Spies

Spies are a counted item carried aboard ships and stocked on planets in classic Galactic Empire and standard ge-next. They have two different roles: a player can send one from an orbiting ship to infiltrate another player's planet, while spies in a planet's inventory act as its counterespionage force. Spy command explains deployment; this page covers what happens after a spy is planted.

Infiltrators and planetary stock

An infiltrator is represented by one spyowner User-ID in the planet record, not by an accumulating number of operatives. Deploying a second spy to the same planet consumes another shipboard spy but does not strengthen the infiltration or create a second independent source of reports. Another player's deployment replaces the previous owner. There is no recall command or fixed service life: the field remains until the infiltrator is caught, replaced, or becomes the planet's owner after a change of control.

The defending planet's ordinary spy-item quantity is separate from spyowner. It is this inventory stock, not the presence of an infiltrator, that determines the chance of catching an enemy operative. A planet's stock is also an item subject to normal planetary production and transfer rules; see Planetary production and Transfer command. Defending spies are not consumed by catching an infiltrator.

With the default base limit of five planetary spies, a VG/VG planet at zero tax can reach a production ceiling of 15 if it also qualifies for the 1.5x cash-supported bonus: 5 × 2 × 1.5 = 15. Tax and configuration change the ceiling. It is enforced during planet updates, so transferred stock can temporarily exceed it.

Checks and counterespionage

The game checks an infiltrated planet when that planet receives an update, not continuously and not immediately when SPY is entered. With N defending spies, the per-check capture calculation is:

divisor = (50 / N) + 1             (integer division)
capture if random_value % divisor == 0

If N is zero, there is no capture roll. Representative chances are about 2% with one defender, 9% with five, 25% with 15, and 50% with 26–50. At 51 or more, the divisor is one and capture is certain on the next check. These are chances per planet update, not per minute or per command.

A captured infiltrator is removed. The spying player receives an official protest, and the planet's owner receives a notice naming the player who sent the operative. Classic describes the operative as executed; ge-next uses arrest wording. In either version, the deployed spy is gone, but the planet's defending spy inventory remains.

Intelligence reports

A surviving infiltrator can report planetary reserves and some attacks. Reports are mailed through GE's persistent message system, so they need not arrive while the player is actively in the game. They are intermittent rather than a continuous view of the planet.

Reserves and confidence

After surviving the capture check, an operative has a 1-in-10 chance on that update to seek a reserve topic. The game makes up to ten random picks from the planet's item categories and reports the first pick with a positive quantity. Ten misses produce no mail. A report identifies the planet and sector, names one item, and estimates its quantity; it does not reveal the entire inventory.

The report's displayed confidence is roughly 50–98 percent. The game uses (100 - confidence) / 100 as an error range, subtracting one random fraction of that range from the actual stock and adding another. The two adjustments may cancel. Confidence therefore indicates the scale of possible distortion rather than a formal statistical probability, and even a high-confidence figure is an estimate, not the exact planet value.

Attacks and conquest

An infiltrator can also receive mail identifying the attacking player and whether the planet was conquered or the result was uncertain. A sufficiently substantial unsuccessful attack has a 1-in-6 chance to generate such a report; a qualifying conquest uses the conquest-report path without that extra random gate. The notification helper first tries to alert the planet's owner. If the owner is online and receives that alert, the foreign spy does not also receive mail from the same call.

Classic GE's attack-result messages are reversed: a failed attack can be reported as a conquest, and a successful conquest as an attack of uncertain outcome. ge-next 0.02 corrected the message text; the underlying battle and planet ownership were already processed correctly.

Limits of spy intelligence

A spy does not provide a live planet scan, exact or complete item quantities, planetary cash, tax and production settings, trade prices, or a detailed account of casualties. It is useful for discovering that a particular reserve exists, estimating its size, and occasionally learning of a military attack while the player is elsewhere. A planet's own stocked spies are instead defensive, reducing the expected lifetime of any foreign infiltrator.

ge-arena does not use the persistent planetary espionage system; SPY is disabled there.