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Orthogonalus
Feb 26, 2008
Right angles ONLY
Did the most recent update cause some camera bug? When I foolishly run into a camera's fov the alarm doesn't always get raised, and hacking one doesn't always let you see what it sees.

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Dav
Nov 6, 2009

Orthogonalus posted:

Did the most recent update cause some camera bug? When I foolishly run into a camera's fov the alarm doesn't always get raised, and hacking one doesn't always let you see what it sees.

There seems to be some discrepancy. The red squares seem to match what I'd expect the cameras to see and the Watched squares seem to match which squares cause alerts, but the former two don't always seem to match the latter two. It's odd to have red squares that aren't watched...

Angry Diplomat
Nov 7, 2009

Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging
Cameras do seem to behave sort of oddly. I haven't noticed enough weirdness to seriously affect the flow of the game, but any discrepancy is a bad discrepancy in a game that demands carefully considered decisions like this one.

On an unrelated note, Nika and Internationale with Parasite are a freaking powerhouse team. If you're attentive and fastidious about console hijacking and Parasite infection you can be swimming in power most of the time, which lets Nika occasionally hulk the gently caress out and bulldoze a shitload of guards without breaking a sweat.

Angry Diplomat fucked around with this message at 16:46 on May 18, 2015

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi
Having played more expert plus, I think I actually prefer Archive Internationale over her On File variant.

Sighence
Aug 26, 2009

Angry Diplomat posted:

Cameras do seem to behave sort of oddly. I haven't noticed enough weirdness to seriously affect the flow of the game, but any discrepancy is a bad discrepancy in a game that demands carefully considered decisions like this one.

On an unrelated note, Nika and Internationale with Parasite are a freaking powerhouse team. If you're attentive and fastidious about console hijacking and Parasite infection you can be swimming in power most of the time, which lets Nika occasionally hulk the gently caress out and bulldoze a shitload of guards without breaking a sweat.

Wait, All on the same turn? She gets one more attack and 3 ap on each (or if you're as lucky on augs as I was, 9 ap :unsmigghh: ) but that two attack limit can't be surpassed, can it?

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.
Using a Stim III actually refreshes the agent's attack as well as granting 8 AP. I'm not sure if it refreshes both of Nika's attacks, but it does let you get to 3 in a round with her.

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

alarumklok posted:

I used Prism last (ill-fated) run too, and even though I still think she's boring as poo poo, her cybernetic probably averages out to a free Power Drip, which is strong as gently caress.

Prism + Parasite is quite ridiculous. Hack up to three devices at a time for free and actually gain power from hacking if you do less. This combo allows you to either stop bothering with clicking Fusion/consoles forever, or to go on a spree with Nika/miscellaneous Incognita powers. Shame she's (afaik) not in the detention center pool, because she'd make for a much better itemless find than Decker or Shalem.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi

Lichtenstein posted:

Prism + Parasite is quite ridiculous. Hack up to three devices at a time for free and actually gain power from hacking if you do less. This combo allows you to either stop bothering with clicking Fusion/consoles forever, or to go on a spree with Nika/miscellaneous Incognita powers. Shame she's (afaik) not in the detention center pool, because she'd make for a much better itemless find than Decker or Shalem.

Shalem is actually a good detention center find. 1 armor penetration is really good, even if it's only on ranged weapons. Does anybody know if you get archive characters from detention centers?

EDIT: Time for ironman endless plus! http://www.hitbox.tv/TastyLemonDrops

TastyLemonDrops fucked around with this message at 21:00 on May 18, 2015

alarumklok
Jun 30, 2012

As far as I can tell, no archives, but I am also a sample size of one and I tend to prioritize gearmissions over dudemissions unless I'm down a guy.

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.
Holy poo poo , Sharp is the real deal

Angry Diplomat
Nov 7, 2009

Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging

Lichtenstein posted:

Holy poo poo , Sharp is the real deal

Sharp is a loving monstrosity if you can hit a cybernetics facility or two. If you can put a couple titanium rods modifications on him, he'll stun guards for an obscenely long time.

