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Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Patch for PS4 version hit today. Bug fixes, performance tweaks (hopefully no more chugging) and... TEXT READABILITY! The text is a tad bigger and they've changed the typeface, it seems. The difference is night and day. gently caress yeah, Klei.

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Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


Welp hosed up that run :v:

Xu and Internationale now on Day 2 and oof. I got no detention centers, I got a Financial Suite and a Vault so that could potentially turn my fortunes around. I got a shitton of security dispatch missions, but eh. And I got a few cybernetics lab. My current idea is to go cybernetics (mod out agents with whatever drops. gently caress it, free is free)->Financial->vault->???

Hopefully I'll find something before Day 3 because goddamn I do not like playing with just two people.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
My Experienced run finished okay. For about five hair raising turns it was touch and go; Olivia was down and Monster was under fire but due to some incredible runaround and the best placed shock trap in history we made it through with no casualties (ahaha. ha. ha).

Now Expert kicks in and I guess I can't really rely on the power farming trick anymore since guards have a bit more KO resistance now. I seem to have adapted though. My starting team was Internationale (natch) and Prism (for Refraction Chamber, +1 PWR when a firewall breaks up to twice per turn, comboing spectacularly with Seed/Parasite). I have, however, been absolutely shat on provision-wise. I got two Detention Centers straight away but all I got was Xu (tolerable but there are so many better choices) and loving Decker (who is worthless without the modded stealth rig he brings you as a starter). A bunch of nanofabs (including a vestibule) and I couldn't get any more neural disrupters until Day 3. I haven't found any other firewall-breaking programs except Rapier, though I do have Ping (Ping has saved my rear end on countless occasions and I love it so much). I also have Shade although it doesn't seem to do anything ("reduces guard vision" apparently, but seems to not actually have any effect). I gave Internationale two extra aug slots at a lab but the only augs I've seen available are poo poo like the stat-up chips and AP modifying stuff, none of which I want (I want Distributed Processing and stim-cloak, goddamnit). So basically I am woefully underequipped.

So I decided to ghost Omni Foundry (on a much harder layout this time). Got away with it.

I think I love this game.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


Fedule posted:

My Experienced run finished okay. For about five hair raising turns it was touch and go; Olivia was down and Monster was under fire but due to some incredible runaround and the best placed shock trap in history we made it through with no casualties (ahaha. ha. ha).

Haha, sounds like you had a similar experience to my first successful campaign. Everyone swarming to me ready to bang down the door, when Shock Trap 3 knocks everybody the gently caress out. :getin:

While you're talking about who you found in detention centres, that reminds me something I wanted to ask people. Has anyone ever found Internationale in a detention centre if you didn't start with her?

Not that I've played nearly enough games without her to call this much of a sample, but on those occasions I have never run into her in a detention centre. So I wonder if that's by design, so you don't just get to cheese it later on runs where you try and leave her out.

Btw, next update will prolly be ready on Friday. I'm done writing it up, just need some time to finish processing the screenshots.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Never not started with Internationale either. Funny, that.

Also; holy poo poo does Xu's micro-EMP permanently reduce his AP?! He has 9 max AP despite having the same speed stat as my other agents, who all have 10. I've used his EMP once. If this is right then he's even more worthless than I thought.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


No. He has -1 AP permanently for having the ability, but using it doesn't cost him more.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


Xu is one of my favourites. Just make him the official safecracker and pop them all open without having to spend any PWR. (Until they start throwing EMP shielding at you, but then it still works like a free buster chip every turn) it's especially useful for bypassing nasty daemons.

Or he can keep a drone on lockdown, or permanently kill the more delicate ones like camera drones.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Hooray, Xu is forgiven for everything!

I love this game a lot (don't know if I mentioned that) but drat certain parts of it could be clarified better.

It's the kind of game that would benefit hugely from having an in-game reference of all the stuff in the game, like a wikia but without the ads.

double nine
Aug 8, 2013

Is Nika a reference to something? I feel like she is but I can't remember for the life of me...

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
Hey! Also doing an Endless Plus run right now. And to answer your question, I've picked up Internationale from a Detention Center. Apparently, you can't pick up the archieved version of agents from detention centers, and I assume neither Central nor Monst3r. I'm not sure about Olivia and Derek (The younger DLC versions of Central and Monst3r.) I'm pretty sure Rush and Draco can appear.

I'm currently on Day 11. Around Day 7 or so, I belatedly realized I i didn't need to carefully hoard money in this mode like I did in my campaign games, and started to send Draco on stim-fuelled flurry gun shooting sprees; the high point was depopulating an entire level on turn 1. Now, the guards are starting to be armored enough that AP4 doesn't cut it anymore for all of them, and things have gotten more interesting again. I'm really curious what the further changes are going to be, since the difficulty scales all the way up to 20, and I intend to go the full distance.

Here's my trip report so far:

I started with Draco and Archive Decker for some cheap early game kills and stat boosts. I was a bit worried about finding more efficient lethal weaponry to keep boosting Draco, but as it turns out, all you need to max his stats in a single mission is a hacked lethal laser beam barrier and some patience; the enforcers that spawn on alert level 5 and 6 keep respawning if they die. I had him maxed out by the middle of day 2. I was lucky with my Detention Center missions and picked up Internationale and Sharp.

