Probe Team (SMAC)

Probe Team (equipment)
Type	Equipment
Prerequisites
Planetary Networks
Stats
Cost	4
Cost	4
Notes
Enables probing operations

Probe Team (unit)
Type	Predesigned unit
Domain	Land
Prerequisites
Planetary Networks
Stats
Defense	1
Defense	1
Movement	2
Movement	2
Cost	27
Cost	27

For PROBE social factor, see PROBE (SMAC).

Probe Team is a unit equipment type in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Units with Probe Team equipment become Probe Team units.

Probe Team is also a name of a predesigned unit. It consists of:

• Speeder chassis
• Fission Plant reactor
• Probe Team equipment

Game info

The Probe Team module can be used to create custom probe teams. Such units function much as regular Probe Teams.

Probe Teams can infiltrate and subvert enemy bases and units. They can also steal enemy research information, sabotage base facilities, assassinate key enemy personnel, and conduct genetic warfare.

Move a probe team up to an enemy base or unit to engage its powers.

Probe teams can also defend your bases against their enemy counterparts. If a probe team is present in a square when an enemy probe team tries to enter, a combat is resolved between them. The probe team with the highest morale level usually wins.

Probe teams often receive morale increases when they complete missions successfully. The higher a probe team's morale level, the more likely it is to survive increasingly more complex missions.

Facts

• Higher levels of probe teams have a greater chance of success, even when the base targeted has improved security.

Actions

• Probe teams can convert units or bases for a cost which varies with one's faction's and the opposing faction's PROBE rating. Note, however, that units "stacked" on a single tile cannot be affected by a Probe Team.
• Probe teams can infiltrate the datalinks of a base, allowing you to forever view their base garrison, military nexus, base information, research goal, etc.
• Probe teams can steal technology.
• Probe teams can destroy a base facility.
• Probe teams that attack the headquarters of their enemy, can assassinate prominent researchers. That means that the research points they have on whatever technology they are researching is reset. Example, it says they have 4 of the 6 turns required to finish researching Social Psych, and you assassinate their scientists, then it's now 0 of 6. Note, once you capture or destroy a headquarters, no other bases become headquarters (this may be a bug), so it doesn't work anywhere else.
• Probe teams can infect a base with a genetic virus once they have the required tech researched. This kills half the population, and weakens the units within. This is an atrocity.
• Probe teams can cause a drone riot.

Whenever you do an action against a base, you have the option of trying to frame another faction. This is a good way to get your enemies to fight one another.

Defense against

• If a base has a probe team in it, then it will detect and fight the enemy probe team when they attempt to access the base. This applies even among probe teams controlled by nations operating in a Pact of Brotherhood.
• If you have regular military units on the road outside your base, you can see an enemy probe team coming. If it tries to move around you off the road, it'll use its movement turns doing that, before its close enough to get to your base. You thus have time to get to it, or move something else in front of it to block it.
• The secret project Hunter-Seeker Algorithm destroys all enemy probes teams that try to probe you, unless they have the Algorithmic Enhancement in which case it does not destroy them, only lowers their success rate.

Additional things that affect it

• The secret project Net-Hack Terminus gives +1 morale to all Probe Teams, reduces cost of probe team actions by 25%, and all probe teams with Fusion Reactor or higher automatically get Algorithmic Enhancement.
• The secret project Telepathic Matrix gives you +2 Probe Team morale.

Gallery

Probe team

Skimship probe team

Destroyer probe team