Easiest Probe Team Missions?

[Black Sunrise]

Many thanks for Tokamak for bringing to my attention that an armored probe team can go on a number of missions, till he's elite, and then sit at home guarding your home base.
(I think the order is: build a 1 move probe team no armor, run missions till elite, upgrade to armor and put in base as garrison).
Now my question is: are some probe missions easier than others?
I'm 99% sure they are, cause I can always seem to steal money, but techs are much harder to grab, but was wondering if anyone had studied the issue at all. If so, which are easiest? I don't need a payoff, I need a successful mission.
Indra

[Cybergod]

Infiltrate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Even if you have the Empath Guild, this option still show up on the screen. This action givess you no integrity hit nad gives your p. team +1 MORALE. Otherwise keep on researching on the Polymorphic Soft. bee-line...

[Black Sunrise]

So all this time I thought it was a bug that the computer player would repeatedly infiltrate my datalinks, to no gain that I could see, it turns out the bugger was training his probe teams?
AAArrrrggghhhhh!

Indra

[EtheMind]

I feel stealing tech and money are both pretty easy, two easy? Maybe, if you ask me. Or is this the future of information society? No technology can be sealed away efficiently? The spies rule the earth as they rule the Chiron?

Anyway, I feel the probes are very nice feature all together. But for example, the mind controlling is way too easy. It's priced with balance but how come it succeed every time?...and how can these drop-outs from earth have technology to mind control few years after Planetfall...but not to establish Thought Control? Go figure...I'm still trying to figure.

[Robby Boy]

Originally posted by EtheMind
I feel stealing tech and money are both pretty easy, two easy? Maybe, if you ask me. Or is this the future of information society? No technology can be sealed away efficiently? The spies rule the earth as they rule the Chiron?

Anyway, I feel the probes are very nice feature all together. But for example, the mind controlling is way too easy. It's priced with balance but how come it succeed every time?...and how can these drop-outs from earth have technology to mind control few years after Planetfall...but not to establish Thought Control? Go figure...I'm still trying to figure.

Agreed. The ease of mind control is absolutely ridiculous. Considering you cant mind control 2 military units stacked together, but you CAN mind control a base with say 15 military units inside. Wheres the sense in that?
I'd prefer to do away with mind control altogether or give it some harsh conditions - i.e. base must be in process of a drone riot for it to work.

[EtheMind]

And not only it's far too easy. It's also the single most annoying offense AI may use. Not sure though, but I believe AI might have some unfair advantages when using mind control. Do they really need energy to do that anyway? Cause they've taken really large bases of mine with Punishment Sphere in them.

Absurd is not enough to describe. Mind Controlling could be a possibility after extensive research of it's techniques and training top notch Probe teams within the Probe centered society. But in the game any green probe can go for hope of mind controlling the next biggest base of any faction. Probe bonus doesn't help much defense....They're cheap, they don't take support, they're more deadly than any unit in game.

As a side note. Assassination of Prominent Researchers(which takes points away from Accumulated Research) is very hard and ineffictive in comparison to various other probe functions.

[Earwicker]

Originally posted by Black Sunrise
So all this time I thought it was a bug that the computer player would repeatedly infiltrate my datalinks, to no gain that I could see, it turns out the bugger was training his probe teams?

If you've already used a probe to infiltrate, the option no longer appears. But good point about probing anyway when you''ve got EG or Governorship. Only steal money if the faction has a lot and the base you're hitting is large. The success rate is high but not 100%; I'd hate to lose a commando probe team for 5 stolen credits.

Sabotage is also a high-success action, assuming you don't choose a target.

Originally posted by EtheMind
And not only it's far too easy. It's also the single most annoying offense AI may use. Not sure though, but I believe AI might have some unfair advantages when using mind control. Do they really need energy to do that anyway? Cause they've taken really large bases of mine with Punishment Sphere in them.

Well, Punishment Spheres do reduce the cost to mind-control (by 50% IIRC), so be wary of them. That said, it seems to me that the algorithm for computing AI mind-control costs is completely different for what it costs me. Thousands to buy a size 2 AI base?! No thanks. But when I move 6 or 7 units into a size 6 base in enemy territory, somehow the cash-strapped AI faction manages to scrape together a few hundred to buy it away from me. Huge cheat!

[WhiteElephants]

I think that a base captured from a faction is significantly easier to mind control back, and the fact that the base may be in riots even makes it cheaper.

I haven't had huge problems with the mind control option and think that it's a fairly interesting route to take. After all you only need your own probe to defend your base and a scout infantry unit can typically kill an incoming probe, provided you effectively patrol your borders (senors, etc.) it shouldn't be too much of an issue, especially post Doctrine: Air Power. I say "typically" becasue your typical probe is unarmored, but should an armored probe approach I still believe it suffers a -50% on defense as it isn't a military unit (or whatever that negative modifier is), but above and beyond that, if somone can roll an armored probe team up to your door you've got problems larger than whether or not it's armored anyway.

[EtheMind]

Well, Punishment Spheres do reduce the cost to mind-control (by 50% IIRC)

It decreases the vulnerability to enemy mind control. So it should make it harder. Genejack factories increase the vulnerability, right?

Drones, riots, captured or not, genejacks or not, probe rating, technology, projects, facilities, size of base and distance from capital. These all affect the cost of mind controlling, as far as I'm aware. In some cases, bases can be dirt cheap to mind control, sometimes they take well over ten thousand credits.
It's always good to remember which factions have probe penalties, inhereted or chosen. For example UoP is very, very easy to fight back with Probes. I've bought entire armies with few hundred credits.