My starting programs were Seed and Mercenary. Seed still is a mainstay, and Mercenary did a fine enough job in the beginning. I picked up Wrench 2, Parasite and Ping early on. Ping provides a great safety net, but I replaced it with Wisp when I found that. Wisp is fantastic for keeping tabs on alerted guards, but I eventually realized I either killed guards outright, or had so many AP on my agents that I could observe them the old-fashioned way. Now that the guards are armored up, I think it would be useful again, but I've picked up a TAG pistol instead for now. Parasite proved to be a great supplement for Wrench programs, and when I found Wrench 4, I got rid of Mercenary. I did decide to lose the Parasite when I eventually found Data Blast. Data Blast is probably the best hacking program in the game, and it works even better with Wrenches than Parasite. It's even more fantastic when you've got Internationale scoping out targets through walls for you. The other pillar of my hacking is that I've picked up four Buster Chip IIIs. Eventually, starting firewalls got high enough that I lost the Wrench 2. I've recently picked up Oracle, which is another keeper for Endless mode, since it doesn't care about how many firewalls are on the cameras. The sixth program I picked up was Hunter. It's really nice if you've got the daemons on the level identified, but the cooldown means there's way more daemons around than you can kill, and daemon databases usually aren't a high priority hack if they're even in the level at all.. Definitely satisfying to use against knocked-out Modded guards though. I picked up Bless instead, and that's just much more convenient as general purpose daemon protection. My latest acquisition is Aces, which reduces the armor of tagged guards for a turn. I haven't gotten to use it yet, but I hope it gives me some breathing room in the armor/AP race.

Equipment-wise, you're suprisingly much at the mercy of the RNG, even in Endless. I've seen a grand total of two Neural Disruptor IIIs, and only one Portable Server III. What has been great for my power management, apart from the buster chips, are two Accelerator Chip IIIs. They give you +4 power whenever you use a console, and they have very fast cooldown. There's a lot of unimpressive tier IV items in the nanofabs, but I do appreciate Paralyzer IVs. I really wish you had a bigger storage in your base, which would encourage you to try out different items more. As I mentioned earlier Draco is specced for ranged kills, and you really don't need more than one flurry gun and a bunch of stims to clear out enough of a level to loot everything at your leisure. I'd like more +AP Ventricular Lances, I only have one of these either. One cloak, a couple of shock traps, an EMP pack etc.

For implants, you definitely seem to need to go all in on armor-piercing, if you want to keep using it reliably. I have given both Decker and Sharp implants for +AP and extended duration on takedowns, but it seems that with Paralyzer IVs, holding out for more armor-piercing might have been better. One of the things I'm currently doing is raiding executives for vault keycards, and then doing Augment missions hoping to find Augment Drills so I can replace my early-game implants. Draco has one ranged AP implant, and the one that prevents alarm increases on kills. What's probably the most valuable general purpose implant is Torque Injectors, which reduces cooldowns on your items. Fantastic for buster and accelerator chips, and pretty much everything else too. Two of my agents also have the implant that gives you +2 action points when you hack a device, up to +6 each turn. I haven't really tried any of the other augments that boost action points, but this one seems like it's the best of those. Arguably, you can do well enough with Torque Injectors and Stim IIIs, since you have plenty of action points anyway at Speed 5.

Draco has been fantastic at carrying my team through the early game, and even once you've maxed him out, the random boosts you get for scanning dead or KO'd guards are neat. Archive Decker's implant, on the other hand, has barely made an impression. Internationale is fantastic for scouting the level; I prefer not to use her remote console-hacking since the accelerator chips give bigger returns, but even so, some times it's just more convenient to do a remote hack and move on. Sharp is a beast, but I should have specializing him more for armor-piercing from the start.

One thing I really liked is that they've recorded some dialogue specifically for Endless mode; but I think that only goes up to Day 7. I haven't heard anything new since then.

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jun 16, 2016

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
Quote is not edit.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


I'll have to try playing with Draco some more. I also loved the Archive Decker trick to give him a quick start, but after shooting up the whole place I kind of forgot for how to play normally for a while and died pretty soon after. :v: But just embracing the killing spree does seem like a solid strategy too.

That's cool how you get so much use out of the wrench programs. I always wrote them off as a really clunky choice, cause they can't make all the programs be winners. But it makes sense - when you're waiting for Parasite to count down to zero anyway, a high-level wrench would be great to shortcut the rest of the way once you hit the magic number.

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
Apart from the somewhat tedious method of knocking out enforcers and dropping them into lethal laser fences, you can reliably get kills for Draco simply by hacking K&O turrets and Sankaku drones, without any specialized gear. Or, if you find Hunter early, you can kill Plastech's Modded guards by killing their daemon form. You do have to avoid scanning people while they're unconscious, since you're then no longer able to scan their corpses.

As for programs, barely any of the power generating ones scale well enough for late Endless; Compared to having multiple remote servers that give you 2 power each turn, or accelerator chips than can give you 4 power once per turn with torque injectors, if you can chain hack the consoles, only Seed really matches up. Faust too, if you're taking Gladstone as a starting agent. The real way to save power is to have efficient breakers, and that means having a 1:1 break:cost ratio or better. I'd argue even Lockpick 2.0's general purpose 2 for 3 isn't quite good enough in late Endless.

Wrench 4 has been very good, but now that I've got Oracle for cameras, and Data Blast and Buster Chips for everything else, I've considered dropping it too. Once you hit 3 things with Data Blast, it's basically just as efficient, and it's not uncommon to have 4, 5 or even 6 targets in the AoE.

