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yes, some Projects, like Weather Paradigm, Ascetic Virtues, Xenoempathy are matters of philosophy and the minerals you invest in them translates to what you spend to apply them to your entire faction. When another faction captures it, they essentially take control of the administrative building or school that teaches and distributes that philosophy.
Although it is hard to justify why the other faction loses the benefits of The Ascetic Virtue or the Weather Paradigm from a role-playing perspective.
Other Projects that give free buildings should be obvious. The faction that builds it does it better than any other faction. Other factions might build their own Virtual World copies by building a network of Holographic Theaters in each of their bases (and connecting them to their Network Nodes), but it won't be as good as the real Virtual World, because they built it first and understand it better than anyone else. Conceptually, a faction can copy the Command Nexus by building Command Centers in most of their bases and designate one of them (say, in the Capital), the Nexus, but it'll never be as good as the real Command Nexus.
Some, like Datalinks, Longevity Vaccine, Immortality, the Space Elevator, the Network Backbone, and Planetary Engery Grid affect the entire Planet when built. 3 of those add to commerce. So the role-playing solution is obvious there too. That faction sells the treatments and sells the rights to use the Elevator to launch sats and so on. For Datalinks, the faction that builds it now has exclusive control over a vast Planetary data-network. It'd be like if Mirosoft invented the Internet. Information flows freely, but the controlling faction can also sift out useful information more easily than others, since they know better than anyone how it works. Other factions could probably build their own Elevator's too, but which is cheaper? Buying the space on the Elevator's cargo timetable or investing huge amounts of resources on a new Elevator, especially since their researches might project that Graviton Theory would be mastered sooner (is that the right tech?) or decide that the resources would be better spent on other things.
Some, like the Hunter-Seeker, the Living Refinery, the Cloning Vats, the Nano-Factory, or the Universal Translator might be seen by the building faction as trade secrets and guard their inner-workings closely. Even if a faction managed to copy or counter the Hunter-seeker (with Polymorphic Encryption), the Hunter-seeker's original designers might design a counter to that as well... keeping them on the winning side of the information war. The Living Refinery is represented by the Nessus Mining Colonies (or whatever they were called) in other factions, but lack the secrets to make them as efficient as the Living Refineries.
Some, like the Weather Paradigm, Neural Amp, Dream Twister, and Self-Aware Colony are represented in the other factions by Special Abilities. They can duplicate the results of those projects into their own units, but they lack the secrets of those Projects.
Some, like the Bulk-matter Transmitter, the Telepathic Matrix, the Self-Aware Colony, the Cloning Vats, and most of the Planet-based ones are not desireable to some of the factions (Miriam, for instance) because of their values. Would a passive faction want to duplicate the Self-Aware Colony? Maybe, maybe not. A Police unit or two might do just as well. Would a faction that's already pop-booming want Cloning Vats? Probably not, or they might already have their own Eugenics program in place (as described by their SE choices that give them pop-boom), but it's not nearly as efficent as the Vats.
The scientific ones, like Human Genome, Supercollider, and the Theory of Everything, and the Singularity Inductor (and the Secrets of.... techs) are all about getting knowledge first. The minerals that go into the these could be thought of as going to into building the very specialized equipment, finding and teaching the researchers and their undergrads, paying huge grants, and conducting grand experiements. Other factions might be able to build their own Colliders, but will likely not be willing to invest the resources to make one as large or incorperate it into an existing frame-work (like a new Fusion Lab or Quantum Lab). Of course, that faction's Collider copy will never yeild the same scientific breakthroughs as the real Super Collider, because they also lack the researchers that the other faction aquired.
Also, as Ka Plewy wrote, the faction leaders have big egos. So, I think they would rather find a way to counter the other faction's advantage than simply play catch-up and say "me too!".
Wow... that was longer than I expected and I cannot think of any other Project examples. Enjoy.
Although it is hard to justify why the other faction loses the benefits of The Ascetic Virtue or the Weather Paradigm from a role-playing perspective.
Other Projects that give free buildings should be obvious. The faction that builds it does it better than any other faction. Other factions might build their own Virtual World copies by building a network of Holographic Theaters in each of their bases (and connecting them to their Network Nodes), but it won't be as good as the real Virtual World, because they built it first and understand it better than anyone else. Conceptually, a faction can copy the Command Nexus by building Command Centers in most of their bases and designate one of them (say, in the Capital), the Nexus, but it'll never be as good as the real Command Nexus.
Some, like Datalinks, Longevity Vaccine, Immortality, the Space Elevator, the Network Backbone, and Planetary Engery Grid affect the entire Planet when built. 3 of those add to commerce. So the role-playing solution is obvious there too. That faction sells the treatments and sells the rights to use the Elevator to launch sats and so on. For Datalinks, the faction that builds it now has exclusive control over a vast Planetary data-network. It'd be like if Mirosoft invented the Internet. Information flows freely, but the controlling faction can also sift out useful information more easily than others, since they know better than anyone how it works. Other factions could probably build their own Elevator's too, but which is cheaper? Buying the space on the Elevator's cargo timetable or investing huge amounts of resources on a new Elevator, especially since their researches might project that Graviton Theory would be mastered sooner (is that the right tech?) or decide that the resources would be better spent on other things.
Some, like the Hunter-Seeker, the Living Refinery, the Cloning Vats, the Nano-Factory, or the Universal Translator might be seen by the building faction as trade secrets and guard their inner-workings closely. Even if a faction managed to copy or counter the Hunter-seeker (with Polymorphic Encryption), the Hunter-seeker's original designers might design a counter to that as well... keeping them on the winning side of the information war. The Living Refinery is represented by the Nessus Mining Colonies (or whatever they were called) in other factions, but lack the secrets to make them as efficient as the Living Refineries.
Some, like the Weather Paradigm, Neural Amp, Dream Twister, and Self-Aware Colony are represented in the other factions by Special Abilities. They can duplicate the results of those projects into their own units, but they lack the secrets of those Projects.
Some, like the Bulk-matter Transmitter, the Telepathic Matrix, the Self-Aware Colony, the Cloning Vats, and most of the Planet-based ones are not desireable to some of the factions (Miriam, for instance) because of their values. Would a passive faction want to duplicate the Self-Aware Colony? Maybe, maybe not. A Police unit or two might do just as well. Would a faction that's already pop-booming want Cloning Vats? Probably not, or they might already have their own Eugenics program in place (as described by their SE choices that give them pop-boom), but it's not nearly as efficent as the Vats.
The scientific ones, like Human Genome, Supercollider, and the Theory of Everything, and the Singularity Inductor (and the Secrets of.... techs) are all about getting knowledge first. The minerals that go into the these could be thought of as going to into building the very specialized equipment, finding and teaching the researchers and their undergrads, paying huge grants, and conducting grand experiements. Other factions might be able to build their own Colliders, but will likely not be willing to invest the resources to make one as large or incorperate it into an existing frame-work (like a new Fusion Lab or Quantum Lab). Of course, that faction's Collider copy will never yeild the same scientific breakthroughs as the real Super Collider, because they also lack the researchers that the other faction aquired.
Also, as Ka Plewy wrote, the faction leaders have big egos. So, I think they would rather find a way to counter the other faction's advantage than simply play catch-up and say "me too!".
Wow... that was longer than I expected and I cannot think of any other Project examples. Enjoy.
I liked this idea. It makes sense too.
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