hidden and or racial tech areas

[jars_u]

Once you destory/capture another empire that has a special tech area - say the "Crystal Empire" which has the crystal armor that channels damange into shields, why is (at least in my exp) that tech area not transferred with the rest of the technology. Also tried to capture and Analyze ships with said tech area but did not net any new tech areas with which to design my own ships. What am I overlooking?

[Jubala]

The only way to get racial tech areas like crystalline or organic is if your race has it. There is no way to get it once the game starts and rightly so imo.

[Taqwus]

It'd be bad for game balance if you could get their tech, as there are many routes to give and get technology. So the 1500 or so race points required to get the special area would pay only for the head start you'd get. The others would simply spend their points on Cunning, Research and so forth, and you'd be hosed.

FWIW, you have to be careful about this when looking at the Analyze screen. It'll count the racial techs when assessing research potential, even though you can't get them -- so that Moderate, say, could easily be None in reality. Perhaps this should be changed...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[jars_u]

Thanks, fair enough. Was just not certain if something was going wrong or if I was doing something wrong but I can see why gaining the racial tech areas might make the game unbalanced but on the other hand I think once you destroy an empire you should have access to ALL their tech areas. Crstal Armor with Phased shields would have made a good combo and cut out the need for shield regenerators.