If you aren't pulling cyber facilities, he's a bit more of a chore to max out. Worth it, though.

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

You mean that the guy whose got six aug slots and a second bonus on top of that is good? Who knew!

Sarcasm aside, I'm thinking about trying a murder/KO everybody run with Sharp/Nika. I wonder how many guards you could keep permanently unconscious if you built Sharp specifically as a body wrangler.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

I have the most ridiculous run right now. Started with seed and parasite, picked up data burst on my first mission. I'm running Xu and Prism, both have the melee penetration augment, Prism has two of them and I just picked up a full suite of OP as gently caress programs. I have an extra neural disrupter, a penetration rifle, two extra chargepacks and a spare ranged penetration augment and I have 23 hours left. Haven't had a holding facility show up yet though, which is worrying but I feel like this is the run I win experienced.

abardam
Mar 1, 2015

Demiurge4 posted:

I have the most ridiculous run right now. Started with seed and parasite, picked up data burst on my first mission. I'm running Xu and Prism, both have the melee penetration augment, Prism has two of them and I just picked up a full suite of OP as gently caress programs. I have an extra neural disrupter, a penetration rifle, two extra chargepacks and a spare ranged penetration augment and I have 23 hours left. Haven't had a holding facility show up yet though, which is worrying but I feel like this is the run I win experienced.

Yeah, detention centers are probably a good idea. Even with no upgrades, the extra agent will be useful in the last mission just for running around and distracting guards.

Just finished Expert Plus with Archive Banks and Archive Internationale! You'll get an absolute shitton of money with these guys. Imagine: every console is a safe; every guard is also a safe. I decided to spend my cash on Speed, and it really helps in this mode! You pretty much have to peek-open-peek through every door, and the extra buffer of movement guarantees that you'll find a place to hide if someone catches you peeping. It also helps you get in those hard-to-reach places to pickpocket guards.

I went with Fusion and Parasite for some reason. It's a bit tight at the beginning, but if you manage to conserve power you'll have a comfortable amount for later on. Luckily, I also found an Abacus, which helped a lot when I decided to upgrade to Parasite v2.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi

abardam posted:

Yeah, detention centers are probably a good idea. Even with no upgrades, the extra agent will be useful in the last mission just for running around and distracting guards.

Just finished Expert Plus with Archive Banks and Archive Internationale! You'll get an absolute shitton of money with these guys. Imagine: every console is a safe; every guard is also a safe. I decided to spend my cash on Speed, and it really helps in this mode! You pretty much have to peek-open-peek through every door, and the extra buffer of movement guarantees that you'll find a place to hide if someone catches you peeping. It also helps you get in those hard-to-reach places to pickpocket guards.

I went with Fusion and Parasite for some reason. It's a bit tight at the beginning, but if you manage to conserve power you'll have a comfortable amount for later on. Luckily, I also found an Abacus, which helped a lot when I decided to upgrade to Parasite v2.

It's actually rather interesting knowing which characters people win expert plus with. I'm sure playing ironman changes it somewhat, but a lot of the bad or mediocre characters end up being amazing. I wonder if it's just getting good enough to take advantage of the strengths, or them being good regardless?

I managed to reach day 6 on ironman endless plus. I didn't get either of the day 5 achievements. :colbert:

EDIT:
Right at the beginning of every mission. What a bitch.

HundredBears
Feb 14, 2012

TastyLemonDrops posted:

It's actually rather interesting knowing which characters people win expert plus with. I'm sure playing ironman changes it somewhat, but a lot of the bad or mediocre characters end up being amazing. I wonder if it's just getting good enough to take advantage of the strengths, or them being good regardless?

While there are bad agent combinations, there are very few bad agents. On File Nika comes to mind because of the Volt Disrupter, but even then I'm happy to find her in a detention center, and she's fine below Expert Plus. The last two unlockable agents are also iffy, but that might just be personal preference - I hate daemons. Which ones did you have in mind? Most of them seem to fall into the 'good regardless' category. Their strengths are straightforward: usually they either have a get out of jail free card (Decker/Shalem) or something to make the power situation easier.

