[couslee]

Q, that is a good question. But not the case in my game. I did a sucessfull tech report before even trying to steal anything. I knew that if they didn't have any advanced tech, I would be wasing a lot of intel for nothing. The tech report came back showing they had level 3 in scaners. I only had researched to level 1. Scanners is not a racial tech, and unless sucessfull tech reports lie (I doubt that) then they certainly had an advance.

After my 10 turns or so beta playing of it. I gave it a shot using the specific target instead of "any tech" and stole sensors 3 on the first attempt (I had since researched level 2).

It is quite possible the problem lies in the "any tech" selection. During the beta-playing, I even preceeded the steal attemt with a tech report, tho not every time. And even when the tech report showed an area more advanced, the steal attempt still would fail. Now, I don't remember if that 8th or so attempt had a tech report first. I may have stopped bothering with them at that point after getting a number of sucessfull tech reports and the steal attempt stating "we did not find anything usefull". I believe that message is the same as "our attempt failed" that you see with other intel actions. Not once did the tech steal show "attempt failed", just "we didn't find anything usefull". Hurdle 3.