one race tech steeler no researcher, and one, or two races don't use currency for a different game mechanic for different races.

Ive eddited my post.

One thing i realised about combining research is there needs to be a bakancing wherebyou have unstealsble untradable techs.

One idea is to not let combine to research ubsteelable untradeable techs which is not the best option.

The second idea is to put a cap on the total unsteelable ubtradeable techs you can research which is a better but not the best option.

The third idea is to limit the number of unsteelable untradeable techs per tier lrvel. Which might work.

A better and fourth idea is to ovrr lap the unsteelable untradeable techs based on abilitiesnof all races involved in combined research of the tech. Now of course the races involved is going to get thr same tech whilebtheequivalent tech getd minused off the other trees this way it is more bslsnced and not overpowering.

Now as far as one race that cant research techs but has to steel them. It would only be fair to let them steel untradeable unsteelable techs on a limited bases.

I guess you eould average everyones average number per tier levele and catagory type of techs and make that the number they can steel. Becsuse it would be easier for them to steel techs some races would want to hire them but they couldnt trade unsteelable untradesble techs. They could be hired for other techs though. I smbtalking of a special race that can only get techd by steeling or trading. The krynn or uconians are a good candidate for this. I guess he would be the only race able to reverse engineer some galactic acheivements he was to late to get because he has to steel techs not research them. Yould require him to steel techs that are a prerequisitentechs fir otherbtechs in the victimbtier as a balancing. And limit how msny galactic achievrments he can reverse engineer that wsy he will at least be able to buildvgalactic schievements.

Now he would either need to have more starting techs to balance things out untill he meets someone or be able to research techs untill he meets someone then he still techs from them.

Now as far as one per planet super projects and reverse engineered achievements their needs to be a cap on this for balance reasons. If he can reverse engineer achievements then he cant build them first. When a enemy capture a planet or it gets traded with the reverse engineered achievement it gets destroyed for balance reasons.

When considering a tech steeling not researching race. I realised that if you don't let others have reverse engineered achievements when the planet is captured ot traded then you have to not let the tech steeling race not let him have galactic achievements when capturing or trading  for a planet. Either by destroying the achievement or nullifying effects untill recaptured for balance reasons. This could also bevused insteadbof having one of a kind galactic achievements for certain races. Instead makebthem superprojects to keep races from being overpowering when a planet is capturedbor traded either destroy them or nullify the eeffects of one of them this way achirvements that were supposed to be built once doesnt overpower some races while still taking full advantage  of races while customisin.

I guess you will have to research xeno communications and universal translator before you can do this so there needs to be abalancing solution to this maybe tech research up to a point. My question is should this require advanced espionage or is this overkill. I think there should be a diplomatic penalty to this. 

This chabge to tech steeling no researching then the research points are added to espionage or maybe there is no researching research techs. Maybe a rebalancing of research and espionagr improvements. If you made espionage point progression in this case like research progression with a recalculating of points versus spending then you could very similar steiel techs like everyone else researches them. 

Now as far reverse engineered achievements and diplomacy with advanced espionage thennyou could ask bribe or extort other raced into building galactic achievements so you could reverse engineer them. Ironic idnt it. Forcing others to benifit thrmselves tohrlp you.

Another idea i have is for the yor or thalan which is no currency. This would be a different game mechanic. It fits scifi for robots and insects to not need money. for the most part the yor are isolated and the thalans care for the hive or something like that. They alteady tried to take away the yor economy. They forgot to change things requiring the yor to have money. Im talking about.no spending no maitenence since the game doesnt distinguish labor and cost for fixing. Yor only care about survival kindof like the borg. They get what they need not what they earn. They think connected. When they get destroyed they respawn somewhere. Instead of money you just count military social and research seperately. Instead of getting money from taxes and tourism it is counted as points to be devided into production. No 3000 starting bc. No surplus money. All goes into ptoduction. I guess this would eliminate the need for the percent production. No rush buying. No need for morale or approval mechanic. Since yor and thalans dont think that way. Don't eliminate the tech change the mechanic for the yor and thalan.

This doesn't change how other people view you. Diplomacy and influence is still affected. Who would pass up a free vacation.

Instead of a diplomacy tech branch the drengin and yor could havea intimidation branch instead. I think everyone should have diffirent  governments.

Since they are a super spy I'm  goint to suggest as only tech researching untill i meet soneone get advanced espionage on them,  and only steel techs. Just so i can have a name for them in actuality iconians have good espionage,  or you could make one.  During the phase that they are researching techs either before they have advanced espionage on some one, or if everyone you met builds counter espionage centers on all thete planets forcing you to tech research. Then when you research unsteelable techs in the krynn tech tree then that number is reduced from the number of unsteelable techs you are allowed to sterl.

Now the krynn would not do anything with a research treaty, so why  not block out that option when doing espionage with the krynn. Yes I'm suggesting having a seperate diplomacy screen for the krynn. there would have no need to steel or trade for research techs. They do need spamable buildings to inctease espionage that would probably be multitiered. 

