I gave this a go, and ran into pretty much the same issue that the original probes had: The random generation quickly kills off the maze-like nature of the idea by being capable of generating impossible walls. This isnt after like, 6 deliveries. This is after 2. And frequent. If the game is generating them in the way that I think it is, I suspect that on Misery, even doing one or two may be frequently impossible (or even always impossible). And if there were a conceivable way of getting past them when they do that, I'd have found it by now.
In an overall sense, this isnt actually much different from the original probes; instead, it's more like the "dont touch at all costs" red circles have simply become invisible until you get too close, since each probe essentially has a radius, the edge of which becomes a bullet wall when you are near enough for it to activate. But it's now MUCH harder to spot a path, but not just that, it's also harder to spot if there IS a path. Figuring out if it's actually doable or not now takes time, as the only way to do it is to navigate around a bit, and get near enough to the edge for some of them to activate, so you can see where the wall radius of each is.
In it's current state, considering what seem to be very heavy penalties for getting hit, this is likely to cause a great deal of frustration (and saving/reloading).
The problem with this as I see it isnt in the current actions of the probes themselves; it's in the very, very high difficulty of randomly generating something like this that can still TECHNICALLY be dealt with every time (with total avoidance) even at very high levels. I've seen this tried in shmups before (typically arena types), and.... ahh, the results frequently arent very good. The rest of the game gets completely around this problem due to the extreme amount of room there is to maneuver in, alongside the fact that each individual ship has both different AI, and different goals/targets at any one time. Even the chaotic Obscura can be brought into an entirely dodgeable situation by tactically peeling them away from one another, and doing tricks like that. The basics of the combat gameplay and the variety of options the player has at their disposal all work together to make sure that truly unbeatable situations really dont appear. The nature of this mission however, nullifies all of that. The probes exist in a very small and confined space, and there isnt anything the player can do about this. The one thing that MIGHT help is to basically sit there and hope that enough of them slowly move randomly away from one another to create a temporary path. The "red orb" probes, in large numbers, could only be dealt with in that exact same way. As you might guess, this takes bloody forever to actually do.
So that's my initial thoughts on that bit. I'm not sure what to suggest with this one, actually.
Oh, and one other thing: Even if I sat perfectly still just watching them, sooner or later one or two would go berserk for no apparent reason (with me not even remotely near any of them, yet it COULD wait until I get close, it seems completely random) and charge at me. I'm guessing this is a bug.
On another note, I sent an e-mail regarding a blob of issues I ran into when trying to do some balancing for the Obscura and such in Invasion mode (so that they work well in large groups together).
Ah, which brings up another thing.... if you want me to STOP doing that, as in, changing numbers / doing balancing on these new ships at this point, just let me know. It occurs to me that I didn't actually ask about it before I started doing it.... er.... at least I think I didn't.
Back to the patch, that's an interesting idea with the Burlusts.... hmm, have you considered the possibility of perhaps doing similar things for the other races? Like, unique elements that have to be dealt with, for each individual race, to get them into the Federation? Beyond just the usual relationship and influence numbers and stuff like that. It could be an interestinc concept? Though of course that'd be something for later on, but I thought I'd mention the idea.
