mind control eliminates nearby probe team

[bvanevery]

The Nautilus Pirates were going to imminently capture my sea base via mind control.  I didn't have any unit that could intervene, having lost my amphibious probe team previously.  I removed an amphibious defender from the base, putting it on land.  I thought I'd try doubling it up with a Scout nearby, to see if that would stop the units from being taken within the base's radius.  And for good measure, I brought a land based probe team to the square.

Details before sea base is mind controlled

before sea base is mind controlled

It did no good!  The 2 combat units became Pirate, and the probe team was simply eliminated.

Details combat units now Pirate and probe team eliminated

combat units now Pirate and probe team eliminated

Rules about mind control are some of the stupidest things in the original game.  Pity this can't be changed with only .txt modding.

Apologies for the atrocious image quality.  I've got this 1920x1080 screen now, so my captures are sometimes bigger than what this site allows.  While manually cropping it, the MS app did a poor job.

The .sav file is with my SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.55.  Not sure if that will really matter for other people trying to load it.  If anyone bothers.

[Aureustgo]

Interesting.

An alternative would be just to disband the unit, if it was really important to keep it from the AI (prototype, morale, whatever). I suppose another would be to obliterate the base.

I think the narrative about probe teams is a feature not a bug (not that you're claiming it to be one). Take over the base, and the surrounding region is corrupted into the cause. That always resonated with me. It also minimizes the prospect that newly probed bases are vulnerable to immediate counterattack (one could just stack infantry all around it). I suspect the designers wanted a more free flowing game play, rather than play with static battle lines.