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 Hi, I'm Bifauxnen, and I love Invisible Inc. I recently beat it on Expert Plus mode for the first time, and a couple friends wanted to see how I went about doing that. Thus, this LP. If you're not familiar with the game at all, I will be running through the tutorial first just to show off how things work. From there we'll be jumping straight into the hardest difficulty, so I might forget to explain a couple things along the way. But all you really need to know is it's a very fun tactics-style game about secret agents. And instead of getting into direct combat, your goal is to avoid detection and race against time before security twigs onto your operation. If you like games like XCOM, you should probably just go buy this game on Steam already so you can play it yourself. It's pretty cheap. The standard game campaign has a plot that lasts for a set number of days. But I'll be playing Endless mode instead, which keeps throwing more missions at you indefinitely. I'm going to see if I can survive to Day 5 on Endless Plus difficulty to get the achievement. What about the spoiler policy? This thread is open season for spoilers of all types. I'd love to compare notes on different strategies, or people's favourite agents and items. There isn't a whole lot to spoil, to be honest. It's just great tactics action that's fun to play. There is a bit of plot to frame the campaign and give some depth to the futuristic dystopian setting, and an ending you get for beating campaign mode. But it's not like the story is the main point. How often are you going to update? I can't promise any regular schedule, but I'd roughly estimate 2 weeks between updates. Will there be any thread participation? Not at first. On my first run through I'm going to try really hard to make it all the way to Day 5 without screwing up, using my favorite starting team and making what I think are the best choices. Once I either succeed or fail miserably, I'll open it up for the thread to vote on my next starting setup, so I can show off different agents and strategies.  Tutorial and Team Setup Mission #1 - Day 1, FTM Executive Terminals Mission #2 - Day 1, FTM Chief Financial Suite Mission #3 - Day 1, Plastech Cybernetics Lab Day 2 Recap Mission #4 - FTM Chief Financial Suite (revisited) Mission #5 - FTM Executive Terminals (new and improved with extra goofups) Bifauxnen fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 08:29
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 Before I dive into playing on hard mode, let's take a quick moment to run through the tutorial and show how the game actually works. Once that's done, I'll get my Endless Plus starting team ready, so we can tackle a much harder mission in the next update.  Here is our hungover agent, Brian Decker. He drank too much and got nabbed by some corporate goons and thrown into tutorial prison. Let's help him break out! The blue areas show how far he can move this turn. He can only move 3 tiles right now, because he only has 3 AP. This is unusually slow, actually. Remember to drink responsibly.  Once you're done making all your moves and actions, you end the turn and it's the enemy's turn to go. In this tutorial mode though, most of the enemies won't be going anywhere.  Ah, he's feeling better already. Decker actually has 8 AP available now, but it says 5 AP above his head while I'm hovering over this tile near the door. It's showing how much AP he'll have left if we move him to that spot. Unlike XCOM where you need to split your move into 2 segments at most, you're free to make as many separate moves as you want so long as you have the AP for it.  Before we go barging through a door, we can spend 1 AP to peek through it and see what we're getting into.  Normally red security doors can't be opened unless you have a keycard. But for the purposes of the tutorial, it was kept locked only until we practiced the peek action. Decker discovered that the door was conveniently left unlocked after all, so it's now displayed in blue. Throughout this game, Red = stuff under enemy control. Blue = stuff we've hacked or unlocked.  See the red lines all over the floor where the guard is standing? That represents the area he's watching. This same thing happens with cameras. There are a couple yellow tiles as well behind the desk, which are safe "hidden" areas. These yellow tiles would be in the guard's range of sight, but some object is blocking his view. The most solid red tiles are "watched" and will get you discovered. This is obviously very bad. Being spotted and then shot is how you lose the game. But the more shaded ones at the edges of his vision are just "noticed". Moving into one of these tiles will catch a guard's attention, but only out of the corner of their eye. They won't be able to spot you or shift into alarmed mode, but they will move to check out that spot on their turn.  Anyway, this guard is just standing around not going anywhere, so as long as we don't go walk right in front of him, we're in no danger. Sometimes guards will stay stationary like this, just keeping watch over an area. But usually they have a set patrol route that goes back and forth. In this case, standing still is more annoying cause he's watching our only way out of here. Decker needs to grab his weapon to do something about it.  Neural disrupters are the tried and true standard default weapon. Invisible Inc doesn't have any RNG-based combat to determine chances to hit or not. You can either zap a dude, or you can't. Basic neural disrupters will always knock out a guard in melee range no questions asked, unless they have protective armor.  We don't need to go directly behind him, we can go up to the side of him too. Guards have very little peripheral vision.    