Should level 7 alien devices be reconsidered?

[Xephyr]

Seems to me that the transpace jumpdrive and the inertialess drive should be a higher level, since human technology goes up to level ten and those kinds of things aren't doable.

Unless there's a reason for this, I'm a little skeptical.

[Song]

I am inclined to agree. Alas, technology level and availability level are a bit muddled....it might make them mostly non-viable. But it would definitely make sense from a standpoint of tech.

[Arkheias]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with having alien devices at relatively low levels. I just think of the situation as being similar to The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove. Those devices are designed using relatively simplistic technology that anybody could have stumbled over at almost any time in history, but humanity just happened to miss it.

[regurgi]

My interpretation was always that the technology required to install them was low because they had already been retrofitted for use with human ships.

Is the tech level supposed to both represent the difficulty of installing & the difficulty of manufacturing the device? If that's the case I don't see how human dry docks can install Ares weapons without being able to copy them exactly, (and vice-versa, although the cydonian shield generator does note that it's reverse engineered from a commonwealth design).

A more 'realistic' simulation might have more complex installation requirements, but that would be a lot of coding work for something that wouldn't be fun.

[Xephyr]

My interpretation was always that the technology required to install them was low because they had already been retrofitted for use with human ships.

That's my interpretation as well - It would be interesting to have a tech level and then an "install level", kind of like armour and repair levels, though that probably wouldn't see very much use outside of alien devices.

Those devices are designed using relatively simplistic technology that anybody could have stumbled over at almost any time in history, but humanity just happened to miss it.

I like the idea of this but it seems like tech levels are going to steadily progress with part II coming around - I think there may be a "base" tech level that transpace devices start at.

[regurgi]

That's my interpretation as well - It would be interesting to have a tech level and then an "install level", kind of like armour and repair levels, though that probably wouldn't see very much use outside of alien devices.

Wouldn't that need to change between campaigns, though?
I imagine a campaign where you're friendly with Ares would be fairly silly if Ares weapons & armours were all still as high install levels as with the commonwealth.

Maybe if some things were lower/higher effective tech level to install, based on faction-tags & the faction of the station you're currently at, (commonwealth fleet installing commonwealth fleet items as though they were tech levels lower, but installing Ares items as though higher)?

[JohnBWatson]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with having alien devices at relatively low levels. I just think of the situation as being similar to The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove. Those devices are designed using relatively simplistic technology that anybody could have stumbled over at almost any time in history, but humanity just happened to miss it.

That's a good point. There's also the fact that Teraton weapons are considered "alien" devices, despite them not being vastly more advanced than the rest of humanity.

In addition, a device being made by an advanced species inherently make it an advanced device.