What should the risk factor be for genetic warfare?

[Yitzi]

As it stands, genetic warfare always succeeds.  I think this is almost certainly a bug, but what should the failure rate be?  Should it be "standard" (like most actions), "high" (like assassinate researchers or destroying a specific facility), "very high" (like destroying a perimeter defense), or an autosuccess?

[Lord Avalon]

I've never used this option. Hard to say without knowing more details. I see in the SMAC manual that the following techs "increase intrinsic defense to gene warfare": Bioengineering, Biogenetics, Biomachinery, Gene Splicing, Matter Editation, Retroviral Engineering. How much increase does each tech provide?

The Nanohospital and Research Hospital "reduce population loss caused by genetic warfare" - by how much?

Have I missed anything?

[Yitzi]

I've never used this option. Hard to say without knowing more details. I see in the SMAC manual that the following techs "increase intrinsic defense to gene warfare": Bioengineering, Biogenetics, Biomachinery, Gene Splicing, Matter Editation, Retroviral Engineering. How much increase does each tech provide?

The Nanohospital and Research Hospital "reduce population loss caused by genetic warfare" - by how much?

Have I missed anything?

Hmm...I don't even know what effect they have.  I'll have to investigate...

And having it start as an autosuccess, with each tech giving +1 to difficulty rating, certainly could be an option...

[JarlWolf]

I would say the penalty to this is you get more drones in that city. Having messed up genepools in a city and screwing with a person's genetic is horrible and would cause outrage- there should also be huge sanctions on it.

(I've never personally used it.)

[Yitzi]

I would say the penalty to this is you get more drones in that city. Having messed up genepools in a city and screwing with a person's genetic is horrible and would cause outrage- there should also be huge sanctions on it.

(I've never personally used it.)

It's used in enemy cities, so that wouldn't be a penalty...

[JarlWolf]

When you capture it- its a double edged sword is what im thinking. It'll make people unhappy, and it wouldn't matter who rules it in a sense as everyone in that city was maliciously sabotaged.

[Yitzi]

When you capture it- its a double edged sword is what im thinking. It'll make people unhappy, and it wouldn't matter who rules it in a sense as everyone in that city was maliciously sabotaged.

The loss of population would also be a huge penalty when you capture it; I don't think this would be that much worse (especially as a warmonger will find it easier to deal with drones than with low population).

[JarlWolf]

When you capture it- its a double edged sword is what im thinking. It'll make people unhappy, and it wouldn't matter who rules it in a sense as everyone in that city was maliciously sabotaged.

The loss of population would also be a huge penalty when you capture it; I don't think this would be that much worse (especially as a warmonger will find it easier to deal with drones than with low population).

Why not both?

Also, I think that you should definitely lose reputation if you use these weapons, even if against enemies. Like if you were noble before, you are going to drop in your credibility, and so forth.

[Yitzi]

When you capture it- its a double edged sword is what im thinking. It'll make people unhappy, and it wouldn't matter who rules it in a sense as everyone in that city was maliciously sabotaged.

The loss of population would also be a huge penalty when you capture it; I don't think this would be that much worse (especially as a warmonger will find it easier to deal with drones than with low population).

Why not both?

Also, I think that you should definitely lose reputation if you use these weapons, even if against enemies. Like if you were noble before, you are going to drop in your credibility, and so forth.

Doing both would probably be a buff, though, as you do more damage (more damage to yourself after conquest too, but if you were doing it in the first place that means you care more about doing damage.)

As for reputation, it's considered an atrocity, which is a different type of reputation than credibility but still an important one.

[gwillybj]

I like the "high failure rate" option if all other factors are unchanged (techs and facilities that offer protection). Is there a way to make it cost a lot of EC if the failure rate stays "normal"?

[Yitzi]

I like the "high failure rate" option if all other factors are unchanged (techs and facilities that offer protection). Is there a way to make it cost a lot of EC if the failure rate stays "normal"?

It would be doable, but a high EC cost doesn't really seem like the right way to do it.  (After all, if you're going for a high EC cost and normal failure rate, you could just mind control the base.)

[Yitzi]

Important update: I've found that there is a failure chance, probably the same as most other probe team actions (normal risk until you do it once, then it gets an interlock and rises to high risk in that base).  The only thing is that because you can't frame another faction (since it's an atrocity) there is no sub-menu mentioning the risk factor, and because it isn't available until later in the game you'll usually have high-morale probe teams with minimal failure chance.

I am, however, still interested in the question of what effect facilities and techs have, so I'll check that out...

[Yitzi]

Okay, here's the effects of genetic warfare:

-The base loses population.  The basic amount lost is the entire population, but each "intrinsic defense against genetic warfare" tech reduces the amount lost, with the reduction inversely proportional to the number of such techs in the game (so that if you have all the techs, you lose no population.)  If the faction has been targeted by genetic warfare before, this also counts as a tech, so you'd actually lose no population if you have all but one of the relevant techs and have been targeted before.  A research hospital halves the loss, as does a nanohospital (for a total of 75% reduction with both), and if the base has been targeted before (i.e. has a relevant interlock) the effect is halved again for a total of 87.5% reduction with all three.  Even with no mitigating factors (so it would lose the entire population), it keeps one population.

-Each unit in the base loses health.  The basic amount lost is a random amount between half the remaining health and all-but-1-hit-point.  This is likewise halved by research hospital, nanohospital, and interlocks, but not by techs.

I'm not sure if the fact that techs don't prevent loss of unit health counts as a bug; I'll open a thread in the bugs subforum to take a poll on the matter.