jmadeja: I'm on a Mac with the magic mouse. I can't get the persuadatron to work. It works just like a gun, right? select it, get the red cross hair on your target and right-click?
That's not how the persuadertron works.
Basically, to use the persuadertron you just select it as the equipped 'weapon'. You don't target people or anything like that, you just have it equipped. Then as that agent walks around, people who come close by are 'persuaded' and join you.
There is a catch, however. You can't just persuade enemy agents. You have to earn persuasion points. Firstly you persuade some civilians. When you have a few of them you then have enough points to persuade a guard, then a police officer, until eventually you have a mob of followers and enough points to start persuading enemy agents.
Also, you cannot control the persuaded people, they follow you around and their density and speed is controlled by your agent's brain chemicals, but other than that they pick up dropped weapons and attack by themselves.
Lastly, your agent's brain mod level affects how many points you need to be able to persuade each 'tier' of person, so a higher level brain persuades stronger people with fewer persuasion points. I can't remember if range is affected by the brain mods though.