Is there any way to upgrade NPR tech?

[gpt3 (OP)]

My "friendly" local NPR and also the Aether Raiders seem to be falling behind on our arms race. While I could slow down my own research by conducting mass layoffs of scientists, I really want to finally start playing with antimatter power and I'm reluctant to totally wipe out a rival that has provided decades of fun.

Is there any way to boost the tech of existing NPRs? Some ideas that come to mind:

• Increasing the difficulty modifier: 150%? 200%? 500%?
• Editing the DB and adding research labs to the NPRs' colonies
• Using SM mode to spawn a bunch of "gift ships" and then transferring them to the NPRs

[Nori]

That has to be the most frustrating part of the game for me. Once you "figure" out how to play the game, it can be tough to find NPRs or other spoilers that actually give you a challenge. I had a game in the VB version that was super crazy fun because Sol got invaded and I was fighting tooth and nail. Ended up losing, but to this day, it was one of the funnest games I ever played. I think if I had done better and "won" that fight, I doubt I would have had any challenges past that one NPR based on my experience in other plays.

In anycase, if I remember correctly, the difficulty modifier will increase NPRs research speeds. They aren't very good at optimizing research labs and that's why they fall behind. Another thing some people do is limit the number of labs they employ.

[Garfunkel]

Gifting ships or ground units to the NPR will not help it as it does not know how to use them. The AI only knows how to use their special AI-only template ships/units.

They do not research individual techs either, like we do, but rather "packages" of tech once they've accrued sufficient amount of research points. So, giving them more research labs via DB editing would help on the long run.

The real problem why they are starting to lag behind, I suspect, is that they are probably suffering from a mineral crunch, which is something that almost always happens to NPRs. You can alleviate this by DB editing them huge stockpiles of all minerals at least on their home world or all manufacturing colonies.

[JacenHan]

Gifting ships or ground units to the NPR will not help it as it does not know how to use them. The AI only knows how to use their special AI-only template ships/units.

There was a v2.0 change that should improve this situation for fleets, though it is still very strict on what ships you give and how you give them to it.