Ally ship designs

[ckotchey]

Again, new to the game here.... but...
In my first game vs. the CPU, I was allied with one CPU player for most of the game, and he's now an enemy. I noticed a few things:

- I know almost none of his ship designs. Shouldn't there be some facility whereby I should know his ship designs as a result of our previous partnership? (i.e. is there a treaty level at which ship designs are traded? If not, I think they should be exchanged between allies at some treaty level. say, at "Military Alliance".)

- Also, if I *do* know the design of an ally ship - how might I view them in the ship designer windows? I can view my own ships, or my enemies' ships, but I can't view my allies' ship? This is something else that I think is missing (if it is indeed missing).

ps. Are developers from Malfador known to visit these forums? (i.e. do any of my suggestions, etc., here have any chance of being heard and acted upon?)

[Suicide Junkie]

"Enemy ship designs" can be more accurately described as "Foreign Ship Designs".

Anything not desgined by you gets placed there.

* staggers in wearing ye royal jammies and bunny slippers

Yawn...let me answer in reverse order my boy.

*Rubs eyes

2. If you have their ship designs they should be listed under "enemy ship designs" as the good fellow says

1. You are right - there should be some way to recieve friendly ship designs...in a sensible world. But, I don't think there is. As far as I can tell, ship designs are revealed on combat...if you battle with a hostile empire, for example. I don't believe that you recieve ship designs from your allies unless those ship designs have seen combat. I could be wrong...my theories could be based entirely on happenstance...but that is what i have observed. I certainly understand the dilemna...it seems very unnatural to be closely allied with a race and yet know very little about it's ship designs.

[Krsqk]

You could always run intel operations against them to steal their ship designs...but of course, they would get angry about it.

[Ed Kolis]

That's why I like to research Scanners and put a few listening post satellites around my territory... any ally ship that passes through will get scanned unless he has a Scanner Jammer! (Hmm, maybe there should be levels of Scanner Jammers that block different levels of scanners, just like with cloaks and sensors...)

[Suicide Junkie]

Maybe you should mod in a Range-1 long range scanner for your resupply depots. When the allies come to get supplies, you get a close-up look at 'em.

[DirectorTsaarx]

I thought a Partnership treaty was supposed to allow access to allies' ship designs...

[PvK]

It does, if and when they enter combat with anyone.

It would be pretty weird if Military Alliance gave all designs, because it's really a "resupply treaty" - there would be no way to allow foreign ships to supply at your depots without revealing ALL ship designs, which would be a huge concession and wouldn't make much sense.

Personally, for SE5, I'd like to see treaties consist of mix-and-match conditions rather than hierarchical levels.

PvK

[Baron Munchausen]

I wish that Military Alliance was also a 'repair' treaty... wouldn't it be great to be able to repair at an ally's shipyard as well as restock supplies? Sure, you couldn't get 'racial' technologies repaired, but the game is smart enough to not let you repair those on captured ships either. So this can be accounted for.

[ August 06, 2002, 20:14: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Suicide Junkie]

I imagine that in that case it would be best if repairs were done on your ally's turn, and that the foreign ships would default to lowest priority (fix your own ships first)