|
RandallODim posted:Nope! Had the same thing happen when the bastard stole my EMP I (he was only carrying it in the first place because I looted an EMP III earlier, but still). I'd love it if they just put his stuff in the storage after the mission, though you only have the four spots, so it might not work perfectly. Even just a warning would have been nice- I actually though this might happen on the first mission and emptied him out, but forgot at the end of the second  On the bright side, after starting with Shalem and Draco, I picked up Banks and Xu. This is pretty much my ideal superteam.
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 04:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 02:13 |
|
|
I had a somewhat similar thing happen when I rescued a courier and didn't realize before leaving the level that I had given him my only Neural Disrupter III 
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 06:01
|
|
|
Fano posted:I had a somewhat similar thing happen when I rescued a courier and didn't realize before leaving the level that I had given him my only Neural Disrupter III Never give anything to Couriers except keycards and corpses to hold and stand on. Those unable to sprint assholes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 06:28
|
|
|
It was a conscious decision at the time and it did help him get to the exit, I just forgot to swap the disrupter back to one of my agents
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 06:35
|
|
|
It's possible I was a little bit overprepared. I actually just hung around shooting guards for a few turns. Shalem is a beast with the aug that lets you kill without triggering heartbeat sensors.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 07:39
|
|
|
Man, I was all set for Nika to take Stim IV and murder every guard in the level with Flurry, and the second heartbeat sensor she tripped installed the Daemon that gives them all +1 armor (out of Flurry's armor piercing). Also disappointed that the new Derek can't telefrag guards that pick up his beacon. THIS EXPANSION SUCKS.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 17:26
|
|
|
Avasculous posted:Man, I was all set for Nika to take Stim IV and murder every guard in the level with Flurry, and the second heartbeat sensor she tripped installed the Daemon that gives them all +1 armor (out of Flurry's armor piercing). You got it to fire twice? It thought the Flurry Gun has been "fixed".
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 01:41
|
|
|
Well I just finished an ironman expert plus game and really had a great time (first expert plus win for me). I started with Internationale, Prism, Seed and Golem. In one of the first few missions, we found an econ chip, which had a very large impact on the run. We were also lucky enough to find parasite, which works very well with seed and golem. Derek was found a little before the midway battle, and Banks was found a little after. Both I thought were good but not amazing (abilities are strong when used but frequently went unused). Internationale was excellent as usual and got subdermal cloak (1 turn cloak on stim for 5 power), which has become one of my favorite augs, network downlink (+2 ap on mainframe hack) and during the last few missions chamleon moment (+6 ap on cloak). Most importantly, she carried the all important econ chip, which brought in about 1500 credits a map once she had her hacking maxed and enabled us to spend a lot of money without having to worry about raiding vaults (or clean up costs, more on that in a moment). Internationale was very, very fast, often having 14 or 16 AP from downlink, or as much 30 AP or more if she used her stim III, which was available every four turns. Prism got both a flurry gun and anatomy analysis early (my other favorite aug), which allowed her to kill one enemy a map without triggering any alarm. Later on, she got both the +1 AP syringe item (can't recall the name) as well as a Stim IV, which gives.... unlimited attacks per round. The flurry gun of course has unlimited shots per round, but only works for one round. I'm sure everyone can see where this is going. Needless to say, once all these items came together maps were basically Prism sneaking to LOS with as many enemies as possible, using her stims, and going to town on the poor hapless guards. She eventually also got a handcannon which allowed her in her best run to kill 5 enemies in a single round. My biggest disappointment is that she never got piercing scanner, and also that anatomy analysis does not work on omni harbingers, so the last map was kind of a shitshow as we were on alarm level 4 by like turn 8 or something due to the unavoidable +4 alarm on killing each harbinger. Anyhow, much fun was had by all, zapping the various elite enforcers that came and we got through OK. Tragically, due to the lack of piercing scanner on Prism we could not kill the elite enforcers, which had 2 armor, and came after the flurry gun had been used. Big Sean fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:15
|
|
|
Big Sean posted:
 That is an awesome interaction, please do not change it Klei.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 05:52
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:
