intelligence projects chances of success

[Wanderer]

if you have combat with another race, the tech levels for the ship you fought show up on the "tech" tab when looking at that race's info. When you have a successfull "tech report" intel attack, that information is not added to the tech tab for the race. Personally, I think it should, but whatever.

If you click on your own race, the tech tab actually says 'technology used on our ships' not 'all the technology we know'. I guess the same applies to other races, even though it says 'known technology'. I agree with you that it would be good if was expanded to show all techs you know they've got.

I used intel to steal technology quite frequently in my current game and if the projects were successful always got quite valuable new technology (as stellar manipulation). And I used as you the "any" option! Perhaps I was just lucky.

Lucky *******! It's not done anything like that for me! Ever.

[couslee]

Originally posted by Q:
I used intel to steal technology quite frequently in my current game and if the projects were successful always got quite valuable new technology (as stellar manipulation). And I used as you the "any" option! Perhaps I was just lucky.

Sounds like it. during those games, did your race setting have any "cleverness" bounses? Not that I am even going to attempt the math, but perhaps a 5% cleverness bonus also gives a hidden 10% increase in chance to snoop sucessfully... as example.
hell, even a 1% increase in the chance of passing hurdle 3 would make a big difference.

I "beta played" this for a while, since I had the game saved. and made a new save after each turn. I kinda wanted to see how the chance of sucess was. only that first time, and about the eighth time did I get a useless tech. the other 8 tries (I did it for ten turns) i recived the message "nothing valuable" found, meaning it didn't pass hurdle 3. now if that attempt only has a 20% chance of sucess, then you certainly should get a good tech when sucessfull

I realise the 10 attempts is not enough of an event base for determining chance percentages.

maybe I was just that unlucky. naw, this should be fixed imo.

[Q]

Couslee, no my race has "average" cunning.
This is a strange difference I can't explain. The intel stealing of foreign technology was so effective in my game that I stopped doing it because I felt it too easy and unfair against the AI empires!
Are you absolutely sure that the target empire has technology that is useful for you (racial tech e.g. will not be useful). Probably a stupid question but I can't think of any other explanation.

[couslee]

Q, that is a good question. But not the case in my game. I did a sucessfull tech report before even trying to steal anything. I knew that if they didn't have any advanced tech, I would be wasing a lot of intel for nothing. The tech report came back showing they had level 3 in scaners. I only had researched to level 1. Scanners is not a racial tech, and unless sucessfull tech reports lie (I doubt that) then they certainly had an advance.

After my 10 turns or so beta playing of it. I gave it a shot using the specific target instead of "any tech" and stole sensors 3 on the first attempt (I had since researched level 2).

It is quite possible the problem lies in the "any tech" selection. During the beta-playing, I even preceeded the steal attemt with a tech report, tho not every time. And even when the tech report showed an area more advanced, the steal attempt still would fail. Now, I don't remember if that 8th or so attempt had a tech report first. I may have stopped bothering with them at that point after getting a number of sucessfull tech reports and the steal attempt stating "we did not find anything usefull". I believe that message is the same as "our attempt failed" that you see with other intel actions. Not once did the tech steal show "attempt failed", just "we didn't find anything usefull". Hurdle 3.

[Fyron]

Couslee, the Any Tech acts just like Ruins. If you happen to steal a tech that you have already, nothing happens. It is just like colonizing ruins: if you colonize a ruin that gives a tech you already have, you get nothing from the ruin.