Covert operation
Description
Covert Operations are missions conducted by the underground societies of your planet. Each time you pay them, the cost is 1000 of each resource, per agent sent. Even if the mission is unsuccessful the cost will be deducted from your resources. Covert operations happen instantaneously with instantaneous results.
Mission Success
A Missions success depends on three things :
- The stealth rating of your planet
- The alert rating of your target planet
- The number of agents you send
The more agents that are sent - the bigger the impact they make.
Stealth
Every mission that is sent lowers your planets stealth rating. The higher it is, the more likely covert operations will work. If your stealth rating becomes too low, agents may refuse to work for you until it is better. Your stealth rating does improve with time up to a point however.
Alertness
The opposite is true for your planets alert rating. This decreases over time to a point. the higher it is, the better chance you have of catching covert operations conducted on your own planet. each mission will raise your alert rating if it has been successful or not. There are other ways to improve your alert rating however, Security centres can be constructed to aid it. and your engineers can focus on security to help protect against agents.
There are many different types of covert mission you can send. initially you are restricted to disrupting your targets research. Research of your own will allow other missions to be accessed however.
Mission Types
Please note, the more advanced the mission type, the more agents (and hence, higher costs) are required.
===Basic Agent Training=== This operation attempts to disrupt a target planet's research efforts. ===Underground Network Charting=== Train your agents to hack into covert-ops databases to reveal contact networks. ===Portable Earthquake Generators=== Train your Agents to plant small earthquake generators on asteroids, destroying them in the process. ===Warp Core sabotage=== Train your Agents to sabotage ships located in an enemy base. ===Portable EMP emitters=== Train your Agents to use the Portable EMP emitter to destroy Amplifiers and Reflectors. ===Bank-System hacking=== Train your agents to hack into central banking systems of a target and steal resources. Each Agent can max steal 7500 of each resource. The target can not lose more than 10% of its resources per operation attempt ===Structural Integrity=== Train your Agents to take out structures using explosives.
- Note* that you cannot do Covert Operations until your planet is out of protection, which is 72 ticks from signup, or while ticks are not running.
Formulas
Stealth and Alertness are both numbers between 1 and 100.
Stealth
The default value of Stealth depends on your race, Terran, Cathaar, Xandathrii and Zikonian have the relative max-stealth at 85,95,85 and 95. This is the stealth value your stealth will INCREASE TOWARDS every tick. The amount it increases with is relatively 4, 6, 4 and 6, PLUS 1, 2 or 3 depending on your engineering setting on Security. So a Terran player with Security on third priority, will gain 5 in stealth per tick if his stealth is below 85.
Alertness
Alertness works a little bit different. All races have a minimum alertness of 60. Security centers will raise the planets minimum alertness by the percentage of security centers * 2, so that with 20 % security centers , the bonus is 40%. Which means the minimum alertness is
60 + ( 60 * 40 / 100 ) = 84.
With max bonus
(30 % security centers = 60% bonus)
the minimum alertness is 96 (60 + ( 60*60/100 ) ). The minimum alertness is the number your alertness will DECREASE TOWARDS every tick if it is higher.
Security Engineering
When a covert operation is attempted, the following formula decides whether it was a success or a failure:
random(25) + stealth - target_alertness - engineering_alert_bonus
must be higher than 1 for the operation to succeed.
Engineering alert bonus is 30,20,10 or 0 depending on your security priority (first, second, third, none). Since max stealth is 95, and random(25) can be max 25, we are looking at max 120 on the first half of the formula. Max alertness is 96, and with first priority on security, we add 30, and see that we end up with 126.
So, with 30 % security centers, AND first priority on Security with the engineers, you are immune.