oohhboy posted:You got it to fire twice? It thought the Flurry Gun has been "fixed". I think they "fixed" passing around the Flurry Gun to reset the 1 shot/mission restriction. It definitely works. I got to go postal with Stim IV Nika in a couple of later missions: my kill streak record with it is 6 guards, 1 drone, and a camera in a single turn. She still had 20+ AP at this point, but I ran out of things on the map to shoot. It's amazing how quickly the skyrocketing alarm level becomes irrelevant when you have several turns of empty map to go nuts before the first reinforcement guard teleports in and discovers the mass grave. It's not quite as insane as it sounds though because in addition to needing Nika with Speed 4 and two 1000+ credit items, Flurry Gun spends 4 Power per shot. The only way I was able to fire it so many times was having a ton of Power banked and a skill 5 hacker with a chip standing next to a console to get more mid-turn. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Nov 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 20:19
|
|
|
So I was thinking about that stim IV interaction and put one on Dr. Xu... now I'm going around disabling multiple safes with 30+ firewalls due to Felix daemon in one turn.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 20:53
|
|
|
30something hours in and I finally beat expert ironman. Only when it unlocked two more agents at the end the game wouldn't do anything whenever I clicked on confirm. Had to alt f4 out. RIP never look back
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 03:48
|
|
|
Don't suppose anyone knows of any good playthroughs of this on Youtube for me to watch when bored? I really enjoyed watching e.g. beaglerush's X-Com Ironman Impossible runs, mainly because they're better at tactical thought than I can ever hope to be 
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 03:53
|
|
|
lil baby anime posted:30something hours in and I finally beat expert ironman. Only when it unlocked two more agents at the end the game wouldn't do anything whenever I clicked on confirm. Had to alt f4 out. RIP never look back Congratulations for beating the game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 04:46
|
|
|
Avasculous posted:I think they "fixed" passing around the Flurry Gun to reset the 1 shot/mission restriction.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 06:12
|
|
|
Ciaphas posted:Don't suppose anyone knows of any good playthroughs of this on Youtube for me to watch when bored? I really enjoyed watching e.g. beaglerush's X-Com Ironman Impossible runs, mainly because they're better at tactical thought than I can ever hope to be There a lot of great playthroughs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSzYc9hNynCVpd-BPJgMR--QDJ6wZIMko Watching how he played is what got me through expert plus ironman.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 17:36
|
|
|
I felt underprepared for my first time going into the last mission. I played beginner for an hour or so on the free weekend and then quickly bought it and turned off the DLC. After three or four false starts I got into the swing of experienced, but despite individual missions going better I never managed to pick up anything decent for Incongnita. I beamed into Omni with my starting duo of Fusion/Parasite & Banks/Internationale who in seventy two hours hadn't come up with more than Paralyser III & a Neural Disruptor III, a few bits of level I tech, leash, and Nika. The tension was perfect and the combination of tradeoff and risk that goes into playing out different strategies is very satisfying. There's a lot of favourable comparison to FTL and XCOM there. An unexpected layout had me scouting five rooms that went nowhere before, back toward the start, I found the security hub. Avoiding the 8 armour guards, while parasite nibbled along, was made easier thanks to a tag pistol picked up from the penultimate mission. After a dozen or so turns and a couple of rewinds I had the facility’s boundaries, and two unconscious guards, in hand. Monster started hacking and just as I thought it was going okay security level three sends a new guy with 8 fresh levels of armour. He finds one of his sleeping friends on his first move. I distracted the guards as best I could and as monster hit the fourth hacking pip the some parasites finished, spawning deamons for a new guard and locking incognita out of hacking for 2 turns. Everything was still cool once Monster finished but I didn't realise I'd need to bring him to the next point. It was of course on the other side of the facility, with only a single possible route, and all the guards between Monster and that terminal. With the amount of guards closing in I tried to hug past them but a scanning grenade pinged Monster and they swarmed. The alarm hit level 6 as Internationale was one turn off hitting Monster in the chest with a syringe of medigel, ten guards were up and about on the level and four of them between her and monster. With everyone distracted by Internationale's downed body I tried to longshot sneak in Central only for her to bitch me out as she went down. Hell of a game. Of course the next run I got to the final massively over prepared and both rooms were right next to eachother and three solid rooms away from any guards. Onto an Expert playthrough of Contingency Plan!