Now we can steal whatever money or items he was carrying. Once you raise your stats a bit, you can also steal from guards who aren't knocked out. This is a much better idea, cause you don't want to knock out guards unless you absolutely have to. Once guards wake up they're on alert and go into hunting mode, and become much more threatening. And if another guard spots their unconscious body in the meantime, it creates even more trouble.  The little "3" above this guard shows that he'll be knocked out for 3 turns. If we stand on top of him to keep him pinned, he'll stay at 3. But each turn when he's not pinned, he'll get closer to waking up. (On harder difficulties, the standard KO time is only for 2 turns instead of 3.) We could just drag this guy along with us to make sure he stays knocked out. But dragging uses up far more AP than normal walking. We can only drag him 1 more tile right now.  Let's forget that idea and head for the door. I'm pretty sure this guy is never going to come after us anyway, cause this is just the tutorial. Boss lady gives us a friendly reminder to close doors behind us as we go. You don't want guards you left behind to catch a surprise glimpse of you when you least expect it.  This red thing here is a console.  By moving next to it, we can hijack it and use its computing power (PWR) for our own hacking purposes.  Peeking through the next door, there's an awful lot of red. Whatever could it be? Even once I've opened the door, I can't see the cause. The tutorial is prompting me to take another peek through the opened door.  There's the camera. Peeking through open doors gives a much better view of the room, and lets us spot things up in the corners like this. To move on, we'll want to hack the camera.  It's time for Incognita, our advanced quantum AI, to help us out.  This is Incognita mode. In this mode, any enemy devices you've discovered will appear, showing their number of protective firewalls. This camera has just 1 firewall, so it will be easy to hack. On the left is our list of programs. We've only got one program, the basic Lockpick 1.0. It spends 2 PWR to break 1 firewall.  Now the camera glows blue. It's no longer a threat, and as a nice bonus we can see whatever it's looking at. This helps cut down the fog of war.  Our next lesson is keeping to the side of doors. This message from the tutorial is slightly misleading. When you're just peeking through a closed door, it doesn't matter if you're standing to the side or in front of it. But if you're planning to open the door afterwards, you obviously don't want to be standing in full view.  Or else you might find a guard staring you right in the face, like this.  With this guard watching the door like a hawk, walking through would just get us shot. We need to get him to move.  Opening the door from the side caught the guard's attention, so now he'll come this way to check it out instead of staying put. But then what? He'll still be in the way, and coming right for us.  We could always just knock him out. Preparing an ambush makes you zap any guard that enters your melee range. This is basically like overwatch in XCOM, except for melee attacks.   Here he comes! Grab him!  Got him. Let's move on before he wakes up.  In the next section we come to another area with red on the floor, but we can't see what's causing it. Incognita has "detected danger". The fun thing about Expert Plus difficulty by the way, is this magic danger-sensing ability goes away. I'd have no advance warning that the area ahead was watched. This would also apply to that last room with the camera hiding in the corner.  The lesson here is to peek around corners too, not just through doors. It's just another camera up there, which we can quickly hack just like we did the last one.  Now we come up to an armoured guard. The standard neural disrupter has no armor-piercing ability. So we have no way to knock this guy out at all. We have to go around him instead. Luckily, his view is conveniently blocked by a table.  By moving carefully through the yellow "hidden" tiles, he won't suspect a thing.  Our final lesson is how to deal with guards that actually move. During the last enemy turn, I could hear this guy walking up ahead. There is a visual effect as well to show where the sound's coming from, but it's hard to catch in screenshots. It's not these white circles, this is just the tutorial showing you where to click to observe the guard's behavior.  Observing a guard costs 1 AP. The little white arrows on the ground show where the guard will move during their turn, unless they spot something along the way that changes their path. Like a poorly hidden agent, or a dead body, etc.  This guy's totally blocked off and can't even walk to our side of the room. He can't see us if we stay right behind this cover. He can see farther ahead, though.  To finish any mission, you need to bring your agents to the teleporter to escape. So this is mission accomplished. Time to crank up the difficulty!  Yes, we'll be meeting Internationale very soon.   Invisible Inc has several difficulty levels to let you gradually get a feel for the game if you want. But there's a huge difference between the Expert and Expert Plus difficulties. The main difference is you lose the magic danger sense. You can only see the safe areas plotted out if you can see the guard or camera in question. It also hits you with extra penalties for knocking out guards, and reduces your starting PWR so you have a much tighter hacking budget. One other thing it doesn't mention here is it takes away your ability to melee attack any guards that have you in their gunsights. This means if you forgot to set an ambush, or you purposely didn't ambush cause you thought the guard would walk past you but you guessed wrong... you're in deep poo poo.  Endless Plus is the same difficulty as Expert Plus, but in endless mode with unlimited missions.  