I'm also fond of the Archive Internationale/Archive Banks combination. You can pass off the Econ Chip to Internationale, upgrade her to max Hacking after the first or second mission and just watch the money roll in. It might be overkill, though. My own first Expert Plus win was with Archive Decker and Archive Banks, and even that was enough for me to float 3000 credits going into the final mission in the hope of finding something to buy in the nanofab.

What do you think of the Abacus? I see multiple people talking it up for Expert Plus, but four power feels like a waste of a precious program slot.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi
Yeah, I won expert plus ironman with Archive Banks and Prism myself. A lot of the archive agents are 'mediocre' in difficulties lower than expert plus simply because their on file variants are more straightforward to use, and ranged/lethal weapons simply aren't necessary. I've been playing balls to the wall maximum greed even when things are looking poo poo, as people who watch my stream can attest. Going for the ten day endless plus ironman sometime this week.

abardam
Mar 1, 2015
It seems like the econ chip is key to a lot of people's Expert+ runs. I myself like the freedom of choosing between power and money, depending on my needs at the time. I never get it from nanofabs, though. $800 seems like a huge investment.

I picked up Abacus because of Fusion, really. Once you hit that first turn fusion, you're not going to be able to use anything stronger than Parasite for a while, if you don't have Abacus. EDIT: My final loadout was Fusion, Parasite 2, Lockpick 2, Taurus, Abacus 2

abardam fucked around with this message at 07:55 on May 19, 2015

Teslavi
May 28, 2006
Ridiculous.
Emergency Reserves seems flat out better than Abacus to me. +5 power on the next turn when you dip below 3 power, 3 turn cooldown. I always use Seed though, which is a lot easier to maintain at low power. Never seen Abacus 2, though.

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice
So what are some good/fun combos people have found? I'm still working my way further and further into experienced and trying to wean myself away from the basic settings and powers because the free cloak and wireless just seem so insanely strong, and I'm way more comfortable with the predictableness of Powerdrip and Lockpick than the other stuff which seems aimed at specialised types of runs.

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug
The most annoying thing so far has been cameras i can't see with peek. I lose so much time when I open the door and get spotted, then have to run or knock the guard out. Being able to id them through the wall is way more useful than remote hack, honestly. I have to get close for Econ, anyway.

I had to abandon a run last night when my spawn room opened up into a hallway with three patrolling guards and a camera I couldn't see pointing at the door. Ended up knocking all 3 out but couldn't get past them before another guard spawned.

Angry Diplomat
Nov 7, 2009

Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging
I used to prefer Lockpick but I'm really into Parasite now. It requires a little more care and patience in how you use it, but it's insanely power-efficient unless you're trying to hack the entire facility in one turn or something. I've also got Seed this run, which is pretty great, but doesn't synergize well with Parasite at all. It's pretty sweet combined with Wrench 4 though!

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi

Bhodi posted:

The most annoying thing so far has been cameras i can't see with peek. I lose so much time when I open the door and get spotted, then have to run or knock the guard out. Being able to id them through the wall is way more useful than remote hack, honestly. I have to get close for Econ, anyway.

I had to abandon a run last night when my spawn room opened up into a hallway with three patrolling guards and a camera I couldn't see pointing at the door. Ended up knocking all 3 out but couldn't get past them before another guard spawned.

If Expert + has taught me anything, peek -> open -> peek should be part of everybody's routine. If you can't see the camera after that, it's because you have cover that'll let you move further in before you can peek again.

abardam
Mar 1, 2015

Teslavi posted:

Emergency Reserves seems flat out better than Abacus to me. +5 power on the next turn when you dip below 3 power, 3 turn cooldown. I always use Seed though, which is a lot easier to maintain at low power. Never seen Abacus 2, though.

I probably would have gotten it if I had a chance to. Anyway, Abacus lets me use Parasite 2 on the first turn, which cuts down on sitting around if there happens to be a camera preventing your progress. Abacus 2 gives +6 starting power, it's a decent buffer!