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2015 04:46
|
|
|
Who do you think is the best partner for the Portal Guy (Derek?)? So far my best pairing was with Dr. Xu - Xu is awesome on his own, saves some power for the teleport and can share a reusable stun item from the get go. I also thought of pairing him with Decker, as both have a panic button of sorts to ghost through levels, but it didn't really work out.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 13:03
|
|
|
I've picked up Derek from a detention center on an Endless run with Xu/Central, Seed/Golem, where he's mostly just my designated console-getter. That said, his ability is good for getting past cameras that I don't want to spend the PWR to hack. I think he would work best in a high-speed strategy, scouting the map as quickly as possible and using Rapier to hack the things you need early on. OF Prism would be a good pairing to manage the power needs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 13:43
|
|
|
What's a fun starting setup to try Contingency Plan for the first time? I completed Experienced before I put the game away for a bit, probably gonna play it on that difficulty again to get myself back up to speed.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 15:02
|
|
|
Archive Derek's teleporter thing is extremely good for decoy tactics with minimal risk involved. Got 6+ alerted guards hanging around an area your agents need to pass? Just sprint Derek in there, get everyone's attention and keep luring them away from the area. If he gets into an inescapable situation doing that, he can just safely teleport away.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 15:14
|
|
|
Junkenstein posted:What's a fun starting setup to try Contingency Plan for the first time? I completed Experienced before I put the game away for a bit, probably gonna play it on that difficulty again to get myself back up to speed. Try the new Seed/Golem programs your next run. Rush is a great starting hero as you get a free Stim I and can handle armored guards earlier on. I had her paired with Archive Prism and was able to beat Expert with just those two alone. How does Draco's permanent neural scan work exactly? Do the security guards count as different if they are at separate companies or will they be considered the same?
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 15:26
|
|
|
Draco can scan each guard once. If the guard is unconscious, you get one of the following: - a small amount (1-4?) of PWR - a small amount (1-4?) of AP - a one-turn reduction on the cooldown of all of his items currently on cooldown - 100 credits The probabilites of all four bonuses seem roughly equal. If the guard is instead dead, you get a single rank of a random stat. The only restriction is that you can't scan the same guard twice, even if you knock them unconcious and then later kill them. You can get stat increases from two or more of the same type of guard from the same company. I don't know whether scanning a dead guard will do anything once Draco's stats are at maximum - I never needed to kill any by the time that I got to that point in my game. It's a very powerful ability, even better than the game-breaking strength of Archive Banks. Not only does it let you outpace the normal resource curve like her econ chip, the temporary bonuses remain useful throughout the game. Draco with multiple Stim III's, Torque Injectors and a cooldown reduction scan or two can't quite cover a level as fast as Predictive Brawling Nika, but he gets pretty close.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 16:12
|
|
|
HundredBears posted:I don't know whether scanning a dead guard will do anything once Draco's stats are at maximum - I never needed to kill any by the time that I got to that point in my game. You just gain temporary bonuses, same as scanning unconscious guards from that point onwards. Still worth it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
Yeah, everyone should run Draco at some point if only to get past the aversion to killing the game first instills in you with Heart Monitors. The fact that he's a pretty great character who will max his stats in just a few missions if you're fine with cold-blooded murder is just a bonus.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
For me, the aversion to killing comes more from the cost of ammo than from heart monitors, which Xu or an EMP can disable. Draco changes the equation, since a hand cannon and a charge pack can add up to a couple thousand credits' worth of stat upgrades.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 19:08
|
|
|
Endless really lets you play around with being a mass murderer instead of a sneaky thief. On my last mission at 20 days, I had Nika with 3 hand cannons, 2 flurry guns and stim IVs on everyone. I think I killed a good 30 guards since they started popping out every 3 alarm ticks on the level 6 alarm. Also, everyone had anarchy 5 so I was looting charge packs forever and doing nano fab missions every time nets you 2 charge packs no matter what (1 from each nanofab in the level.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 19:58
|
|
|
Yeah. I almost regret that getting an effective "killer" agent makes the game a little too easy. Might be interesting if there was something in the game, achievement or otherwise, around not killing anyone. I'm at day 8 on endless plus and while I don't have Nika, tragically, I do have Banks with two piercing scanners (eventually to be three) and anatomy analysis alongside two flurry guns, a hand cannon and a stim III and stim IV. Killing two thirds of the level (or more) with no alarm penalty really dials down the difficulty...
