Easier tech sharing

[ekolis]

Describe the feature you'd like to see
In Stars! you can share tech but it's tedious because you have to repeatedly gift ships and hope your ally gets lucky when scrapping them. I'd like to do something a bit simpler. SJ suggested giving a trickle of research points when advanced ships orbit an ally's shipyard. That seems reasonable but not overpowered!

Benefits
Make tech sharing less tedious.

Describe alternatives
5% osmosis per level difference per turn?

Additional context
Need to decide what limits how much tech can be shared - don't want to share thousands of research points by stacking up ships!

[marhawkman]

I like the osmosis idea. What form should it take?

I'd do it as a function of your current tech levels. IE if you have level 10 and your ally has 5 then they'll get a lot more than if they have 9. Maybe set the actual amount to be based on the amount you have to spend to get to that level?

[ekolis]

The problem with passive osmosis is that it makes tech trading TOO easy and leads to cookie cutter empires that are not at all different. I agree that a larger difference in tech levels should produce a larger gain per turn if we do things this way, though.

[marhawkman]

I'd make it pretty slow. IE you don't get one tech level per turn unless your ally who's sharing has a HUGE advantage. Not sure exactly how to calculate it though.

Maybe compare the level difference, and give the lower tech player a percentage of the number of points they would need to reach the higher level player? Maybe 1% or.5%? The idea being you're never really going to catch up if you don't invest, but will get progress towards catching them.