Preventing sabotage

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

Preventing sabotage

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> The War Room >> Preventing sabotage

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

Preventing sabotage - 6/27/2013 7:16:56 AM

tracek

Posts: 8
Joined: 6/14/2013
Status: offline

How do guys (gals?) prevent sabotages? I had a decent run in Shadows Era when a disaster struck my game: space station, with empire's foremost scientist, was blown to pieces by an agent, effectively crippling my economy. It's a beginning of the game on level hard with many pirates. One of my agents was set on counterespionage.

I reloaded my game (what can I say: I was deeply attached to this station) and the outcome was the same. If traveling back in time does not help: what does?

Post #: 1

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/27/2013 7:13:03 PM

Fishers of Men

Posts: 329
Joined: 3/27/2010
From: Fishers, IN USA
Status: offline

The more agents you have in the counterespionage stance, the better are your abilities to stop enemy agents from succeeding in their missions. One of your agents is sometimes not enough. Also, if your agents have the counterspy trait, it will increase the odds that you can stop them.

There are some enemy agents that have a very high sabotage trait and are almost impossible to stop.

_____________________________

Old............but very fast

(in reply to tracek)

Post #: 2

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/27/2013 9:53:57 PM

Aszh

Posts: 8
Joined: 6/20/2013
Status: offline

I had early on in my current game a human spy with +74% to espionage, which allows him a 90% chance of success on one-month technology steals from most empires. I believe at this point he's stolen almost as much technology as I've actually researched. He is virtually unstoppable, and I imagine the AI is capable of the same if it has agents with high stats. I don't know of any way to counter agents besides devoting your own agents to counter espionage and hope you get lucky.

(in reply to Fishers of Men)

Post #: 3

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/28/2013 7:07:38 AM

Starke

Posts: 147
Joined: 6/7/2013
Status: offline

Ouch. To answer your question directly, there's no way to prevent sabotage. The best you can do is set an intelligence agent of your own to counterintelligence. That will help your chances of defeating a sabotage attempt, but is not a sure defense. Going off of memory:

Sabotage is not the easiest mission type to pull off. The chance of success on a sabotage mission is based off the spy's sabotage proficiency, the size of the target facility (structure type? total component size?), and the presence of any counter-spies. Even mining stations are very risky targets for an untrained spy; a space station, such as the one you lost, are tough targets for any spy without a significant bonus to sabotage. Frankly, it sounds like you got very unlucky - another empire rolled a naturally sabotage-skilled spy and took a fairly risky shot at your spaceport. This time they won out.

Spaceport sabotage and assassinations are high risk/reward missions, and this time you were on the receiving end. Assuming you don't already, keep any counterintel agents or generally useless ones on counterintel, it can make otherwise risky but potentially rewarding attacks outright suicidal for your enemies. (unless they can train up an exceptionally strong agent - even counters have counters)

If you're set about trying to save this particular base, I'm not sure what to suggest. I'm unsure at what point a mission's outcome is decided. It could be decided as the effect happens, e.g. if you replay the attack a few more times your station is bound to survive one. Or it could have already been doomed to die ever since the AI assigned the mission, likely a year before it was actually destroyed. Or maybe at some point in between.

I would insert a reference to the Star Trek Voyager episode Year of Hell, but I can't post links on the forum yet. =( I wish you luck.

< Message edited by Starke -- 6/28/2013 7:09:08 AM >

(in reply to Aszh)

Post #: 4

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/28/2013 9:59:21 AM

tracek

Posts: 8
Joined: 6/14/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Starke
I would insert a reference to the Star Trek Voyager episode Year of Hell, but I can't post links on the forum yet. =( I wish you luck.

Indeed, Year of Hell it was! Wish my time travel was as successful as those on Voyager. Without this particular (AKA: the only one, it is beginning of the game) space station I was overrun by pirates. Bastards had perfect timing. My fleet sustained damages that could not be repaired or quickly replaced, ultimately leading to a dreadful end.

I have reasons to believe that outcome is decided in front, as regardless of my actions on a particular date my station meets its demise. Well, bad luck - thanks for all the answers!