But yeah, the Wrench 2, Wrench 4, Parasite breaker suite worked surprisingly well for a time.

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jun 16, 2016

Cathode Raymond
Dec 30, 2015

My antenna is telling me that you're probably wrong about this.
Soiled Meat
I always brought a ton of remote servers late game. Sometimes dropping 3 or 4. Didn't always get all of them back, though.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
I found Derek in a Detention Center today, and for a hot second I thought he wouldn't come with his Transport Beacon that goes with his augment, but no, he had it. Just as well, because it saved the poo poo out of me in the Research Facility (the thing before Omni Foundry).

Prism was cornered in one of the switch rooms by five - five - guards (including one Enforcer, who got called out in like the third turn by Validate. I didn't know Validate could spawn loving Enforcers!). I tried to Ping them away but there were five of them and one of them decided to wait right in front of the only door out of the place. So I went and hid her in a corner because they'd now be coming into the room (Wisp told me so. I loving love Wisp). Of course, since they all crammed in to the room, one of them couldn't reach his objective and therefore "hmm, investigating..."-ed the single square in that room that would let him see Prism. This led to Prism getting Overwatch'd by all five guards.

Fortunately! She has a Stealth Rig, so she doesn't get shot. Of course, the door is still blocked, so it's all she can do to find another hiding spot in the room. Wisp tells me the guards are going to keep milling around, and that Enforcer's got his grenades, so I'm not hopeful. I'm already weighing up the emotional pros and cons of just retiring this Agency right here.

It is about this point Internationale discovers the exit pad (which is on), and I observe she's carrying the Beacon. It's also about this point I notice that Derek is in the room adjacent to Prism; also a dead end but whatever, this mission is already hosed.

So Derek turns on Sprint and starts stomping around the room, drawing a bunch of attention. All five guards charge him. They leave just enough space for Prism to Stim III the gently caress out of there. Of course, Derek gets spotted, but we just zap him the gently caress right out of there while Prism slips out the back way. The confusion leaves ample space for Prism to reach the exit.

I loving love Invisible Inc.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


Fedule posted:

I loving love Invisible Inc.

Turnarounds like that are the best, when it looks like you hosed everything up but you still pull through somehow! Bout to post my update now in just a sec, but just had to react to this first. :3:

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!




Welcome back to Invisible Inc! Last time we beat our first mission and got a list of new targets. Between missions, we can buy more stats to improve our agents, or manage our items.



But before we do any of that, I like to take a look at the board and figure out what mission I'm getting prepped for.



The closest option is this financial suite. The distance to each mission is going to start coming into play now. Each day, the difficulty goes up. So you want to try and fit in as many easy ones as possible before the day ends. We've only got 12 hours left now in Day 1, but we can try and avoid spending too many of our Day 2 hours.

As I've already spoiled in the update banner, I'm gonna choose this mission, but not just because it's the closest. Financial suites are a great mission type, especially in the early game when you don't have much money yet. But let's compare to what other choices I had.



A bit farther away is another executive terminal mission. This would work the same as what we did in the last update. Find the terminal, and hack it to get a site list and open up new targets. This mission type is normally seen as not so good. The payoff is less immediately tangible. But if you're really dying for a certain mission type and it's just not popping up, you can do an executive terminal mission to try and find one. You also shouldn't turn your nose up at an executive terminal if the mission's close enough for you to squeeze in one more mission before the end of day. But this one's farther away and isolated, so forget it.



Over here is a cybernetics lab. I love cybernetics labs. These missions give you the opportunity to grant your agents extra abilities. Or, you could use the machines to grant yourself an extra empty slot instead, to put an augment in later. You can find the occasional augment here and there at shops, but only cyberlabs can give you get more slots to hold them.

The only reason I didn't choose this mission is cause I want to do the financial suite first. Cyberlabs have a chance of having some extra bonus machines locked away behind a vault door. If we come in prepared with the vault card we get from the financial suite, we won't miss out. There's no guarantee it'll have that vault door, but if I go there first and it does have bonus machines locked away to taunt me, I'm gonna be so mad.



The last choice is a vault mission. These missions always have a locked vault door that you can use the special keycards on. So you really want to hold off on doing these until you have a card. You can still get decent money on these missions without one, but you'll be throwing away some great free money. I'm planning to check the cyberlab first, though. I'd rather use my card there if possible, cause you can't just buy yourself more augment slots.




Now back to the status screens! Every single option on the board was screaming "go do the financial suite mission first". So we will. Before we go, we'll spend all our money so we go in as strong as possible.

Occasionally, our buddy Monst3r will offer 1 random item to buy off the black market. This is a decent augment, but kind of expensive for the early game. I'll pass it up. (besides, I can get augments for free when I get around to that cyberlab mission)



I have enough credits to buy 2 points of speed for Internationale, which will help her scout around faster with her scanning ability. Then I buy her 1 point of anarchy, which allows her to pick guard's pockets if she gets the opportunity. She won't get bonus money like Gladstone does, but it's better than missing out if our agents are really split up. Gladstone's stats are getting neglected for now, but it's better to get a good scout up to speed first instead of trying to keep everyone even.



On to the mission. We're going to find some big important financial executive, then knock him out and hack his loving brain. The reward is a magic keycard that opens special vault doors at any corporation. Don't ask me how it works, it just does.



Here we go.



Our corporation is FTM again. This still doesn't really make a difference yet when we're raiding level 1 facilities.