First things first, to start the game we need to pick a starting team of 2 agents. Each one has different starting stats, different starting equipment, and 1 totally unique ability. Decker and Internationale are the first 2 agents you start with when you've just bought the game. But that doesn't mean you have to unlock all the best ones later. Internationale is already the best!  Her ability, Wireless Emitter, detects devices in a radius around her. This lets her hack things like cameras earlier than other agents, who might be stuck behind a bottleneck unable to spot them. She can also wirelessly hijack consoles in that range, without having to walk right up next to them. In short, this adds up to a shitload of saved time, which is all the more valuable in Expert Plus or Endless Plus difficulty. I actually feel a bit guilty for relying on her so much, instead of varying up my starting team more. But I have a very hard task ahead of me, and I'm going to need the best.  The other agent I've selected is Gladstone. (aka Central, but Gladstone is her name and I think calling her Central sounds weird) She's the founder and head honcho of Invisible Inc, who was guiding us through the tutorial. Her ability grants you 5 PWR whenever an enemy daemon program gets activated. We didn't go over those yet in the tutorial, but this ability goes really well with Endless mode. Daemons will start appearing later on, and they start piling more and more daemons on you the longer you last. Her power bonus can really help you keep up. Apart from that, she also starts with a high Anarchy score. This lets her pickpocket guards for their money and items without having to knock them out, and gives a slight bonus to the money she can steal. Every credit counts, especially in the beginning. Next up is choosing the starting programs for Incognita. In the tutorial we had just 1 program, Lockpick 1.0. This is the default starting option, but others get unlocked the more you play. The other default program, Energy Drip, passively generates 1 PWR for you every turn. Basically, you start with 1 program that determines how you get PWR, and 1 program that determines how you spend PWR. These defaults are the most basic and predictable choices that are easy to use. But once you know what you're doing, they can seem weak and underpowered.  For power generation, I prefer the Seed program. Technically it never generates any PWR for you at all, so you need to be careful about dipping into your reserve. But it heavily discounts the cost of the first program you use each turn, basically granting you 1 free program per turn. (Unless it's a really expensive program, but then it still lets you use that pricey one for cheap) This program isn't good for hacking a bunch of stuff all at once. But if you can keep plugging along hacking a little bit each turn, this program gets a lot more done in the long run. For my hacking program, I prefer Parasite. It works very differently to all the other lockpicking programs. It can't hack anything instantly, since its effect kicks in at the end of the turn. But once you've infected something with a Parasite, you don't need to spend any more power. It just keeps doing its job to break down a firewall every turn. Sometimes the delay can be a pain in the rear end, and there will definitely be times when you wish you could just hack something NOW NOW NOW. But as the firewalls get tougher and tougher in later missions, you'll be really glad to just slap on a Parasite for like 1 PWR and let it do its thing in the background. A standard lockpicking program would probably have you waiting around for more power anyway, once you've run out. In any case, it's not hard to find and buy another lockpicking program later to help complement Parasite. But if you don't start with Parasite, it's a lot harder to find it later when you want it.  I pretty much always start with Seed and Parasite now, since they work the best for my playing style. I'd like to experiment a bit more so I don't get stuck in a rut with them, so after this run I'll explain more about the other programs.  Now that we've got our party all ready, let's see what's up for the first mission.  The first mission is always the same: an executive terminal mission 12 hours away. We're going to steal a list of juicy corporate targets, and then our choices will open up.  Here's some more details on the mission, which you can review before you make your choice. This corporation we're raiding is called FTM. Each corporation has a different specialty and different things they're likely to throw at you, but it doesn't really matter yet on this first mission. It's just a simple vanilla one with basic guards. The difficulty level is very important to check. The first mission is obviously difficulty level 1, but they'll soon throw harder levels into the mix. It's almost always a bad idea to choose a harder difficulty mission when you have something easier available to get yourself better prepped.  Invisible Inc doesn't have set maps. Each facility is procedurally generated, which keeps things exciting. In the next update, we'll go on to our first proper mission!
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Jun 10, 2016 08:31
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Hm, not sure who would be Gaspy, but Tithin is definitely Decker.
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Jun 10, 2016 09:10
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Pickled Tink posted:Hooray! You finally did it! It's just in expert plus that it gets seriously bad for you. Probably on expert too, but at least you don't get extra alarm penalties too when you knock em out there. In any case, once you start getting far in endless mode the guard's armour will just win the arms race against you, where you often can't even knock them out if you wanted to. It's easier to avoid them entirely than to lug around some super rare nuclear-powered sniper rifle that only shoots once or twice per mission with +2 encumbrance or something.
