A couple Intelligence questions:
How variable are Intelligence operations? Is it a straight point per point comparison of Counterespionage and Intelligence, or are dice rolled in there somewhere? Does the defender have to beat a certain threshold to provide misinformation on a successful defense (e.g "beat Intelligence attack by 5 or more,") or is it a flat chance on a success (e.g "on successful defense, 10% chance to give misinformation,") or is it entirely at defender's discretion?
For that matter, how variable exactly is ship/army combat? Rule of thumb says 3x advantage is 99% victory; is 2x advantage 66% ?
I like the fancy new spreadsheet, by the way. Note to self, name rest of my worlds.
Ship combat is
very variable, but those are good estimations. Both sides have a random modifier applied to increase or decrease their effective strength, and the rolled result is a question of win/lose/draw (there's a small margin for drawing in which either both sides lose ships or neither do).
Intelligence is partly random as well, but with much smaller margins. You'd need to assign 50% more to opposing intelligence to be 95% secure of victory. Counterespionage is point per point for most activities, but gets a 50% bonus to oppose intelligence infiltration and an even larger bonus to oppose assassination attempts.
If the defender beats the attacker by a sufficient threshold, then yes, misinformation can happen instead. Unless specific misinformation plans are given beforehand, misinformation is at the field agent's discretion.