Your own ships - used against you!

I have not had that happend, but I have given/sold ships to races that I have later ended up at war with, then you end up fighting your own ships. "with a new paint job".

On the bright side, at least you know how they were made and you can figure out how to kill them.

Laughs an evil laugh...

I have thought of a brilliant strategy... Say your enemy is really advanced in one particular type of weapon tech that you aren't very well defend against. Give them a load of advanced ships in a particular weapon that you know you are VERY well protected against, but the gift aren't. Then either use that as a bargaining chip to force them into war with a race you know can counter their original ships, or go to war with them.

Ideally if you get them to go to war with someone, they will loose their original ships in the battles leaving only the super advanced gift ships, which will "obviously" if planned right be able to defeat their enemy. In this fashion you essentially weaken both empires and give you the tactical advantage against the gift empire. Now go to war with the empire you gave the ships to and you'll walk right through them, they will struggle to counter your advance due to a war on two fronts. They'll be forced to use the gift ships against you that you have deliberately designed to be weakest against your designs. After you kill them, you can then attack the other empire they were at war with, which is now in a weaken state.

In summary you will be able to force the fall of 2 empires at the equalivent cost of just fighting 1. i.e. 2 birds 1 stone....

I wonder if giving ships to AI alters their ideas on designs. Say you give them a beam ship as a gift, will they if in the future fighting you design shield only defence based off of your gift ship? Hmmmmmm interested, perhaps we can force the AI into designing ships we can beat by leaking flawed designs to them as gifts.

LOL

Terran Ambassador: "Yes my Torian friend, we want you to have this state of the art missile frigate"
Torian Ambassador: "How very kind of you Terran, so you use only missiles on all your ships"
Terran Ambassador: "Yes all our geat naval ships are armed with sidewinder type 4 missiles"
Torian Ambassador: *Evil Grin* "Really that is good to know"
Terran Ambassador: *Eviler Grin* "Why what do you mean?"

20 weeks later a fleet of state of the state Torian anti missile frigate with PD type 5 and mass drivers type 3 appear in Sol, the Terran naval deploys Type 5 plasma beams with type 5 armour plating. The battle last all of 2 minutes....

Terrans 4 Torians 0.

Torian Ambassador: *Pee'd off look* "You stupid f**king tree hanging monkey! You lied!"
Terran Ambassador: *Laughing out loud* "LOL serves you right you r*t*rded slug!"

It would be so funny if someone pulls that off

Only a good idea if they're obsolete ships and you don't want to pay to upgrade them.Otherwise, it would be more efficient to just manufacture ships you can take them out with.

Fun > efficiency.. sometimes

If the race you force them into a war with are well protected against their originial ships but not the gifted ships, why would they not just use the gifted ships against them. After they defeated them they would be stronger (larger economy and stolen tech from the captured planets) and be in a good position to take you out by manufactoring more ships you are not well defended against!