Pierson posted:

So what are some good/fun combos people have found? I'm still working my way further and further into experienced and trying to wean myself away from the basic settings and powers because the free cloak and wireless just seem so insanely strong, and I'm way more comfortable with the predictableness of Powerdrip and Lockpick than the other stuff which seems aimed at specialised types of runs.

People have said words about Seed, but I'd like to say that it helped me get out of my "comfort zone" of needing to have constant, guaranteed power gain. Also, it's nice to get into the "rhythm" of hacking one thing per turn. Use with Prism or Archive Internationale if you are still unsure. Prism + seed also feeds off/counters annoying plastech hackerguards, which is a nice bonus.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi
I'm actually taking Archive Decker in my Ironman Endless + runs now, just so I don't get his On File variant from detention centers. The revolver is just a bonus. Archive Banks and Archive Shalem also don't start with augments, assuming you can get Archive agents from detention centers. So far that hasn't been the case for me though. Everybody else has a useful augment on both their variants.

TastyLemonDrops fucked around with this message at 19:59 on May 19, 2015

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug

TastyLemonDrops posted:

If Expert + has taught me anything, peek -> open -> peek should be part of everybody's routine. If you can't see the camera after that, it's because you have cover that'll let you move further in before you can peek again.
Well, you peek, and see the red so you know there's a camera or a guard but you can't see either. So you open the door to peek again so you can hack the camera, and the camera spots you and a guard's on his way to investigate and you also take the security hit. :(

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.
I've never been seen by a camera when opening a door from the side. Are you standing directly in front of the doors when you open them?

alarumklok
Jun 30, 2012

Yeah, cameras don't trigger on door opening, only guards do. From what I've experienced, guards seem to actually trigger on doors even if the square the door is in is white - as long as its somewhere in their FOV they'll investigate.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi

Bhodi posted:

Well, you peek, and see the red so you know there's a camera or a guard but you can't see either. So you open the door to peek again so you can hack the camera, and the camera spots you and a guard's on his way to investigate and you also take the security hit. :(

On the + difficulties, you only see the guard/camera sightlines if you actually have sight on the target in question, which is why overabundance of caution is best. Definitely open the doors from the sides though, which also happens the be the appropriate location to stand to ambush them.

Teslavi
May 28, 2006
Ridiculous.
Finished my expert plus ironman run today, first attempt on expert plus (though I've been doing a lot of 1 minute time attack). I really don't like Expert Plus but I figured I'd get it out of the way just to make sure I could actually do it. Went with Central and On File Banks with Seed / Parasite, hit up a server farm early and got Oracle / Lockpick 2.0 / Ping / Emergency Reserves, selling off parasite. Also got a vault card from monster early, hit up a cyber lab and stuffed central with a terrible spread of augments: the cloak on stim use, 50% chance of +1 power per turn, and improved dragging speed. So I put all my resources into kitting out Central so I could make use of the stim cloak thing, at the next to last mission (nanofab) I had her with 4/1/3/3 stats, a hand cannon, stim 1, stim 3, cloaking rig 3, neural disruptor. Then leaving that mission I got caught in a really bad spot and ended up leaving central behind. I think it was -11000 or -16000 net worth or some poo poo. Oh yeah, this is also where I learned that the cloak on stim use augment breaks on movement or something, because I'd have been 100% fine otherwise. Whatever.

Pulled off some massive stealth/ping hijinks in the last mission, managed to clear it with only ko'ing a single guard, which is good because the only things I had going into that were Banks with no additional augments, a neural disrupter, a neural disrupter 3, and the custom paralyzer. Don't think I upgraded her stats either.


Teslavi fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 19, 2015

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug
oh, the peek siteline is the same when you're standing next to the door as if you're standing in front? Hmm.

you guys are way too good at this game, i get spotted by a guard and it's all over. Not enough spots I can hide in, they just move in, there's nowhere for me to go, and I'm stuck. Best I can do is ambush them once they get nearby, but that doesn't work when there's more than one guard.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi
Stik, if you're still around, there's a bug with the exit codes in Endless that I found out while streaming last night. You can use the exit keycard on vault doors, and it doesn't use them up. The exit keycard will still be in your inventory, and it can be taken to the next mission as long as you didn't use it on the actual exit door.