We've got a slightly classier welcome than last time. Last place we beamed into was a little shoebox.



Right in the next room we've already got a guard.



And he's walking straight for us. Luckily, guards in "patrolling" status aren't paying any drat attention. If Gladstone stays put here right behind the door, he'll walk straight past her.



She'll just need to move out of the way next turn, before he turns around.



Yep, he's going right back the way he came. Time for Gladstone to move. But we'll rob him first while he's here.



Too bad he didn't have a security card, or we could go through the red door up ahead.



During the enemy turn, I heard a second guard walking around to the NW.



We can't open the security door, but we can at least peek through it. There's a safe in there we can start hacking, even if we can't get to it for a while.



We can also peek through this door. I don't want to open it yet until the guard gets turned back around.



Least we got 1 thing to hack this turn.



There's that other guard! He spots me opening this door. But luckily there's plenty of safe yellow squares where I can dart behind the statues to safety.



While Internationale was moving around, she barely sensed this server terminal at the edge of her range, so we got another thing to hack. Wonder if it has any good programs on it.



There's also a laser wall blocking our way SE, but we can't hack that directly. I only briefly covered it in the last mission, but you can only turn off laser walls by finding and hacking their power supply.



The guard comes down here, finding nothing but staying in Internationale's way. Gladstone's free to move on though, in the meantime.



Whoah, big room up here. I haven't heard any guards walking around this area though, so it might be fairly safe. There's also a nanofab in here, so we can quickly compare if we'd rather buy from there, or buy some programs.



While Internationale's waiting here, at least she can rob this guy.



Aha! The keycard! Now I can go check out that area behind the red door next turn and bypass that laser wall.



Gladstone moved around her big room a bit, and found a couple more safes. I'll hack the one closest to her first. No sign of the power supply yet to turn off those lasers.

I've got her hiding up on this left side of a pillar, cause I don't know if anything's lurking around the SE end of the room. It's probably just a dead end, but I haven't been able to confirm that yet.



At level 1, the inactive cameras come online.



One of those cameras is right where I was planning to go, past the red door. Another is up by Gladstone, at the far NE corner of the big room. They each have 2 firewalls, which means they're going to take a little bit longer to hack.



At least Gladstone can get some shopping done while her camera's getting hacked.



Titanium rods is a nice augment, it lets you knock guards out for longer. Although ideally I shouldn't be knocking them out at all, so I'll hold off on this one. Volt disrupters do the same thing as the default weapon, neural disrupters. But they spend a fair bit of PWR to do it. They do have the advantage of no cooldown time, but I still like neural disrupters better.



The smoke grenade is tempting. It's a nice "oh poo poo" item for when things get totally hosed up. Since I'm going to be swimming in credits after this financial suite mission, I think I should get it for insurance. The Stim I would also be a solid purchase. It's way more useful overall than a one-off grenade. But it doesn't have the same get-out-of-jail-free factor, and they're an item that's real easy to find.



Now let's go see what programs are for sale. This is also a nice hiding spot next to the machine.



:woop: LEASH! I love the Leash program! It grants a passive bonus so you control enemy drones for an extra turn longer, every time you hack them. This is a wonderful program and a must-buy as far as I'm concerned. There's no other way to replicate this benefit Leash gives you. I don't have the credits on me now, though. Once I get some money, first priority is leash, then the smoke grenade and stim.



Internationale comes down here to loot the safe. The camera's still rebooting right now, but it'll switch on at the end of the turn. She'll stay on this side of the safe to stay hidden from it.





Ooh, I am going to get so many goodies on this level! Gladstone came to loot the safe in the middle of the room, and it had this item instead of credits. The Cloak Rig I is pretty weak, and actually a pain to use cause it wears off after you move 4 tiles. But it can still save your rear end in a pinch.

Gladstone can't use it yet cause it requires a speed level of 2. But Internationale could use it, and we'll hopefully be speeding Gladstone up soon.



Around this time, I started freaking out about the guard being able to spot Internationale through the laser walls, but being just off-kilter from the hallway like this was apparently good enough.



What is up with this camera? It's been freaking me out that I can't see on the floor where it's looking, so I came up here and did another peek. Still nothing.



Oh. Now I can see it properly. Okay, I'll just slip in next to this safe now and wait for it to get hacked open next turn.



Internationale's still waiting for the camera on her end to get hacked too, before she can move.



Gladstone's next safe has more goodies! This is why I didn't want to buy that buster chip before. I keep finding so many simple items. I might sell off this medgel for some more credits cause I can only carry so much at a time before I get encumbered. You really don't want to be encumbered.



Internationale finally comes down here and can sense another camera, plus a console.



The camera's got this area pretty well watched, but it has only 1 firewall so it'll be hacked next turn.



Gladstone's making her way back down this way. I forget why I didn't go check out the northmost door first. I must have just forgot it was there while I was all excited about finding so many goodies.



More power, and another camera.



I can slip behind these objects though, to do some peeking ahead while I wait for the parasite to work. This little room is a deadend. It just had 1 console in it, which I already grabbed wirelessly. We don't need to worry about hacking the camera down there then, at least not until we got nothing better to do.



Now I remembered the north door, and I had Gladstone sprint so she could make it all the way next to it. There were no guard reactions. If there had been, I'd try and duck back behind the desk. But all is cool. Still in ambush mode just in case.



Internationale scoots a little closer to the camera while keeping behind cover. Once it's hacked I'll go that way to check out the other door.



