Techno Thief / Advanced Hacking

[Pumpkin]

This is a refined versions of that idea, replacing the ilostit stuff with actual gameplay rules. (It was made after some tests with player controlled Guardians: some proved to be fun, some to be broken.)

This will be a Human Minor Faction: if enabled, a new kind of hacker ship is added to the game, with its own list of devices, and its load of journal entries and builtin balance.

Theme: stealing AI technology

As a balance for these new possibilities, Dire Guardian Lairs and Subcommanders are more common, and each MkIII-IV planet can exchange one of its Guard Posts for a Core Guard Post (non-brutal, no AIP on death, protects its command station, destructible with remaining CSG, etc).

Dire Hijacking

We learned to add some remote control devices to a busted golem in order to use its firepower. Hijacking a Dire Guardian is the same principle; we just need to bust it ourselves first. -- a dauntless engineer.

That device has no fixed duration. Instead, when it begins, it immediately destroys the Dire Guardian Lair at its planet and triggers the hacking response. It unsuccessfully ends if it's destroyed (or scrapped) or if one of the Dire Guardians exit the planet. It successfully ends when the three Dire Guardians are destroyed. Upon successful completion, HaP is consumed and a Busted Dire Guardian is created at the current planet, under players' control. Selecting it allows to chose one from the three models the Lair spawned. The Busted Dire Guardian then requires some metal to be brought back to like, under Human control.

Guard Salvaging

Each Guard Post has some special core reactor; this is how the AI build such big turrets. How interesting it would be to study one of them. Unfortunately, most guard post reactors are too fragile and end up wreaked. -- a xenotech scientific.

That device triggers no hacking response and has no timer. Instead, while deployed on an AI planet, all destruction of non-homeworld Core Guard Posts on its planet consume HaP and produces a Guard Reactor that might be slowly moved into friendly territory. Each Guard Reactor allows players to build one MkIII Guard Post among Missile, MLRS, Needler and Laser.

Xenoship Downloading

The AI has developed some weird starships to fight us, but it doesn't seem to store these designs in regular backups. If only I could discover where it conceal them... -- a hacker counter-Intel team member.

This device is more regular (fixed duration, triggers hacking response, consume HaP when successful). It can only be done once per planet with a Subcommander. If successful, it grants a model of guardian to the players. Guardians are built at the starship constructor, have a cap of 2 per mark, and Knowledge can be invested to unlock them up to MkIII (an Advanced Starship Factory allows MkIV if MkIII is unlocked). The type of the guardian depends on the Subcommander type (identical Subcommanders on different planets cannot be hacked twice):
- Bunkerer : Shield Guardian
- Lobber : Sniper Guardian
- Obstructionist : Tractor Guardian
- Rude Gesture : Zombie Guardian
- Knife Fighter : Vampire Guardian
- Paranoid : Neinzul Carrier Guardian

(If not done by another AIW2 revamp stuff, a galaxy filter must display the Subcommanders.)