Keeping tech access to conquered race tech after migration should not be possible

[Jolly Joker]

When you conquer a colony of another race you get access to that race's military tech. You keep that access, when you migrate the colony (so that you don't have a colony of that race anymore). In that case you should lose access to that race's tech again, imo.

 

[Garresh]

You can reverse engineer tech by capturing units, or buy a schematic for mods from npc factions. Losing tech would actually be inconsistent with everything else about mods. It's not their facilities you're taking, its their knowledge. Once you reverse engineer, steal, or trade for it, you can produce it in your capital.

 

[Jolly Joker]

No, you can't, and you don't. You can build units of a different race only in colonies of that race, and the only thing you gain via conquest is access to the racial part of the military tech tree, you will not gain access to any other "alien" tech in the game, except via trade with dwellings, rewards and so on, so when you migrate a conquered colony, so that you don't have a colony of that race anymore, you cannot build the units of that race (which makes THAT tech worthless). Whether the racial mods should be usable by units of other races is a different question for another thread.

I mean, you don't gain tech access to other channels either.

 

[Ethorin]

nah, apparently Subjugator's can get you permanent access to the mods on units they collar, even mods for different weapon groups or secret tech.

 

[Jolly Joker]

This is a different case. Keep the following in mind: If you conquer a colony of a different race than those you already have, you MUST decide whether to absorb or migrate it. Migration works a lot faster - you basically purge everything in that town and don't get access to any tech in the first place. I'd understand it with a "plunder and destroy" option (you'd get a few random techs). But in this case "migration" means, you get the tech and with that the ability to research all mods, without actually bothering.
Which seems somewhat "wrong": you play Kirko, conquer a syndicate town and migrate it - wou wouldn't want to use the oppressive Syndicate tech in that case, otherwise you could absorb the town.

 

[Badok]

Honestly, I think that even if you conquer a city of another race and raze it immediately, you should still get their tech. While plundering, you take every valuable you can - and in the setting, nothing is more valuable than knowledge (Well, maybe except for guns. More dakka is always good). Once you have enemy plans, schematics and research you should be able to reproduce most of their stuff at home and even further their work. Obviously, you can't recruit racial units as that requires population of that race... And here things get a bit muddy.

Following that logic, if you can use other race's mods and weapons, why couldn't you field their mechanical units? Unfortunately, I can't find an answer in-world, but meta-wise it's obviously gameplay and story segregation at work. It'd be unfair if conquering Dvar gave access to all their vehicles while Amazons don't have any purely mechanical units to steal. Still, all the modifications and non-unit equipment are fair game.

Regarding the Kir'ko - Syndicate argument... Yeah, sorry, you could just as easily make an argument that some bugs want the opressors to become opressed and would be more than happy to collar all the evil humanitos. Morals aside, all portrayed races are intelligent and they wouldn't waste valuable resources.

 

[Jolly Joker]

But that's not how it is. You get access to their units, but cannot build them; you get access to their racial empire upgrades, mods and weapins and can build and use them - but you don't get access to their secret tech or their weapons technologies; strangely enough, when the Dvar conquer a syndicate town, they have access to their syndicate tech - but neither to their psionics research nor their arc research, which is at best inconsistent.
But that is for the other thread.
Here in this thread, the question is whether the option "migrate" should give you the same tech access than the option "absorb" (or even "raze"), and I don't think so. "Absorb" is lasting a lot longer and should get tech access, while the faster option "migrate" should not. There might be the option "migrate and plunder", lasting longer than migrate, giving you access to SOME (random) tech, but never to a complete part of the tech tree.

You can be of course of different opinion, but I don't really see any good point for that.

 

[Draxynnic]

As has been stated already, claiming the technology of a defeated foe is something that certainly happens.

The end of World War 2 is a good example. There aren't many examples of German designs being taken wholemeal (although there are a couple), but the component technologies were certainly grabbed by both sides of the brewing Cold War. To an extent, the very last stages of the war in Europe was more about how much of that pie would go to Russia or to the Western Allies (with the post-Hitler German strategy being to try to favour the West and, ideally, to try to provoke the West and Russia to start fighting each other so that what was left of Germany could offer to side with the former).

In this case - accessing the research of a conquered and migrated race would be analagous to this. You go through their schematics and pick up enough that you can start building them yourself if you're so inclined. When it comes to units, the specific units used don't just represent technology, but cultural aspects, strategic and tactical doctrine, tooling of factories, and other factors that mean that one race won't just start producing the units of another even if they have the technical knowledge to do so.

However, smaller technologies that could be used to upgrade their own units and designs would be fair game.

All that said, I wouldn't be opposed to blocking out the racial tech tree until you've actually absorbed at least one city, and removing access to further research along that tree if at any point you don't have any fully integrated settlements of that race. You shouldn't lose access to research you've already performed, but I could see an argument for not being able to do the research if you don't have any integrated cities of that race.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Err, no, sorry. End of WW 2 has nothing to do with this, simply because there has been no such thing as "migration". It's been absorbtion in the Sowjet part and releaseing in the others. Or were the Germans migrated into some abyss, and the Sowjet zone newly colonized by Russians? Nope. They dismantled a lot of stuff to help building up their destroyed country, but that's it.