Got 1 more turn to wait on that thanks to the firewall boost...



Ah, Gladstone's found the exit. Now to double back and find our executive.



Might as well hack this dead-end camera now, since I have literally nothing else to hack. Just on the off chance I end up wanting to hide in there later while making my escape.



The level so far. That area to the left is the only major unexplored area now, and it sure looks big enough to be the executive's suite.



This area is hiding the power supply for the lasers. Internationale will start making her way back towards the suite now, to meet up with Gladstone.



Gladstone sold off the medgel, so I have just enough credits to buy the Leash program.



I'll get more credits off the exec soon, then I'll see what else I can buy on my way out.



Okay, how to do this... I know there's a guard wandering around through here, but he's not in this room right now. Gladstone waits here to see where he goes next turn. I want to close that other door on the SW wall, but I don't have the AP for it right now.



Here comes the guard. When he came through the door I just barely caught a glimpse of the executive, way down the other end of the room.



He'll walk back that way next turn, and have his back turned so I can make my way into the suite. Internationale comes back to this nice hiding spot from back where we started. I could've had her close the door to draw the guard down here again, but then she'd be stuck having to keep hiding some more.



Hmm... during the enemy turn, I heard a new set of footsteps along the NE edge of the room. There's more than one guard in there. Maybe I should've had Internationale lure the first guy after all. Gladstone had a look inside to plot their paths, then came right back to her hiding spot. Internationale is also closer now, to start helping out.



Here comes 1 new guard, where will he turn up?



Aw nuts. The new guy came in right behind the executive. These level 3 guys have a knack for coming in at the worst places.



Let's lure this guy now like I should've done before, so he can stop blocking the drat way.



There's 2 guards in the exec's room now. One is near the door and will notice when we go through it. But the other who just beamed in, I got no clue where he's walking to. Might have to make use of the new cloak.



Internationale will sprint/sneak to keep this guard investigating around this room.



Then she'll head up to Gladstone, to grab the cloak from her. Gladstone takes the keycard in exchange, so no one gets encumbered.



This guard's still near the door and noticed it opening, but Gladstone will go hide up in the safe area by the shops.



Turns out I didn't need to use the cloak after all. The area by the door was noticed instead of watched. But it was a nice failsafe to ensure I made it through this turn. I had no idea where the new guard was, but he's not actually here yet. Once he beamed in at the teleporter, he didn't make it all the way to the northern suite door during his turn.



Gladstone goes back behind the nanofab. Once I take the exec's money, she can go shopping with it straight away.



A nice view of the whole level. It looks pretty clear in the suite for now, but we've got a lot of guards all clustered around here.



Right now they're all busy hanging around this door and the statue room.



I can finally reach the exec next turn. I wish I'd come to this area earlier, but no use whining about it. If I grab that smoke grenade, that should help ensure an easy escape.



Gladstone's just waiting to get some more pocket money.





It's go time.



The gimmick with this type of mission is we have to stay near the unconscious exec for several turns while Incognita hacks his brain implants.



You can track the progress down here in the corner. The 6 blue bars will light up one by one, so it'll take 6 whole turns. This is why I really should have found him earlier. But don't worry! Everything will be fine!



Let's drag him behind some cover. I can reach this cozy little corner behind the table, which will work perfectly.



I didn't get as much cash this mission as I was hoping, since a lot of the safes had items. I can only afford one more item, so I get the smoke grenade. I do love my stims, but they're easy to find. And if things go badly, I might need that smoke grenade to help me escape the guard clusterfuck going on in the suite.



Gladstone comes back near the entrance to this room. She's on backup duty while Internationale's stuck in place.



During the enemy turn, I heard the new guard still pacing around in the NW room.





The NEW new guard came in back over by the shops, so he's out of our way for now.



Sounds like the NW guard is just staying up there pacing around to watch these 2 safes. (which I somehow hadn't noticed popping up on the radar last turn, so I'm just getting around to hacking them now)



Internationale's in a great hiding spot, but it would be too easy if we just had to sit still for a few turns with no other dramas. Remember how I said getting your main objective always activates some special countermeasure? We'll see it soon.



I picture memetic defence training as something like training your brain to reflexively give nothing but loss edits when an AI is trying to get your PIN code.

Let's try and get Gladstone into position to loot the safes while this guard's wandering away. (Don't read anything into the path I've got plotted for Internationale, I just had the mouse lingering there for a moment while I was screenshotting the meme comment)



The new guard isn't anywhere to be seen yet in this room by the safes. He's over by the guard entrance, which is conveniently walled off. From what I could hear of his path earlier, I think he's going to walk right past Gladstone this turn. But he might spot her. I'll just chance it and use my rewind if it goes wrong. I really don't want to have to knock him out. I want him to just stay in patrol mode up here out of the way.



During the enemy turn, the Level 4 guard keeps wandering further away from us. He's checking out the dead-end room now. He's probably going to settle into a patrol way over there, since there's no other guards in that area. Awesome.



Now here's the countermeasure I was talking about. Halfway through scanning the brain chip, a new enforcer will spawn to investigate the exec's current position.



Thankfully, it's just the enforcer that wants to come investigate. The nearby guards aren't the ones who got the signal, so they'll stick to their patrols. It'll take the enforcer a while to get here, so I'll have time to drag this guy somewhere out of the way.



My guess was correct about the guard up here. He turned away from Gladstone to gaze thoughtfully at the wall. Let's go loot this first safe now that it's open.



