Stealing blueprint is useless

[cnwi]

Playing with the latest beta:

-55% risk, 125% bonus outcome

result: a limited-time 10% bonus on Industry research

 

[pdstanbridge]

You get various other results too. You can also get insta research, and a 300% research speed on blueprints.

 

[FindFloppies]

Playing with the latest beta:

-55% risk, 125% bonus outcome

result: a limited-time 10% bonus on Industry research

Playing 1.9.0? Known issue. Beta 1.9.1 is giving it a better chance of something useful.

 

[chegevara]

Playing 1.9.0? Known issue. Beta 1.9.1 is giving it a better chance of something useful.

I'm playing last beta and running tests many times with bluepring stealing. Most of the time I'm recieving some trash like BB-CV conversion hull, -10% to ASW deep charges, -10% to support arty etc.
Even when it gives insta research - it always the oldest tech (like BB-CV conversion).
Considering how much industry spy upgrades and operations are cost and how long it takes - such rewards are just a joke.

 

[cnwi]

Playing 1.9.0? Known issue. Beta 1.9.1 is giving it a better chance of something useful.

As said, latest beta

 

[BeauNiddle]

I'm playing my first game of la resistance. Latest beta, UK, 1938, navy blueprint steal from Germany (two spies had safecracker skill) Just got complete 1936 Sub tech.

Not earthshattering but probably one of the few Navy tech I don't already have up to date and it was the full tech not a bonus to research.

Maybe I got lucky with RNGesus

 

[Simon_9732495]

Disagree. You can get useful things.

Do it in a branch where you are already good with research. Bonuses matter more if research time is long. And it is long if things are ahead of time. So try to steal where you have already everthing that is in time.

 

[Riekopo]

Does Stealing Blueprints even have any real world example during WW2? None that I can think of.

 

[pdstanbridge]

Disagree. You can get useful things.

Do it in a branch where you are already good with research. Bonuses matter more if research time is long. And it is long if things are ahead of time. So try to steal where you have already everthing that is in time.

I beg to differ with this - I've tried it, and if you have up to date research in say destroyers, and you steal a naval blueprint, it might give you the destroyer blueprint you've already built. It's very hit and miss. I have had this happen in airforce too, I built a 1936 fighter and it gave me the same blueprint. Admittedly this was the last beta, so maybe a bug?

The best way to do it, is to spy on a country that is ahead with its research in a particular field. So spy on Japan, or the UK for example, to get a chance of the best naval blueprints.

 

[kettyo]

The best way to do it, is to spy on a country that is ahead with its research in a particular field. So spy on Japan, or the UK for example, to get a chance of the best naval blueprints.

Isn't it the logical way? Spying on Tannu Tuva for navy secrects would be odd.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

I'm playing with the beta, and here stealing techs just gave me the tech outright - which I thought was OP. Not sure if that's because of it's the beta, or because there's a random element to it...?

 

[pdstanbridge]

Youve been lucky. I got a mountain infantry tech instantly, along with a couple of naval blueprints which were helpful but the rest have been 10% here and there.

 

[Baldos]

Playing with the latest beta:

-55% risk, 125% bonus outcome

result: a limited-time 10% bonus on Industry research

Agree 100%....the asset cost is too high for a random research subject bonus.

This is an amazingly bad design decision. Who in the world goes to the trouble to steal something of random or unknown value...common drug addled thieves.

Espionage missions are targeted! The only way a steal blueprint mission will be worthwhile is if the player is allowed to steal a tech that has been researched by the target.

See the Request License Production Tab for an example of a tech interface that allows the player to selects tech researched by other nations.

 

[DicRoNero]

I was reading documentation files the other day and I was fairly sure I encountered something (in supplemetary description text) that hinted to hard-coded things in BP stealing. Unfortunately, my search history for that is gone and I'm unable to retrieve that particular bit even for myself now.

@mikwarleo In general, my experience is the same as yours.

We can only hope that maybe @bitmode will eventually look into that.

 

[cotne22]

Does Stealing Blueprints even have any real world example during WW2? None that I can think of.

