probe teams and faction leaders

[Kataphraktoi]

does anyone know anything about the rescue faction leader probe operation?i know a story in the fiction area used it,and im almost positive this exists but i cant remember it.

i know a thread some time ago dealt with this but the search function seems inoperable so either a link to that or discussion here in this thread,would be great.

edit : poor english

2nd edit : annoying smilies that sneak in ^^

[Petek]

1. Works only in SMAX, not SMAC.

2. Send a probe team to the HQ of the faction that eliminated some other faction. Initiate a probe action. One of the options will be to free a captured faction.

3. If the probe action is successful, the eliminated faction will restart.

4. The now-freed faction will be your submissive, same as if they surrendered.

5. In practice, this feature is not all that useful. The freed faction will rarely provide you with any techs or ever become strong enough to help you.

[Lord Nword]

Well I would guess that he would still vote however you tell him to... That has its uses

[Chaos Theory]

I believe the probe team rescue operation only works in SMAX 2.0.

Freeing the faction is useful, though not terribly so, as extra commerce is always nice, and the council vote could be handy.

[BustaMike]

This feature includes the best bug of them all... having another AI faction "free" you even though you aren't captured, then having all your bases dissappear and having to restart.

[Blake]

Freeing is fun. It's one of the only ways for a (percieved) tyrant to get a submissive pactmate, like if your an Alien faction and twice as powerful as the next faction theres no chance in hell they'll surrender to you. But a freed leader will be nice and loyal, and you can dump unwanted captured bases on them.

Submissive pets are even more fun for human factions, when you dump bases on them they start giving you nice commerce income. And one of the coolest things to do with submissives is probe them to train probes up to elite - first you can steal tech to give them security interlocks (if your paranoid about enemy probes using them as a "Backdoor"), then you just probe energy, as a bonus this also liberates "their" half of "your" commerce income, it's like double taxation .

[Kataphraktoi]

2.0 only sounds right,as nothing i do seems to bring this up in the final release versian.thanks alot

too bad though,since 2.0 has lots of bugs IIRC but ill do a double install and see if it works with 2.0

[Chaos Theory]

SMAX 2.0 is the final version, AFAIK. I know of the following versions:

SMAC 1.0 (out of the box)
SMAC 2.0
SMAC 4.0 (presumably there was a 3.0, but I've never seen it)
SMAC 5.0 (XP compatibility patch)
SMAX 1.0 (out of the box)
SMAX 2.0
SMAX 2.0 with XP compatibility patch

[Petek]

From the SMAX 2.0 readme.txt:

· It is now possible to rescue a captured faction leader.

[Kataphraktoi]

i thought it was smax 4.0??maybe i better check if i am even running the right verisan....

[Kataphraktoi]

i should have checked to see if i had it patched.yes,that was the problem.

[Major Guz]

Originally posted by Blake

Submissive pets are even more fun for human factions, when you dump bases on them they start giving you nice commerce income. And one of the coolest things to do with submissives is probe them to train probes up to elite - first you can steal tech to give them security interlocks (if your paranoid about enemy probes using them as a "Backdoor"), then you just probe energy, as a bonus this also liberates "their" half of "your" commerce income, it's like double taxation .

Can you do that to submissives, does it not hurt your reputation?

In general: Does your reputation take a hit if you probe someone you have a treaty with and you get caught?
However, if you are a warmonger your reputation does not mean much, but I like to play hybrid style, as defined in Vel's strategy guide and then a good reputation will generate more steady commerce, because the treaties etc. hold longer.

[Blake]

For purposes of reputation with factions *other* than the victim(s) probe actions never happened. Thats why they are so great to get someone to declare war on you.

The victim doesn't like the constant probe rape much, but the submissive pact is binding except in cases of minor atrocities (against bases you captured from the victim, ie staple/obliterate) or major atrocities (unless the charter is repealed).

There is no "honorable" way to get a submissive to declare war on you except stacking your units with a 3rd pactmates higher-defense unit and getting the submissive to attack that stack. Not that your worried about reputation when killing off submissives... but that sort of thing can happen accidentely if your not careful, and it looks like the submissive just sneak attacked you.

[Major Guz]

Thanks, that was very helpful.
Normally I try to get people into war with me by asking them to leave my territory.

How stupid of me never to have thought about using probe teams to lure opponents into war with me without the reputation hit .
Normally when I probe somebody I thought it would hurt my rep (as in Noble --> faithful etc). So I only did it in war-time.

However on the subject of probe teams freeing Leaders:
Last night in the game (SP) I was playing (as Morgan) I was pacted with the gaians (imagine that ). Suddenly all Gaian bases were gone, the terrain was still terraformed, but all bases and units were gone. So probably someone "freed" Dee and made the Gaians disappear.
If I were to reload this game and see if the Gaians would be there the next turn (probe freeing action failed) and play on from there would that be considered a cheat? In my point of view not, because I consider this a bug in the game. But what about you guys?

The turn thereafter I freed Zak vrom the PS of the Evil Lal and gave him some bases I had no use of.
The odds of freeing a faction leader (probe rate of Lal was 0 (normal)) were 75% succes / 67% survival for an elite probe team, by the way.

[Chaos Theory]

It is not at all a cheat to try to work around a severe bug with reloading. If simple reloading didn't work, I would go so far as to hunt down the offending probe team and delete it.