What the - there's ANOTHER guy crammed in here!



I might have to use that rewind after all. I'll just get Gladstone wedged in between the safe and the wall, and hope for the best when the guard comes back in through the south door.

Meanwhile, Internationale starts dragging the exec just a little bit farther away, into a nearby hidden spot. Dragging is slow, so every single tile counts.





This is why it's so important to keep guards in patrolling mode and not knock them out to alert them. Both those guards just walked right past Gladstone. As for the guard who looks like he's staring right at Gladstone, her space next to the safe still counts as covered and hidden.

Honestly, the key to surviving hard difficulties of Invisible Inc is not getting too hung up on what feels safe and hidden by reasonable human standards. You need to learn and abuse the technicalities of which which tiles count as visible.



The last safe has the same kind of Stim I wasn't able to buy before! I drop the keycard before I pick it up, to avoid encumbrance.



Hm. Well this is frustrating. Even after moving a tile closer, Internationale couldn't drag the body far enough in 1 turn to get to another good hiding place. Not with everyone coming back to look this way. I went back to the primo hiding spot. My plan now is to stand my ground, zap the enforcer, then run for the exit.



Speak of the devil, here comes the enforcer. He throws a scanner ball, which pinpoints me at the same spot he already wanted to look at. Big deal.



Gladstone's still kind of stuck up there.



I have her open the door to see how things are, and it catches the enforcer's attention. She can't step through cause it's fully watched.



Okay, maybe NOW would be a good time to use the rewind...



But let's see how this goes first. Wall-gazing Guy should still walk past obliviously and I'll just knock out his buddy when he walks towards the door. Then once all the other guards are converging on Gladstone, I'll have Internationale draw them away next turn, cause I'll be all done with the exec.



Gladstone action shot!



His heart monitor kicks us up to level 5, so another enforcer's about to show up.





The new enforcer comes in right behind Gladstone, but that's good actually. Just one more guard to leave behind us as we run for it, he'll be clumped up in the same group as the others.



Everything's still barely under control, but we're in a bit of a tight spot. Gladstone's on cooldown so she can't just zap her way through that guy who's blocking the door. Volt Disrupter fans can gloat now.



I've finished scanning the exec, so I grab the vault card.



Waait a minute... this guy I just knocked out has a charge pack! I can recharge Gladstone's taser! Take that, Volt Disrupters!



She's still got to go around the back of this pillar though, since the tiles in front are watched. I don't end up zapping this guy yet, since I can't make it through the door this turn anyway with the enforcer still watching. But I can be ready in case the new guard gives me trouble.



Now that we got the vault card, Internationale can focus on the escape. I want to get this enforcer to move out of the way, so he stops looking at the door and Gladstone can actually get through next turn. But when she crossed through one of his "noticed" tiles, it just shows him staying in place and lobbing his scanner ball at her. The white arc line represents him throwing an object instead of walking.

Come on dude, stop being so drat lazy, if you see something moving out of the corner of your eye, just go look at it, don't throw a scanner to decide if you want to look at it next turn or not! :argh:



Oh well, all I can do for now is approach him and get as close as I can. Then I can knock him out next turn to give Gladstone her chance.



Hey wait a minute, he moved after all! Perfect! The observe command seems to get a little wonky sometimes when you're changing the behaviour of a guard who can both walk and throw stuff.



Gladstone can finally go through the door, now that it's just noticed instead of watched.



The guards are going to check out the door, but she's got far enough out of the way that she should be okay. If not, she'll zap 'em.



Internationale comes down here to scope out our path to the exit. She'll also get ready to zap anyone that comes her way. These other guards down here are now on alert too, because a knocked-out guard was discovered. We're going to hit level 6 any second now, I'm just gonna have to brute force my way back on this last stretch.





:supaburn:



This sure is a lot of guards. But we just need to lead them around. I walk right through the noticed area over here...



Then duck into the hidden tiles by the pillar. This distracted the enforcer, but not the other guard, who's still making a beeline for the door. I'll zap him to stay safe.



Internationale came up here to see where this guard's going. He's running out of our way, so he won't give Gladstone any trouble next turn.





I will never get tired of seeing this 68-year-old just fling dudes around.





We've hit level 6, and both new enforcers popped in at this same spot. I think we got this.



Sprinting now cause gently caress subtlety, I need to cover some ground fast. Everyone can go check out where Gladstone used to be, see if I care.



Gladstone made it up here, around where Internationale was last turn. But she's on this side of the pillar, where the guards won't see her yet.



Sprinting again, Gladstone can just make it into the teleporter room once she slips past this guy. The safe being in the way gives her enough cover to pull it off.



Then Internationale can follow behind to block the door, since Gladstone's taser is still on cooldown. Pretty sure the guard's not going to come all the way up here, he's going to investigate the other areas first where he heard running. But let's not get sloppy.





They can't catch up to me. Let's get out of here!





And I didn't even need to use the smoke grenade. This went well.



Next time, we'll go hit up the cybernetics lab!

Bifauxnen fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jun 17, 2016

Yapping Eevee
Nov 12, 2011

STAND TOGETHER.
FIGHT WITH HONOR.
RESTORE BALANCE.

Eevees play for free.
:psyduck: I get the feeling every new update will be a brand new lesson in why I should never try to play this on the hardest difficulty.

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
Squeezing out as many easy missions out of your days is still a good idea in the early game, but now that I'm pretty much completely kitted out, I've started picking mission on how far away they are instead. My main interest right now is to see how the security scales up, and reaching day 20 in as few missions as possible.

