Defending against opposition's sabotage missions

[Trappist]

Hi, please can some one advise method to prevent opposition from being so succesful with their sabotage missions?

I had started to run espionage missions on my home planets to try to offset this (counter-intelligence). But im not sure that has any effect - certainly its not mentioned in the in game encyclopedia.

[MarioFanaticXV]

Defending against any enemy mission is dependent on your ground forces. I don't remember the exact name of it, and can't get the game to launch right now to check, but I think it's something like "Detection Rating" or the like. Each ground troop has a different rating, with Sullustans having the best in the game, making them great for protecting against enemy missions (though with their low attack and defense values, they're very poor for any other purposes). I don't recall what the best Imperial troops are for such a purpose, but I recall that in end game all I built was Dark Troopers anyways (unlike the Rebels where you want Wookies to attack, Mon Cals to defend against invasions, and Sullustans for detection).

EDIT: Okay, yes, it's Detection Rating. The tricky thing is, it doesn't actually show up in the enyclopedia, so you can only check it in-game by right clicking and viewing a troop's properties. Here's a list of all detection ratings in the game, courtesy of https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/198776-star-wars-rebellion/faqs/19754

Alliance Troops
Army Regiment - 10
Fleet Regiment - 15
Sullustan Regiment - 35
Mon Calamari Regiment - 20
Wookie Regiment - 20

Imperial Troops
Army Regiment - 15
Fleet Regiment - 20
Stormtrooper Regiment - 25
War Droid Regiment - 5
Dark Trooper Regiment - 30

Please note that, like all other values of ground troops, these values are enhanced when a General is present, dependent upon their Leadership rating.

[Russian Orthodox Revolution]

Assign commanders that have a high espionage rating. The espionage rating affects how well they foil missions and the combat rating affects how well they capture. Use admirals for fleets, the bigger the fleet, the more effectively they will be at foiling missions. Use generals when you have troops present. Once again, the better the officer and the more troops (with good detection ratings), the more likely you are to foil the mission. By the way, having Admiral Vader in a fleet of 3 or more ships pretty much assures that the fleet will be safe from sabateurs.

[MarioFanaticXV]

Originally posted by Praetor Pyro:

Assign commanders that have a high espionage rating. The espionage rating affects how well they foil missions and the combat rating affects how well they capture. Use admirals for fleets, the bigger the fleet, the more effectively they will be at foiling missions. Use generals when you have troops present. Once again, the better the officer and the more troops (with good detection ratings), the more likely you are to foil the mission. By the way, having Admiral Vader in a fleet of 3 or more ships pretty much assures that the fleet will be safe from sabateurs.

Actually, no; Espionage rating only effects it when you're attempting espionage. Defending against enemy missions only depends on the leaders' Leadership rating, as that effects those under their command.

[Star Frost]

Originally posted by MarioFanaticXV:

Originally posted by Praetor Pyro:

Assign commanders that have a high espionage rating. The espionage rating affects how well they foil missions and the combat rating affects how well they capture. Use admirals for fleets, the bigger the fleet, the more effectively they will be at foiling missions. Use generals when you have troops present. Once again, the better the officer and the more troops (with good detection ratings), the more likely you are to foil the mission. By the way, having Admiral Vader in a fleet of 3 or more ships pretty much assures that the fleet will be safe from sabateurs.

Actually, no; Espionage rating only effects it when you're attempting espionage. Defending against enemy missions only depends on the leaders' Leadership rating, as that effects those under their command.

That sounds about right. Just make sure you have a fair number of infantry (whichever is most appropriate) present in your fleets and planet side and you should be OK. Having espionage missions active on friendly planets also seems to help discover enemy missions. I usually have one agent (non hero) performing them as often as possible to discover incoming enemy missions and preempt them with increased numbers of agents to counter / kill them. Usually you can have a fleet just for counter agents in place before the enemy mission even starts if you catch it in time.

[MarioFanaticXV]

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Also im super disapointed in the special forces units! I had a squad of commandoes with each sector to try to stop riots. Had 3-4 as sets and the only ever worked like 1 time! So the special forces you buy seem nearly worthless. You can get so many heroes by having emperior/mon mothma conststly recruiting after a few game months you have more heroes than you know what to do with!

If you feel this is the case, play with a larger galaxy; I can guarantee you'll have to spread your forces out on the highest setting.

[Russian Orthodox Revolution]

Originally posted by Star Frost:

Originally posted by MarioFanaticXV:

Actually, no; Espionage rating only effects it when you're attempting espionage. Defending against enemy missions only depends on the leaders' Leadership rating, as that effects those under their command.

That sounds about right. Just make sure you have a fair number of infantry (whichever is most appropriate) present in your fleets and planet side and you should be OK. Having espionage missions active on friendly planets also seems to help discover enemy missions. I usually have one agent (non hero) performing them as often as possible to discover incoming enemy missions and preempt them with increased numbers of agents to counter / kill them. Usually you can have a fleet just for counter agents in place before the enemy mission even starts if you catch it in time.

That sounds about WRONG. I refer you to page 96 of the manual. "All command ranks greatly enhance the ability of their associated units to detect enemy missions. If an enemy mission is detected, then the command ranks also enhance the ability of their associated units to capture or kill members of the enemy mission. The strength of this special ability depends on the character's ESPIONAGE RATING. The strength of the ability to capture or kill members of enemy missions, once the mission is detected, depends on the character's COMBAT RATING. In both of these cases, the higher the rating is, the better."

I sometimes address things like this on my YouTube channel. Generally speaking, if you want a character that can foil missions, make sure he has a high espionage rating. However, it's also important that the character has the appropriate troops or ships, for generals and admirals respectively.

