How to Demand Resources.

THEY have to research the "give resources" tech before you can demand any...though oddly enough THEY can demand that you attack someones tactical structures before you even know where that AI's planets are (well, on really large maps), or have the ability to do so. heh

I tried that, but some of the AI players were demanding gifts while I couldn't demand from them.

You have to research the appropriate tech, then when you go to give the AI a mission you'll be able to select "Give Resources", and set yourself as the target player. Note that the more resources you demand the higher the relations with that AI you will need.

I had this exact same question.  In the main relationship screen with the ability to give credits/metal/crystals to an enemy (I forget what they call that screen), they should have placed buttons to demand resources.  I had absolutely no idea the way to demand resources was using the mission section and making you the target.  Very confusing!

Playing a game just then, the normal AI i teamed up with apparently didn't get the research because i still couldn't request a resource mission after 3 hours of play

Yeah its annoying. You should be able to demand credits/resources from them when you research it right off the bat.

I completely agree. I would even state that the research is broken as it stands right now.  If I research the ability to demand resources, it shouldn't matter at all what the opposing player's research level is at.

Yeah, the AI doesn't care about giving resources, so it never researches the TEC.  Their only interest is in demanding resources from you, since you're likely to have researched the give resources tech on the way to earning the ability to give missions to pirates. 

It's a bug with the TEC research tree.  I've had this happen in every single game in which I am TEC.  It works just fine for Advent or Vasari players.  I posted a bug noticed, but the forums got wiped.  So it'll be posted again.

They should change it as you cannot 'demand' anything, you acctually 'request'. The missions tech is also broken, as i once made a 'distant stars' map that you couldnt build and research posts but somehow the AI could still give me missions when there is no way they could of researched it.