[MariOne]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants
... but should an armored probe approach I still believe it suffers a -50% on defense as it isn't a military unit (or whatever that negative modifier is)...

WE, on the contrary.
Defense is the ONLY beneficial effect of armoring non-combat units.

When you armor a non-weaponed unit (i.e. any unit with equipment instead of weapon), the "-50% non-combat" modifier is no longer applied, and the unit defends with its full added-armor value.
This is true also defending against PSI attacks, where of course the armor value is irrelevant, but still the -50% mod is canceled.
It is not true in probe-combat tho, as that is not actual combat, and NO modifier other than morale is applied to it.
Beware: if stacked, the armored non-combat will NOT be automatically picked as defender, even if it has the best armor/strength in the stack. Of course if it's a probe it will still engage in probe combats, by its nature.

Armoring a non-combat unit has instead NO benefit on the unit other than defense: it will still be regraded as non-combat under EVERY other aspect (i.e. drop behavior, conquering bases, destroy enhancement, die with the stack, etc...)

About the topic, "supposedly" the difficulty of a mission should be reflected in the success chance you read when you attempt it. That should be the only parameter to keep an eye upon.

[johndmuller]

As far as defending (or attacking) against AI probes, an advanced reactor is a major advantage as the AutoDesigner (who of course does the AI's fashions) doesn't seem to use them in probes.

As far as the basic question of easy missions (I mention this only because I didn't see it in the thread, not that I think it a piece of special private non-pareil insight), when it comes to stealing techs, it is only the first time in each base that is easy - after that, they close their barn door somewhat. I'm pretty sure, but not certain that it is not just the steal tech missions that trigger the improved probe defense - suggesting that it helps to try to keep track of which bases have been probed already. I don't think that the infiltrate datalinks mission has this effect however. Unfortunately, I think that 3rd party probings can also trigger the improved defense for the base, so that it may be improved even if you haven't been there before.

When it comes to non-coms, does anyone know how the game decides which unit will defend - it seems I've had that frustrating feeling with combos such as formers/crawlers where the "wrong" unit defended and got itself killed when there was a good defender non-com right there too.

[Avenoct]

Yes, good to bring that up in case anyone didn't realize that. The game gives the message 'Name X, such and such base has installed new high-security interlocks! Shall we proceed with our probe mission?' Basically, an additional 50% difficulty is tacked on to any (I believe) probe mission against a base you've already: Stolen Tech or World Map. Thus, it's a good idea to do that last if you are invading with a bunch of probes: A typical 10-probe assault I might use would be:

Plan A: Soften up the Enemy

Probes 1, 2, 3: Steal Cash
Probes 4, 5, 6: Sabotage Base-only if perimeter defense or tachyon field.
Probes 7, 8, 9: Attempt to steal tech. Stop on first success.
Invade with normal troops.

Plan B: Total Probe Invasion

Probes 1, 2, 3: Steal Cash
Probes 4, 5, 6: Incite Drone Riots
Probes 7, 8: Sabotage OR Stealtech
Probes 9, 10: Attempt Mind Control

So all this time I thought it was a bug that the computer player would repeatedly infiltrate my datalinks, to no gain that I could see, it turns out the bugger was training his probe teams?

Well, I highly doubt the programmers thought to train the AI to run ANY missions just to increase morale, and as Earwicker said, the Infiltrate option only appears once per team. Still, Sabotage and Steal Energy are good bets for training. Just make sure to use them against bases you've not yet stolen tech from.

Keep in mind the SE settings affect the cost of probe actions as well. Miriam in Fundy is pretty tough.

When it comes to non-coms, does anyone know how the game decides which unit will defend - it seems I've had that frustrating feeling with combos such as formers/crawlers where the "wrong" unit defended and got itself killed

Yes, that does happen. When using Non-Combat units to defend it's always a good idea to 'Designate Defender' from the control-click (right-click PC?) pop-up menu for that unit. This way you can, through a bit of micromanagement assure yourself that the non-com will defend appropriately.

-Happy Crawlering,

Smack

[johndmuller]

Originally posted by Smack
. . . . Yes, that does happen. When using Non-Combat units to defend it's always a good idea to 'Designate Defender' from the control-click (right-click PC?) pop-up menu for that unit. This way you can, through a bit of micromanagement assure yourself that the non-com will defend appropriately.

Good idea, Yes ; Allowed by game, No.

[Avenoct]

Works fine for me! (Running V.1.5 for Mac)

-Smack

[Fitz]

Two comments:

Designate Defender
I have heard this does not work if you try to designate an armored probe team in a stack with combat units. In other words, a combat unit will always defend before the designated armored probe team.

High Security Interlock
AFAIK, this ONLY affects you chances for stealing a tech/world map. In other words, you do NOT have to do it last. I usually do it first. Then if no other bases are easily available to probe for tech, or if I got hte world map from that base (and therefore don't need to probe for tech), I move on to other chores, usually sabotage first. I have never seen any indication that the chances of the other probe operations are reduced.

I believe they implemented this feature because they felt that stealing tech was a very powerful option. And I agree. I think it is THE most powerful option a probe team has. THe cost to buy a base can prohibitively high compared to the real value of the unit you are purchasing (or base). And the sabotage is more an annoyance than real danger if not targeted, and hard to do if targeted (especially hard for a Perim/Tach.).