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.