The Sowjets were pretty far in rocket technology themselves - the Katyushas are from 1938. Still, they git a V2 and a couple of engineers as loot (the latter were sent home in the 1950s), while the Americans got von Braun.

As I said, the point of THIS thread is to stress a difference between ABSORBING and MIGRATING. Absorbing takes longer than migrating and it doesn't give you anything, because if you want to profit from absorbtion, you have to research at least the better regular units. So Migrating is good enough without any added bonusses. You may discuss the merits of plundering a a mod tech or two, but that should be it. And as I see, you actually agree with that.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

A fair way to do this might be you can research a racial tree only while you own a city of that race. If you lose all your cities of that race, you lose the ability to research more technologies in that race's tree. You still keep anything you've already researched, but can't research any more.

 

[The Founder]

You can reverse engineer tech by capturing units, or buy a schematic for mods from npc factions. Losing tech would actually be inconsistent with everything else about mods. It's not their facilities you're taking, its their knowledge. Once you reverse engineer, steal, or trade for it, you can produce it in your capital.

nah, apparently Subjugator's can get you permanent access to the mods on units they collar, even mods for different weapon groups or secret tech.

Those mods are not useable. You can not create a new Tempalte off those tempaltes, only the base unit.
If the unit was not a hero, de-equipping the mod does not move it to the Arsenal.

So it only works "kinda".

When you conquer a colony of another race you get access to that race's military tech. You keep that access, when you migrate the colony (so that you don't have a colony of that race anymore). In that case you should lose access to that race's tech again, imo.

That would be a good argument for every other setting.
But the game is very specific that you are just rediscovering Star Union era tech, not developing something new. You know, redeveloping the infrastructure and know how to do stuff mostly.

Under that point of view, it is wierd that you do not get access to all trees from the get go. But I can live with that limitation.

 

[Garresh]

They are usable actually. I kitted out a whole stack of indentured with stolen tech. You definitely can template them.

 

[Draxynnic]

Err, no, sorry. End of WW 2 has nothing to do with this, simply because there has been no such thing as "migration". It's been absorbtion in the Sowjet part and releaseing in the others. Or were the Germans migrated into some abyss, and the Sowjet zone newly colonized by Russians? Nope. They dismantled a lot of stuff to help building up their destroyed country, but that's it.

The Sowjets were pretty far in rocket technology themselves - the Katyushas are from 1938. Still, they git a V2 and a couple of engineers as loot (the latter were sent home in the 1950s), while the Americans got von Braun.

As I said, the point of THIS thread is to stress a difference between ABSORBING and MIGRATING. Absorbing takes longer than migrating and it doesn't give you anything, because if you want to profit from absorbtion, you have to research at least the better regular units. So Migrating is good enough without any added bonusses. You may discuss the merits of plundering a a mod tech or two, but that should be it. And as I see, you actually agree with that.

Technically, there was. Compare a map of Germany pre-World War 2 to a map of modern Germany. The eastern parts of Germany pre-WW2 were majority German (which was why they kept those territories after Versailles) - the Soviets migrated the Germans out to give themselves a Baltic port (Kaleningrad, formally known as Konigsberg) and to make room for the Polish that the Russians migrated out of what was eastern Poland pre-WW2.

There's also a degree to which, in Planetfall, some forms of "migration" are actually more a form of total assimilation - Syndicate enslaving a population of another race (we see this in Vanguard campaign mission 1), the Assembly Re-assembling a population, and so on - where the people are technically the same, but their culture, government, and so on has been forcefully switched over to that of the conqueror. In game terms, the puppet state of East Germany could be said to have been migrated instead of absorbed: they were made to be completely Communist, their military was rearranged along Communist lines, they stopped using equipment of their own design and started using Soviet equipment instead, and so on. If there was an Age of Wonders set in the 20th Century, East Germany would have been "migrated" from German to Communist in game terms.

But even that's quibbling over details. The point is that the Russians could have committed total genocide of the German population east of the inner-German border, and they would still have been able to loot a lot of technology. Maybe they'd have gotten less cooperation from engineers, but "cooperate and you and your family get to live" is a strong motivator.

Speaking of... there's a big gap between the Katyusha and the A-4, and that's not the only technology that was taken. Both the F-86 and the MiG-15, for instance, were inspired from the Ta-183 blueprints.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I disagree completely, because what you describe now isn't migration, but the social part of the tech tree, the doctrin, the economy and the operations, and in the game, whether a town joins or is conquered and absorbed or migrated, it loses its social identity and functions now under the doctrins and economy of the overlord. If you want to get something from that, you could make a case for getting a few techs when an independent town of your own race JOINS.

Nothing in any reality allows the conclusion that you should get a complete and specific part of the tech tree, whether in case of a "migration" or an absorbtion, whatever that would be in reality. Certainly not what you make it - the population in the ex GDR are part of Germany again, but once migrated, that colony can't simply swing back.

