Cowabunga!
 

Say, have you ever noticed the similarity in format between the EVENTS and the INTEL PROJECTS? I have, and it's made me wonder. I finally got around to an experiment and confirmed what I had suspected. RANDOM EVENTS and INTEL PROJECTS use the SAME ABILITIES! Yes, anything in the EVENTS file can be turned into an INTEL PROJECT.

I invented a 'plague' Intel project and infected an AI planet with it. It works!!! Needless to say, since the AI is too stupid to defend itself against plague, that this is practically cheating when used against the AI. But in human-only games it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Especially if the text Messages for 'random events' and 'intel projects' are copied between each other so you can't be sure which is which!

Now I'm busily editing my EVENTS and INTEL PROJECTS files to make as many parallels between Messages from events and intel projects as possible to make life confusing. Only when you see the 'We suspect the (name) empire of this act.' will you know it was an intel operation. Coolness!

Come to think of it... what if 'Planet - Destroyed' and 'Star - Destroyed' can be made into intel projects??? Eeep! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif We'll just have to have a convention against that. Read your data files before joining a PBW game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ July 15, 2002, 05:06: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Coolness!

A san aside -- tie the project for detroying a star to the tech needed to BUILD that kind of SHIP ... andmake it bloody expensive.

Dittof or world-destroeyrs.

HEck, if you can buld such a device in a shipyard and strap engines to it ... makes sense you might make it "on the sly" somewhere.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

"Now I'm busily editing my EVENTS and INTEL PROJECTS files to make as many parallels between Messages from events and intel projects as possible to make life confusing. Only when you see the 'We suspect the (name) empire of this act.' will you know it was an intel operation. Coolness!"

I think you can easily make the differentiation in the log file: just select "intelligence" or "events" and you still can determine, if it was a natural event or an intel operation.
But besides that great idea and good observation!

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Awww, crud! I hate it when someone comes along with an inconvientent fact and ruins a perfectly good theory. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I was really hoping this was going to work. Ah well, we could make a house rule that humans aren't allowed to sort their turn log. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geo

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Or we could ask MM to alter the way intel attack results are displayed. If you succeed in 'disguising' your attack it gets entered into the log as an event instead of an intel message. Maybe it should be a settable flag/attirubte so we could distinguish between intel that is obviously intel and something that could be mistaken for an event.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Hey great, I am glad that somebody is willing to take the stuff that we discussed on the other thread (don't remember which one... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ) and do something with them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

edit: found the other thread, title didn't have anything to do with intel.
here it is &lt;-- that's a link

Despair not, Baron. Intel attacks against you are already displayed as events. The only way to tell that they are intel attacks is that they have a prefix "Intelligence Minister: " before the actual text. So when you make matching pairs for events and intel projects, just put Intelligence Minister: before the text of the event http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

Rollo

[ July 15, 2002, 16:27: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Baron some question about your new intel projects (plague, planet or star destruction):
Can you target them to a specific planet or system or is the location random?
Are the planetary and system gravitational shields ineffective, as I suspect, or give they protection against the destruction of the planet or the sun by your intel projects?
And would you post your new intel projects? I would like very much to use them in my games.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

One more thing:
The AI can handle plagues, if you give them a population transport design with a medical bay in it!
So I think you could use the plague intel project without being unfair against an AI empire. More important seems to me that the plague level is not too high, otherwise the entire population is dead before the ship with the medical bay arrives.
And I like the idea to link these projects to the tech levels of the corresponding weapons. So you still have to research quite a lot before you can use them and IMO these super intel projects should be expensive, very very expensive!

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ah.... Thanks, Rollo. Now I know what to do. I'll go back to my matching text Messages and do the required editing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I've been thinking up new descriptions for events, both the original ones and the intel related ones, so there will be lots of variety. You can have a formerly intel-only affect, loss of crew experience, hit you as an accident now, for example. And it might use the same description as the intel project (the experienced crew was broken up) or it might have a different message (the experienced crew resigned in protest against a tyrranical captain... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ).

[ July 15, 2002, 19:06: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The plague project, which I've titled 'Biological Warfare', lets you choose a planet just like any other planet sabotage project. I figured it would. I haven't tried planet or star destruction yet. Wasn't intending to, actually, but I'm sure someone will now. That's why I posted. We need more researching of this part of the game.

I'm still thinking of releasing my stuff. Guess I'll have to do it some day. Then we can have 'Munchausen Mod' games on PBW... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ July 15, 2002, 19:04: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, the AI is not smart enough to send a medical bay equipped ship even when it has them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

As far as the cost, yes, I've setup the 'biological warfare' projects to require both Intel level 3 and the corresponding level of biological weapons. All five levels. Like I said, this is intended for human-only games where you're going to be smart enough to research all levels of medical tech and deploy ships with the bays.

The question of intel points cost is an interesting one because of how counter-intel works. When you make an intel project cost more you are making it somewhat harder to pull off, but you are ALSO making it harder to stop! And I wonder if the extra difficulty of stopping an expensive project makes it worthwhile to assign a huge cost to the plague intel projects. You might be making them more effective rather than less. If they cost more than 100000, for example, level 1 counter-intel can't stop them.

