Why is my probe team elite?

[T-hawk]

OK, so I'm playing as Domai, and my SE settings are Fundamentalist / Planned / (Survival). I have no Secret Projects yet. I build a probe team (rover chassis, no armor) in a base with a Command Center and no other facilities. To my great surprise, it comes out as Elite!

Why did that happen? Fundy SE is +2 probe, but as far as I can tell, that should make the probe team's morale at most Veteran. Do the SE morale settings (I had +1 Morale from Fundy), and/or the Command Center apply? I don't recall seeing that before with probe teams...

[Nubclear]

Why is my probe team elite? I'd much rather have it green

[Blake]

I use CC's to get elite probes quite often, and NY to get elite foil probes. It's an undocumented feature. Bioenhancment probably increases probe morale too.

I'm not sure if SE Morale improves probes, I dont think so though.

[The Mad Monk]

There's a whole pile of techs that raise your probe team's morale by mere fact of possession. I haven't actually counted, but I have been getting the impression that there are more morale level boosting techs than there are morale levels.

[Petek]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
There's a whole pile of techs that raise your probe team's morale by mere fact of possession. I haven't actually counted, but I have been getting the impression that there are more morale level boosting techs than there are morale levels.

According to the manual, these techs increase Probe Team morale:

Digital Sentience
Mind/Machine Interface
Polymorphic Software
Pre-Sentient Algorithms
Self-Aware Machines

However, the explanation for T-hawk's observation may lie elsewhere. I played some test games (with and without using the scenario editor). It seems that Probe Teams have a "baseline morale" of Disciplined. I couldn't build a Probe Team with Green or Very Green morale no matter what. Even Gaian Probes start off as Disciplined.

So, if that's true, then T-hawks probes start as Disciplined, get two boosts from Fundy and two more from CCs, making them Elite.

(This is for SMAX. Didn't test with SMAC.)

[T-hawk]

I *might* have had Polymorphic Software at the time, but definitely didn't have any of the others. Petek, your explanation makes sense, although it's a bit unexpected that Command Centers apply to probe teams. My incident was in SMAX as well; maybe there's some undocumented difference between that and SMAC?

And the University should be able to build probes with lower morale, right? -2 PROBE?

[Petek]

Originally posted by T-hawk

And the University should be able to build probes with lower morale, right? -2 PROBE?

According to both the manual and the Datalinks, a negative probe rating only affects the cost and success rate of enemy probe actions, not morale. Positive probe ratings increase your probes' morale and increase the cost of enemy probe actions.

I started a game with the University. Tried to use the scenario editor to give Zak a Very Green Probe. It still came out disciplined.

[Jamski]

They're Probe teams - the best of the best - they can't possibly be green. Or maybe the green Probe teams aren't good enough to send on missions yet...?

-Jam