covert ops
 

All of a sudden I went from nearly 100% success in covert ops to nearly 0%, even though I start with 88-90% stealth rating and choose targets with few or no security centers and few agents for their size. What would cause this, and how can I fix it?

Re: covert ops
 

pt 400+ is usually the time players start putting population on security

Re: covert ops
 

Correct. If your targets don't need to be large (ie, if you're not bankhacking), you're better off searching for planets with many idle ticks, so you can keep hitting them every few ticks for a long time, rather than having to risk your stealth bonus every time on a new target. Also, news scans.

Re: covert ops
 

Like I said, I scan for that and choose targets with a low number of security guards for their roid size and low number of security centers (well under 10% of structures, which=immune).

For example, 400 security guards for 480 roids and 5 security centers out of 108 structures. With 88% stealth I should have a decent chance of success, but I get failure after failure. I want to know what is going on. I can't find anything in the manual.

Re: covert ops
 

Ive havent played proper in like 10-15 rounds, last time I checked you couldn't scan for a target population setting and this would be an unknown varible but I have played cov-ops in the past and pre pt400 was easy picking for cov op targets but this gets harder because most players once they get tt-4 hulls 2 or 3 all cores and a reasonable HCT they dont see the need for research and change population on security (its all about priorities)

Re: covert ops
 

From about 400 people have no real need for research any more.

You will find the majority of the universe is probably set to

25 Mining
35 Cons
40 Security

Which in most cases is near immune.

Your targets were also most likely Demo or in Anarchy and have switched away from it.