Rare technology for sell

[Archael90]

Crystaline armor
Hull regen
Amoeba flagella
Drake armor
Cloud lightning
All of theese rare technologies can be scavenged from our ships... so why not prevent that by selling them to those who want to buy it, they already can get them simply fighting with us, so why not make profit from this?
I would like to see "trade technology" in trade vew, where we can offer or demand techs availability (not full techs) in exchange of anything else that can be traded.
I believe FE techs also should be available for selling, like some xenophile FE that loves us soooo much, or spiritual FE that wants to share knowlege of their psi techs to another (trascendent) spiritual empire, should be able to sell us this techs, or give us them in exchange of something, like very experienced scientist or so.


Edit:
And what about rent component techs and/or sharing with federation members?
It would work like normal deal, but in time of this deal, empires can build ships with components of shared technology, and when deal is over, they can still use that shhips (maybe higher maintenence cost if tech is not researched already), but cant build more of that.
It would be great especially in federations, where you still CAN build ships with those components, but only for federation fleet... why? If you are able to do that, why your engineers cant use that techs?

 

[Bouchart]

Trading or selling technology has never been balanced in any 4X game I have ever played in the past 25 years.

 

[wundte]

Idea is good. Maybe we can buy them as a research option and then have to research them? I see no balance problems here as it is essentially a double investment.

 

[bubbas]

Trading or selling technology has never been balanced in any 4X game I have ever played in the past 25 years.

^This^
EDIT: But in my case, 30+ years

 

[Archael90]

Trading or selling technology has never been balanced in any 4X game I have ever played in the past 25 years.

And how this makes an argument? :x

We are already getting this techs in other ways, and this way we would have to pay for it, and then we would have to research them. There is no much techs, and them can be valued manually, and/or scripted, based on - how many normal empires have this tech, and how many creatures are alive in galaxy. Yet, argument that in OTHER games this is not balanced, is not an argument, that this is a bad idea in THIS game.

 

[OfficerBrennan]

The entire concept of exclusivity would be torpedoed out the water if a market for technology existed.

Technology trading is a simple (arguably too simple) mechanic that allows anyone participating in the trade to make massive strategic gains in a few clicks. It's all a bit too easy. I refer you to pretty much every 4X game in history as an example. Without the existence of a market for technology, players have to actually expend a lot of effort to acquire their shiny baubles. This means their actions (and inaction) has long term consequences.

 

[TheDungen]

We should be able to sell/give techs to the AI period. I mean history is full of people aiding other warring countries by sending them technology.

Of course it should be impossible to sell technology to other players (to easy to exploit) and selling technology is like selling provinces in eu4 the seller has to instigate it, you can't ask to buy tech.

Also perhaps the buying of a technolgoy should come with a research project (Implementation) to actually get the tech, so that you can't spam it to level up a newly ascended primitive super fast.

Trading or selling technology has never been balanced in any 4X game I have ever played in the past 25 years.

Just because no one has figured out how to do it well yet doesn't mean it can't be done. Also if technology as easier to catch up whit they could make it more powerful because tech is kind of weak in stellaris.

 

[Gyrvendal]

I'd be ok with some version of this, but restricted to a special civic for materialist megacorps. "Technology brokers"

It would work like this:
- Any trading agreement by the megacorps is also a research agreement automatically.

- Empires can "buy" a techology from this megacorps at a price of 50% the research cost in energy credits. They then get the tech as an option and 30% research progress (they still need to finish researching it).

This would allow empires to acquire a specific rare tech, without being too unbalanced IMO.

 

[SpectralShade]

Technology trading/stealing was a major aspect in MoO2 because you were limited in technologies from each tier unless you took a specific species trait.
Of course, AI usually wanted trades that were favourable towards it when trading techs, but the concept have been a staple of the MoO series, as far as I know.

 

[Strangedane]

Technology trading/stealing was a major aspect in MoO2 because you were limited in technologies from each tier unless you took a specific species trait.
Of course, AI usually wanted trades that were favourable towards it when trading techs, but the concept have been a staple of the MoO series, as far as I know.

And because of tech trading, non-creative became the strongest pick BY MILES in the race generator.
It was so unbalanced in fact that taking creative actually would actually leave you completely in the dust on the tech race compared to anything that just massed and bought/stole techs.

 

[SpectralShade]

And because of tech trading, non-creative became the strongest pick BY MILES in the race generator.
It was so unbalanced in fact that taking creative actually would actually leave you completely in the dust on the tech race compared to anything that just massed and bought/stole techs.

i disagree. early game was important and you could get really shafted there. Also, non-creative required you to be able to actually get the techs you wanted by other means, otherwise you were just in a really bad spot. it was extremely reliant on the play of other empires and especially in multiplayer you could get left in the dust if people thought you would be a threat by closing off your possibilities.