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Jun 10, 2016 09:18
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 Welcome back to Invisible Inc. Today we're going to be doing a proper mission breaking into an FTM facility. Our goal: to hack into their executive terminal to search their corporate directory, and get a list of new juicy targets.  Each type of mission has one primary objective that defines the character of it. Technically, you don't have to do it. You could just run for the exit as fast as possible and beam outta there to survive another day. I might try this when I'm getting close to Day 5. But you do really want to try and accomplish the mission, or you'll quickly fall behind by missing out on the major rewards. The secondary objective is always the same: steal as much dough as you can while you're there. Each level has scattered safes around filled with credits or items. (oddly enough, I think Expert Plus gives you more items. It can be nice at times, but you risk becoming encumbered and a lot of times you'd be better off with just the money) Depending on how the level is laid out and how much the guards are getting in your way, it can get pretty risky trying to clear out a whole level. But I do aim to get all the safes all the time if possible, cause if you're having trouble with it that probably just means you're underpowered and you really need that money.  We've been beamed down into a small secluded room with only one exit, and a console.  This isn't exactly the best demonstration of Internationale's ability, since we have to walk past the console anyway.   Here's a better demonstration. Internationale can already sense this nearby camera before opening or peeking through the door. But it's not lit up yet because it's inactive. This means it can't see us, but we can't hack it either. It will switch on later once the alarm level goes up higher.  In Expert Plus, I often open doors without peeking through them first. (Just make sure you're standing off to the side, obviously.) If it catches a guard's attention, at least I get a nice heads up straight away that there's a guard nearby. And so long as I got enough moves left, I can just scoot back into a hiding place. The reason I do this is so I don't waste more AP peeking through every door twice. As I mentioned in the tutorial, peeking through an open door gives you a much better view than peeking through a closed door. Since the magic danger sense is gone in Expert Plus, I need to always peek through open doors and check for stuff hiding in the corners before I go barging into a room.  This room looks clear and it's got nice hiding places behind the statues. But for all we know, a guard could walk right into us during the enemy turn. So we'll stay back here behind the door where it's safe until we know what's going on. It's very unlikely that a guard will walk all the way through the room to come into this one in the span of one turn. But just on the microscopic chance that it does, we'll wait in ambush mode.  During the enemy turn, I heard a guy walking around to the NW, but he didn't come into the statue room. His patrol sounds like it's going straight past that northern door, and not looking down here.  Every time we finish a turn, the security level goes up by 1 point. As shown in the little tutorial graphic, every 5 points brings you to a new alarm level, where they bring in new security measures. So while you do want to be careful and stealthy, being too overly cautious can still bite you if you take too drat long to go anywhere.  Internationale can sense a console way over there and take its PWR already, which is very handy.  And she senses more stuff up here. A camera and safe, and another console. This camera is glowing red cause it's actually switched on, so we'll want to hack it ASAP.  Here's a nicer view of the Incognita screen. You can see that the Parasite program costs zero PWR. The first parasite is always free, then the power cost goes up if you have multiple parasites active and running at the same time. This makes the Seed program seem slightly redundant in the very beginning, but that doesn't really matter. If I wanted to be really loving stingy, I'd hack just the camera this turn, then hack the safe next turn instead of spending 1 PWR for a second parasite. But that would be overdoing it. Dragging things out longer than necessary is a far bigger danger than wasting 1 point of PWR.  I moved up into the statue room to get a peek at the room ahead. I can't see the guard that was walking around through there. It looks like there's a long NE-SW route here that he's walking through, and he's not interested in this statue room at all. But I wait in ambush anyway just to keep up good habits. I don't want to knock out guards this early, but I want even less to get a nasty surprise.  During the enemy turn, I heard that guard walking around through here, but I couldn't tell exactly where his path went through the room. I should've left the door open maybe to catch a better look, instead of going off the sound and ripple effect.  I'm going to end this turn in the statue room again, until I can better scope out this guy's route. But in the meantime, Internationale can take a few steps into the room to see if she senses anything up ahead. She sensed another camera, safe and console.  We'll hack them both this turn. The little squiggly bug legs show that they have parasites on them now. By the way, I'm not going to keep doing a play-by-play of every single thing I hack each and every turn, unless there's some interesting choice involved. So just presume that I'm always hacking 1 or 2 things like this a turn when possible.  This time I remembered to leave the door open so I could better watch this guy.  During the enemy turn, the guard came to stand here just next to the door. He's conveniently facing away from it, to stare at the NE wall. Now that I can actually see him, I can spend 1 AP to observe him.  Note that we can see the NE room up ahead now. At the end of the enemy turn, the parasite kicked in and I can see through that camera. It's another statue room full of nice hiding spots, but also a lot of entrances. It'll be easy to hide in there once we know where the guards are going, but for now it's a bit worrying to not know which way they could be coming in. But enough about that, let's have Gladstone pick this guy's pockets.  