Do you armor your probe teams?

[Cookie Monster]

Hi all,

A while ago I asked if you all armored your aircraft in SMAC(X) and that got me thinking of other units you don't normally think about. Take probe teams for example. Do you put armor on them? I've tried experiementing and I think I notice an improvement defending against probe attacks. Haven't seen if there is any benefit to standard weapon attacks against armored probe teams.

What are your thoughts/experiences? Is it worth the extra resources?

[Flubber]

I don't believe armoring a probe team has ANY effect if attacked by another probe team.

It WILL however give the probe team a better defense against standard attack. Note however that a probe will always die automatically if the last conventional troop it is stacked with is killed.

I armor probes for two reasons

1. worm defense so it survives perilous trips-- add trance

2. If I want the probe as the sole defender of a base-- No support cost and it will defend with its armour.

I don't do it often but it has some applications

[Petek]

When you say "defending against probe attacks" do you mean probe vs. probe combat? Such combat is resolved only by the morale of the two units, so armoring a probe team has no effect against another probe.

A probe's armor will help defend against non-probe units. However, if the probe is stacked with other units or is in the same base as other units, the probe will not defend against an attack, even if it has the best armor. Also, if the defending unit is destroyed, so is the probe.

Some players use a strategy of armored probes (with trance, if available) to defend bases, especially playing with Morgan. Since the probe is "clean", it doesn't count against support limits. IIRC, a synthmetal probe built on an infrantry chassis costs the same as an unarmored probe built on a rover chassis. This is still more expensive than a regular garrison unit.

About the only time I armor probes is late in the game when I have drop pods and orbital insertion. A heavily armored drop hover probe can drop into enemy territory, absorb counterattacks for a turn, then commence probe action. Admittedly, this is for single-player games when the result is no longer in doubt.

[Barinthus]

It's worthwhile to have armored probe defenders for bases? Would they be able to stand up to standard infantry/mobile attacks?

I haven't armoured them, I like my probes to prance around butt-naked.

I do make adjustments to them so I have probe foils and rovers. If I remember correctly (it has been a long while since I tried this), drop probe teams doesn't seem to work well. Would flying probe units be worthwhile, I wonder?

I'd fire up my game and try but I recently completed a game on the huge map of the Planet. Now I'm on a break from games while I'm doing boring stuff like graduate school applications . Once I open a game, I just can't stop myself.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by DataAeolus
It's worthwhile to have armored probe defenders for bases? Would they be able to stand up to standard infantry/mobile attacks?
.

I believe they stand up as well as any conventional unit but have not tested this. I think that one disadvantage may be that you may not to be able to put things like ECM or AA on them but I would have to try that since I don't recall-- Was it crawlers that can't have AA??

[Lefty Scaevola]

I discovered another reason to armor probes.
I was invading the Gains on the northern Island, and they had a serveral probs and some money. So I sent in 3 probes with the force to defend the base i took from being probed back. The Gains first bombard with some artillery, bouncing off the combat troops but putting 90% damage on the unarmored noncombat probes. Then their attack with 2 probes blew the defending probes away in probe to probe combat and took back the base, and a nice little army.
Next time Iused srmored probe to resist the artilery damage.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Flubber


I believe they stand up as well as any conventional unit but have not tested this. I think that one disadvantage may be that you may not to be able to put things like ECM or AA on them but I would have to try that since I don't recall-- Was it crawlers that can't have AA??

IIRC you can ECM Probes but not AAA.

[Blake]

Armored probes for base defense is definitely worthwhile for Freemarketeer Dataangel. The main advantage is the large probe morale bonus and also the lack of a morale hit under Wealth.

It is also somewhat worthwhile for Morgan, but more for support reasons than morale. (Altough I do find myself running Fundie as Morgan quite often)

[Googlie]

Originally posted by DataAeolus
Would flying probe units be worthwhile, I wonder?

