Ships Change AT and DEF values when traded?

Good point..

Reverse engineering of the ships could be possible. If the race doesn't have some of the techs found on the ship, and if they choose to sacrifice the ship to research, they could get some bonuses later when they do research those techs?

thoughts?

Brad

This has also been brought up in other threads, but I've been waiting until I had a chance to consult with Brad Wardell about our official position on this.

Bonuses do not transfer over with the ship, whether it's you trading the ship or the AI. This is because you don't want to trade the best technology to someone who might become your enemy in the future. So you trade the base model, leaving out all the special stuff that you've added. Now, once you have a ship that the AI have traded to you, you apply your own bonuses to it, so it's the same as your other models of that class.

Cari,
while this makes sense it would add a lot of cost to ship trading. Lets be honest, if someone buys F16 jets off America they do so because they are the best. They then expect to get all the bonuses of that jet. You can't sell them you F16 jat (standard fighter) and then replace it with an F4 phantom as they as much lower technologically. It would cost you a fortune to build the F4.
I agree that you do not want technology transfer to occur but it would be as believeable to say that they were booby trapped to self destruct if anyone disected the ship, or that the ships were traded with a crew on board.

Paul.

It's not even reverse engineering that's the problem. It's the problem of not wanting that technology to be used against you.

The attack/defense values don't get calculated into the formula of the trade value of the ship, so you aren't losing anything by having the ship stripped down.

I know you're not losing anything by giving an inferior ship. That's not the point, it's that the ship you wanted to give ends up being something else when it gets given.
As for using the ship against you, that's part of the risk in trading in weapons. The allies knew exactly what military weapons Iraq had because they sold them to it!!

paul.

Paul,

I think your point about the weapons sold to Iraq makes other's point, not yours. We should NOT have sold those weapons to Iraq. We GAVE all that technology for them to copy. Now it could be used against us. That is the point in selling a base level ship to the aliens without the upgrades. Maintaining terran superiority in technology is one of the keys to winning the game, whether it is via conquest or in being able to repulse or deter other races attacks while winning the game via another method (techology, economy, influence, etc.)

Jack,
that example shows the dangers. And they are dangers! But the US sells modern military items to many Nato countries. Would you want these to be lower spec? No. The US sells the fighters it wants and doesn't expect to remove technology which it's allies cannot reproduce. It may not sell its avatar (F117) but it certainly sells its cruiser (F16).

Paul.

Brad said when I asked him about it that we don't give out the same F16s that we use.

Cari and Brad are backed up by the articles I have read. And the NATO example falls quite short as an analogy. As far as technology is conserned, the members of NATO are pretty close to being on a par with each other to begin with.

Fair enough.

In that case would it be possible to somehow let you know what the ATT and DEF values of a ship would be when traded to another nation. It will at least let you trade the power you want to trade and not the ship. If I want to give someone a cship capable of defeating their enemy I need to know what the ship I give them will be capable of.

Paul.

Paul has the point here - its totally stupid that when you try to help a small nation in its fight with your superior ships, they become low end crap during the hand over.

Eg. In one resent game I was trying to help Drengins to beat some other race, and I was giving them BattleShips that were around 50% better than the ships of their enemies, but when they received them, they were actually 25% below them. I definitely didn't want that .

Could the answer here be to also trade them the techs they need to get the ships you want them to have? And you can benefit from their getting the techs directly as well instead of loosing the tech by them reverse engineering to get it.

I can think of plenty of conflicts where I don't want to give the techs away, just 'assist' one side in a war not to be defeated.

What I would ultimately like would be to 'lease' a high tech ship to race one for X amount of turns. I could then set the cost a 0 per turn if I wanted. Maybe this could be an option. The ship remains yours, the crew remains yours. The use and maintenance costs below to the other empire.

Obviously war between you and the other empire would instantly revert the ship to your control.

Paul.