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A couple of ideas for new Intel Missions. They're the sort of thing that only help in a game with a lot of secrecy - and may never be needed if players generally get on.

Espionage: Empire (Difficulty 1)
Gather basic information about an Empire: The Systems (no info on the systems, just their names) in the empire and links between them (not their nature), and the name of the Empires Capital.
Target any system in the defending Empire for this mission. Defensive Intel does not raise the mission difficulty as it is the sort of thing you can pick up by simply questioning someone on the street.

Espionage: Diplomatic Links (Difficulty 1)
Discover which Empires the Empire has dealings with, and whether those dealings are good (generally any treaty beyond those listed under neutral), neutral (normal relations, NAT, tribute treaty, non-intercourse treaty) or hostile (hostilities or war) but no specifics about which treaties exist.
Target any system in the defending Empire for this mission. Defensive Intel does not raise the mission difficulty as it is the sort of thing you can pick up by simply questioning someone on the street.

Espionage: Diplomacy (Difficulty 2)
Discover the nature of all treaties (including any unusual clauses) of one power to another specific power. This mission must target one of the two empires Capitals or an Embassy belonging to either of the two powers.

Espionage: Navigation (Difficulty 1)
Discover all information about all travel links (jumpgates, wormholes, or whatever) in a single system that the owning Empire has explored or otherwise gained knowledge of.
Target any system in the defending Empire for this mission. Defensive Intel does not raise the mission difficulty as it is the sort of thing you can pick up by simply questioning traders or other civilian interstellar travellers.

Espionage: Spy Network (Difficulty 3)
Treat all of your Intel missions in the defending Empire as if the Effective Defensive Intel where one level lower (minimum of 1) during the next two turns. If this mission is detected then the effect only lasts for one turn.
Target the defending Empires Capital or Intelligence Agency for this mission.

Espionage: Implication (+1)
When performing any other Intel mission you may try to implicate another power. Add one to the mission difficulty.
If you are not implicated and the roll is even the defending Empire will believe the other power was responsible (note that they may be able to deduce that the other power was not responsible if, for example, the mission happened a long way from the other Empire).

And finally, an installation:
Intelligence Agency (Or Secret Police, or whatever)
Cost: 30EP
Maintenance: 1 / 10 Systems in your Empire (or part thereof)
Defence: 1
Attrition: 8
While you have a functioning un-blockaded Agency each planet in your Empire has one additional defensive Intel, which may take the total above the usual limit. You may never have more than one Intelligence Agency in operation at any one time (they step on each others toes, and squabble over jurisdiction).

Cool! I do enjoying trying new Intel missions. There have been some games where I made some Intel missions avaiable to one player, but not another. That was always interesting.

Some of your missions need more specifics defined. Intel missions are shaky ground sometime, so take the empire Espionage mission for example? Does this just list the avaialble systems, or does it reveal the entire map of that system? I can see how some would be very important, like finding current diplomatic relations in a hidden game or what routes have been discovered. Some games they may not apply, like Steph's old Full Thrust game that had open diplomacy, but yes, I think they are worth developing for the community. So much of what has helped VBAM grow is a group of gamers who genuinly want to help each other learn, and have a better campaign.

To summarize I would start with some more specifics about what is revealed for the general espionage missions, but see no reason why the implication missions won't work as is (that one is just cool IMHO).

-Jay

Ditto on Jay's comments, and the Intell Agency (plus reasons for only one in operation is also very cool, and realistic hehe).

Intell Ops are a very fun and potentionally wide open aspect to a VBAM game, just limited by imagination (and of course pesky EPs to pay for the big operations ).

-Mark

I'll poke about with some rewrites and general tightening up of the rules,

Another complaint I've seen a lot both with my players and here on the forums is that it's too difficult to project Intel ops outside of your Empire because of the census restriction and distance clauses.

I like these clauses in general, but it makes a lot of sense to me that while they are a good baseline, infrastructural upgrades should be able to improve things without you having to relocate chunks of your population just so that you can launch an assassination into the adjacent empire!

So, that got me thinking - how would the CIA do it (not that the CIA do a lot of assassination - oh no )... Of course - regional offices, so this is my idea:

Regional Office
Cost: 20EP *
Maintenance: 1 / 2
Defence: 1
Attrition: 5
A Regional Offices cost is halved if you have an Intelligence Agency in play (this will also reduce the build time if you are using extended base construction). Regional offices may be built in vacant systems and even other Empires (with the other Empires permission - similar to how an Embassy is set up).
If the system is yours it is considered to have +2 Census for purposes of launching Intel operations, and housing defensive Intel. This may not take the effective Census above 12. In an unoccupied system this means that the system has an effective census of 2 for Intel purposes only.
In another empires system the Office allows you to utilise the empires census for purposes of defensive Intel and launching missions (you will never gain a +2 bonus, even if the other empire also has a Regional Office here).
No system may benefit from more than one Office for each Empire, and if the Office is destroyed half of your assigned defensive Intel is also lost with it (blowing up buildings with lots of spies inside also blows up the spies!)

There's one tweak I'd like to make to the baseline Intel rules from the CG,

As printed the "Sabotage: Counter Intel" mission causes the target to lose one Intel from the targeted system during the "Update Asset" phase.

Since Intel can be moved around freely between systems, this seems to be a pointless mission - it costs me several Intel points to achieve it (Mission Difficulty 2) and there's no way for me to capitalise upon it, as the "vulnerable" system can be patched up before the next Intel phase,

So I would propose that destroyed Intel is considered destroyed immediately for purposes of the player who launched the mission.

In other words, I can sequentially launch my Intel missions to take advantage of the ability to destroy or negate defensive Intel.

From the perspective of any other players however the Intel point(s) destroyed would remain until the Update Assets phase (mostly to avoid having to sequence the entire Intel phase - which would be extremely fiddly), if you really want a rationale, I would suggest that my missions can be planned and coordinated, however the other empires cannot do so,

The Intelligence Agency and Regional Office Installations make complete sense to me and really like the idea.

-Bren

I like what you have here.

Particularly the broad missions to learn about the size and scope of your opponent. That is information that would be available to 'discover' and not give much away.

good idea.

Done:

http://www.neostar.org.uk/rpg/vbam_inte ... ations.pdf

Another possibility:

Espionage: Economy (Difficulty 1)
You may target any System in the target Empire with this mission.
If successful you will be told whether the target economy is in recession, peacetime, gearing up, set for hostilities or set for war, you will also learn the Total System Product of the targeted system.
By adding one to the mission difficulty you will also be given some idea of the target Empires income. If so then the CM should pass on to you the Empires total System and Trade incomes, each rounded off to the nearest ten. If the targeted System is the Empires Capital, then the totals are not rounded.