Also, while you definitely want to squeeze as much money out of each mission as you can in the campaign, you *will* hit the point where money is no longer an issue in Endless. Saving vault cards for augment missions rather than vaults is definitely the right choice, even if you may not find an augment vault right away.

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


We've only just begun :unsmigghh:

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Good write up. Any chance you could post a summary of items / money you accumulate during a mission?

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.
You never said what a Stim does!

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


It gives the agent like 3 more AP for that turn, and it has a huge cooldown, something like 9 turns.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Yeah, Stim I gives you back 4AP and has a 9 turn cooldown. Stim II gets you 6 AP for 7 turns. Stim III gets you 8 for 4 and gives you a second attack. Stim IV gets you 10 AP and unlimited attacks (hello Flurry Gun) for a 4 turn cooldown but can only be used once per mission unless you burn a charge pack.

There is an augment that makes you cloaked when you Stim. There is also an augment that gives you an AOE KO (that I think ignores armour? Someone factcheck this) when you cloak.

Oh and don't forget the augment that gives you an additional Stim when you cloak.

Stims are great.

Fedule fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Jun 17, 2016

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.
Thanks for the update, but what does

Fedule posted:

Stim IV gets you 10 AP and unlimited attacks (hello Flurry Gun) for a 4 turn cooldown but can only be used once per mission unless you burn a charge pack.

this mean? How can you have a 4 turn cooldown usable once per mission? Does the charge pack only remove the once-per-mission restriction but you still need to wait out the cooldown?

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.

Mzbundifund posted:

Thanks for the update, but what does


this mean? How can you have a 4 turn cooldown usable once per mission? Does the charge pack only remove the once-per-mission restriction but you still need to wait out the cooldown?

That is exactly what it means. All of the fourth-tier items added in the DLC are like this; ludicrous and with short-if-any cooldown, but they require charges (and unlike weapons that require charges, they recharge automatically between missions). Using a charge pack adds another charge but you still have the cooldown. If you're really pressed you can burn a second charge pack to skip the cooldown too.

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011




I call her "Plan B"

I've actually been having really rotten luck this run. Some good augments but NO Financial Suit missions or Server Farms. I did get Ping and Hunter though, and a security dispatch coughed up a Volt Disruptor III. Gonna see how this vault and subsequent nanofab goes. I am hurting for instant hacks though. Parasite only goes so far.

Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jun 17, 2016

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


tithin posted:

Good write up. Any chance you could post a summary of items / money you accumulate during a mission?

I'll see if I can whip something up in between updates, this sounds like a nice idea. And then I could recap what each item does, too.

But for now, SSNeoman and Fedule gave a good explanation of stims. Even the first one is very useful, later ones just get nuts.

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
The more you know: Did my usual flurry gun spree on an executive mission. As it turns out, Anatomy Analysis (no alarm increase on kills for 3 power) also works on non-lethal guns. Also, the description doesn't mention it, but apart from the larger AoE, EMP IVs also knock out devices for a turn longer. Of course, that's a bit of a double-edged sword.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
Since we're in info dump mode I want something clarified.

Drag speed: I've not seen this documented anywhere but I think I know how it works, so if someone could confirm this it'd be great for all. As far as I can tell, it costs 4AP to drag a body one space, but with the perks you get by buying Strength that goes down to 3, then 2. Right?

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Fedule posted:

Since we're in info dump mode I want something clarified.

Drag speed: I've not seen this documented anywhere but I think I know how it works, so if someone could confirm this it'd be great for all. As far as I can tell, it costs 4AP to drag a body one space, but with the perks you get by buying Strength that goes down to 3, then 2. Right?

My understanding was that it basically doubled move costs - ie if you could move 10 spaces, you could move 5 while dragging a body. admittedly it's been >6 months since I last played but I did use it as a general rule of thumb.

Bifauxnen
Aug 12, 2010

Curses! Foiled again!


I dont know the exact numbers, but it's something like that. At the start when you have no strength or speed, you can only get 2 tiles of dragging. So it should be around 4 AP per tile of dragging until you get some strength.

It seems to divide your available AP though, to give you the new AP total while you're dragging. And I think you sometimes get the benefit of rounding up, cause there have been times where I was surprised to get 1 more tile than I expected.

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
rear end in a top hat of a CFO mission just now.



So we start in the dark room at the bottom left of the V. All the way on the left side of the V is the Power Cell. Down in the lower right of the V is a Relay Station. The two switches are midway to each branch. Note the executive's office all the way in the right, and the chokepoint loving central in between. There's a Modded MKI in each branch for bonus fun.

Here's the kicker; on Advanced Alarm Level 1, the loving executive gets a patrol right alongside the guards. The only reason I was able to make any progress in this mission at all was because both Prism and 'Nale are rocking Stealth Rig IIs and Stim IIIs, and I noticed the MKI and the exec were the only people to go into the middle of that branch (you can see the AP counters and the pinned guard), and it also happens to be right next to the exit and far from the Enforcer spawns.

So we get our codes, the Enforcer's one turn away and we're right by the exit. Time to teleport Derek over and get out!

I left the Transport Beacon on the plane.

