This suggestion grew out of some ideas that were tossed around in the "Boost Strategy" thread (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3093).

Whether it ends up as governments, races, unions (Istalris) or Factions (Sadbutrue) there were some really good ideas bounced around.

With the idea that there may be Techs that are either reserved for certain groups or from which certain groups benefit more, though this idea is applicable without that...

The idea of "Stealing" techs was first suggested in this thread. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3270&start=0

Three new techs:

Engineering Tech.

Ship production time decreases by 10% per level of Tech.

Construction Tech

Building production increases by 10% per level of Construction Tech.

Research Science Tech

Research time decreases by 10% per level of Research Tech. The Intergalactic Research Network currently decreases research time by pooling the resources of the top Research labs in an empire. This is different. RST is the development of the methodologies and tools to advance Research.

By themselves, these three technologies are logical additions. However, they also become the prerequisites for a fourth new technology:

REVERSE ENGINEERING TECH
- This could be reserved to a certain group (race, gov't, et. al.)
- The prerequisites for this Technology would be a certain level of the three Technologies mentioned above; maybe 8 or 10 in each before RET can be researched.

PLEASE NOTE: If someone "Steals" a tech, they are simply gaining access to it. The other player is not losing it.

In order to add this as seamlessly as possible and make the amount of work required by the developers to a minimum, I thought it would make sense to add the chance to "Steal" a new technology at the end of a successful battle. That way, it would be a module added at the end of a combat engine as opposed to an entirely different mission.

I have made it somewhat difficult to acquire a new technology because it should be a rare occurrence. If it is too easy, it will unbalance the game and dilute the uniqueness of the different races/governments/factions. It is a little complicated for this reason too.

The following is the order of events that would occur:

I) Player A (one attempting to steal technology) wins a battle against Player B on a planet with a Research Lab

II) At the conclusion of the battle, they will have a chance to STEAL a tech

I am not sure how this will be determined. All of the technologies can be thrown into a pool and randomly determined or there could be a weight assigned to each technology, with the more difficult technologies having a lower weight and more common technologies. The latter means that more common technologies will have a higher chance of being chosen.

This may cause a player to get a chance to STEAL a tech they already have. Too bad. It needs to be difficult.

Once the Technology is determined, the following conditions must be met.

1) The Research Lab on the planet of Player B must be of high enough level to support the Technology. Player B's Research Lab must be of sufficient level to Research the Technology on that planet

2) Player A must have the Prerequisites to Research the Technology for technologies with multiple prerequisites. Player A will only be able to gain a maximum of 1 level. So if Player B has level 16 combustion engine and Player A has level 14 Combustion Engine, Player A would only be acquire level 15 Combustion Engine.

III. Player A has a chance to acquire the new Technology based on the following formula:

Chance to Acquire Technology
= Reverse Engineer Technology+ Espionage Tech/Stolen Tech level ^2 x Player B's Espionage Tech

Player A
Reverse Engineering Technology = 8
Espionage Technology = 12

Player B
Espionage Technology = 10
Random Technology (highest tech requirement or level)= 9
* The technology for this equation will be the highest of the prerequisites for this technology or the technology level itself.

= RET+ Esp Tech/Stolen Tech level ^2 x Player B's Esp Tech
= (8+12)/9^2 x 10
= (20)/810
= 2.69% chance

IV. When a player steals the technology the amount of time to Research the Technology is then determined

For general Techs, as long as the rest of the prerequisites are in place, it should be 75% or some other percentage of the research time/cost. So if you acquire Level 10 Combustion Technology and already have level 9, it should be shorter to research the Technology. You have stolen some of the secrets to make it easier to research it.

For race/gov't/faction specific Technologies, due to the foreign nature of the Technology it should be the Random technology described above (highest of requirements or level of technology) x the amount of time that the race/gov't/faction would take to research the technology. This could be a LONG time. However, it should be a rare occurrence and difficult.

EDITED: Edited in attempt to make it more clear.