Her high anarchy score gave me a 10 credit bonus, and he's also holding a keycard! This will let me unlock any red security doors we come across.  Afterwards, Gladstone scoots out of sight behind this desk here. Now that I know exactly where this guard is walking, I can confidently move ahead and grab some hiding spots in this room. Internationale remembers to close the door behind her before moving on, and she has just enough AP to go loot that safe, then hide next to Gladstone.  A closer view of where we're sitting now. You can also see the guard's status is "patrolling". You want to keep guards in this status. Not only do they stick to their predictable patrols, they aren't paying much attention so you can get away with a lot more poo poo.   That red ghost of the guard shows where we last had sight of him once he walked out of the room. Let's get out of here before he comes back. I'm not too worried now about the NE room since I was able to watch it during the enemy turn, and no one came in. I didn't hear anyone else walking nearby, either.  Internationale will hide here behind this statue since she doesn't have enough AP to get to the other end of the room yet. Gladstone takes a peek through this door, and it looks like this way is a dead end.  Yep, totally empty. Just before the end of the turn, I opened the door so Gladstone could spend her last AP on a better peek. There's nothing in the corners, just a useless dead-end room.  Now that it's been 5 turns, we go up to Alarm Level 1! The inactive camera we saw earlier will switch on now, along with any other inactive cameras across the level. By the way, I missed this in screenshots, but once I hacked that inactive camera it showed that SW area the guard was walking into. It was another dead-end room, empty except the console we already grabbed wirelessly. Just wanted to clear that up so you don't wonder for the rest of the update why I never went back there to check out that area.  I can't sense anything interesting yet as Internationale comes up to these doors. Instead I find another empty room with a bunch more doors in it.  The last door led to another empty-looking room, but it does have a red security door we can unlock with the keycard.  Fun fact: you can still peek through closed security doors even while they're locked. And we get a glance at our main objective: the executive terminal.  We need to hack it before we can access the files on it.  Meanwhile, Internationale can come scout around up here. Found a new camera, a safe to raid, and the other thing is a nanofab. Which is basically a shop.  I hack just the camera for now, cause I'm already hacking the terminal too. It'll take me a turn to get up to the nanofab anyway, and who knows what's going on there by the safe. I could've really splurged another 2 PWR to hack the safe, though. This was a bit stingy when I've got 14 PWR to spend. Oh well.  Gladstone still had a couple AP left, so I unlocked the door and got a better peek at the terminal room before I ended my turn.  Now that the terminal's been hacked, I need to walk up to it to download the files. (this goes for Internationale too) That dark area to the SW is probably just a deadend, but you can never be too paranoid.  Oh ho! Internationale went to check the last door over here, and opening it caught a guard's attention. I didn't think there was anyone around, cause I hadn't been hearing any steps nearby. Maybe someone's just standing at a stationary post in there.  I take a peek and yeah, looks like just a stationary guy whose job is to stare all the way down this long hallway. The "?" symbol by the door shows a point of interest. He's going to move from his post now to come investigate this space. It'll take him more than 1 turn to get all the way down here, though.  While I'm waiting around for that guy to satisfy his curiosity, I come back this way to check out the shop. I finish up the turn behind this desk here, so even if some new random guard walks in through the top door, I'll be fine.  I'm working on hacking that safe now, and the nanofab will be open next turn.  Gladstone's made it up to the terminal now, so it's time to grab the site list. (you just loot it like you would a safe) I need to be careful now. Whenever you grab your main objective, some special countermeasure kicks into gear. For this type of mission, grabbing the site list sends an automated signal to change up the guard patterns. So that stationary guy I just ran into might not stay stationary any more. And the first guard pacing around near the start of the mission might decide to start strolling towards us instead. Basically, we just gotta watch out and learn the patterns all over again.  I bring Gladstone over here cause I'm more worried about the unexplored area to the south. The guard up north can't get this far yet.  Now the nanofab's unlocked, so Internationale can go shopping. She spotted another camera too, once she moved up next to it.  Nothing really grabs my eye, except maybe the buster chip. This item is handy and cheap, something I'd like to have in my kit to hack things faster than the Parasite program. But it's also pretty common. We'll probably just find one along the way soon enough, so I'll save my money to buy more stats instead.  I use some of my last AP to peek through this door, and spot a guard. Thankfully he's not coming my way, but that yellow "?" symbol over his head means he's in investigative mode. This is slightly more dangerous than patrol mode, because once he gets to whichever spot he wants to investigate he'll actually turn his head around to take a proper look.  You can see his path here. He's investigating an area we've never even been to, so it's not like anything we did got him curious. It must have been finding the site list, that prompted him to go investigate a random area instead of standing around here.  Some more ghostly red images to keep us updated on the guards we've spotted. Random investigation guy walked out of my peek view, but a new guard walked in to take his place. So this is where everyone's been hiding! The red guard to the south is the one who came to check out the mysterious door opening. We can't see him down there, but we could hear him going “huh, guess it was nothing”.  