Babulon Sees All: Comparing the Eye of Babulon and the Active Probe

Babulon Sees All: Comparing the Eye of Babulon and the Active Probe

In the Infinite Space trilogy, the Eye of Babulon (originally called the Torc of Babulon) is often compared to the Beagle Active Probe (and its Clan counterpart) from BattleTech, due to its ability to reveal cloaked units in battle. However, the Eye's usefulness (aside from being an additional source of income when sold) is generally limited, since the few NPC units that have Plasma Coil Cloakers as standard (Urluquai Deep Hunters, Primordius' Necrodrones) are either only encountered on higher difficulties, or as part of a quest. That said, having the Eye when facing these units in combat is generally advantageous, though not mandatory.

The Eye of Babulon - a fleet commander's best friend when faced with cloaked enemy ships.

Normally, cloaked units are never shown at all on the battlefield map, except at the start of a battle, or when decloaking. However, if you have the Eye of Babulon in your inventory, their locations will be shown throughout the entire duration of the battle or until they are destroyed, whichever comes first - and this effect is applied to your entire fleet, so you can deploy whatever ships you want (or need) against them and gain the benefit. 

Cloaked ships (such as these Urluquai Deep Hunters) are normally never shown on the map during a battle (except when decloaked or before you have deployed any ships in your fleet), but with the Eye of Babulon, their locations will be permanently revealed to you - to get an idea of its effects, imagine the above image, but with permanent orange markers (complete with hull and shield strength indicators) on all four Deep Hunters to indicate the fact that they are part of an NPC-controlled fleet.

This will make it much easier for you to anticipate their movements, although you still can't manually target cloaked units. Even so, instead of using the Eye to blow their cover, you can also fit one of your capital ships with a Plasma Coil Cloaker, and have it decloak to lure the cloaked ships towards it, before attacking them with overwhelming firepower to destroy them - in the case of the giant space station Primordius, the station itself (unlike its expendable Necrodrones, which it deploys in groups of 8 at a time) is never cloaked, nor are its Guardian Satellites, so you can target the station right away and finish it off quickly without having to worry too much about its Necrodrones.

The Eye of Babulon can be useful against Primordius, since it allows you to detect its Necrodrones after they have been launched (in a cloaked state), but given that these are the only ships which have cloaking devices as standard (other than Urluquai Deep Hunters), it's the only other situation where having the Eye is worthwhile.

When combined with skillful tactical and strategic micromanagement, the Eye of Babulon can help turn the tide of a battle in your favor more easily - as long as there are cloaked NPC ships on the map to use it against.

The conclusion to the battle shown above: with the Eye of Babulon in their possession, the crew of the capital ship Damocles annihilated Primordius and its Guardian Satellites, having used the Eye to pinpoint the otherwise undetectable Necrodrones in real time, and thus prepare an effective defense against them.

The basic functionality of the Eye of Babulon brings to mind the Beagle Active Probe (and, by extension, the miniaturized Clan counterpart) from BattleTech (and its adaptations, including MechWarrior Online). This item weighs 1.5 tons and occupies 2 critical slots, whereas the Clan equivalent weighs only 1 ton and requires 1 critical slot. Although the Probe was valued for its ability to penetrate most ECM fields (except for those created by the more advanced Angel ECM Suite), it became lostech during the Succession Wars, only to be rediscovered shortly after the rediscovery of the Helm Memory Core's contents. The Clans, on the other hand, never lost it, and improved on the basic idea to such an extent that it was no longer called a Beagle. ComStar, meanwhile, created a more effective version of the Beagle Active Probe shortly after the Clan Invasion - the resulting Bloodhound Active Probe is even heavier and bulkier than the original Inner Sphere Beagle (2 tons and 3 Critical Slots), but is even more effective at countering stealth systems.

An example of a loadout for a 'Mech fitted with an Active Probe. The 'Mech shown above is a Stone Rhino SR-6; here, the Active Probe helps it penetrate hostile ECM and increases its sensor range.

Active Probes are especially effective when combined with LRM launchers, since they can help lock on to any hostile unit on the map, even when it has shut itself down to avoid detection. 

An LRM boat, such as this Blood Asp, becomes even more effective than usual with an Active Probe fitted.

Note that although MWO's version of the Inner Sphere Beagle Active Probe originally had identical mass and space requirements to its tabletop counterpart, it has since been patched to match the Clan equivalent in both respects (1 ton and 1 critical slot). This has proven to be especially beneficial for faster light and medium 'Mechs that have been configured as scouts, due to their lower tonnage limits.

An example loadout of an Inner Sphere Firestarter armed with a Beagle Active Probe, post-patch - with the reduced mass and space requirements, this item can now be fitted without exceeding the space and/or mass limits for this variant, and mounted in the head to boot, whereas both of these were impossible before the patch.

In short, as situational as it is, the Eye of Babulon can be a handy tool during combat in any Strange Adventures in Infinite Space game (especially Sea of Stars) under the right circumstances, just as the Beagle Active Probe can help MechWarriors detect - and counter - any hidden threats, before they have a chance to inflict damage on friendly forces.