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2015 06:39
|
|
|
Got this game probably years ago and finally actually got round to playing it when I saw it in a bunch of GoTY lists, managed to beat my first playthrough (on beginner, so probably barely counts) and then had a failed run yesterday. Decided to start with some of the gun wielding characters based on the posts in the thread. So how do you make a lethal run work? I started with Shalem 11 and Draco then got Olivia in a rescue mission but I've run out of ammo already and can't seem to get anymore (assume it's a charge pack right? Wasn't able to afford the one I saw) and barely made any money on the missions I used the ammo on cause alot went on cleanup.
thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2016 20:57
|
|
|
thebardyspoon posted:Got this game probably years ago and finally actually got round to playing it when I saw it in a bunch of GoTY lists, managed to beat my first playthrough (on beginner, so probably barely counts) and then had a failed run yesterday. Decided to start with some of the gun wielding characters based on the posts in the thread. So how do you make a lethal run work? I started with Shalem 11 and Draco then got Olivia in a rescue mission but I've run out of ammo already and can't seem to get anymore (assume it's a charge pack right? Wasn't able to afford the one I saw) and barely made any money on the missions I used the ammo on cause alot went on cleanup. There's no such thing as a "lethal run". The ability to kill enemies is just another tool that can make levels easier to complete (at some cost). Later on, you can get enough resources and more efficient weapons to kill lots of enemies every map if that is what you want to do, but it won't be an option earlier on. Anyhow, the point is, the game is intentionally balanced to make killing enemies very expensive vs. knocking them out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2016 00:52
|
|
|
thebardyspoon posted:So how do you make a lethal run work? I started with Shalem 11 and Draco then got Olivia in a rescue mission but I've run out of ammo already and can't seem to get anymore (assume it's a charge pack right? Wasn't able to afford the one I saw) and barely made any money on the missions I used the ammo on cause alot went on cleanup. It's charge packs for ammo, yes. There will be one in every nanofab, you can also get lucky and find them on guards. The handcannon is your friend for upgrading Draco as it has 3 bullets, so that's 3 upgrades per 400 credit charge pack. I got lucky in my current, first shot at endless when my Xu/Draco team was offered one in Monster's first shop, but Archive Shalem comes with one (you wouldn't have had that option yet though). The other tip is to look out for the corp that has turret defences. Just lead a guard into their line of sight and boom, free upgrade.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2016 17:06
|
|
|
Well that run went real bad anyway and yeah I figured lethality would be more of a seasoning than the main ingredient for a run, just figured I'd ask. I'll try it again sometime but this new run is going really well, my first playthrough I only ever got one rescue mission so was stuck with 3 people the whole game. This time I've gotten lucky and rescued two people early on and each has some decent gadgets already, I'm sure I'm just being set up for the fall later though. One last question, when I beat the game the first time it unlocked a load of agents and some new programs I could start with. Now it's unlocking archived versions of agents (which seem like they have 1 thing different about them, either an item or an augment) so is it done unlocking programs? I'm guessing I have to beat it on a higher difficulty to unlock the last two greyed out agents as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2016 23:20
|
|
|
Oh man, wasn't expecting the DLC mission to show up in Endless mode. Was two squares from victory. Do you have to do the final mission in Endless as well?
|
|
#
?
Jan 18, 2016 11:59
|
|
|
I'm on day 13 on an endless run and haven't had to do it. I did a bad job with my augment loadouts but so far so good. Suppose I could try to get a bunch of key cards and look for augment drills.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2016 03:44
|
|
|
Made it.  
