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Suggestions / Espionage, Sector Intelligence Operations, and Black Ops
« on: December 18, 2018, 03:58:11 PM »
With 0.9 out and building your own faction as an actual vanilla mechanic, are espionage and "Off the Records" gameplay mechanics planned anytime soon? I know NEX mod did some rudimentary stuff with its Agents and Saboteurs.
But I did some thinking: What if there was a structure that you could build on your colonies akin to the CIA? Something that deals in gathering intelligence and directing espionage operations like letting you know where Pather and Pirate bases are, increasing the chances of getting certain items when raiding on a particular planet because agents have narrowed down where they are on a certain planet, finding out derelict ships out in the unexplored sector that are definitely recoverable, etc.
I figured for something like that you can also now hire Intel Officers the same way you can hire Fleet officers for ships and Admins for colonies, and depending on your decision you can have them either placed in your colonies (which reduce and hamper pather insurgent sleeper cell operations, and find out pirate bases and Pather ahead of time), deployed as sleeper agents on any chosen planet of another faction (which can do what Pather cells do like blow up your refineries, and maybe even sabotage defense fleets and soften up ground defenses for raids), and maybe even have them flat out steal blueprints or valuable items from time to time if the Intel Officers are skilled enough.
And for Black Ops, maybe be able to hire a third party to raid a faction you really don't like or send out clandestine fleets that strike at faction affiliated traders (since now you can get intel about when Mercantile Fleets are departing). Or perhaps you can set your own faction bounties, so whenever someone else destroys ships of the designated faction they are paid.
On the other hand espionage and black ops can be used by rival factions as well, like fleets of hostile ships that show up at your colony doorstep unannounced unlike Expeditions to wreck your stuff, or sleeper agents that only start hurting your assets when their faction starts hostilities with you (and can only be neutralized/captured by agents of your own). Perhaps even proxy wars of some sort because the Luddic Church just paid a sum of credits to some Independents so they only turn hostile when they enter player controlled colony space. Perhaps you better keep some agents on the defense instead of deploying to the Sector because some fleet officer you hired off of Jangala was actually an undercover Tri-Tachyon corporate spy , and when he finally acts he severely damages the ship you put him in control of just before an engagement with a Tri-Tach assassination force or even disappears from your officer roster completely along with a nanoforge or even an AI core (the amount of sabotage damage and/or item stolen depends on how long he/she's been in your fleet (maybe determined by officer level since usually a max level officer has been in your fleet for a while)).
And sometimes your own sleeper agents who fail their mission, gets captured, or awaiting extraction after a successful mission needs to be picked up so you can have your Intelligence Operations send out a recovery fleet or even you can pick up your agents yourself (sometimes your transponders need to be off and/or need a squad of Marines to bust them out of captivity). And sometimes your own faction agents capture agents of your own and maybe even for a price your can get them to betray their own factions (sooner or later maybe a Diktat fleet shows up just to kill her or rescue her depending on what happens).
Just some things I've been thinking of what do you guys think?
But I did some thinking: What if there was a structure that you could build on your colonies akin to the CIA? Something that deals in gathering intelligence and directing espionage operations like letting you know where Pather and Pirate bases are, increasing the chances of getting certain items when raiding on a particular planet because agents have narrowed down where they are on a certain planet, finding out derelict ships out in the unexplored sector that are definitely recoverable, etc.
I figured for something like that you can also now hire Intel Officers the same way you can hire Fleet officers for ships and Admins for colonies, and depending on your decision you can have them either placed in your colonies (which reduce and hamper pather insurgent sleeper cell operations, and find out pirate bases and Pather ahead of time), deployed as sleeper agents on any chosen planet of another faction (which can do what Pather cells do like blow up your refineries, and maybe even sabotage defense fleets and soften up ground defenses for raids), and maybe even have them flat out steal blueprints or valuable items from time to time if the Intel Officers are skilled enough.
And for Black Ops, maybe be able to hire a third party to raid a faction you really don't like or send out clandestine fleets that strike at faction affiliated traders (since now you can get intel about when Mercantile Fleets are departing). Or perhaps you can set your own faction bounties, so whenever someone else destroys ships of the designated faction they are paid.
On the other hand espionage and black ops can be used by rival factions as well, like fleets of hostile ships that show up at your colony doorstep unannounced unlike Expeditions to wreck your stuff, or sleeper agents that only start hurting your assets when their faction starts hostilities with you (and can only be neutralized/captured by agents of your own). Perhaps even proxy wars of some sort because the Luddic Church just paid a sum of credits to some Independents so they only turn hostile when they enter player controlled colony space. Perhaps you better keep some agents on the defense instead of deploying to the Sector because some fleet officer you hired off of Jangala was actually an undercover Tri-Tachyon corporate spy , and when he finally acts he severely damages the ship you put him in control of just before an engagement with a Tri-Tach assassination force or even disappears from your officer roster completely along with a nanoforge or even an AI core (the amount of sabotage damage and/or item stolen depends on how long he/she's been in your fleet (maybe determined by officer level since usually a max level officer has been in your fleet for a while)).
And sometimes your own sleeper agents who fail their mission, gets captured, or awaiting extraction after a successful mission needs to be picked up so you can have your Intelligence Operations send out a recovery fleet or even you can pick up your agents yourself (sometimes your transponders need to be off and/or need a squad of Marines to bust them out of captivity). And sometimes your own faction agents capture agents of your own and maybe even for a price your can get them to betray their own factions (sooner or later maybe a Diktat fleet shows up just to kill her or rescue her depending on what happens).
Just some things I've been thinking of what do you guys think?