Espionage Tech is the intel technology. It does two jobs. On the way out it decides how much of an espionage report you can actually read. On the way in it decides how much you are told about fleets heading for your planets, and it makes other people's probes easier to shoot down.
It is cheap to start and it is one of the first techs worth pushing past level 1. You cannot build a Hermes Class Probe at all until Espionage Tech is at level 2, so with no levels in it you are flying blind.
Requirements
A Research Lab at level 3. That is the whole list. There is no tech prerequisite, so it is available early. Research it from the Research page like any other tech.
Costs
Level 1 costs 200 ore, 1,000 crystal and 200 hydrogen. Every level after that doubles all three.
| Level | Ore | Crystal | Hydrogen |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 1,000 | 200 |
| 2 | 400 | 2,000 | 400 |
| 3 | 800 | 4,000 | 800 |
| 4 | 1,600 | 8,000 | 1,600 |
| 5 | 3,200 | 16,000 | 3,200 |
| 6 | 6,400 | 32,000 | 6,400 |
| 7 | 12,800 | 64,000 | 12,800 |
| 8 | 25,600 | 128,000 | 25,600 |
| 9 | 51,200 | 256,000 | 51,200 |
| 10 | 102,400 | 512,000 | 102,400 |
| 11 | 204,800 | 1,024,000 | 204,800 |
| 12 | 409,600 | 2,048,000 | 409,600 |
| 13 | 819,200 | 4,096,000 | 819,200 |
| 14 | 1,638,400 | 8,192,000 | 1,638,400 |
There is no level cap. Level 15 is 3,276,800 ore, 16,384,000 crystal and 3,276,800 hydrogen, and it keeps doubling from there. Crystal is always the wall on this one.
Research time comes off ore plus crystal divided by your Research Lab level, so the same level lands much faster once your lab is tall. The Research page shows the exact time before you commit.
How much of a report you can read
Every espionage report gets an espionage number. Work out the gap between your Espionage Tech and the target's, then:
- Your level is equal or higher: espionage number = probes sent + gap2
- Their level is higher: espionage number = probes sent - gap2, and it never drops below zero
That number decides which sections of the report unlock, and they stack:
| Espionage number | What the report shows |
|---|---|
| 0 or more | Resources |
| 2 or more | + Fleet |
| 3 or more | + Defenses |
| 5 or more | + Buildings |
| 7 or more | + Technologies |
Resources are the floor. The number can never go under zero, so even one probe against somebody five levels above you still comes home with what they are carrying. Everything above that has to be earned with tech levels or with probe count.
Here is the same thing as a shopping list. Read down the left for the gap between you and them, across for the section you want, and the cell is how many probes you have to send:
| Your level minus theirs | Fleet | Defenses | Buildings | Everything |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -3 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 16 |
| -2 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
| -1 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 8 |
| 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
| +1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| +2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| +3 or more | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Example: you are at Espionage Tech 4, the target is at 2, and you send 2 probes. That is 2 + (4-2)2 = 6. You see resources, fleet, defenses and buildings, but not their technologies.
Three levels above the target is the number worth aiming for. At +3 a single Hermes reads the whole planet, which is what makes farming cheap. Every level below that costs you probes on every single run.
Counterespionage
Espionage Tech is also what shoots probes down. When somebody probes you, the chance their probes die on arrival is:
chance = F x (probes)1/3 x (ships in orbit)1/3
F comes from the tech gap, measured as the defender's level minus the attacker's:
| Defender level minus attacker level | F |
|---|---|
| -2 or lower | 0 |
| -1 | 0.5 |
| 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 2 |
| 2 or more | gap2 |
What that means in practice:
- Two levels ahead of somebody and you are untouchable. F is 0, so your probes always come home no matter how big their fleet is.
- Two levels behind and you are the one killing probes. At a gap of 2 F is 4, at a gap of 3 it is 9, and it climbs fast.
- Ships in orbit are the other half of it. A planet with nothing parked on it has a zero percent chance of stopping anything, whatever the tech levels are. Fleet saving makes you free to probe.
- Only ships count. Defenses do nothing here. Ships lent to a planet by Group Defend do count.
- The probe count is in both formulas, so a big probe run buys detail and pays for it in survival odds. Eight probes against 700 ships on an even tech gap is about an 18 percent chance of losing the lot.
- A destroyed probe still delivers its report. You lose the ships, not the intel.
Incoming fleets
The defensive half of the tech is what shows up on your Overview when a fleet is on its way to you. It is cumulative, so level 8 sees everything level 4 sees plus more.
| Level | What you see about an incoming attack |
|---|---|
| 0-1 | That an attack is coming, where from, which planet it is aimed at, and when it lands |
| 2-3 | The total number of ships in it |
| 4-7 | Which ship types are in it |
| 8+ | Exactly how many of each type |
At level 1 you get a timer and nothing else:
At level 8 the same attack reads out ship by ship, which is the difference between guessing and knowing whether your defenses will hold:
Group attacks use the same thresholds. The number of fleets in the group is always shown, and the ship detail unlocks at 2, 4 and 8 the same way. Inbound probes are never hidden, whatever your level.
What it unlocks
- Hermes Class Probe at level 2
- Expedition Tech at level 4
There are four quests on it as well, Spying on the Enemy I to IV, at levels 2, 4, 9 and 13.
Tips
- Level 2 first, because without it you cannot build a probe at all.
- Level 4 next. It is the gate on Expedition Tech, which is what opens the daily missions, so most players go straight there and stop for a while.
- After that treat it as a two for one. Every level cuts the probes you need per report and raises the odds you kill somebody else's.
- Level 8 is where most active players end up, because that is where an incoming attack stops being a guess.
- NPC encounters have no Espionage Tech at all. From level 2 they can never kill your probes, and from level 3 one Hermes reads an encounter in full.
- It does nothing for the Oracle. Oracle scan range is the Oracle's own level, not this.
- A Shadow Probe ignores all of this. It returns the full report whatever the tech levels are and it cannot be shot down.
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