Gaining Techs From Races Who LIke You

[tgb]

Are the only ways to get techs either through research or thievery?  I'd like to acquire some without having to steal them, but the races that like me already have them so there's no research option.  Is there a way to trade for a tech? I haven't seen it as an option yet. I could steal one from a race that detests me, but I don't want to make things worse.

So is my only remaining option to give spacefaring to a race that doesn't have it yet and then either research or steal it from them?

[Tridus]

You have to have a race you can research it with, or steal it. Those are the only options.

If you steal from a friendly race, you can do other things to make it up to them later. It gets worse if they're a Federation member, as there is an extra penalty for stealing from them. Typically as the game goes on it gets hard to keep up with techs if you don't have theft targets.

[waylon531]

Maybe there could be an option to buy techs from a race, but at a much higher cost than stealing it?

[chemical_art]

Typically as the game goes on it gets hard to keep up with techs if you don't have theft targets.

In general I find it best to have at least one race where "no figs given" in terms of relations. Raid them for credits, raid them for tech. It saves time and credits, and you can gift the techs to boost relations with yourself or as deals to help other races.

[doctorfrog]

Typically as the game goes on it gets hard to keep up with techs if you don't have theft targets.

In general I find it best to have at least one race where "no figs given" in terms of relations. Raid them for credits, raid them for tech. It saves time and credits, and you can gift the techs to boost relations with yourself or as deals to help other races.

This would be the "robbing Kang to pay Kodos" approach.

[ElOhTeeBee]

There definitely need to be options added for 'buy tech from friendly race', and 'research tech by yourself'.

[Azurian]

There definitely need to be options added for 'buy tech from friendly race', and 'research tech by yourself'.

I was thinking that If the relations with you and a race are really high, you have the ability to buy Techs for a high credit amount.


You can  formula like 300 credits X Solar Months. If it takes 60 months to Research a Tech, you can "Accelerate Research and Development" for 18k. Something like that.

But then I wonder if this will make Scientists redundant?

[kasnavada]

Yes, this needs to be an option, exchange techs for various favors / exchange favors for techs.

Like if evucks need me to kill some burlocks for some tech, or mission me to build them some stuff, and so on...

[Draco18s]

This is incredibly frustrating:
I was helping the Skylaxians to research Advanced Gravatonics.  13 months into a 44 month project (investing two scientsts, which were used up) they completed it on their own and I did not receive a copy.

Gah.

Now I can go to a friendly race and steal it, or a race that I don't care about and am neutral with, and research it again.  Having to rehire my scientists.

[wwwhhattt]

You could talk the Skylaxians into giving it to someone you don't care about, and steal it from them.

[Tridus]

Yeah. Or the Peltians, if they have it. They're good tech brokers too.

[BobTheJanitor]

I think the problem isn't so much that one could do X, Y, or Z in order to get a tech. It's that the things that are actually happening, i.e. 'this race adores me, but they won't give me or sell me the secrets of antigravity dishwashers', or 'I just spent 2 years helping them research nuclear toasters but then they had a sudden breakthrough and I get nothing for it' don't make any logical sense. Players are going to expect game interactions to make logical sense (unless they're given in-universe reasons for why obvious things don't work that way), and if those seemingly obvious fail players are going to assume the game is bugged or flawed. And most of them aren't going to come here asking for crumbs of wisdom on the roundabout way of doing things, they're just going to say 'oh yeah that game looks fun but it's got aggravating mechanics, I'm going to tell my 500 friends not to buy it' and then no one is happy.

[Qoojo]

I agree that there should be more than two options to get research. It seems like a glaring omission to me that the only method to get completed research is to raid for it. There should be some sort of barter like get the race some raw materials or something.

[Draco18s]

It's also counterintuitive to get RaceYouLike to gift tech that makes RaceYouHate have 10% better ships, just so you can get that 10% more hp yourself.

[madcow]

I think the design intent was that if a race really likes you enough, they'll forgive you stealing the tech from them. Which seems kind of… weird. It would be cool if there was an option to demand/request tech from a race. It could even have the same influence loss in addition to the credit cost so that it makes some thematic/balance sense.