Now as far as the thalan go theywouldn't need terriforming techs because insects slowly improve planet quality giving an ongoing tourist attraction,  because they don't use currency. Free vacation spot. Even though the yor start out with a free vacation spot they are slowly turning their worlds into barren worlds from their being no need for nature. In the beginning yor worlds are free vacation spots that are slowly turning into barren wastelands. Yor and thalan have no need for approval, so this mechanic should be removed for the yor and thalan not everyone else. Instead vacation buildings affect influence and diplomacy. 

If yor and thalandon't use currency then this mechanic should be removed for yor and thalan only not everyone. This meens no bc trading, no rush buying,  and no leasing. Changing or removing the slider for divying up production.between social,  military,  research, or extra bc's. Maybe instead a production slider divying up social,  military,  and research with no left over b.c. there is no need for the slider to decide how much money goes into production. the thalan and yor would have a different colony screen. This way playing three races would actually feel different than other races. The yor build population otherwise it works the same except the population  would produce more production instead of money. There would need to be s recalculating and balancing of numbers. Free ship upgrades.

If this is overpowering you could balance this by slowing population growth of the thalans or krynn, and requiring a higher cost to make yor. Require more turns to build improvements. Remember they are already being penalised without leasing or rush buying. Higher tech costs. Limit max population not to nerf these guys,  but to create an equal footing with everyone else. If need be you can increase population grown,  if not touched they will be able to sustain really high populations,  cheaper improvements,  cheaper techs,  less improvrment time,  cheaper ships. See it can go either way to vslance this for fairness not sameness. Everyone should have different governments with different bonuses.

If you steal techs or reverse engineer a achievement from someone  and get caught then it would hurt diplomacy with each other. This would create some drawbacks from playing this kind of race. I guess to be fair their should be a chance of getting caught. If caught then there is a diplomacy  penalty.

Obvious penalty from the one you are stealing from the ones who like him,  friendly towards him,  allied with him,  who don't like you, are hostile towards you,  or are extorting him to building an achievement. The penalty is waived in situations whete you bribed him to build an achievement to reverse engineer it. This is a serious penalty when considering balancing issues. This is more of a ai issue than player vs player because a human player would know the nature of the race.

There would be an imbalance to have more than one of these except in cases of a lot of races. The ai penalty should only be a few turns if caught and preventable by bribing the offended person when caught. another possible option instead of reverse engineered achievements which i like. You could have turn or number of stolen techs released one per planet improvement,  galactic achievements,  trade goods,  and super projects. One place to look for these is the krynn tech tree.

Referring to rare circumstances when you have to research like before you meet anyone,  research universal translator,  if everyone you know has sonething like counter espionage center on all their planets,  or before you have advanced espionage on someone. If you happen to research one of these techs that otherwise would have ptovidrd the time released wonder then it gets subtracted from turn released schedule which i think is not as exciting as a reverse engineered improvements.

One advantage of time releasing wonders is you dont piss as many  people off. Still tossing my vote in reverse engineered achievements. Now as far as trade goods are concerned they can trade for them unless they are below aversge strength.

One way to help out is to make them reverse engineered. This is handled two ways. One is all right which is make them where you only get the bonus. The second is better,  but implementation depends on how much  of a boost you need here,  which us both the trade good,  and the reverse engineered good competes where if someone gets one they can't get the other causing another diplomatic incident if you trade with someone like the above description. All in the name of balance.

In the battlestar galactica 2004 series the cylons would respawn aboard a baystar ehen they died. I can't see why the Yor,  or Dark Yor wouldn't implement this if advanced  enough. This could be a tech that you research. Gamewise it might work this way when you build a ship,  and you level up,  snd the ship gets destroyed then thr next ship built would recieve the lost ship level.

This could be done three ways.

First this would only save the last ship destroyed.

Second it would save the highest ship destroyed.

Third it would save all ships destroyed restoring levelschronology.

Fourth it wpuld restore the highest level ship first. Then it would go to the next,  untill there no more saved destroyed ships. 

I really enjoy the idea of having a race that steals techs, not sure who it should be or if it should wait for a DLC, but any race that plays very differently to others is always welcome for me, as it gives me a completely different game experience and a completely different kind of opponent.

Ideas:
 
1) Tech spread 

* Techs become easier to steal the more races that have them, requiring 2 races minimum to have researched it, or act as a percentage.

* This means single race specific techs could be 'impossible' to steal.


This would work well in anything above a 3 player game, but could just be used to modify the chance of stealing instead. So the larger % of the galaxy that has a tech, the easier it is to steal

or

2) Tech Rarity

* Certain techs are given a very hard modifier to steal, race specific techs. So much so it'd only be once a game you might take one, if you are lucky. Perhaps this would happen through an event or some such. Planetary Invasion and extreme planet tech might also be considered somewhat uncommon, to make it a bit harder to steal.

3) Relations Penalties for stealing tech.