I also don't like that you pick from your example what you like, but ignore what you don't. Because whatever "tech" was obtained by the winning powers, it wasn't a "complete tech tree". There is nothing wrong with looting a tech or two - but there is something decidedly wrong with acquiring a complete specific part of it in both , decidedly different game options, and trhe 2nd WW has nothing to do with that.

 

[Draxynnic]

Except that you don't GET the complete tech tree in the situation you describe.

There are some racial researches that you don't get ever unless you start with that race. Unit unlocks you can technically research, but there's little point unlocking a unit if you don't have any cities of that race to build the unit (technically I guess you can equip heroes with the vehicles in question, but that's more the equivalent of having a few captured examples that can be supplied to worthy individuals than mass production, something that certainly happened historically), which mostly just leaves mods and operations.

Which is in line with the historical example. The British, Americans, Russians, and other victors of WW2 took very few completed designs wholemeal, but they did take individual technologies and incorporated the resulting capabilities into the next generation of their own designs. I think that's analagous to the benefit you can get from researching the tech tree of another race without actually having any of their cities - you're still using the units of the races you have integrated into your empire, but some of them are enhanced with the technology of the defeated enemy.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Again, I disagree completely. When you conquer a colony of a race you don't own a colony of and you decide to migrate the colony, you also decided that you do not want to build any of their units, at least not before you conquer another town of that race. Still, you get the whole racial military tree - the only racial researches you don't get are the doctrines, which are part of the social tech tree. And the whole web of strategic and tactical operations plus mods not only is too much, it also doesn't make a lot of sense, considering a) the damage channel techs would be "there for the taking" just as well and b) why do you get access to the whole tech tree, just because you conquer some colony (keep in mind, it might be an independent one)?

And you should stop trying to conjure historical parallels that are not existing. We are talking about a game here and what should happen in the cases of different forms of conquest with tech. You do not get any technology of the defeated enemy, because the enemy might not have any, except a few unmodded units, but the game makes no difference and doesn't care for the state the colony is in, the units you defeated, or what you do with the colony, and that's unsatisfactory.

 

[The Founder]

Again, I disagree completely. When you conquer a colony of a race you don't own a colony of and you decide to migrate the colony, you also decided that you do not want to build any of their units, at least not before you conquer another town of that race. Still, you get the whole racial military tree - the only racial researches you don't get are the doctrines, which are part of the social tech tree. And the whole web of strategic and tactical operations plus mods not only is too much, it also doesn't make a lot of sense, considering a) the damage channel techs would be "there for the taking" just as well and b) why do you get access to the whole tech tree, just because you conquer some colony (keep in mind, it might be an independent one)?

Why not?

Again: We are rediscovering Star Union Era technology. Very few things in the game are original research in any way, shape or form. Only the quest researches have any shoot at being called original research.

Most of the Mods do not mater. Because they are specific to teh damage channels the species has. And thus the units it has.
The unit unlocks do not mater, as again: You do not have the colonies to actually build them.
Wich leaves the Operations. Wich are also often designed to work with the Damage Channels of the species.


Let us take the Amazon Tree for eample:
The Topline is 90% Units and Hero Vehicles. The hero vehicles do get Laser damage channel (for wich you propably lack mods), but beyond that the line is utterly worthless.
Aquatic Subtechs? Again worthless, as you lack the Cities to use it.

Protective Grounding:
A Stagger Resistance Mod and a Heal/Regeneration/immobilize combination. Wich are situational at best. Anyone that needs Stagger resistance as a gameplay strategy already got it. And the rest do not really need it.

Primal Control:
The PAA is potentially usefull, due to the "can not be flanked" rule. Certainly one of the stronger Detection mods.
AIC does not mater if you do not got any mounted, Animal or Kir'Ko units.
Primal Override looses a lot of the powers if you lack sleep/entangle. Wich again, are abilities on the Amazon units. And it is mostly about getting Animals for the AIC anyway.

Forest Geensis:
Rapid Reforestation gives you nearly nothing. All the racial abilities for forrests are on the Amazon Units or Social Tree.
Entangling Overgrowth: Usefull

Regenerative Bio Resonsance:
Regenerative Bio Regulator: Regeneration is usefull, but the cost is propably a bit to high to spam on T1 units. It also does not work on any Mechanical Unit - wich are common on the high tiers. The only ones with use are Kirko (wich have their own variant of Regen) and Assembly.
Nourishing Field Pylon: Okay, usefull

Amplified Bio Resonance:
Crushing Roots: Typecast mod for the Arborean, but it can be used on growth units too I guess
AF Pylon: Potentially usefull

You are now 21.7k Reserach into the Amazon Tree. Most of the stuff is useless without the units they are designed to support.
You could have invested those same resoruces into your own Racial or Secret Tech tree and propably gotten way more pwoerfull stuff out of it.

 

[Jolly Joker]

You fail to explain why t would be a good thing to keep an option that makes no sense to have when it makes no sense to use it - why would you defend it?

However, your analysis of the amazon options is rash and your conclusions are flawed.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Hey guys, I brought this up with the design lead and he confirmed that this is unintended behavior. On the current Open Beta we fixed an issue where conquering but not absorbing/migrating would provide the tech, but it should only occur upon absorbing. We'll probably still fix this for the next Patch.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Thank you very much.