FreeOrion

I recall that in MoO2, you would sometimes get an enemy tech when you captured a planet. How about when capturing a planet like that, you get their biotech along with it?

_________________
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Perhaps. I think that should be considered with the larger question of tech-plundering.

Are you proposing that techs would be automatically plundered to avoid population loss, or only the minimum techs to prevent total colony destruction?

_________________
—• Read this First before posting Game Design Ideas!
—• Design Philosophy
—•— My Ideas, Organized —•— Get an Avatar —•— Acronyms —•—

I think it probably makes the transition less bumpy if all applicable techs were captured, but in the more general case, it's probably too generous to give the invading player all the techs that are in use on the planet... But the same basic idea sort of applies to everything. There were autolabs on this planet increasing research. Why don't I get that research bonus? There were orbital farms contributing to farming. Why don't I get the farming bonus? In those cases though, it doesn't really break anything if you don't get the bonus, but it would nonetheless be nice to somehow deal with all instances of tech plundering in the same way...

_________________
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I like plundering techs from my defeated foes, but if getting techs thus is very powerful, especially with a widely-forking tech tree. If you were guaranteed multiple techs from one conquest, that would really strengthen the "forget research-- steal it!" strategy.

_________________
—• Read this First before posting Game Design Ideas!
—• Design Philosophy
—•— My Ideas, Organized —•— Get an Avatar —•— Acronyms —•—

It's possible to tweak the power of tech copying when invading planets by not giving the whole tech instantly, but instead giving progress towards developing that tech. Much like espionage, techs probably shouldn't be completely stolen or not on a random chance... Instead, capturing a planet with some buildings you don't have the tech to use or produce might give +X or +Y% to your empire's progress in researching that tech. Or, just owning a planet that has a building on it that you can't produce would give +X or +Y% per turn to that tech, possibly increased if you set research focus or have archaeology techs or a reverse-engineering species pick or tech, or similar.

Ignoring the issue of suddenly dying "cyborgs", i'd lean toward something like that.

Something like this: (numbers are FPO)
If you capture a planet with a building you can't build, you get +50% research toward that tech. If there's no such building, you get +25% toward the tech that you don't have that they do that is of the lowest RP value. That would boost the strategic value of capturing/defending buildings.

Reverse-engineering tech/picks could apply-- though i think it would make more sense as a tech. It would be kind of annoying to need to settle a particular planet with an otherwise unfit species just to get the retro-engineer bonus for a while.

RPs per turn of captured buildings might be more realistic, but continually require attention via SitReps, or some probably fiddly addition to the research screen. I think it's better to provide whatever bonus all at once.

EDIT: should prerequisites be considered in calculating what you can steal?

_________________
—• Read this First before posting Game Design Ideas!
—• Design Philosophy
—•— My Ideas, Organized —•— Get an Avatar —•— Acronyms —•—

I say yes. For example, if empire A captures a planet belonging to empire B that has a cloning center, but empire A hasn't learned the prereqs, it'd be ridiculous to have the cloning center working for empire A instantly. Also, how do you use something when you don't know anything about it? In this case (or similar), I would probably side with the building providing a certain amount of extra RPs towards the prereqs until the tech that unlocks the building has been researched.

Generally, if there is someone left to show you which buttons to press, theoretically you can use alien facilities. Cloning center is probably an exception, as I expect it would need to be calibrated to a new species (probably a sophisticated process).
I do believe, that the RP towards the prerequisites is a good solution.

_________________
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - xkcd

Friendly reminder:
We're more concerned with the mechanics being easy to understand and fun and ballanced than how it would "really" or "theoretically" work.

_________________
—• Read this First before posting Game Design Ideas!
—• Design Philosophy
—•— My Ideas, Organized —•— Get an Avatar —•— Acronyms —•—