Peeking through the open door revealed a laser wall, and a server terminal over on the east side. (this is another type of shop, that sells programs for Incognita) I also hacked a camera that gave me a view of that little room to the north. That thing up in the corner is a power supply, which powers the laser wall. Once we hack it, we can shut the lasers off so we got another possible escape route.  This area is pretty drat busy, so I'm going to have Internationale stay here by the nanofab for now to observe what's going on. Before she goes back to her hiding spot, I found another safe, which looks pretty big!  Let's get to hacking it for now in case we get a good chance to loot it.  Meanwhile, Gladstone gets to peek down here and sees it was a dead end after all. Now she can head back towards Internationale, and they can work together on clearing the place out.  Nanofabs make great hiding spots. You can just nestle in beside them while guards walk straight past you.  During the enemy turn, our old buddy from back at the start stopped patrolling in place. For his new behavior, he wants to come check out this area by Gladstone.  After 10 turns, we're at alarm level 2. We got to wait an extra turn for the parasites to finish working, cause everything on the whole level got a 1-firewall boost.  Internationale tries to get a better look at what's going on over there, crossing over from the nanofab room to the little power supply room. She spots yet another safe!  Can't do much about it on this turn, though. Gladstone is still moving this way, so maybe once she gets near the south end of the room, we can work something out.  On my next turn, I slip over here just to peek at what's behind this last door. We've finally found the exit! And we're only at level 2, so we got plenty of time to try and figure out a way to all those safes.  Satisfied with that discovery, I'll come back in here to stay hidden for this turn, and get to hacking that camera.  How am I going to raid all these safes, though? Gladstone's busy hiding between this wall and the statue, waiting to see what this guard was up to. He seems to have finished his investigation, just shy of where Gladstone was hiding so she didn't have to tase him. He just wanted to check out the terminal room, I guess.  I have Gladstone slip around to the side of this door, then close it, which attracts the attention of the guards up there. That should draw them away from Internationale, who can hopefully slip in behind them.  Then I'll hide over here behind this other statue and get some more distance, since I'm not sure what that nearby guard's gonna do next.  During the enemy turn, the guard in the terminal room started going back the way he came.  He's back in patrol mode now, just with a new path that goes back and forth to the executive terminal room. (even though no agents are near him, anyone can observe him from a distance when our cameras are watching him) He'll stay out of our way as long as we don't disturb him.  Now that I know that guard isn't going to come through the door to try and shoot me, I bring Gladstone back behind this statue again. Then I can get a good look straight down this hallway once the guards come to investigate this door.  Here comes a guard now. He looks around to the left and right, but can't see directly behind the statue. There's another guard behind him, who's walked down past the intersection. Internationale might be able to go behind him that way...  Except Guard #3 had to stop right in front of this door and block her off!   Gladstone is going to try and keep these guards' attention down here. This is a trick I like to call sprint/sneak. If you sprint, you gain 3 more AP for extra movement, but it makes noise that can attract guards. You can only toggle it if you're at full AP. However, if you sprint at the start of your turn, you can still change your mind and switch back to sneaking (and forfeit your bonus 3 AP) if you haven't moved more than 3 tiles, meaning you're still above max AP.  So basically, you can create a distraction noise where you're standing at the start of your turn, then sneak away somewhere else. I use it to keep this guard interested in this area instead of going back up north. It also attracts the southern guard, but he should just go back to his normal patrol after he checks out the noise.  I rob the new guy before I move on.  As for Internationale... screw it, I'm just gonna knock this guy out. I've got the place mapped now, everything's all around this same area, and I'm still at level 2. Once I loot the safes I can just hop over to the exit and get outta here. One agent can keep this guy pinned while the other gets looting.  Once he's knocked out, Internationale can steal his money too. He had 90 credits.  Now Internationale can cross all the way over here and hide behind the server terminal. Let's see if there's any good programs for sale!  Hmmm... Taurus can be handy to move nasty daemon programs off an item you absolutely have to hack. But it isn't nearly as good as the Hunter program that just straight-up kills daemons for only 1 more PWR. Taurus can be an okay substitute, but I don't think it's worth spending that much money on it at the start of the game. Burst isn't really my thing, either. It gives you an AP boost for one turn, but then a penalty while it's on cooldown. Handy in an emergency perhaps, but I'd rather save my money for more speed points so I don't need it.  Here's where Gladstone ended the turn. She'll go take over pinning that guy next turn, while Internationale's busy.  At Alarm Level 3, a new guard spawns.  Guards spawn in these red teleporters, which are totally inaccessible to us. There will always be a few scattered at different points around the level, and of course he had to pick the one that's right in my drat way next to the safes.  But let's stick to the plan. Gladstone went up to the knocked-out guard and gave him another zap. Now he's back to needing 2 turns to wake up instead of 1. And he'll stay that way as long as I stay on top of him to keep him pinned. Internationale goes to loot the closest safe.  Then she ducks right back into hiding by the terminal. There's no other good place to hide, with that guard up north and the new guard down south possibly converging on her location.  