EDIT: I'm streaming Endless + right now, if you wanna watch and get some pointers. http://www.hitbox.tv/TastyLemonDrops

EDIT2: Torque Injectors work with disrupters. Archive Nika has an augment that reduces all item cooldowns by 1 whenever she uses a disrupter. Archive Nika's disrupter attacks have no cooldown with a torque injector.

TastyLemonDrops fucked around with this message at 20:49 on May 19, 2015

Heatwizard
Nov 6, 2009

I have a long road before me to get to this expert plus nonsense. I'm durdling around in my initial beginner run, I go to raid someone's rolodex, and I end up having two of my agents trapped circling a pair of tables avoiding a gun drone who never lets the hallway leading away out of its sight, while a second closes in on the guy waiting next to the objective while I slowly charge up from zero power because I was a little too quick to hack stuff and ran out of access points to drain, and meanwhile the extra cameras turn on and trap my fourth in the exit as a guard comes charging in looking for the jerk what stunned him and stole his key. Oops.

redreader
Nov 2, 2009

I am the coolest person ever with my pirate chalice. Seriously.

Dinosaur Gum

TastyLemonDrops posted:

Stik, if you're still around, there's a bug with the exit codes in Endless that I found out while streaming last night. You can use the exit keycard on vault doors, and it doesn't use them up. The exit keycard will still be in your inventory, and it can be taken to the next mission as long as you didn't use it on the actual exit door.

Sounds like it's by-design, because it would trigger an unwinnable situation otherwise.

stiknork
Aug 3, 2006

TastyLemonDrops posted:

Stik, if you're still around, there's a bug with the exit codes in Endless that I found out while streaming last night. You can use the exit keycard on vault doors, and it doesn't use them up. The exit keycard will still be in your inventory, and it can be taken to the next mission as long as you didn't use it on the actual exit door.

EDIT: I'm streaming Endless + right now, if you wanna watch and get some pointers. http://www.hitbox.tv/TastyLemonDrops

EDIT2: Torque Injectors work with disrupters. Archive Nika has an augment that reduces all item cooldowns by 1 whenever she uses a disrupter. Archive Nika's disrupter attacks have no cooldown with a torque injector.

Yeah, redreader isn't wrong -- it's not a good solution, but we figured only really hardcore people would see it anyway and it'd be better than the unwinnable situation. Maybe we'll go back and fix it with some good design in the future. Nice runs, btw, been watching them at home and you're definitely beasting this game.

TastyLemonDrops
Aug 6, 2008

you said "drop kick" fyi

redreader posted:

Sounds like it's by-design, because it would trigger an unwinnable situation otherwise.

It's more the problem that you can use a single keycard to open up the vault AND the exit if you want. As far as I'm aware, every level that has a locked exit should have a set of exit keycards somewhere in the level.

stiknork
Aug 3, 2006

Since it's a vault door, we thought it'd be too confusing if the keycard didn't also open up the regular vault doors. It was a thing we ran into about a week before launch, and we kind of just threw up our hands and did the easy thing and went to go fix crash bugs instead.

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010


I've made a huge mistake.

Heatwizard posted:

I have a long road before me to get to this expert plus nonsense. I'm durdling around in my initial beginner run, I go to raid someone's rolodex, and I end up having two of my agents trapped circling a pair of tables avoiding a gun drone who never lets the hallway leading away out of its sight, while a second closes in on the guy waiting next to the objective while I slowly charge up from zero power because I was a little too quick to hack stuff and ran out of access points to drain, and meanwhile the extra cameras turn on and trap my fourth in the exit as a guard comes charging in looking for the jerk what stunned him and stole his key. Oops.

If need be, just ignore the cameras - if the guard that comes to check on things doesn't see you, he'll go back to his prior duties.

Bhodi
Dec 9, 2007

Oh, it's just a cat.
Pillbug
Does anyone else find it really hard to tell which character you have selected? I wish the box at the selected char's feet turned a different color or something.

I like your game, stik :3:

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stiknork
Aug 3, 2006

Thanks! I gotta say reading this thread makes me super happy every day.

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