Capturable Racial Techs

[jc173]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aussie Gamer:
Any thoughts on the MOO2 tech level that allowed you to alter your race DNA and change some of it's abilities.
That you be interesting if you allow say 2000 points later in the game. So then when you get the tech level, you are able to pick some new racial ability.

---

Interesting, but it would need to be hardcoded. Also what if you initially chose organic than swapped to cyrstaline, would you lose your tech levels in organic?

[Marco]

Please Jc173, can you post a zipfile with the modifications needed to allow racial techs capturable ? I tried to make myself the suggested modifications but surely I made something wrong, beaucause it doesn't works.I wish to add and test this feature to my games.
Thanks and best regards.

[Marco]

Please Jc173, can you post a zipfile with the modifications needed to allow racial techs capturable ? I tried to make myself the suggested modifications but surely I made something wrong, beaucause it doesn't works.I wish to add and test this feature to my games.
Thanks and best regards.

Sorry I posted two time the same reply, some problem with my damned server.

[This message has been edited by Marco (edited 16 May 2001).]

[jc173]

I can post the techarea.txt file in the mod archive which is where the major changes are, but I don't think my AI files will be useful for you since I'm using a heavily and scrambled up modified Version of the TDM modpack as the basis for most of my races. You don't need a new components file, just the techarea file. After you copy that into the proper directory all you need to do is to add the intermediate techs to the appropriate races. There are a at least two good tools for that in the mod archive.

[Marco]

Thanks.

[Will]

Is the intermediate tech area really necessary? It should work the same without it, except the previously racial techs wouldn't be able to be researched if the intermediate is stolen through ship capture (if any components come from the intermediate) or Tech Espionage ops. Besides, the racial techs are supposed to be something that only certain races can comprehend (at least IMHO), thus analyzing components will allow you to see where everything fits, but not actually how it works (a la "Contact"... see alien blueprint, build machine on alien blueprint, have no clue what machine on alien blueprint does).

Anyway, looks quite interesting... I'll add it to my mental list of things to eventually (read: in two or so years) put in the mod I'll eventually (read: in two or so years, minus two or so weeks) make.

[jc173]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Will:
Is the intermediate tech area really necessary? It should work the same without it, except the previously racial techs wouldn't be able to be researched if the intermediate is stolen through ship capture (if any components come from the intermediate) or Tech Espionage ops. Besides, the racial techs are supposed to be something that only certain races can comprehend (at least IMHO), thus analyzing components will allow you to see where everything fits, but not actually how it works (a la "Contact"... see alien blueprint, build machine on alien blueprint, have no clue what machine on alien blueprint does).

Anyway, looks quite interesting... I'll add it to my mental list of things to eventually (read: in two or so years) put in the mod I'll eventually (read: in two or so years, minus two or so weeks) make.

---

The intermediate tech probably isn't completely necessary, but I kept it in since that was the suggestion from SJ and it provides a buffer from just gaining the tech through outright espionage. You don't gain the intermediate tech from analyzing enemy ships so you still can't research it or research higher levels in the racial weapons techs.

As for comprehending how the stuff works... I guess it depends on your view point/storyline. I can see your point about comprehending alien tech, but there's plenty of other stories/movies/shows that that present other views, Robotech is one that comes to mind. The humans managed to recreate some of the alien tech onboard the alien starship, SDF-1 and were able to repair it and build new weapons based on reverse engineering what they found. They didn't completely understand how it worked, but they could copy it. Which is basically what I wanted to do, copy enemy designs or use some of the tech in my own hulls and repair captured enemy ships. But to each his own, I though it just provided a different twist on the game.

[Marty Ward]

The way you have it set up seems to be a good compromise, you can only gain exactly what you steal. I like it.
To bad the AI doesn't analyize. Then you could do it to all the traits. You could throw some random weapons into their ship designs and then maybe get a big suprise later in the game when the Phong show up with Allegiance Converters!

[Suicide Junkie]

I think you should remove the intermediate techs, if you don't want the stuff researchable.

The way I think you have it, is that the intermediates are "tech B", while the shard cannons are under "tech C"

Therefore you could steal the intermediates via intel ops, and tehn research the "tech C" stuff.

if you make the weapons tech a "tech B" type, requiring a racial tech to research, then others will never be able to research the weapons.

As it is, you could trade away your intermediate tech, and aliens could research the weapons tech ahead of you!

[Marty Ward]

Shouldn't the intermediate tech be a racial trait tech? Then the weapons tech tree could not be researched if you analyzed a single weapon.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 17 May 2001).]