I don't know any during the war, but the Germans managed to acquire plans for the A1EA independent tank in 1933

 

[bitmode]

I was reading documentation files the other day and I was fairly sure I encountered something (in supplemetary description text) that hinted to hard-coded things in BP stealing. Unfortunately, my search history for that is gone and I'm unable to retrieve that particular bit even for myself now.

@mikwarleo In general, my experience is the same as yours.

We can only hope that maybe @bitmode will eventually look into that.

I don't have LaR so not sure how tech stealing is supposed to work. Is the problem that the operation is not described as it is defined in common/operations/00_operations.txt? Or are some of the effects not working as described in documentation/effects_documentation.txt:

### steal_random_tech_bonus

* Supported Scopes: COUNTRY
* Supported Targets: none

```
adds a random limited use tech bonus from country of categories that is it ahead in compared to you.
it must have atleast one category or folder. But it can contain any number of them in any combination
Note: if a country does not have a tech to be stolen a random tech bonus will be applied based on base_bonus
Example: steal_random_tech_bonus = {
category = air_equipment
folder = naval_folder
ahead_reduction = ???
bonus = ???
base_bonus = 0.05
instant = yes # instant unlock instead of bonus
dynamic = yes # swaps bonus types from instant to category dependig on type as well as uses weights on tech progress
name = ???
target = ???
uses = 1
}

 

[Akela]

I don't have LaR so not sure how tech stealing is supposed to work. Is the problem that the operation is not described as it is defined in common/operations/00_operations.txt? Or are some of the effects not working as described in documentation/effects_documentation.txt:

I just went through 00_operations.txt, and the listed possible outcomes for tech stealing all look pretty similar. There is only one standard outcome for stealing industry techs, and it's defined like this:

outcome_execute = {
ROOT = {
steal_random_tech_bonus = {
folder = electronics_folder
folder = industry_folder
bonus = 3.0
name = operation_steal_tech_civilian
target = FROM
dynamic = yes
instant = yes
uses = 1
}
remove_operation_token = {
tag = FROM
token = token_civilian
}
}
}

Rinse and repeat for the other operations. The only places I could spot any deviations from that pattern were that the folders change for army/navy/airforce (obviously), and a bonus result has an ahead-of-time reduction as well: 67% chance for a 1 year reduction and 33% chance for 2 years.

So if a steal blueprints operation is giving only a 10% bonus, that is not coming from the definitions in 00_operations.txt. There's either a second set of definitions somewhere or something's hard-coded.

Could the operation sometimes be stealing a bonus that the other country has rather than a tech that they have? 10% sounds like the benefit of a faction research sharing agreement, for example.

@mikwarleo 's results do sound like it's actually better if the target doesn't have any techs you don't have - industry tech in early 1938 would be one of the few places where a human player will pretty reliably be equal to or ahead of the AI in an entire category of tech. Everywhere else a player will be ignoring something that the AI might have picked up. Definitely sounds like there are two different code paths being triggered, and I suspect that it's the difference between 'there's actually a tech to steal' and 'player is ahead, use the fallback option'.

That last bit's all speculation on my part, though.

 

[bitmode]

So if a steal blueprints operation is giving only a 10% bonus, that is not coming from the definitions in 00_operations.txt. There's either a second set of definitions somewhere or something's hard-coded.

Ah, that's just the default value of the base_bonus attribute mentioned in the quoted documentation:

Note: if a country does not have a tech to be stolen a random tech bonus will be applied based on base_bonus

None of the operations seem to override this default.

As far as I can tell, the only other undocumented, non-zero attribute in steal_random_tech_bonus is bonus = 0.5

 

[alexman]

nah its pretty overpowered i stole medium tank in 40 without having researched the tree i also often get 300% boost in industry u can get 2y ahead on dispered quickly switching production with minor penalities

 

[BeauNiddle]

So if a steal blueprints operation is giving only a 10% bonus, that is not coming from the definitions in 00_operations.txt. There's either a second set of definitions somewhere or something's hard-coded.

Could the operation sometimes be stealing a bonus that the other country has rather than a tech that they have? 10% sounds like the benefit of a faction research sharing agreement, for example.

The original post is from April. They upped the benefits of tech stealing in a patch 1.9.2 or 1.9.3 IIRC