Crawling for Pactmates

[GeoModder]

CEO Aaron, about those probe guards. Do you mean putting armor on the probes? What use is that against 'common' military units or mindworms?

[CEO Aaron]

Geo, I do mean just that. a 0-2-1 probe team defends just as good as a synthmetal garrison, and costs only one row more than an ordinary synthmetal garrison. Thats a mere 10 minerals. Think about how long it takes you to reach clean reactors, and you'll see how economical these buggers are in the long run.

The sole drawback of the probe defender is that you won't be able to preemptively attack worms, but good scouting and your early free units from pod pops should help out with most of that.

[Googlie]

But (and I haven't scenario-tested it yet) didn't I read elsewhere in these forums that if you stack an armored probe with a regular armored defender in a base, the game engine will always defend with the regular one, and if that is destroyed then the probe gets destroyed as well? Even if it has stasis generator defense (and the probe defender can't be designated as the defender)?

[CEO Aaron]

That's not really a problem for the way I use probe defenders. They're only around so I can save my precious 1 support for formers. Make no mistake, if I'm involved in a shooting war, real units will be built (rovers. best defence and all). Probe defenders are there just to shave support costs and stave off unpleasant suprises. And later on, they're also convenient since they're still probe teams, and will thwart enemy probe activity, or allow you a quick unit capture against unwary attackers.

[Blake]

Synth probes are fantastic value. 1 extra row, for a unit that takes no support (payback in 10 years!), can defend against worms and can steal enemy units that dare try to attack the base. Once you need real defense they are still useful! you can send them out into the field for choke blocking/sentries, they are ideal for this because unlike real units they can go solo with the risk of being probed and can enter enemy territory without causing drones under FM. And there is always the possibility of an oppurtunist probing.
Now for the gravy, they also use probe morale for defense rather than normal morale, this makes them uber tough under fundie (often a good choice for morgan!), and ignore the morale penalty of wealth (a natural choice for morgan!), along with getting stronger with each probe morale boost tech. Normal units cant do THAT. (being probes, they also get full benefit from command center... there is nearly no situation where normal units will have better morale)

I usually use probe defenders as Morgan (for support) and Freemarketeer Data Angels (for the Morale, you can have elite defenders in no time that way - worms don't stand a chance and an elite plasma probe can shrug off impact weapons!). Ofcourse both factions can also make good use of their offensive probe abilities, especially DA with elite infantry probes. They are probably worth considering for any faction running freemarket/wealth, maybe miriam too under demo.

[Enigma_Nova]

Synthprobes for the win, then.

There is a drawback - if you stack them in the base, your enemy only needs to destroy one.
If that one is destroyed, it takes all the other 'noncombat' units in the base along with it - i.e. Probes.
Probes don't do any police activity.

So if you're going synthprobes, it's probably better to do so under FM.

[Impaler[WrG]]

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[Commy]

Can regular probe teams defend like scout patrols?

[Zeiter]

No, sadly unarmored probes have a defense of either 0.01 or 0.00, I can't remember which. Anyways, they are as good as dead if they are attacked by a conventional force, even something like a very green scout patrol will easily slaughter them.

Only under FM are armored probes useful. With a police rating of at least -1 (I think) having conventional units are a much better investment. Sure, you pay 1 mineral for support, but the extra worker you get to use (and thus the extra resources you get to harvest) more than make up for that. If you are going the non-FM route for awhile, it is an even better idea to invest in some cheap police garrison.

If you can get the Ascetic Virtues as Yang, and run PS, you can put three 1-1-1 police units in all of your bases, suppressing 12 drones!

Anyways, back to probes...Hmmm, I wonder if it would be possible to steal air units with a SAM probe cruiser?

[Petek]

Originally posted by Zeiter

Anyways, back to probes...Hmmm, I wonder if it would be possible to steal air units with a SAM probe cruiser?

AFAIK, this can be done only by modifying Alpha(x).txt. To allow non-combat units, such as probes, to have the air superiority ability, change the line

Air Superiority, 1, DocAir, SAM, 000000001111, Attacks air units

in the #ABILITIES section to

Air Superiority, 1, DocAir, SAM, 000000101111, Attacks air units

The "1" in the seventh position means "Allowed for Noncombat units (non-terraformer)"

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Zeiter
If you can get the Ascetic Virtues as Yang, and run PS, you can put three 1-1-1 police units in all of your bases, suppressing 12 drones!

Incorrect. The doubling of Police effect at POLICE = +3 does not apply to the Non lethal method abilty. That is, a NLM unit surpresses only three drones, not four, when POLICE is +3 or greater. In the example given, the three 1-1-1p units would account for only nine drones.

[Commy]

I don't get your math, Zeiter. The maximum citizens a unit can police is three. So three scout patrols could police 9 drones, not 12, because non-lethal methods doesn't actually multiply police by two, it adds one, and +3 police doesn't multiply by two either, it adds one, which for non-police units doubles the effects. Either way though, that's a lot of drones, and a lot of money saved in pysch and stuff.

Apparently it is "technically possible" for a probe team to win, because when you ask the game to show odds of combat, it will say something like 5 to 3500 or something when you attack an enemies probe teams.

Hey, can you make air probe teams? Does the game allow that? That would be awesome...

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Commy
Hey, can you make air probe teams? Does the game allow that? That would be awesome...

See Petek's post, 2 above yours

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Zeiter
three 1-1-1 police units in all of your bases,

Police gives +1 Drone control
3 Police gives +1 Drone control
Together, a Police unit under +3 Police eliminates 3 drones
so your 3 police units only eliminate 9 drones.

EDIT well that was a triple smackdown for Zeiter. Sure made me laugh.

[Zeiter]

What? Only 9 drones!! ARRRRRGH! So they aren't really telling you the truth when they say "x2 police power". They should really say "+1 police power". Oh well, 9 suppressed drones is still REALLY helpful.