Infiltrator Side: Both Type: Infantry Movement Type: Foot Ground Weapon: None Anti-Air Weapon: None Range: N/A Damage: N/A Hit Points: 66 Sight Range: 9 Movement Speed: Fast Cost: 1000 Requirements: Advanced Training Facility Built At: Training Facility

The Infiltrator allows a team to steal production plans from other teams. They can morph, taking on the appearance of other units, so you can also use them as expensive scouts.

Note: The Infiltrator is not available by default in custom games.

Morphing

Unlike the Scout, which takes on the appearance of background scenery, Infiltrators morph into other units (infantry only). You can morph by targeting one of your own units; however, this will fool no one and thus accomplishes very little. Morphing by targeting an enemy unit, however, will cause the Infiltrator to take on the colors of the enemy—thereby allowing the Infiltrator to move uncontested amongst enemy ranks. This will fool enemies most of the time, but may fool your allies as well!

To morph, just select your Infiltrator and click the “Morph” button on the “Special” panel (or press i). Target the blue cursor on any infantry unit, and the Infiltrator will take on that unit’s appearance and team color. (You may wish to hotkey your Infiltrators to aid you in telling them apart from the enemy.)

There is a catch (and isn’t there always?): If any enemy unit spots your Infiltrator morphing, then that entire team will not be fooled by the Infiltrator’s new appearance. Basically, this means if your Infiltrator is within the line of sight of an enemy when he morphs, his disguise will be for naught. And since the Infiltrator does not have a noteworthy sight range, pretty much if he can see the enemy, the enemy can see him. And that’s not good for his continued survival.

Always use another unit to spot for your Infiltrators.

Therefore, the lesson here is to never use the Infiltrator himself to scout the enemy he is going to morph into. The morph operation has no range limitation. If you can see it, you can morph into it, even if it’s all the way across the map. So keep your Infiltrators carefully hidden away deep in your base where no enemy could possibly spot them transforming, and have some other unit scout out potential targets for morphing. Hotkey your Infiltrators, and as soon as your scout is within sight range of an enemy infantry unit, hit the hotkey for your Infiltrators and then press i and click on the enemy. Your Infiltrators will now be morphed and ready to go.

Computer players have roughly a 1 in 100 chance to detect your morphed Infiltrator and realize what team he really belongs to. This detection rate can vary, however, based on the AI’s difficulty and any changes made to a custom AI. This chance also grows greater the longer the Infiltrator stays morphed and in the sight range of the AI. If the computer suddenly starts shooting at your Infiltrator when he was just walking around minding his own business, this is probably why. (The other reason is that somebody caught him morphing.)

A morphed Infiltrator maintains all of his normal statistics, such as sight range, hit points, and so forth. He does not gain any abilities from the unit he morphs into; for example, morphing into a Raider will not allow the Infiltrator to shoot. Morphing changes the Infiltrator’s appearance only.

Stealing Plans

Infiltrators can enter enemy buildings and steal blueprints for structures and units. To do so, take your Infiltrator (morphed, obviously) and click on a building to tell the Infiltrator to move into that building. Valid buildings will change the cursor to a “board” cursor when highlighted.

Once the Infiltrator is inside the building, select the enemy building and take note of the build icons in your sidebar. These icons represent everything the enemy that you are spying upon can build from that building. Click on an icon and a small progress bar will display. This represents the Infiltrator stealing those plans. The icon turns green when the Infiltrator has successfully swiped the blueprints for that icon. A red icon means you already have those blueprints and don’t need to steal them again.

Once an Infiltrator has some blueprints in his grubby little fingers, you need to get those valuable plans safely home. The plans are not officially yours until your Infiltrator returns to your base and enters one of your Headquarters buildings.

Everybody out of the pool!

You can eject an Infiltrator from a building at any time by selecting the structure he is in and then clicking on it again. (The cursor changes to the “unload” cursor.) This is very similar to using a transport.

Once you have stolen blueprints and returned them to your HQ, you can now build the units and buildings that you have stolen. If your own technology is not doing the job well enough, use the enemy’s!

It is most economical to steal blueprints for structures because when you steal plans to a building, you automatically gain the plans for all of the units that building can produce. To steal structure blueprints, enter the enemy’s Headquarters.

If your Infiltrator enters an enemy’s HQ building, you gain access to that enemy’s line of sight for as long as your Infiltrator remains where he is. If your Infiltrator enters an enemy’s Power Generator or Water Launch Pad, you can view that enemy’s resources by clicking the button for that team in the resource meter.

Note that an enemy can sometimes become wise to your Infiltrator hiding out inside his building, which usually results in your Infiltrator getting the boot. Since he tends to become unmorphed when this happens, he’s generally going to be toast. Try not to dally inside someone else’s building, unless you are willing to sacrifice the Infiltrator for the intel. If you park an Infiltrator inside an enemy’s Headquarters for reconnaissance, be prepared for the fact that he might not be coming home.

It is possible to steal multiple plans in one session; however, the longer your Infiltrator remains inside the building, the greater the odds of detection. Sometimes it’s better to steal blueprints one at a time.

Countering

When another player is using Infiltrators against you, there are some tools you can use to identify the trickster. For one thing, a morphed Infiltrator will still show as an enemy when you point the mouse cursor at him. Also, if the Infiltrator is morphed to look like one of your units, you can quickly identify him by doing a box-selection of all units in the area. A group-select will not select Infiltrators that belong to other players, so you instantly know that any units of your color that are not selected are Infiltrators. Another way to tell an Infiltrator is by his movement speed; a Bion that is moving very quickly, for example, is most likely an Infiltrator. Also take a look at the unit’s line of sight. If the Infiltrator looks like one of your units but does not uncover the fog of war for you, then you know he is an enemy.

Your units will not automatically fire upon an enemy Infiltrator if he is morphed to appear as an ally. So when you discover an enemy Infiltrator, you will need to select some of your nearby units and execute an explicit Attack command on that Infiltrator.