Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

There are mods that make the planetary weapons quite useful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Moddability is the strongest aspect of SE4 IMO.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Alright, the only thing left stopping me from buy the game: How allied can one person become?

I know you can give whole solar systems away. Can you let your allie pickup cargo from your planet?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Unless the game options are set to disallow trading, you can give ships and units and resources to other players.

They can automatically resupply at your planets if you give them a certain treaty level or higher.

Literally picking up items off your planet, not per se. To transfer units, you need to trade them a ship or planet that holds the units. I've sometimes build a ship or base which is just a simple container to give an ally some units, but I haven't had occasion to do that often.

PvK

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

How do reaserch alliances work? And what happenes if you give away a technology? Does it disappear causing you to have to re-reaserch it?

[ December 02, 2003, 22:23: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Research treaties and all other treaties that share something with the ally work by slowly building up to a max percentage. The default is 20%. It looks at what you are producing takes 20% of that and gives that to the ally. However you still get those points as well. Basically it creates research for those involved in them without taking anything away.

If you give or trade research the other person gets it and you still have it as well. Like copying a file. You copy it give the copy to your friend and they can use it and copy it as well if they want but you still keep your original.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

so what is the disadvantage of just giving technologies to each other and not having a reaserch alliance?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

There is none. A research "alliance" just means you are "trading" research points. Of course, you can not have a "research alliance", you have to have a Trade and Research Alliance, Military Alliance or Partnership. Trading technologies like you mentioned is often done, though some consider it a gamey tactic and it periodically gets Banned from MP PBW games.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

can you disable the ability to trade technologies?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Yep. Have you tried the Demo yet? It's game setup screen has all the options for what you can disable and such. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Is there a way to have a ship which re-fuels other ships?

I haven't figured out a way to do that. Maybe you can't reaserch the technology in the demo.

And if this is possible, can you trade a refueling ship to an allie, let him refuel, then trade back?

[ December 02, 2003, 23:01: Message edited by: Argitoth ]