(in reply to Starke)

Post #: 5

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/28/2013 2:02:35 PM

BigWolfChris

Posts: 634
Joined: 3/31/2010
Status: offline

I feel espionage and sabotage are far to powerful
If you create a mission with a above 75/80% success rate, it seems they never fail (at least I've never seen one fail)
If anything, effectively being told if you will succeed or not before trying the mission is abit silly, and ofc the AI has this same advantage
Either make counter-intelligence missions alot stronger against hostile agents or alter the mechanics to make it higher-risk even for 95% success rated missions

_____________________________

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 8 Core @3.7GHz
2x16 GB Vengeance LPX 2666MHz RAM
MSI RTX 2070 Armor 8G
SSD Drive

(in reply to tracek)

Post #: 6

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/28/2013 2:09:59 PM

scotten_usa

Posts: 196
Joined: 12/9/2005
Status: offline

Are you all running the most recent patch (1.9.0.7)? I noticed sabotage missions against me decrease A LOT with this patch.

(in reply to BigWolfChris)

Post #: 7

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/29/2013 5:29:23 AM

Starke

Posts: 147
Joined: 6/7/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ScottenChi

Are you all running the most recent patch (1.9.0.7)? I noticed sabotage missions against me decrease A LOT with this patch.

As of my latest game I am, although not for the several before it. So far my spies are businiess-as-usual tech-snatching... except for the one drooler who has massive negative stats, I keep him sabotaging construction one the most advanced empire's main spaceport, I need to hold them back as much as possible. Maybe I should keep him on counterintel as I just advised in my last post, but meh. Go big or go home- er, extinct! =D

Yeah I agree that espionage is definitely the dominant spy trait. Especially because tech stealing mission chances to not vary with tech research cost, when tech is set to expensive/very expensive being able to steal other empires' hard work just as rapidly as in a 'normal' game gives you a MASSIVE tech advantage. You even can resell that tech back to other empires for major $$$, which DOES vary with research cost settings IIRC, something you can't do with traded tech. While I find it very amusing to basically reenact the Soviet electronics industry doing the cold war on an interplanetary scale, it's a bit too powerful.

I haven't played around much with Sabotage missions much, I'm too busy hijacking tech, so I can't corroborate its potency. That said, I've been hit a few times by it, usually taking out mining stations, which don't slow me down in the least. I don't think anything short of a spaceport loss would be too devastating - but losing a spaceport really would suck.

And I've also noticed that success chances upwards of 85% or so virtually always give success. When trying to steal large techs I've occasionally had a spy fail but evade detection, but I've never lost one, which random chance would indicate I should have at some point by now. I would guess that the the consequence of 'failing' a high-chance mission would only be failure and return without detection. At a slightly lower threshold it would be that or failure plus detection. Only risky missions could result in death. (<80? <70?)

If that's correct, it raises some interesting questions about when mission outcome is decided, though? If it is indeed determined when the mission is assigned as tracek's experience indicates, what happens if the other empire reassigns a spy to counterintel during the mission period? Is it ignored? Is the outcome rerolled?

(in reply to scotten_usa)

Post #: 8

RE: Preventing sabotage - 6/30/2013 2:52:44 AM

randal7

Posts: 56
Joined: 5/14/2010
Status: offline

If you save right before the mission end date, reloading can change the result. However, there are mid-mission die rolls as well because I've had spies caught well before the final roll at mission end.

(in reply to Starke)

Post #: 9

RE: Preventing sabotage - 7/1/2013 5:37:50 PM

Aszh

Posts: 8
Joined: 6/20/2013
Status: offline

quote:

And I've also noticed that success chances upwards of 85% or so virtually always give success. When trying to steal large techs I've occasionally had a spy fail but evade detection, but I've never lost one, which random chance would indicate I should have at some point by now. I would guess that the the consequence of 'failing' a high-chance mission would only be failure and return without detection. At a slightly lower threshold it would be that or failure plus detection. Only risky missions could result in death. (<80? <70?)