Well, I was able to KO the Enforcer with a shock trap and Ping away the other nearby guards (protip: shock traps make noise), and Derek ducked and weaved through the patrolling guards, which was now possible thanks to the missing MKI. Of course, if he hadn't had a Stim on hand himself we still might not have made it. I was ready to leave him for dead; all he had on him was a basic Disruptor, a Med Gel and a Stim, and Prism and 'Nale can sure as poo poo hold their own now. But he made it.

How did I leave the loving beacon on the plane.

Also, note the redone PS4 text. Compare my last screenshot:



Much better! The objectives display glitch seems to happen a bit less often too. Of course, now there are a few places where text scrolls off the bottom of its display area (some item names, inter-mission dialogue). :sigh:

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
Day 20 Report:

Ok, here's some info about what you can expect from difficulty 20 missions, if you bother to play that far: Guards start with +3 Armor and KO protection, and get a fourth point in either as the alarm levels increase. Having AP4 is enough for weaker guards like the Plastech guys and Harbingers, but having more increases the amount of guards you can clear out, obviously. Most firewalls are either 5 or 10. I haven't used shock traps much at the end, but the KO reduction seems to mean they can get up again before your turn starts - at least, that happened the last time I used one, but it may have been a bit of a glitch since it happened the same turn that the KO protection went up one level; either way, shock traps aren't quite reliable. Holocircuit Overloaders, on the other hand, still work neatly. I had 4 AP implants on Sharp, but that was a bit overkill. But it's not a bad idea to have a Thermal Disruptor IV in reserve on your melee guy(s).

Bless is really your best blanket protection against most demons. Oracle is great, but it's unreliable when a particular camera is holding up your exploration. One mainstay I had was to send in a cloaked agent with buster chips, but if you're about to kill people, triggering a camera will let you know where the closest enemies are, for merely raising the alarm level one point. Aces is another way to increase your AP. I had a tag gun on my shooter, and with a stim IV, you can simply tag people to reduce their armor, and then shoot them with your flurry gun. You need to switch to Incognita view and back to get the armor reduction to trigger. It increases the power consumption, obviously, and it doesn't work if an armored guard is already aiming at you. I never found Wrench 5, which would definitely be a keeper, but I did pick up Parasite 2.0 near the end. I didn't use it much, but it's quite efficient if you're not hitting a Portcullis 2.0 at the mission start.

I kept emptying out the nanofabricators for useful stuff, and then selling it back, or leaving it behind. Paralyzer IVs are great.

But all said, I wasn't that impressed by the late game difficulty increases. The interesting parts of Endless are when the exit starts requiring a seperate access card, and when you start getting a 2.0 daemon installed at mission start. Beyond that, the difficulty increases aren't exciting. Around day 14, the scan grenade of enforcers get an upgrade that lets them see through cloak or Prism's holo-field, but pretty much the only time I saw enforcers at that point was when I hit a Validate demon, or if I was scanning an executive. If you plan on doing it for the achievement, definitely try to hit missions that are 12 hours apart, which will let you hit day 20 faster. Do plan your implants carefully. I never found enough Implant Drills to respec all my guys.

Hannibal Rex fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 23, 2016

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.

Hannibal Rex posted:

I haven't used shock traps much at the end, but the KO reduction seems to mean they can get up again before your turn starts - at least, that happened the last time I used one, but it may have been a bit of a glitch since it happened the same turn that the KO protection went up one level; either way, shock traps aren't quite reliable.

IIRC when Watchdog installs it also affects currently KO'd guards, making them recover a KO point (basically, an even worse Jolt). A few ways this can gently caress you, obviously. One of my favourites is when you try poo poo with Monster's overclocked DART after guards already have KO resistance and happen to roll Watchdog/Jolt; this makes the guard you just KO'd immediately wake up. On *Plus it could also happen that your KO sends the alarm level up to 4.

Does KO reduction have a minimum? (IE, is it possible for Guards to become un-KO-able?)

Hannibal Rex
Feb 13, 2010
There's a minium of 1 turn KO. What happened at the time was that the alarm went to level four (Watchdog) just after I had knocked out two guards with a shock trap, so that probably was it. They should still work ok under most circumstances. I should mention, I definitely regretted selling Monst3r's DART once the armor increases got out of hand. Having a backup gun with higher AP definitely would have made sense at that point. I did find the non-lethal AP4 rail gun in the last few levels, but I only used it twice.

botany
Apr 27, 2013

by Lowtax
Is there a reason this is not a video LP?

Fedule
Mar 27, 2010


No one left uncured.
I got you.
I beat Expert!

The Mainframe was... it was...

Just look at it.



:supaburn:

I credit my success entirely to Prism, who spent the entire hacking sequence and about five turns thereafter sprinting around that huge clusterfuck room while cloaked, keeping like six guys busy all at once. Between that, 'Nale running interference and liberal Pinging, I was still only barely able to get Monster to the mainframe, and very nearly had to sacrifice Prism for the cause. The one benefit of that huge room is that with agents in each corner it's pretty easy to step into guards' peripheral vision.

I started up an Expert plus run and wiped on the first Executive Terminals.

Tenebrais
Sep 2, 2011

botany posted:

Is there a reason this is not a video LP?

It's a slow-paced game that requires carefully planning out every move. Probably not thrilling viewing.

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Nekomimi-Maiden
Feb 27, 2011

I'm here to help you.
Rule number one, don't get me killed.
Plus update rate would be halved or quartered if the LPer accommodated for that with "So I cut this 2 hours of deliberate careful play down to a 30-minute video". Video editing takes time, deciding what to keep and what to chuck, making sure you don't miss anything important, etc.

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