You can't put probe ability on an aircraft chassis now (original release you could, but that got changed in a subsequent patch under "housekeeping" tweaks)

I use drop probes after MMI in conjunction with helipods - I send them (tranced and with 3-res armor for mindworm defense) hopping after the chopper to give instant probe defense for new bases while these bases are concentrating on troops and infrastructure.

G.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


IIRC you can ECM Probes but not AAA.

Now thats an odd distinction-- so your probe can be as good as a conventional troop against land attack but not against an air attack??

Odd

[Flubber]

Ya -- arty knocks the stuffing out of probes. Although for arty defense, I like to bring along some of my own arty. (to knock the stuffing out of the other guy's probes if nothing else)

[The Mad Monk]

If you have the xenoempathy dome, probe teams do not provoke worm attacks just traipsing through the fungus. Add armor, trance and radar, and you have a really nice, clean exploration unit.

[Blake]

I dont armor probes except infantry probes for defensive purposes. I like to give my rover probes deep radar (allows better planning of moves) and armor will bloat the coast excessively. 4 Rows is already quite enough for me.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I know this sounds kinna dumb but, I don't like armoring rover chassis PT's. I prefer the classic man with a suitcase graphic over the speeder chassis.

So like Blake I normally armor my infantry probe teams for reasons of aescetics as well as cost.

Go figure.

[Blake]

The red infantry probe does look very cool, IMHO.

[The Mad Monk]

I name those "spyhunters"

*old video game theme song starts playing*

[Starfarer]

I prefer armoring probe teams under only two circumstances, myself.

First circumstance, foil probe teams that have to move into territory where there will be any enemy resistance. It's so freaking annoying to send five foil Probe Teams across the map, certain they're going to be fully capable of using your 5000 energy to capture five bases, only to lose all five to a pair of enemy units.

Second, as a "blocker". I occasionally use armored probes set in strategic places around my bases to blunt enemy assaults. They won't stop a truly determined assault, but they'll slow it down, weaken a unit or two, and give me enough warning to mount a defense. And, if the enemy's actually brainless enough that their unit stops within movement rate of the Probe, I get a second defender at a bargain price.

Unforutnately, I don't always have the economy to make this feasible. In fact, most of the time, if I've got Effiency penalties, I'm barely treading water on my economy. Although scaring three or four enemies into Pacts can fix that... Ahem. I didn't say that.

Ta!

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
I name those "spyhunters"

*old video game theme song starts playing*

Oh yes, ahh fond memories coming back to me... *rocks on a rocking chair, reminiscing*

[johndmuller]

The main problem I have with armored probes is that business of going bye-bye when their stacked combat brethren get killed, which means that the armor is only worth it if the armored probe is alone. Even if they are stacked with other probes, if any of them die in a conventional (non-probe) attack, they all do; the only time a stack of probes is any good is if you are being probed by multiple probes.

One thing I wish I knew was how the game determines which of a stack of non-combatants will be the defender - for example, if you had an armored probe and an unarmored former stacked, would it pick the former to defend anyway, or would it pick the best defender?

As long as you are content with just one unit defending your base and were not into using Police, they are a decent choice, the extra cost being balanced out by their being clean and doing double duty as a defense against an enemy probe. OTOH, once you get the 'Clean' attribute and once the arms race has escalated to the point where 1 unit does not provide a comfortable level of defense, or if you want the AAA, Non-lethal and whatever other probe-forbidden attributes there are, then armored probes are no longer adequate.

BTW, as most of you probably know, if you try to probe an aircraft, you get a message to the effect that you need the SAM attribute on your probe team to do that (but the workshop will not let you put SAM on your probes). Well I experimented with changing the probe ability flags in the Alpha(x).txt and it turns out that enabling SAM probes also enables other things that don't make much sense (like SAM crawlers) - probably the designers noticed that too late in the game to make the proper adjustments and disabled the SAM probes so as not to have to explain the other stuff (but overlooked that message).