Confirmation bias... the chance seems to be actually what it says, more or less Aforementioned 90% success chance spy I had did fail twice that I saw. He was detected by still succeeded in the mission. I've seen 5 outcomes to spying:

Undetected + mission successful
Detected + mission successful (suffer a relations hit)
Undetected + mission unsuccessful (nothing happens)
Detected + mission unsuccessful + spy lives (relations hit but your spy escapes)
Detected + mission unsuccessful + spy dies.

Additionally, your spy can fail mid-mission, there seem to be regular rolls along the way as well.

(in reply to randal7)

Post #: 10

RE: Preventing sabotage - 7/1/2013 6:32:19 PM

Starke

Posts: 147
Joined: 6/7/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aszh

quote:

And I've also noticed that success chances upwards of 85% or so virtually always give success. When trying to steal large techs I've occasionally had a spy fail but evade detection, but I've never lost one, which random chance would indicate I should have at some point by now. I would guess that the the consequence of 'failing' a high-chance mission would only be failure and return without detection. At a slightly lower threshold it would be that or failure plus detection. Only risky missions could result in death. (<80? <70?)

Confirmation bias... the chance seems to be actually what it says, more or less Aforementioned 90% success chance spy I had did fail twice that I saw. He was detected by still succeeded in the mission. I've seen 5 outcomes to spying:

Undetected + mission successful
Detected + mission successful (suffer a relations hit)
Undetected + mission unsuccessful (nothing happens)
Detected + mission unsuccessful + spy lives (relations hit but your spy escapes)
Detected + mission unsuccessful + spy dies.

Additionally, your spy can fail mid-mission, there seem to be regular rolls along the way as well.

Thanks for spelling them out, I'm a sucker for the high-probability missions, though I'm also familiar with the worse outcomes thanks to AARs. =P Still, between my last 5 games I've run ~100-150 missions with a success chance of 85-95%, and 'failed' on maybe 4-5. Even assuming the lower max mission abound and 6 semi-failed missions, that's still a little ways off what chance would predict with a decent sample size. Guess I'm just lucky?

< Message edited by Starke -- 7/1/2013 6:33:59 PM >

(in reply to Aszh)

Post #: 11

RE: Preventing sabotage - 11/9/2013 1:41:07 PM

Hyena Grin

Posts: 9
Joined: 9/3/2013
Status: offline

One (of the small number) of things I really liked about MoO3 was the way the game handled espionage. You would send a spy out on a mission, and the game would feed you reports of their status once in a while. Events would take place in which the character's varying stats would come into play. A simple mission could become a prolonged story of secreting into enemy territory, making plans under cover, getting captured, tortured, escaping, going into deep cover for years at a time, stowing away on transport ships in an effort to get back home, getting captured again, and suicide.

It was kind of rad.

I would love to see espionage get an overhaul along those lines. Right now the simple percentage thing is a bit lame. I'd rather see a generic 'safe, moderate, dangerous' and then let the RNG throw situations at the agent for which their skills can be applied (above and beyond the actual mission-relative stat). It'd be fun to see a spy on a sabotage mission needing to assassinate some random ship captain in order to complete their objective, or getting captured and using psyOps to escape. Etc etc. The spy should have to successfully get in, complete the job, and get out. And a lot of problems can occur in between. Traits could come into play, like perhaps normally if a spy gets caught before completing their job they will try to escape and flee for home. But if you have a Courageous agent they will escape and still attempt to complete their mission.

Also, on the subject of sabotage being too powerful, I recently had a game where I was playing a race with an espionage bonus, four agents with +10% or more counter-espionage all on counter duty, and was unable to ever prevent a single sabotage mission. I lost mines and research stations and defensive bases and had three starport constructions blown up, and the best I could do was figure out who did it. Never caught the guy or prevented the mission. It was infuriating.

I am not sure why I was getting creamed so hard by agents. I am pretty sure they were 90% pirates I had pissed off, too.

< Message edited by Hyena Grin -- 11/9/2013 2:44:13 PM >

(in reply to Starke)

Post #: 12