Espionage Report

An espionage report (often shortened to espio report) contains information about a specific target planet that can, for example, be used to simulate a battle.

Obtaining an Espionage Report

To obtain an espionage report, you must send one or more espionage probes with the order "Espionage" to an enemy target. These are conveniently quite fast and cheap, which makes a loss less painful in case of a battle.

In the message menu, espionage reports can be set to display only partially — they then appear as single-line messages that lead to the actual espionage report via a popup window, which nonetheless does not differ from the form shown below.

Structure of an Espionage Report

An espionage report ideally looks something like this (values are fictional!):

Resources on Arakis [1:1:2] (player 'Legor') on 10-13 13:31:59
Metal: 36,455,282	Crystal: 18,635,149
Deuterium: 7,810,037	Energy: 302,000

Fleets

Small Cargo Ship 100,000	Large Cargo Ship 23,000
Light Fighter 1,000,000	Heavy Fighter 500,000
Cruiser 30,000	Battleship 50,000
Colony Ship 1	Recycler 10,000
Espionage Probe 10,000	Bomber 12,000
Solar Satellite 2,000	Destroyer 12,000
Death Star 3,999	Battlecruiser 10,000

Defense

Rocket Launcher 1,000,000	Light Laser Cannon 1,000,000
Heavy Laser Cannon 30,000	Gauss Cannon 70,000
Ion Cannon 30,000	Plasma Turret 100,000
Small Shield Dome 1	Large Shield Dome 1
Interceptor Missile 20	Interplanetary Missile 20

Buildings

Metal Mine 37	Crystal Mine 27
Deuterium Synthesizer 29	Solar Plant 35
Fusion Power Plant 5	Robotics Factory 10
Nanite Factory 5	Shipyard 12
Metal Storage 10	Crystal Storage 10
Deuterium Tank 10	Research Lab 13
Alliance Depot 4	Terraformer 6
Missile Silo 6

Research

Espionage Technology 12	Computer Technology 12
Weapons Technology 15	Shielding Technology 15
Armor Technology 15	Energy Technology 12
Hyperspace Technology 8	Combustion Drive 13
Impulse Drive 10	Hyperspace Drive 8
Laser Technology 12	Ion Technology 5
Plasma Technology 7	Intergalactic Research Network 8
Astrophysics 12	Graviton Research 1
Chance of counter-espionage detection: 15%

What Do You See When?

With every espionage action, you always see the resources on the planet, hints about activity within the last hour, and the percentage chance of counter-espionage detection.

However, the report doesn't automatically contain all information down to the research levels. To learn more about the target, either a higher Espionage Technology level or more espionage probes are needed. If you have an espionage technology level at least three levels higher than your opponent, you always see everything. If your own espionage technology level isn't enough to see what you want, you can simply make up for the missing levels by sending more probes. To make up for a lower level, you need the square of the level difference in probes. To then see more than just the resources, an additional 1 to 2 probes per block are needed.

Specifically, the following formula applies for the number of probes needed:

$techDifference = abs($senderSpyTech - $targetSpyTech);

$MinAmount = ($senderSpyTech > $targetSpyTech ? -1 : 1) * pow($techDifference * SPY_DIFFENCE_FACTOR, 2);

$SpyFleet = $fleetAmount >= $MinAmount;

$SpyDef = $fleetAmount >= $MinAmount + 1 * SPY_VIEW_FACTOR;

$SpyBuild = $fleetAmount >= $MinAmount + 3 * SPY_VIEW_FACTOR;

$SpyTechno = $fleetAmount >= $MinAmount + 5 * SPY_VIEW_FACTOR;\\

Spytech difference	-15	-14	-13	-12	-11	-10	-9	-8	-7	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2+
Ressources	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Fleet	225	196	169	144	121	100	81	64	49	36	25	16	9	4	1	1	1	1
Defense	226	197	170	145	122	101	82	65	50	37	26	17	10	5	2	1	1	1
Buildings	228	199	172	147	124	103	84	67	52	39	28	19	12	7	4	3	2	1
Research	230	201	174	149	126	105	86	69	54	41	30	21	14	9	6	5	4	1

WARNING: The more probes you send, the higher the probability of a battle occurring!

Counter-Espionage

Counter-espionage determines whether the espionage probes have to fight the ships or defense installations stationed on the target planet.

Counter-espionage can be calculated as follows: A counter-espionage chance is randomly calculated between 0 and (number of espionage probes / 4) * (Espionage Technology of the victim / Espionage Technology of the spy). However, the exact formula is kept secret, so a completely accurate formula cannot be established. The formula given here does not include the increase in detection chance from stationed ships.

The counter-espionage chance is capped at 100%.

If an espionage probe is not detected despite a 100% detection chance, or is detected despite a 0% chance, this is a rounding error. For example, at a nominal 100% chance the real detection chance might actually be 99.8%, meaning that every 500th espionage probe goes undetected. Decimal values aren't shown; they're rounded up or down in the espionage report.

Simplified Summary:

The detection chance increases with:

- Size of the fleet at the target, including solar satellites and espionage probes. (Defense doesn't factor in here)

- Using more espionage probes for the espionage action

- High espionage technology level of the target

- Low espionage technology level of the spy

What the Opponent Sees

Regardless of whether the espionage probes were "detected", the spied-on player always receives a notification of where they were spied on from. In the event of a battle, they also receive the combat report.

Adapted and cleaned up from owiki.de (GNU Free Documentation License 1.3), a general OGame community wiki — the conceptual explanation applies generally, but specific numbers/formulas may differ from the pr0game source code and are not verified.