StarDrive Agent Success and Failure Guide

StarDrive Agent Success and Failure Guide

Espionage is a valuable tool for gaining intelligence about your opponents, disrupting their activities, and gaining power. To spy on an alien race, you must train Agents. Agents can be trained in the Diplomacy screen at a cost of 250 credits per agent. Note that Agents begin at Level 1, meaning that they are fresh recruits with no special talents. Agents gain levels by successfully completing missions and can achieve a maximum of 10 levels.

Agents with no assigned mission will automatically engage in counter-espionage, reducing the effectiveness of enemy Agent activities within your empire. To assign an Agent to a Mission, select the Agent in the Agent list, select the Empire you wish to send the Agent against, and then choose the appropriate mission from the missions list. Every mission has an associated credit cost and a number of turns until completion. Advanced spying technologies can reduce these costs while increasing your chances of success on the mission. Success or failure will be calculated at the end of the indicated number of turns.

Calculating an Agent’s success or failure while on a mission is started with a random decimal precision dice roll between 0 and 100. A roll greater than 97.5 will result in automatic success of the mission regardless of the number and quality of defenders. A roll of 2.5 or lower is a critical failure and generally will result in the death of your Agent in addition to political consequences. Otherwise, the dice roll is thereafter modified by the attacking Agent’s level, gaining a bonus of the Agent’s level plus the 1d5 times the Agent’s level. With the best possible rolling, a level 10 Agent could receive a bonus of 60 to his initial dice roll, not accounting for bonuses applied by technological advances or artifacts that affect espionage.

The Attacker’s roll is then reduced by the best Defensive roll produced by any Defenders. For each Defender, the roll is reduced by the Defender’s level plus 1d3 times the Defender’s level. A level 10 Defender could therefore reduce an attacker’s roll by as much as 40. However, only the highest Defender roll is applied.

Finally, the modified dice roll is then tested against the difficulty of the chosen mission. Some missions, like training, have no defenders and are generally easy to succeed at. Other missions, like Steal Technology, are very difficult and will require a trained agent to be successful.

Agent Mission Types

The following data applies to espionage missions that may be undertaken by your Agents. In every case, a success will result in a gain of +1 level for your Agent. Failures will damage your relations with the target Empire but your Agent will live. Critical Failures will result in your Agent’s death.

Agent Training takes 25 turns and costs 50 credits. The goal of Agent training is to increase the level of your agents without risking them on more difficult missions. Critical success is achieved with a modified role of 95 or greater and results in a gain of +2 levels for the Agent. Success is achived with a roll or 25 or greater. Rolling less than 25 will result in failed training. Rolling less than 10 will result in a training accident that kills your Agent.

Infiltration takes 30 turns and costs 75 credits. The goal of infiltration is to place an Agent on a random enemy colony so that you can monitor their activities. If successful, the Agent’s status will change to “Undercover” and you will have sensor data for the infiltrated colony plus access to their colony screen. Success is achieved with a roll of 50 or better. Rolling less than 50 will result in a failed infiltration and political consequences. Rolling less than 25 will result in your Agent being captured and killed. Once an Agent has successfully infiltrated a colony, he will remain on that colony until he is killed by an enemy with the Assassinate mission, or until you reassign the Agent to a new mission.

Sabotage takes 30 turns and 75 credits. Successful sabotage will cripple the production of a random enemy colony for a number of turns dependent on the level of your agent. A roll of 80 or better is a critical success, which will result in the colony being crippled for a number of turns equal to 5 + 5 times the Agent’s level. A roll of 50 or better will cripple the colony for 5 + 3 times the Agent’s level turns, but you will be detected. Rolling less than 50 is a failure; less than 15 is a critical failure. If multiple Agents sabotage the same colony then the effects are cumulative.

Assassination takes 50 turns and requires 75 credits. Successful Assassination will remove a random enemy Agent from the targeted empire. A roll of 85 or better is a critical success. A roll of 70 or better is a success, but you will be detected. A roll of 40 or better is a failure, but your Assassin will escape unharmed. Rolling less than 40 will result in your Agent being killed. Assassination is therefore a mission for higher-level agents. \n

Steal Technology takes 50 turns and requires 250 credits. If there are no technologies to steal at the end of 50 turns, then you will be refunded 125 credits. A roll of 85 or better is a critical success, whereas a roll of 75 or better is a success that results in detection. A roll of 20 or better results in a failure but your Agent will escape unharmed. Rolling less than 20 will result in the death of your Agent.

Incite Rebellion takes 100 turns and 250 credits. If this mission is a success then rebel troops will spawn on a random enemy planet and attack the infrastructure there. Critical Success 85+ / Success 70+ / Fail 40+ / Critical Fail 0-40

Robbery takes 30 turns and 50 credits. If successful, your agent will steal 1-50 credits times the Agent’s level from target empire. The Agent cannot steal more money than the target empire has. Critical Success 85+ / Success 70+ / Fail 20+ / Critical Fail 0-20

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