Gladstone stepped away from the KO'd guard for a sec to observe this guard's path, and save Internationale the AP. She's probably gonna need it. Look closely at the northern guard. You can see the red cone of sight where he's looking, but the tiles just to the left and right of him are safe. That gave me enough room to slip back out from the terminal hiding spot, then come around behind the pillar to loot this next safe. There's just the big safe left now, up at the top of the room. But we got these 2 guards in the way, and another one at the south end who's probably on his way right back. It's probably a good thing after all I knocked out the 4th guy.  Okay, get back to pinning duty, Gladstone. I also have her drag him over one tile, into a better hiding place.  Internationale's okay down here for now, since the guards are all heading back up that way.  On the next turn, I just held my ground. I tried having Gladstone help take a look for Internationale again, but she couldn't catch a glimpse of where the guards are right now. I'm pretty sure that one of them was going to end his turn by turning around to face back south though, so Internationale can't get through yet.  And on this turn, I got a better idea of what's going on. One guard is back to standing in place and watching down the hallway. The other is patrolling around here. I'll need Gladstone to make another distration.  Sprinting will get their attention.  Gladstone had to move pretty far to get them both to hear it, so she can't switch back to sneaking. But since that was as far as they could hear anyway, I can just run back the way I came to keep pinning that guy we knocked out.  This looks pretty good for giving Internationale a chance to move now, but take a look at the security level. We're about to hit Alarm Level 4...  Which spawns another guard. But thankfully this time the new guard was a bit out of our way.  Bleh, Internationale can't make it all the way up to the last safe unless she sprints. That would draw them right back to her and trap her in the corner. Unless...  Let's just go for it. Those 290 credits are mine! And both guards are suspicious.  But now Gladstone will sprint too, drawing them back towards her instead.  Unfortunately, Gladstone has to take the long way around cause the guards were watching the upper path. But that knocked-out guard should help keep their attention.  The plan worked. The guards didn't go towards Internationale at all.  Those 2 guards are on alert now, and we got an extra security level penalty for them finding a guard body. Gladstone has also got to do some tricky maneuvering now, cause the new guard who spawned at Level 4 is coming up her way. But there's enough hidden spaces around the statues that I can weave my way to the door.  Actually going through the door, I had to cross through a “noticed” area, which will draw the guard this way. But I should be okay here for now.  Internationale hides up here on her way towards the exit. Those 2 guards will probably still be busy searching round that room though, since they're alarmed by finding their buddy knocked out.  Note the "!" sign where the body was. "?" tiles show a point of interest where a guard thinks something might be suspicious, but they're not alarmed yet. A "!" sign is something that sent them into full alarm mode. You really don't want to get people into alarmed mode until you're on the home stretch.  During the next turn, things were going nowhere and I hosed up by forgetting to put Internationale in ambush mode. I would've been okay ducking right behind a statue, but somehow I also hosed up getting the screenshots which is far less forgivable. Good thing you're allowed 1 rewind per mission on Expert Plus difficulty. (or you could disable it entirely to make things even harder if you want) I'm gonna spend my rewind here to redo this bit properly. Sorry again for missing my great fuckup with screenshots, but technically it didn't ever happen now, so there.  This hopefully ends the lesson on using rewinds!  This time I have Gladstone sprint, to draw this guard towards the little side section over here. Then she should be able to get away through the main hallway.  After observing him though, I notice he's going to walk really far this way, so I'm gonna have to knock him out to be safe. I prep an ambush.  Meanwhile, Internationale hides up here, instead of behind the statues, where she shouldn't be spotted by the hunting guards running all over the place. But just in case, I'll stay in ambush mode.  Gladstone zaps this guy when he walks here during his turn, and the Expert Plus knockout penalty will put me right to level 5.  At level 5 an enforcer beams in, and they mean business. They're always on alert from the moment they arrive.  Plus, one agent gets their location pinpointed. This isn't usually as scary as it sounds, though. It basically works like any other “point of interest”. A guard will make their way to that tile to look around before they do anything else. It can actually be a benefit sometimes to draw enemy attention away, assuming you can move away from where they pinpointed you. If not, then okay, you're probably in trouble.  See, this guy who was running around the left hallway and getting in the way of our escape route is now coming down here, to check out where Gladstone was pinpointed. Gladstone went around behind the pillar to get here behind him. Then while he's busy staring at that exclamation mark and guard body next turn, she'll be long gone.  We're getting close now, but this other guy's about to walk back this way to block off Gladstone's path.  During the enemy turn, the enforcer runs in, hunting for us. They have this ability to throw scanner balls to look for things hiding behind cover. If the scanner senses you, it becomes a point of interest that the enforcer will move to investigate next turn. He's well out of our way, though.  Gladstone can't move this way at all unless I knock this guy out, so Internationale takes care of him.  This should probably catch the attention of the nearby guard, who just woke up from his nap next to the nanofab.  So Internationale runs back behind this statue, and Gladstone also hides nearby. Too bad Gladstone's taser is still on cooldown for 1 turn, or she could just ambush that guy who woke up.  Wow, that sure is handy! This guy didn't actually spot his KO'd buddy yet. He's just standing around by the door and not even looking our way at all.  If Gladstone sprints, she can make it to the teleporter!  Internationale was already close enough. Let's blow this popsicle stand! We even avoided hitting Level 6, just barely.   Next update, I'll choose and embark on the next mission. See you then, comrades.