 

[Roddo]

And make them even more useless. What's the point in trying to get the best armor, shield or weapon tech if everyone else is gonna have the same at the end?
Stellaris is turning into a one size fits all game, in my experience most of my empires turn out to be quite similiar to each other in late game.

 

[Archael90]

But the point is that everyone is able to get this techs, except situation when someone got eg. dragon scales, and has enigmatic engineering, otherwise everyone can have every tech, and this is no problem for players to just coordinate fleets to get those. But when techs would be available to sell, everything would be:
1. Faster:
2. Easier
3. with profits to the seller.

And other idea, idependent to this one is to block ability to use higher tier techs (components) before researching lower tiers (eg. you got armour tier 4 from debries, and using just tier 2, so you ave tech, but cannot use tier 4 untill researched tier 3).

 

[Zergor]

I played a lot of Gal Civ' and tech trading results in one thing: Me steamrolling the AI.
AI has a hard time valuing tech and either you make them never sell them (and the whole thing is useless except in MP where it is even more easlity exoploited) or exploits are easy.

The main one I often use is to focus on one long line of techs so I have the exclusivity (granted it's harder in stellaris with randomness) and I can exchange this high tier tech I only possess against a bunch of techs with EVERY civ that doesn't hate my guts.
Basically the player can multipy his tech research by the number of friendly empires (minus the fact that AI tend to take a commission so your tech may be worth a bit more than what they give... not that it really matter).
In MP you can straight up give all your new techs to your allies and they do the same, multiplying your research by the number of allies.

 

[Archael90]

I played a lot of Gal Civ' and tech trading results in one thing: Me steamrolling the AI.
AI has a hard time valuing tech and either you make them never sell them (and the whole thing is useless except in MP where it is even more easlity exoploited) or exploits are easy.

The fact that in other games tech trade is implemented badly does not means that Stellaris devs should not at least try ^.^"
Rare techs are just few - from space creatures, fallen empires, and crisis, and balancing their cost should not be that hard, compared to balancing prizes of all tech, but other are not needed to be for sale.
And if not tech itself, there could be ability to use techs in exchange of something else, eg. you do not have dragon scales, but your friend have, and in exchange of monthly living metal for 30 years, you can build ships with this component, This would need special evaluation.
Also, why i can build federation ships with cloud lightning, but i cannot build my own ships with the same template in the same shipyards? xD In the time of being president, i should be allowed to make those, based on members techs ^.^

 

[Zergor]

The fact that in other games tech trade is implemented badly does not means that Stellaris devs should not at least try ^.^"
Rare techs are just few - from space creatures, fallen empires, and crisis, and balancing their cost should not be that hard, compared to balancing prizes of all tech, but other are not needed to be for sale.
And if not tech itself, there could be ability to use techs in exchange of something else, eg. you do not have dragon scales, but your friend have, and in exchange of monthly living metal for 30 years, you can build ships with this component, This would need special evaluation.
Also, why i can build federation ships with cloud lightning, but i cannot build my own ships with the same template in the same shipyards? xD In the time of being president, i should be allowed to make those, based on members techs ^.^

The problem is not an implementation one. It's the core concept that is problematic:
When you sell a tech, you still have it.

This is what create an imbalance.
Tech trade would be interesting if you lost the tech you traded but it would be hard to execute (what of dependencies ?) and not feel right RP wise.

Anything you can give and still have should have create as I said before the intrinsic problem that 2 people exchanging this ressourse will both gain something while paying nothing. This mean that any group that does that will generate value ex nihilo depending on the size of the group.

And I want to point out that the research agreement in stellaris does ALREADY do that but at a scale small enough and with enough limitations so it doesn't become OP. (There is 0 reason not to have a research agreement with an other empire with equivalement tech if you know this empire won't stab you in the back). Research agreement also has a nice balance perk : It doesn't scale with how many agreement you have (it is still interesting to have it trigger on more techs but won't double the bonus), making it hard to abuse it.

 

[TheDungen]

How about instead of buying the tech you buy the tech showing up in your available techs. You still have to research it (representing an implementation effort) but you don't have to try to draw it.

 

[Typee]

Just because no one has figured out how to do it well yet doesn't mean it can't be done.

There is a way to do it well, and it's called research agreements.

 

[TheDungen]

There is a way to do it well, and it's called research agreements.

No! That is a really bad way to do it. It has all the problems of these systems and none of the versatility. You still end up with "Sign a research agreement with everyone and get way ahead of science for cheap", hence why they have constantly placed more and more restrictions on research agreement style mechanics not only in stellaris but in all 4x games.

 

[Archael90]

This is game mechanic abusing, and im suggesting a feature, what is the difference? Abusing is against rules, while features are a rules.