Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: October 24, 2008, 12:36:22 PM »Counter teams could represent dis-information being distributed to the press as well. etc etc etc
Hmmm, Are you planning a counter espionage team or mission for the existing team?
Race A emplaces a team to gather intel on Race B. Race B wishing to hide something has tasked a team to perform a counter intel mission. At some level the skill level of the counter team reduces the effectiveness of the gathering team. Possibly even a chance of the counter team "capturing" the gathering team.
There should be some negative diplomatic adjustment IF the race with the prisoners being taken is aware of the fact.Yes, I was considering that. The officer information already states "Suspected POW held by Race X" if an officer is captured, but its very difficult to know (in programming terms) if one race knows if another race captured its officers or crew. Even if you saw hostile warships capturing your crew, how would you know if they were going to be interrogated and even if you did, blowing up your ship in the first place is probably more of a cause for a negative diplomatic impact even if the two nations are not already at war. If they are at war then I think both sides would interrogate prisoners as a matter of course without any negative diplomatic impact beyond that caused by the war. Also, would not rescuing the crew be worse than rescuing them (in diplomatic terms)? It's not a straightforward area.
In addition to the Espionage Points generated by teams, you can also gain Espionage points by interogating captured prisoners. For every ten crew you rescue from life pods you get one Espionage Point. Every captured officer will generate a number of Espionage Points equal to his rank cubed. So if the lowest rank is lieutenant commander, he will only be worth 1 Espionage Point (1x1x1). A commander would be worth 8 Espionage points (2x2x2) while a captain would be worth 27 Espionage points and a Commodore 64 (no computer pun intended ) Espionage points, etc. With this rule, sending a Vice Admiral (216 EP) into harms way because he has a high crew training attribute may not be a great idea. It will also become very worthwhile to rescue your crews to avoid them being captured by the enemy.
Unlike teams, there is no penalty for different species. The penalty with teams is due to the fact they cannot blend in with the target population. With the interrogation of prisoners that is no longer a concern. The 80% penalty for lack of comms still applies.
Steve