[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Puke:
now, i dont think this can be done, because i think we thought about thinking about it before (confused yet?), but heres the regergitated idea anyway:

can we make a tech that is only available through trade / shipcapture + analysis? (i dont think so.)

if so, you can make a monstor scanner that can detect monsters and their homeworld, but you can only research it after caputring a monster ship and analyzing it. or starting on high-tech, of course. but i dont think that can be done normally, because the tech (or its pre-reqs) would always show up in the tech tree, unless it was racial, and if it was racial, then it couldnt be gained through analysis / reverse-engineering.

what you COULD do though, is make it super-expensive, so it would take 100 million research units or something. then the only practical way to gain the tech, wouild be through analysis. unless you run into max-int problems, but i think research costs use long-int. so it should be okay.

I think Suicide Junkie found a way to do something similar; it allows you to build racial-based components, but I don't think you can research on your own after the analysis. IIRC, it involved 3 techs (A, B and C):

Tech C provides the desired components, and has Tech B as a prerequisite (NO racial linkage).
Tech B provides Tech C, and has Tech A as a prerequisite (again, NO racial linkage).
Tech A provides Tech B, AND has a racial ability requirement.

Then, if you have the right racial ability, you can research (or start with, depending on setup) Tech A, which grants Tech B (and possibly other things, but those are irrelevant to the discussion at hand). Tech B can then be researched to find Tech C (and, again, possibly other things that are not relevant to this discussion). Finally, Tech C can be researched to generate the appropriate components.

However, if you do NOT have the right racial ability, you can't research Tech A, and therefore cannot get Tech B or Tech C (normally). But you CAN analyze a ship with Tech C components and gain tech levels in Tech C. But I don't think you can research Tech C on your own.

It's possible that I've missed something in the explanation; perhaps if Tech B provides both the components and Tech C, then you can get Tech C as a researchable area by analyzing captured components; and, of course, Tech C would still have to include copies (maybe inferior copies) of the desired components.

How's THAT for confusing?