avaliable:

- Researcher: current (only) one, built research labs to get techs. Relying in research.
- Spy: Use intel to "steal" enemy techs. Relying in intel.
- Warrior: Getting techs by capture of enemy planets and ships. Relying in military strenght.
- Diplomat/merchant: Trading and buying techs. Relying in economy and diplomacy.
- Any mix of previous ones.

I think that these roles could add a lot of variety to the game.

Diplomatic path is a simple "share all tech between our empires" treaty with a "I give you 50% of my resources" clause in it. Or if you're with humans, arrange Gift sessions - the AI isn't so reliable at this unless you know exactly what they have (scanners, intel) which you want.

Warrior path is easy once you have the tech - anti-shield weapons, tractor beam, faster engines/solar sail, boarding parties. Just use lots of frigates and position them well to chase down each ship. Whether you can feasibly get the necessary tech to do this... who knows. Certainly being able to steal tech from capturing colonies would add an extra layer of strategy and force tech rushers to defend a bit.

Spy path is a matter of being patient while you cut through their initial cumulative intel defence. Though I would prefer if we could choose "anti-tech" as opposed to "anti-economy" instead of a broad "Empire Wide". Maybe this can be modded?

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go here if interested . No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE V bug fixing.

I know that those roles are possible with current settings... but in a very poor way and with a lot of prerrequisites. Actually, only the researcher path works fine.

- To enforce the "warrior" path, it should be allowed to obtain techs by capturing enemy planets, without any prerequisite. I made a more detailed explanation before.

- As You say, the spy path needs some boost too. I´d suggest to allow a "steal tech" intel technology, at a high level, focused in just obtaining enemy techs instead (or in addition) of the broad and random "sabotage: empire wide".

- The Diplomat/merchant/richman could be enforced by buying tech points with minerals/resources. This way you could play a race with lots of mineral production boosting traits and rely in resource production, apart from diplomacy.

how would i make it so capturing/analyzing technology could let you get the enemies racial trait techs?

You can't.

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

*sobs*

There, there *patting back*.

actualy you can indirectly capture techs using spies, by using fleet sabotage to capture some ships.

spies won't give you racial techs. IMO it'd be a waste to have racial techs in the game at all if you can steal them.

I've always thought most techs should be racial so the individual races could be more unique. Not sure if anyone tried this in a mod yet.

Lord Aries Greymon is working on modding something to have a greater number of racial techs.

And it is coming along very slowly.
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I'll make one later.

Awesome.

i thnk the prob is that racial techs are not realy techs as such... they are just prerequisites to geting a tech.
soo in same way capturing a ship with shields wont get u shields unless u already have the tech path opened u cant get racial tech unless ur already able to research it... gay.

If I have a treaty with organic race that includes racial and unique, still can't get organic tech. At present it doesn't seem possible to get race specific tech via a treaty either.

You actually CAN, but there's a catch. The catch is that BOTH races need to have the organic trait.

Ok, here's an odd and possibly dumb question...

If racial techs cannot be captured, and were never meant to be captured or used without the proper racial trait, then what's up with the EmpireGainedAbilities.txt file in the Data folder?

EmpireGainedAbilities.txt is currently not implemented. Basically it was intended that if you had reached a certain level of technology - such as Biology level X, you'd gain access to Organic components. The file may still see the light of day...

Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

That would be great!