I'll agree on this one; it should definately be up to the player.

I haven't played enough to verify how any of this works. But I would have to agree that a player should be able to build both, or either. I shouldn't be locked into one or the other.

Did you go check your civilization stats to see if you lost that bonus when the tech was overwritten?

Then perhaps the answer is to give you the middle technologies as if you had researched them rather than add another pop-up window that you have to click on?

(My philosophy: Boo on popups that I have to click on, Yay for reasonable alternatives)

I think the best way to handle this in the end is that when you steal, trade, whatever a non-racial unique tech, you should get your race's version of the tech, always. I'm actually kinda surprised it wasn't that way already, to be honest.

Just like choosing ships in the shipyard, where you can choose all, core, or user ships, there needs to just be a simple set of tabs to help choose what to build on a planet. I don't remotely care what I trade for, it should never replace something I have researched. I should always have my hard earned research, in addition to any other choices from other sources.

You could additionally color code the various types, or you could add a secondary sort by/choose type. So the first set of tabs might be "all, mine, foreign". And the secondary could be "all, factories, influence, farming, etc". If you choose 'all' on the secondary then it color codes each by category.

Regardless of how it is actually implemented, we just should not have our techs replaced. We need to be able to use them, if we choose.

Perhaps an "Alien Tech" tab would be the best method in this situation? That way, you only automatically upgrade to your own types of research, but still have the ability to use any stolen/traded tech you might acquire. And definitely no replacing anything on the tech tree, perhaps start a new branch for stolen traded alien tech.

ideally, i'd like both. in your situation, i would have liked to invade the Arceans and get their version of the farm tech, but still have my Drengin version "unresearched" so I can get the passive bonuses -- or perhaps 50% research, to represent the idea that a big part of "the drengin version" of the tech was already figured out, owing to the fact that they had the Arcean model to base their own work off of.

As a side issue which I've seen other people mention, I do not want all these cool race specific buildings to be built by others. The concept of Korath using Falls of Wellness (unless you could fill them with blood), or an Altarian slave canyon is silly. SD just put a lot of effort into making the races unique. They should stay that way. Some, even perhaps most, of the unique techs should be tradeable, but the buildings shouldn't be an option for anyone but the race they were intended for.

I enjoy roleplaying as the humans. Demolishing evil improvements and rebuilding the planet with 'civilized' structures adds a lot to the game.

Alien tech should spawn a parallel branch of your tech tree, so that, for example, if you conquer three different civ's planets or spy for techs and get the same kind of top tier tech with different passive benefits, you benefit from all of them.

In other words, there should be a separate root available for each alien race's "acquired" technology. That would definitively prevent overwrites.

this is a good and fair point, but one which can be addressed within the realms of your roleplaying. instead of saying, "i refuse to use that technology," you can say, "there's no way my people could even use that technology."



and for some people, that will be the fun of it. this is a non-sequitor from your last post. this is player behavior that has nothing to do with RPing, but with maxing out MV scores. and what's wrong with that? you don't appear to have any MV characters, so what does it matter to you what other players do?

also, there's an oversight within the point itself. being able to steel the best tech from other players means they must research it first. you can't rely on that. it also means there will be 2 tech trees you have to chose to have no access to (due to the 10 player limit). aquiring a tech isn't always easy, and i have a strong feeling the devs will make these techs much more valued by their respective AIs (via the new willingness to trade XML tag).

don't get me wrong. i play in both modes, RPing and MVing. but i consider them like playing almost entirely different games.

I agree that some techs shouldn't be tradeable. None of the techs you get in the beginning should, nor should any tech that heavily depends on the race's physiology, like the Dregnin/Korath's research techs and probably a good portion of the Yor's tech tree...

As for Overwrites, I said before that each race should get their own version of a tech when they trade for it. Makes it easier to balance races on their own merits.

I have read through this thread, looked at all the suggestions, and come up with a few of my own. One of the big problems I am seeing people have is how with the new unique techs for each race, It will all basically stop being unique the moment the tech trading gets going, or the invasions begin. And with the AI doing it, If people dont follow suit, they will quickly be at a disadvantage, so even if you choose to role play, the AI wont.



One solution I think would work for this is a possible reverse-engineering ability. Capturing or trading for a better version of farming or manufacturing from another race, instead of giving you that building, can open up another tech line that you can put researche into that will integrate some of the bonuses from the better tech into your own races buildings, like the drengins in the original post. Instead of the farms with the passive growth bonuses being overwritten, they are given bonuses based on the racial tech that was captured. And to keep them from suddenly having overpowered farms everywhere, the original farms overwritten are prototypes requiring both research and manufacturing put into them to make them finish up and available to the rest of your empire.




In the case of a traded tech, you can designate one of your worlds to be the place where the prototypes are first built. This would also add a strategic element to the game as well, defend the planet where they are being built and tested. I dont know if this idea could be implemented before the scheduled release date though. Also, this gives rise to the possibility of an Uber Farm eventually being made, so it might be wise to exponentially increase the cost of integrating additional technologies into the same upgrade type such as farms, manufacturing centers, research labs, and commerce centers to reduce the likelyhood of the uber empire of doom popping up.




It would also force you to choose which techs you would want to integrate first. Maybe also make it possible to do more than one integration at a time at an increased cost to your empires reasearch and economy. Essentially this method would be siphoning research away from your main research branch into the integration process, so while you would still be researching those Death Rays or Terror Stars, the progress would be slowed depending on what reverse-engineering you have going on.




Hey, it sounds kind of like a Super Project, except on a bigger scale... That might work, turn the whole process I just described into a Super Project that doesnt just build off of planetary resources, but resources from your whole empire. If you Capture a tech or trade a tech that is unique, a Super project can become available to integrate that tech into your exhisting buildings, giving you access to a better model with enhanced bonuses, with the stipulation that a captured tech must have its project build on the world that it was captured on, giving a further tactical consideration when invading. The need to defend a captured world that it is being built on, and assign a higher priority to the ai for recapturing said world in order to prevent its enemy from gaining access to that tech. Wow, that sounds complicated now that I think about it. Well, this all may just be a monumentally stupid idea, but I think it could work. Heh, this has all been just one big ramble, but hope it inspires someone...