[Russian Orthodox Revolution]

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Ok so thats what detection does!

I will use commanders with better stats. I usually just go for high leadership score.

Ok my counter mission strategy is simple and worked for me...
On all my planets what ever the number of garrison units needed to maintain peace I always have 1 more! With that I never once had a mission work against me. I only have army regiments on my long term planets. As such their detection is low but having 1-2 always countered them on easy mode for me. They are cheap, reasonable defense and quick to build. I will have to consider having say fleet or next up from that on planets constantly getting missions against them.

On the flip side any 1 have advise for missions against the enemy?

What does decoy do? How does it work? Does it help sending say several at once to do mission x?

Also im super disapointed in the special forces units! I had a squad of commandoes with each sector to try to stop riots. Had 3-4 as sets and the only ever worked like 1 time! So the special forces you buy seem nearly worthless. You can get so many heroes by having emperior/mon mothma conststly recruiting after a few game months you have more heroes than you know what to do with!

Tried assinations. Could never get it to work! Id blockade a planet and bombard all units and resources leaving only the hero or heroes. Even when only 1 hero I could not assinate them! Not even with a force sensative hero with over 160 espionoge and 160+ combat! How in the world are you supost to do it! As said with prisoners its so much better to just kill them than leave them as a liability!

1. Look at page 96 of the manual. You want commanders with a high espionage score. If you don't believe me, set Veers as a general on Coruscant and observe just how easy it is to get past him.

2. Assassination missions have a significantly lower chance of succeeding. Don't bother with them. Always assign capture missions.

3. You won't have much luck subduing or inciting uprisings with special forces units as their leadership ratings are too low. They're very useful for other purposes though. When I'm far behind my opponent, a mass sabotage campaign across the galaxy can really hurt my opponent's economy. That's assuming I can't break into the sector to do a scorched earth attack. Also, you need spies everywhere. Intelligence gathering is extremely important in this game.

[Star Frost]

Originally posted by Praetor Pyro:

Originally posted by Star Frost:

That sounds about right. Just make sure you have a fair number of infantry (whichever is most appropriate) present in your fleets and planet side and you should be OK. Having espionage missions active on friendly planets also seems to help discover enemy missions. I usually have one agent (non hero) performing them as often as possible to discover incoming enemy missions and preempt them with increased numbers of agents to counter / kill them. Usually you can have a fleet just for counter agents in place before the enemy mission even starts if you catch it in time.

That sounds about WRONG. I refer you to page 96 of the manual. "All command ranks greatly enhance the ability of their associated units to detect enemy missions. If an enemy mission is detected, then the command ranks also enhance the ability of their associated units to capture or kill members of the enemy mission. The strength of this special ability depends on the character's ESPIONAGE RATING. The strength of the ability to capture or kill members of enemy missions, once the mission is detected, depends on the character's COMBAT RATING. In both of these cases, the higher the rating is, the better."

I sometimes address things like this on my YouTube channel. Generally speaking, if you want a character that can foil missions, make sure he has a high espionage rating. However, it's also important that the character has the appropriate troops or ships, for generals and admirals respectively.

Very informative, thanks for the heads up. I haven't played this game since I was in high school so I guess I am a bit rusty / lucky. Got any more tips? Keep in mind that many manuals back in those days were written before the games were even completed so often the information was misleading or wrong, such as with Final Fantasy 1 and such were some stats had absolutely no effect. Needless to say, I am going to have to go over the manual again to see what all I was missing for so long.

UPDATE: Your right, you just need to have a hero in any command status with a high espionage skill to increase the chances to kill or capture enemy units trying to commit espionage! However it does not make what I said wrong in any way, just that it helps to have someone who knows what they are doing around. This is exactly what I meant when I mentioned having a fleet just for counter agents that fly around from planet to planet where missions are inbound in order to stop them. If you want to have heroes just sit around doing nothing but babysit a system, then that's fine and easy but I like the chances of having my best agents on station before the enemy even gets there in order to get as many skill points as possible. This is especially useful work for Han Solo as you can send him with any number of other heroes to a location at much greater speed than any other ship or fleet. Unless I am mistaken about that one too... again, it's been a while but the older codes still check out.

[MalignantTumor sups.gg]

Put more troops on each system, to catch sabatuers

[Terrax]

Don't forget. Starfighters also have a detection rating as well. One thing I do to help defend Coruscant is to mass Tie Bombers as a garrison to defend from Fleet invasions.

[awc]

Prison ship flying from one end of the galaxy to the opposite constantly because no one can infiltrate hyperspace for rescue ops.

[Ruldra]

Originally posted by awc:

Prison ship flying from one end of the galaxy to the opposite constantly because no one can infiltrate hyperspace for rescue ops.

That doesn't work because prisoners can escape on their own. As soon as the ship arrives at its destination the prisoner will flee.

[jedispy]

In the rebellion the Sullustan troops are the best at detecting enemy special operations. I think on the Empire side it's just the standard Stormtrooper Regiment.

[jedispy]

Originally posted by awc:

Prison ship flying from one end of the galaxy to the opposite constantly because no one can infiltrate hyperspace for rescue ops.

It works only against emeny rescue attempts. However there is a random time limit on character capture. Eventually every prisoner will escape at random.

[BrigadierBill]

Capital ships also boost detection rating, with corvettes such as the Lancer Frigate or Carrack Cruiser being particularly effective (at least with an admiral present). You can also be sneaky and switch a commander between ground and space to avoid him getting captured after he's spotted by a foiled mission.

For the Empire, fighters and capital ships are as important as troops since they don't have any reliable equivalent to sullustans (and stormtroopers and dark troopers are pretty expensive to build en-masse).