The easiest way to do it is to give research points to that technology. 15cm lasers in 4000 RP so the program could set up that tech with 2000 existing RP as if you have already researched half of it. In that way, you wouldn't have to try and remember what technical detail was gained as your sensors would do it automatically.
That's along the lines of what I was thinking, although I was thinking in terms of a multiplier (e.g. % bonus). I think I like your way (absolute points) better. Wasn't there also a discussion about dissecting captured/bought equipment to get tech out of them? I don't remember where it ended, but I would think sensor readings would be a less effective version of the same mechanism.
At the moment there are two ways to get tech data. Firstly, if you salvage a wreck there is a chance you will learn how to build one of the components from the alien ship, such as an engine or a weapon. Here is the relevant section from my original post on the subject a few months ago.
When salvage is complete, you will get the minerals in your cargo hold and a 25% chance of new technology. That isn't as high as it seems because there are a few steps involved. It obviously has to be an alien wreck. Salvaging your own wrecks doesn't give you anything except minerals. If recoverable tech is found, it is selected from any one of the tech systems found on the alien vessel. This might be tech you already possess, such as engineering or fuel storage, in which case no tech will be found. Once you recover tech, for example a 15cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser, then the program keeps a record of that find and you won't be able to get the same tech from the same race twice. If a later salvage check turns up the same tech, then no tech will be found.
When you find technology, you will receive an event message and the tech will appear as available for research on the Ship Components view on the Research tab. If you dont want the tech because it is worse than your own, just select it and delete it. The tech will always be a ship system and never a background tech. Thus you might find a Fusion Torpedo Launcher with a range of 200,000 km, research the tech system and start adding that system to your ships. However, you will not be able to design your own fusion torpedo launchers if you don't have the background technology. You will only be able to copy the specific alien system.
This should give technologically outclassed races a chance to gain some of their opponents tech if they manage to recover some alien wreckage. Its also possible a third party might sneak in and salvage wrecks after a battle if neither of the combatants has salvaging units available. This might also open up the possibility of ambushing and destroying ostensibly neutral ships to try and learn something from their wreckage, if this can be done without alerting the owner of the ambushed ship. The second method is to scrap an intact alien ship (perhaps one that you bought), there is a much better chance to learn the same thing. In this case it works as above but instead of a 25% chance you get three 33% chances. It would be relatively simple to add a third variant of the above method, using active sensor data, but with a much lower chance, perhaps 5%, and you could only scan a particular alien ship once.
However, none of those give background data, mainly because Aurora doesn't keep track of which background techs are used for each ship component (or missiles/fighters). To add the chance to learn background tech I would have to start tracking all the background techs that go into a component, which involves a lot of work but would probably be worthwhile for the potential gameplay benefits. If I set this up, then you could have a chance to learn a background tech based on component data you get from wrecks, scrapping or scans. It would certainly make active scans at the very least extremely unpolite and potentially a hostile act. I could also extend the chance of gaining data to active scans of missiles and fighters. I think this would have to be something for v2.5 though
Steve