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2016 01:34
|
|
|
So are all those missions difficulty level 5000 or what? Congratulations, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2016 17:43
|
|
|
They go with the # of days passed, with some missions being +1 to that. After... 10? or so they stop having titles for the difficulty number. The archdaemons are a huge pain in the rear end; Portcullis 2.0 and Pulse 2.0 are my least favorite. That and the slowly escalating guard armor/ko resistances, making Sharp my only reliable takedown specialist with a bunch of piercing scanners and the 4-AP rifle. You get to a point where guards wake up on the same turn they activate a shock trap. Shoutout to holocircuit overloader, which seems to ignore armor and KO resistance, giving agents with a cloak the ability to knock any guard out for 2 turns. And of course cloak is practically a requirement for getting through the missions at that point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2016 18:07
|
|
|
Congratulations on being part of the 0.1%! I don't know if I can muster the will to even try it. The 10-day achievement the first time around was my least favorite because it just went on and on and on...
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2016 18:51
|
|
|
dyzzy posted:They go with the # of days passed, with some missions being +1 to that. After... 10? or so they stop having titles for the difficulty number. Nice, congrats! I just hit day 21 as well.   I definitely agree with you about archdaemons. In my experience, Blowfish 2.0 (beginning at Alarm level 2) was the toughest to deal with. Otherwise, I'd try to accomplish the most important objectives during Alarm level 0 and 1.That always seemed to be the best window of opportunity. Thankfully, I busted Draco out of a detention center, gave him 3 flurry guns, the K&O "Lance" Rifle, and armor piercing augs. He became the "oh poo poo" button during those sketchy moments. Also, I totally agree with you about cloaking becoming necessary in the end-game. Holocircuit overloaders was always a "get out of jail free" card. The tag gun + Incognita's Lightning ability was another useful combo, if you want to ignore armor. In general, I thought the most essential items were: Cloak 3, EMP 3, Buster Chip 3, Stim 3, Paralyzer 3, and Shock Trap 3. I found that by pairing these items with Torque Injectors (reduces item cooldown by 1), I had a much easier time dealing with brutal situations. Regardless of the mission type, each item provides insane amounts of utility, and their cooldown isn't terrible. As others have mentioned, tier 4 items suffer from having one charge, and dealing with charge packs is typically a huge pain. Draco ended up camping next to Nano fabs and sniping people, because it was a quick way to reload. Did you find it difficult to manage your inventory? Overall, I felt it was pretty limited, and my agents were constantly encumbered, but at least Stim 3 helps. I ended up dropping items from my inventory just to pick up mission items, and that process was sometimes tedious. In the end, one of my agents was the designated mule. I wish there was an "item drone" that just carried things for you. Perhaps you could limit the drone by giving it low AP, and it could only move a few tiles each turn. Even if the item drone carried 2 or 3 items, it would make all the difference. In the end, I abandoned countless amounts of "valuable tech" just so I could fetch those evil exit keys!!! If I had to do it all over again, I would have started with Dr. Xu. His melee-range EMP ability would have made the experience much easier, even if you factor in Magnetic Reinforcements. Dr. Xu doesn't care, he will  Edit: I suppose Central would also be an amazing choice, since maps are eventually covered with daemons. You might as well generate tons of power from constantly installing new daemons. Jedah fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jan 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2016 20:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 02:13 |
|
|
Yeah inventory was definitely a big stress point. That far in you've had a wealth of opportunities for good gear and you need every bit you can scrounge. I just started seeing the -1 AP cost as a fact of life in missions, since inevitably you'll be dealing with a security card, exit pass, and power cell before you can leave, combined with the occasional vault card and mission objective. I forgot about lightning! I was using wisp to stay out of sight as long as possible and it would have been the perfect panic button. That lance rifle also sounds nice but the rail gun was working well for me too. I actually did have Dr. Xu on the roster, and he is indeed quite helpful but his aug can sometimes backfire. It counts as an attack so it breaks cloak effects if you use it, and since it's an EMP effect magnetic reinforcements will kick in and make it a hack 2 per turn tool (still nice). Speaking of top tier items, I feel like the rank IV versions of items are too limited by their once-per-mission drawback. All of my agents had cloak 3, stim 3, and emp 3 as a base toolkit and I'd never consider replacing them with 4's. Oh and congrats to you too! I like that there can still be some pretty big differences in experience even in endless. Pretty strong testament to how well designed the game is. dyzzy fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jan 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2016 21:22
|
|