[ July 15, 2002, 19:02: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think what he meant was you design your transports with medical bays. All of them. Then the AI goes about happily moving populations around and one time happens to cure a plague by accident. Not very efficent, but I believe it would work. But it would have to be a very slow plague. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think what he meant was you design your transports with medical bays. All of them. Then the AI goes about happily moving populations around and one time happens to cure a plague by accident. Not very efficent, but I believe it would work. But it would have to be a very slow plague. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I cannot exclude that this happened by chance, but I saw the AI move population transports that had medical bays straight to his colonies I infected shortly before with plague bombs.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Baron M: Great discovery on the Intel/Events connection!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Perhaps by pushing the intel projects up the tech tree you can make the projects "cost more" in research cost rather than making them cost a great deal to produce. The equivalent would be the "suitcase nuke" where the real cost was borne out in the Manhattan project, where-as the cost of the actual device is "cheap" in comparison to the research costs. If the device is then always cheap, it will be fairly easy to block with counter-intelligence. You'd have to catch your opponent sleeping to get one through...

My .02 $Cdn

[ July 16, 2002, 00:13: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Well, this is another behavior I've never seen. Hmm... what could make the AI send repair ships and medical bay ships for one person's game but not another? Aren't those options hard coded?

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Could be that the AI was attempting to drop population on the planet...

Re: Cowabunga!
 

I prefer tests to speculations:
I infected a homeworld (full population of 4000M)with level I plague. The attacked empire had a population transport with a medical bay in the same system on an other homeworld with 4000M population. On the next turn the AI moved the empty population transport to the infected homeworld, cured the plague, but did not load or unload anything.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Yes, I back this up. I repeated the test. Good find, Q.
If you look at the ships orders it even reads "Move to blablabla. Render Medical Aid".

Rollo

Re: Cowabunga!
 

The next test is to see if the AI will bring a medical bay in from another system to cure the planet.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And then see how bad it would be to add an escort-sized medical bay ship to the AI files, and set the "Must Have" number to something appropriate.

We could also add a special medical bay hull, maybe smaller than an escort, with movement bonuses & stiff combat penalties; that could reduce maintenance costs for the AI without opening up too many abuses for humans.

Of course, the AI still has to research medical bays...

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes this is something I believed too, but it is wrong!
I attacked with a communication mimic, which in my mod costs 200000 intel points. The defender had only counter intel projects level I, but 12 projects with each around 30000 points accumulated.
The attacking project was defeated and the Last five counter intel projects of the defender were empty. So the computer adds the points of all counter intel projects together to calculate if an attack can be defeated.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It does!

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmmm, not this is how I always assumed it worked, and thought it was well known to do so. I am suprised you are suprised to find it so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

This intel stuff is so frustrating precisly because so little is known about it I think. I sure wish MM would write a little treatise describing the theory of it and how it's supposed to operate. So that we can at least decide whether it's working correctly or not the way it's designed.

Barring that if anyone has done some definitive research and would care to share the results that would be most appreciated.

Geoschmo

Re: Cowabunga!
 

When I read this thread title, I thought that someone made a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle race. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Back to the original idea of Baron: Have you tried a planet or star destruction intel project?

I tried the star destruction and the project showed up on the intel project list. If I select it, I am asked against which empire the project is targeted, but then whatever empire I choose the project is not added to the list of current intel projects.

Baron, could you post your plague project for comparison.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

The planet destruction intel project works!
I think there is just no choice of a system or a sun assigned for a target of an intel project and therefore the star destruction project is not feasible.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Ah, that makes a lot of sense Q now that you explain it.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Yeah, I figured since an empire doesn't 'own' a star that the mechanism for selecting a target wouldn't work for that one. Phew... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Here's my "Biological Warfare' project:

Name := Biological Warfare I
Description := Deliberate infection of a planet with level 1 plague.
Group := Planet Sabotage
Cost := 50000
Type := Planet - Plague
Effect Amount := 1
Num Source Messages := 1
Source Message 1 := Our operatives have covertly spread level 1 plague on planet [%PlanetName] in the [%TargetEmpireName].
Num Target Messages := 1
Target Message Title 1 := Plague
Target Message 1 := A plague has broken out on [%PlanetName]. The people are crying out for a cure!
Source Picture := IntelSabotageByUs
Target Picture := PlagueBreaksOut
Number of Tech Req := 2
Tech Area Req 1 := Sabotage Techniques
Tech Level Req 1 := 3
Tech Area Req 2 := Biological Weapons
Tech Level Req 2 := 1

I'd still like to see MM allow us to select our own ships and planets as intel targets so we can counter-act mutinies and rebellions with our own intel projects.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Just one more observation:
As I expected it the planet destruction intel project cannot be prevented by the planetary gravitational shield. So it is very powerful. What I still have to test if it works against ringworlds and sphereworlds too. If that's the case, the project is extremly dangerous.

Re: Cowabunga!
 

Yes sphereworlds too can be destructed by the intel project (which results in a huge asteroid field).

Re: Cowabunga!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Awww, crud! I hate it when someone comes along with an inconvientent fact and ruins a perfectly good theory. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I was really hoping this was going to work. Ah well, we could make a house rule that humans aren't allowed to sort their turn log. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geo</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well I was wrong.
Intel sabotage actions against your empire are listed under "events" in the log not under "intelligence". So your idea will be possible Geo.