[Mzyxptlk]

The general idea seems fine to me. I don't think it really adds much, but I can't see it hurting either.

Needs some balancing, though. Cat is by far the best (by so is Etd, by extension). and Xan is by far the worst. Cloaking half your pods is pointless. The limiting factor on fakes isn't "I can't afford to lose 1000 pods on this fake", it's "man, I ran out of fleetslots again". Not that I'm suggesting adding fleet slots, mind you!

Ter seems mediocre. No one sends only just enough pods to maxcap, they oversend. Adding armor doesn't help, unless we're talking a factor of 3 or more. At that point, fakes might actually start getting expensive.

Of all the races, Zik's seems most reasonable. Depending on the percentages They're most likely to sell ships, but unless this research allows percentages like 80-90% (possible!), the value loss is still too big.

One issue I see with all of them except Cat is that they're a bit too inconsequential. People will fit them in place of HCT2000 or maybe Cov Ops, something on the end of the tech tree, when they have nothing better to do. Other than Cat, there is no early round strategy that can use this new research.