Oh, not at all, jimbob!
Part of the price of those awesome ships is the fact that you have to give the neutral all your tech
. The neutral player gets shields level 10, and you get your ship with all the latest shields.
I've got a Merchant race, that takes all the racial techs. In order to be allowed future purchases, you must give me some Tech.
I use the tech to build the ships, which you then buy. (First one is free, because of the tech gift)
People trade racial techs to me, and I give 'em organic/crystalline armored psy-subverter and TimeDistortionBurst armed Dreadnaughts with a Talisman for good luck.
In P&N, they get all the crossover techs too
PS: anybody who holds back with the techs, loses their ship-purchasing priviledges.
[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 15 November 2001).]