Very interesting concept.

So would you steal the tech as well as the level it currently resides at? And after purchasing the research to obtain the stolen tech, do you still have to continue buying at a 5-10x cost to acquire further upgrades?

Forgive me if the answers are stated in your post, but they are not immediately clear to me.

-DT- wrote:Very interesting concept.

So would you steal the tech as well as the level it currently resides at? And after purchasing the research to obtain the stolen tech, do you still have to continue buying at a 5-10x cost to acquire further upgrades?

Forgive me if the answers are stated in your post, but they are not immediately clear to me.

Very good questions. I have not fleshed it out enough.

Revisiting what I first said.

The prerequisites should probably be Engineering, Construction and Research Science Tech, maybe 10 of each. That would make sense.

I am not sure if this should be a race specific Tech or one available to everyone. It would be a perfect fit for a Research or Merchant/Raiding race.

I think you should only be able to advance one level in the Tech acquired. The reason being that I think it should be rare and difficult to acquire tech from other players, especially other race specific techs. If you are only advancing one level in a tech, maybe 5-10x is more than it should be. Maybe twice the usual length for race specific techs (from a different race) and 75% for common techs and techs of the same race.

That kind of waters it down, but it is definitely a work in progress.

A bit confusing, but I think this game needs something more intricate. The same thing over and over kinda gets boring, hence some people quitting. I support this idea 100% and hope the admins take a look at it

Thanks Avenger. I have edited the original post in the attempt to make it more clear.

DT- They should only be able to steal one level of the Tech. For race/gov't specific technologies, you will need to steal it again to move to the next level.

Bumpity bump. Old stuff but interesting concept, have at thee.

As long as its all research based thats cool/... Officer ideas i hate but as long as its research based then yeah cool

Trying to help with information on that concept:


1. Edit stealing Research to "Gain permament 1 lvl in certain research"

1.1 Conditions:
The stolen research should be higher lvl than yours
The formula should be with lesser percent.

You should have the research on atleast level one

Chance to choose research with higher level than yours = own RET/(enemy RET*2)

At same levels, there is 50% chance, that u will find research to steal.

III. Player A has a chance to acquire the new Technology based on the following formula:

Chance to Acquire Technology
= (own RET + own ET)/((Enemy RET x Enemy ET)^2 + (chosen research lvl)^2)



Player A
Reverse Engineering Technology = 8 (RET)
Espionage Technology = 12 (ET)

Randomised research is Weapons Tech (your lvl 12, his higher, should be upgraded to 13 if sucessfull)

Player B
Reverse Engineering Technology = 7
Espionage Technology = 10

With that formula with the example values:

= (own RET x own ET)/((Enemy RET x Enemy ET)^2 + (chosen research lvl)^2) =
= (8+12)/((7x10)^2 + 13^2)
= 20/(4900 + 169)
= 0.39% chance

NOTE: The following formula is for permament gain of next level on randomised tech.
Which means that the chance should be verry low. Else you could only updrade RET & ET, and gain all you need without any cost... (even for stealing for certain time only)

First of all, I like this idea and can't believe I did not see this back when you first posted it.

Second, I don't like the idea of being able to "steal" technology with every attack. Instead, it should be tied to the Espionage mission as a specific Reverse Engineering mission. This way, your ability to steal technology is dependent upon how high your Espionage tech is. The higher your Espionage tech, the better chance of being able to Reverse Engineer and steal a random technology.

Third, the ability to steal a technology should have a very low chance of success. It should not be like an automatic thing - (ie: send probes and get a tech.). Also, if the probes are destroyed when sent, the Reverse Engineering automatically fails. Therefore, you can only "steal" a technology if your probes return to base.

These are my thoughts on this suggestion.

that was just a rough idea, based on the suggestion. I didn't specified the way that it should work. Not sayed "when attacking" ...

Can be "Reverse Engineering Mission", which requires like 20 or 1000 probes to send. And has the chances I said.