2.0 beta spectator Q, tell us about "no tech brokering"

Subject line is pretty much it, but the question that made me think to try a thread was roughly, "If tech brokering is disabled and you buy a tech like Beam Weapon Theory, can you still research it later on to add it to your portfolio of possible trades?"

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Reply #1 Top

How about if I raise this with a related question that also caught no one's interest when I posted it week before last:

"If any of you folks running the beta are also regular users of the Events tab in the Civilization Manager, can you tell us about any changes you've seen?

I ask because I just lucked into noticing that, as of 1.96, when you trade for a tech, it shows on Events as "Research complete." That's not such a big deal b/c there is no Tech Brokering option to disable, but...Does the 2.0 Events tab show a new line something like "Research acquired" to distinguish gaining a tech you can trade from gaining one you can only use?"

Reply #2 Top

If tech brokering is disabled and you buy a tech like Beam Weapon Theory, can you still research it later on to add it to your portfolio of possible trades?

As in Civ, no. Once you have it you have it; you can't "reverse engineer" it to get the benefits of having researched it yourself.

 

Does the 2.0 Events tab show a new line something like "Research acquired" to distinguish gaining a tech you can trade from gaining one you can only use?

It does not distinguish.

Reply #3 Top

As in Civ, no. Once you have it you have it; you can't "reverse engineer" it to get the benefits of having researched it yourself.

Interesting. I wasn't really thinking about reverse engineering so much as just going back and finally doing the work yourself so you understood what the heck it was you were using, with trade options as a side-benefit. This sort of limit makes me think you shouldn't be able to repair any ship components built with a tech you did not research, but we couldn't have that b/c ships are just a lump of HP from a damage POV.

I guess there are some "balance" things that support this structure, but it sure seems artificial (too gamy, no pun initially intended) to me.

Reply #4 Top

( * ) has been very helpful so far to detect 'exclusive' techs on the Trade screen listings.

Since we now have the Tech Brokering functions toggle switch -- would it possible (or somehow, relevant) to tag another string character to these... maybe ( " ) or ( % )?

 

Now you may object that if the option is set to disable - obviously, these techs CAN'T be traded... but, keeping track of the slightly different status or how the whole research aspect is going on *without* some reference over the activity -- is tougher than it could if we just had a clear cue symbol attached.