Should depend on the race if possible. Stealing any tech from a science based race should come with a big modifier against you. Other more complicated options: Stealing weapons tech from an aggressive race, should come with an extra modifier against you, stealing trade tech from traders should come with an extra modifier against you, those kinds of options. This would make them a somewhat unpopular race diplomatically but give people the option of not focusing on science at all much, so it'd make them quite powerful also.


or

4) Rather than science labs, you have espionage centers.

Your espionage rating vs the tech in question, means how likely you are a turn to steal a tech from someone. Certain techs having a very high value, lower techs having a lower value.

The problem with races that solely get techs by stealing them, is that they are completely dependent on others to advance. If the races they know of research things that are of no use to a player, or of no use to what the player wants to do at the time, they're kinda stuck.  And I'm not at all sure how viable they would be in a practical playthrough.  Obviously, it completely negates the possibility of a scientific victory (unless it was radically reworked for that faction and that faction only).

Making it very hard to steal techs just puts them behind the eight ball even further.

They're gonna need some AWESOME benefits elsewhere to balance out this pretty huge gimp, IMO.

Different game experience is a good thing.  But it still should be a viable experience.

Quoting BuckGodot, reply 9

The problem with races that solely get techs by stealing them, is that they are completely dependent on others to advance. If the races they know of research things that are of no use to a player, or of no use to what the player wants to do at the time, they're kinda stuck.  And I'm not at all sure how viable they would be in a practical playthrough.  Obviously, it completely negates the possibility of a scientific victory (unless it was radically reworked for that faction and that faction only).

Making it very hard to steal techs just puts them behind the eight ball even further.

They're gonna need some AWESOME benefits elsewhere to balance out this pretty huge gimp, IMO.

Different game experience is a good thing.  But it still should be a viable experience.

End of BuckGodot's quote

Not having to build any science labs is already a massive advantage, that isn't the main issue. Never being far 'behind' any race technologically in any area is already an advantage, as they will be constantly grabbing techs no matter how far in front someone is. Finally, and most importantly, whatever that race researches you are going to get gradually, so you are their perfect counter. They will excel at dealing with custom tech tree races for example.

The main issue is with acquiring enough techs for them to make a viable ship build, this would work really well for a scavenging type race however, bolting on whatever you could find sounds fun. 

It does negate a scientific victory, unless there was a type of technology they gained when they had stolen enough higher tier tech from other races, something that required production rather than research in their case. Unless they are using an espionage type resource in which case it could require espionage.

Finally it's a race I personally would find challenging to play against. I use techs as currency, I use techs to give me an advantage, here that advantage or currency is no longer safe. I'd want to kill this scavenging race early, so for me, that's a raise in difficulty to how I play.

Except you had proposed having espoinage centers to replace them in all but name.  So, six of one...

As for the bits I skipped, I'm not convinced.  But I suppose it might depend on the implementation.  I guess I just wanted to post that there might be some serious unforeseen pitfalls to this idea of a scavenger that might not be readily apparent. 

I had that as one possible idea out of a few yes. Espionage could be balanced completely differently to science, requiring much less even then. As long as you have 1 per planet espionage reaches it's maximum output possible, or something like diminishing returns. 

while being behind the curve might be a problem on smaller maps on larger maps it will mean that your technology level is probobly much closer to avereage 

for example lets say your playing against 4 races who have each focused on 1 different tech catagory to the exclusion of all others

A) military

B ) propagation

c) economy

D) engineering

now each of those races is going to be split 100/0/0/0 into their tech focus and you will be sitting at 25/25/25/25 so your economy will be weak compared to the economic race but good compared to the other races.  the military race will have ships with stronger weapons/defenses but you will have bigger ships with more weapons.

as for the tech victory option this could be overcome by giving the tech victory techs bonus's that make them worthwhile other then just for the tech victory so if im researching military techs and i get to the end and have,  military tech victory (1/4 required for tech victory). i may ignore it but if its military tech victory, + 10% defenses to all catagorys +5% damage to all catagorys +10% hp to all ships. (1/4 required for tech victory) i will probobly pick that up for the nice buff even if im ignoring tech victory and once i have that theres a chance you can steal it

Finally someone responded to my post serves me right for being originally against this idea. So anybody like my modifications to the yor,  or thalans. Any ideas to change gameplay for other races. As far as tech victory never thought of It that way because the way it is set up doesn't make sense to me. I thought it would be better if instead of researching certaIn techs. That maybe having a percentage of total tech points instead. The reason I suggested limiting how many race specific techs you can steal, Instead of not allowing you to steal other race specIfIc techs Is because it would not be fair to my opinion if only you didn't have race specific techs. But there are many ways to balance this. Some of my other ideas might be the answer. I figure they will not be perfect on the first try anyways. It will probably get better wIth patching. A idea I'm not sure I suggested yet is in yhe diplomacy screen is offering to steal from someone a non race specific tech for a price. You could play that you learn this tech,  or not depending how much bslancing you need, and have an option to ask this race to do it for a price,  or through extortian if your the other guy. This would eliminate them from any combined research ideas. Thsnkd for responding.