[quote name='Krypt0n' timestamp='1356979218' post='5016129']
a hacking unit that highjacks opponents, but without controlling them. the player can figure out that one of his units is highjacked, but selecting it and giving orders, which a highjacked unit would obviously not understand, but as long as it has to just go on with the usual route e.g. a harvester, it would transport the hacking unit into the base. inside the base, the hacking unit could sabotage buildings, yet again, not destroy them or something, but, lets say, drop their efficiency. by how much? that depends on the player who's send the hack unit. if you set the efficiency of a factory to 99%, nobody might notice, but might also not change anything. you set it to 90% the opponent might notice it sooner or later. you set it to 0%, well, if it's in the middle of his attack, he might not realize his base is not working at all, if you do it during normal gameplay, you might delay him by 3 tanks or something.
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I like this. I remember in "Dark Reign" (about the same time as Star Craft 1), you had an Infiltrator The Infiltrator was a character that was easily identifiable as one of yours, but he had excellent visual range, and if he say another Human unit, he could make himself look the same. The enemy's characters would NOT recognize him as an enemy, and unless the player noticed this rouge character acting on their own, they could move around freely.
- They would provide a few things of interest.
1) You could see around in the enemies base.
2) The infiltrator could sneak into an existing building.
3) The infiltrator could then start researching technologies that the building created. (starting with Level 1/weakest versions, and move up.
4) The infiltrator would have to make it back to your base and unload the information, but once done, you could then build the items as well.
5) if the enemy clicked on a building with an Infiltrator in it, they would see one was in it, and they could expell/mark them with a single click. All enemies would then see the Infiltrator as a character of the original race again.
It was a good idea, and something provided later in the game. It seems like an idea to introduce enhanced technologies. Perhaps they can't do a lot. For instance, if you put an American Plumber in front of missile diagrams for a foreign country's weapon defense system, chances are they would not be able to make anything from them. So perhaps the Infiltrator needs to be trained, and make repetitive trips, both sides learning from each other over time. And of course, not perfect duplicates, but simply new upgrades, or different units entirely.