It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
In a multi-player game with a friend last night in a pre-warp game I used a quick tech advantage to build a colony in the only system the Sakkra could exit their home system. I also killed their first scout ship in the system I colonized and built a base on the node effectively locking them into their starting system. The ONLY planets Sakkra could possibly see were those in this one SINGLE system that I colonized.

I am not angry with what happened, but I just want to make clear that the Sakkra could only possibly spy on planets in the one system outside of their own, but yet I ended up killing a dozen or so agents who were performing missions on my other colonies. This would be impossible for a live player to do and should be impossible for the computer Ai to do.

Also the Sakkra agents failed all of their actions except 2 when on the same exact turn they got 2 of my planets to revolt. While the revolt result is excessively brutal for an espionage mission ( I still strongly believe that a high morale on a planet should render it immune to such missions) that is not the issue here. The issue is that it seems that the code is only doing one check per turn for espionage (or the specific mission type) success or failure. I strongly believe that the coders need to make sure the espionage success/failure function's RNG needs to be reset after every use to prevent excessive clumping.
avatar
RollenZ: In a multi-player game with a friend last night in a pre-warp game I used a quick tech advantage to build a colony in the only system the Sakkra could exit their home system. I also killed their first scout ship in the system I colonized and built a base on the node effectively locking them into their starting system. The ONLY planets Sakkra could possibly see were those in this one SINGLE system that I colonized.

I am not angry with what happened, but I just want to make clear that the Sakkra could only possibly spy on planets in the one system outside of their own, but yet I ended up killing a dozen or so agents who were performing missions on my other colonies. This would be impossible for a live player to do and should be impossible for the computer Ai to do.

Also the Sakkra agents failed all of their actions except 2 when on the same exact turn they got 2 of my planets to revolt. While the revolt result is excessively brutal for an espionage mission ( I still strongly believe that a high morale on a planet should render it immune to such missions) that is not the issue here. The issue is that it seems that the code is only doing one check per turn for espionage (or the specific mission type) success or failure. I strongly believe that the coders need to make sure the espionage success/failure function's RNG needs to be reset after every use to prevent excessive clumping.
Thank you for the feedback on Espionage, I'll forward this to the appropriate developers.
What about the other scout ship and could they have possibly made contact with another race, which then shared star charts with them?
avatar
kroetenschemel: What about the other scout ship and could they have possibly made contact with another race, which then shared star charts with them?
Their scout ship did not make it out of my system. No other race's scouts could have possibly scouted the systems that the Sakkra spied on. I am positive that it is a shortcut that the Ai is programmed for.
avatar
kroetenschemel: What about the other scout ship and could they have possibly made contact with another race, which then shared star charts with them?
avatar
RollenZ: Their scout ship did not make it out of my system. No other race's scouts could have possibly scouted the systems that the Sakkra spied on. I am positive that it is a shortcut that the Ai is programmed for.
Not sure if this is actually true or not, but let me see if I can debunk/confirm.
avatar
kroetenschemel: What about the other scout ship and could they have possibly made contact with another race, which then shared star charts with them?
avatar
RollenZ: Their scout ship did not make it out of my system. No other race's scouts could have possibly scouted the systems that the Sakkra spied on. I am positive that it is a shortcut that the Ai is programmed for.
Still trying to replicate this but having no luck on it.
One of my spies stole system data from the Mershians . I could then spy on all her planets . It was the first thing the spy did .
avatar
loungelizzard: One of my spies stole system data from the Mershians . I could then spy on all her planets . It was the first thing the spy did .
Maybe for some reason the devs decided that spying on one planet gives you access to all of them. I find this to be absurd, but that is only my opinion. Shared charts should not give you planet information, but that is also my opinion. Anyway I wish the devs would work on something more important to be honest like the ship attack power post I made and then deleted since they do not seem interested in looking at posts promptly.
Not sure if this is the right thread for general espionage feedback or not, but I figured bumping this would be better than creating a new thread.

There is a lot that I enjoy about the new MOO, but I find the new variety of espionage to be a very tedious. Just about every second turn I am told to give spies orders, either because (a) my planet keeps generating new spies, who need to be told where to go, (b) my new spies have arrived to where I told them to go, and need to be told what to do, or (c) my spies were caught and deported back to my homeworld, so they need to be told where to go again.

I kind of hoped that it might be changed or improved with updates, but it hasn't really. I liked using spies in MOO2, but in MOO:CTS it's gotten to the point where I would prefer not to engage in the espionage side of things at all because I find that it dominates my game-time far more than I feel like it should :(

Is it something to do with how I'm playing the game, or do others feel this way too?
As far as i can tell spying is completly worthless, it is even worse than in MoO2.
The idea behind it is probably good, but in practice it is useless.
In practice the feature is weaker than in MoO2 and takes a lot of work (always micromanaging every single spy)
And even the spy race (darloks) suck at spying, what more is there to say?
All i ever do is send spies to my colonies to defend.
While defensing spying is not that bad, in general I find the way it is implemented as....could have been better.
I get it, it is not an easy part of a strategy game. I prefer the way it is handled in Star Trek Birth of the Federation.
You have "intelligence points of your empire" which you split between offensive and defensive operations via 2 sliders. Then you have sliders for each found major race and tabs for the exact focus on each race. So you can set for example 30% of your intel points to go on sabotage against the Klingons, against their economy, and not have to worry about micromanaging every single spy/team.
Post edited October 14, 2016 by trusteft