TECHSHARE, 1 not working

[ete]

I'm testing out the factions planned for my AAR, one of which is Roze modded to automatically get any tech another faction has. I made an alternate Roze with TECHSHARE, 1 but this does not work as would make sense (you get a tech if 1 other faction has it), and apparently does nothing. I even went for the Empath Guild to test if it required infiltration despite me having removed, that also did not work.

First save is with empath guild and a custom Roze, zip with all the custom factions used in that game. I also reproduced using an angels.txt roze with just that text change, in the 2127 save you can see I've infiltrated Lal and he has Biogenetics, but I've not got it off him despite having techshare 1.

Any help would be appreciated, it'd be nice to either figure out how to do this, have it fixed if it is a bug, or know it's not going to be fixed for a while and that I should figure out a new power for Roze for the AAR.

Edit: Also tested with SHARETECH, 1 in case that worked and they'd been mixed in the editor, same result even with infiltration.

[Petek]

As I understand it, there are two conditions for TECHSHARE to grant you new techs:

1. You must have infiltrated a faction who has a tech that you don't, and
2. The qualifying tech must be discovered by the faction after you infiltrate them.

So, if TECHSHARE, 3 is in effect, you don't receive the tech until after an infiltrated faction is the third (or greater) to discover the tech. If all other factions have discovered a tech before you infiltrate them, you will never receive the tech. For TECHSHARE, 1, I think that you will receive a tech after an infiltrated faction discovers it, even if several other factions had the tech when you infiltrated them. Hope this explanation is clear.

(The Planetary Datalinks SP works the same way.)

[ete]

Yes, that seems to be the issue I'm running into, thanks

[Yitzi]

As I understand it, there are two conditions for TECHSHARE to grant you new techs:

1. You must have infiltrated a faction who has a tech that you don't, and
2. The qualifying tech must be discovered by the faction after you infiltrate them.

So, if TECHSHARE, 3 is in effect, you don't receive the tech until after an infiltrated faction is the third (or greater) to discover the tech. If all other factions have discovered a tech before you infiltrate them, you will never receive the tech. For TECHSHARE, 1, I think that you will receive a tech after an infiltrated faction discovers it, even if several other factions had the tech when you infiltrated them. Hope this explanation is clear.

(The Planetary Datalinks SP works the same way.)

I thought you didn't need infiltration unless it's set that you do in the faction editor.

However, it does still require that they discover it; Lal starts with biogenetics, so you don't get it when he does.  The same principle is why the normal Roze won't start with Centauri Ecology even if the game includes three factions that start with it (e.g. both aliens and the Gaians.)

[Petek]

You're correct that the Planetary Datalinks doesn't require infiltration to grant techs. I forgot about that when I made my previous post. However, I'm pretty sure that Roze gets techs only from infiltrated factions. From the SMAX manual:

Gains any technology known to three other infiltrated factions (constant spying).

The documentation of TECHSHARE and SHARETECH in Alphax.txt confuses me:

TECHSHARE   = When used with SHARETECH, requires one to be spying on the other
;                 factions (by probe, Empath Guild, Governor, or Pact). Parameter is ignored.

SHARETECH   = Gain any technology known to # other players

The Angels.txt file contains only the TECHSHARE, 3 parameter, not SHARETECH. The Alphax.txt documentation indicates to me that the parameter of 3 in TECHSHARE should be ignored and Angels.txt should include a SHARETECH, 3 entry.