Super Beam Weapons

[Astorax]

Hey guys, I'm still playing 1.03 atm but I had a question. I recently absorbed a pirate faction and retired their ships for the tech boost. I got the message that disassembling X pirate ship resulted in a boost to "Super Beam Weapon". I can't find that tech category and it didn't seem to affect regular Beam Weapon tech field (it hadn't moved at all).

Is this some tech area you have to find via ruins? Was that tech boost wasted?

[taltamir]

it is a tech area you find in ruins... I have no idea if it is wasted or not... maybe you can get the tech this way.

[Astorax]

It didn't give me the tech field, just said it boosted the research in it. I wonder if it keeps that info in somewhere and, if I do find the tech, it adds it?

Probably not.

[taltamir]

the tech in question would be "death ray".

[lostsm]

i noticed after teching up from free ships, i dont get any notification of what new tech only a notification that the tech went up. for example once i found and retired a ship very early in the game, i get a message about manufacturing tech going up. i look and my manuf tech was maxed. was at most 2 months in-game time

now i always retire those ships, nothing beats those tech boosts

[taltamir]

it seems to give a random "tech" bonus that is not related to what it is that is being reverse engineered.
I scrap MOST ships... but i will keep an occasional capital ships for a while using it to single handedly win wars... until I get the ability to build my own capital ships which are close to it in power... then I retire it for the research boost.

[Astorax]

Yeah, I had heard before from some other players that the tech boost was negligible but they are really quite substantial, especially if you are just starting. It might need tweaking to where it will only boost something if it has a component(s) that are superior to your existing ones. Also, if it can give a boost to a tech you don't have, it seems a wasted effort as well.

[Fishman]

The tech-boost-to-nonexistent-or-maxed-out-field thing is rather annoying, really. In THEORY, it's possible to develop the Super Weapons purely through random tech boosts, but racking up several million ponts in that field purely by random chance is astronomically unlikely. And really, disassembling a ship should only give you a tech boost in the fields that the ship uses that is more advanced than what you have. Why would you learn anything about Hyperdrive disassembling a ship with a primitive Gerax drive?

[Astorax]

Exactly so. I would like it if it would only boost a tech field from a component that is superior to yours and, conversely, you would get no tech boost at all if all your tech was superior to its components or, if the tech field it would normally boost is maxxed, nothing again. If it does save the boosted tech from a tech field you don't have yet (Super Beam Weapons for example) and its not wasted then this is ok. So long as, when and if I DO get that tech from ruins, that boost is still there.

[taltamir]

it is said to be negligible because you can disassemble 10 ships with level 10 shields, level 7 hyperdrive, level 7 reactor, level 5 lasers, level 6 torpedoes, etc.... when you are level 1 in all tech areas... and all you get is a few random boosts which result in... nothing. maybe gaining 1 or two tech levels in a random area (not all areas btw).

This is because the current model is "additive"... that is, you acquire level 6? that includes level 1-5. You can't, say, get 50% research (and no more than 50%) to level 5 shields by disassembling one while you are on shields 2... it will add to shields 2 research (maybe make you get shields 3)...

what I think it should do...

lets say you are:
S1: 100%
S2: 70%
S3: 0%
S4: 0%
S5: 0%

Disassembling a ship with shields 5 should make you:
S1: 100%
S2: 70%
S3: 0%
S4: 0%
S5: 50%

Actually wait, scrap that idea... what you should get is per component boost to total research that lasts until you reach the appropriate level.
That is... in the above example. If the ship had 7 units of shields 5. Then you should get a 7% boost to shield research until you reach shield 5. at which point THAT bonus expires. (but not bonuses you get from other components disassembled)... And if you disassemble a second ship with 13 shields 5, then it should raise the bonus to 20%. And then disassemble a ship with 10 shields 7? well, your total bonus is now 30% until shields 5 are done (7+13+10) and 10% for shields 6 and 7.

This applies per component... so that means a ship with more advanced drive, shields, thrusters, etc... will give a research boost in all areas that lasts until you catch up. Basically, each single component goes to a LAB somewhere where people can study it and learn from it over however long it takes to completely reverse engineer it.
Altering the exact percent bonus to research can be done later as a balancing act via a multiplier.

[Krelos]

The normal tech tree takes about 1500k to max out a field, but the super-weapons need 9999k to get. So, getting them from research bonuses would take a very long time and a ton of advanced ships to take apart.

Your best bet would probably be to give yourself 100 world-destroyers and retire them all.