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Jun 11, 2016 14:12
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SSNeoman posted:Yeah that right there would have been the perfect time to use the double pin trick. Gladstone wasn't doing anything useful, 2 alarm segments would have been a small price to pay and you'd avoid most of the guard tango. For the double pin trick, do you have someone still holding the 2nd body up while you drag them over the 1st one? I remember getting to pin 2 guards once before sort of by accident, probably on an old Endless (standard) run where I was knocking people out willy-nilly. But I must have convinced myself it was a bug or something and forgot about it by the next time I was knocking out exactly 2 guys again. In the later days of my Endless run that made it all the way to day 10, I was usually knocking out way more people than that. Gladstone would get these paralysis farms going... 
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Jun 11, 2016 17:32
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The only reason I was able to beat the last campaign mission the first time was cause I'd found a level 3 shock trap. Shock traps are so great.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:59
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I really liked that wait-for-the-jet mission in the DLC campaign. Sometimes I really dont feel like doing that campaign cause it's so much longer, but that mission was an interesting change of pace. I also loved how the DLC campaign gives you a chance to put an extra program on Incognita. Being limited to only 5 has really been frustrating to me on endless mode. I get that they want you to have to make wise choices instead of loading up on all the best programs you see, but when 2 of the 5 are already going to be taken up with your power generation and lock picking, it doesn't really leave you much room to experiment. If I find a decent lock picking program to use alongside parasite, that's another slot down.
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Jun 12, 2016 03:10
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I might not get to show off the real power of Gladstone since I forgot for a while that the Endless Plus achievement is only for Day 5, not Day 10. Around day 5 you start getting hit with automatic daemons that activate from the very start of the level. That's on top of the buttloads of daemons they just stick on every device in sight. But her high anarchy is also nice to start off a run. It gives you a bit of bonus credits when you're starting out, and someone who can rob people who aren't knocked out. Plus, if you find any nice tools with an anarchy requirement, she can use them straight away. That leaves me free to focus on buying nothing but speed speed speed.
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Jun 12, 2016 03:42
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Fedule posted:BTW. I want to buy the soundtrack for this game but the only place I've found it for sale is on Steam, where they won't let me download it without buying the game which I'm not loving going to do because I already own the goddamn game jesus christ how hard can this be?! I just want to pay some money and download some goddamn music files! Why do I need to own the game for this to work?! Not that I know of - hell, I find getting soundtracks on Steam to be annoying enough already even if I didn't have your gripe about owning the game on another platform. That Olivia power-farming idea sounds fun, but doesn't the volt disruptor suck up as much power as you'd get back? I really need to try out more of the archive agents... so far Decker's the only one I've played with much, pairing him up with Draco for a first-mission bootstrap bloodbath.
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Jun 13, 2016 06:04
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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. 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.
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Jun 15, 2016 05:09
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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.
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Jun 15, 2016 18:37
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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. 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.
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Jun 16, 2016 22:59
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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. 
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Jun 17, 2016 01:52
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 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.  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!  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.     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 |
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Jun 17, 2016 01:56
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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.
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Jun 17, 2016 21:35
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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.
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Jun 18, 2016 00:49
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I should try and take my Expert run of Endless mode to day 20 just to see some of that stuff for the heck of it. I left off partway though Day 10 cause it was getting a bit same-y and I didn't think they were going to keep adding any notable new countermeasures. But I've still got the file sitting there. botany posted:Is there a reason this is not a video LP?  Funny you should ask, my first post in the Sandcastle did address this but was a bit whiney. Basically, I only started doing this LP cause I couldn't get any video working to stream or record for my friends. But Irfanview works great for screenshotting everything. I think this game could definitely work well as a video LP. I watched a couple videos so far from that channel someone linked earlier of the guy playing it Ironman, and it was fine to watch. But I sometimes take a lot longer to plan things out than he does, so even if I did get it working, it would probably need a lot more editing down.btw, current status: I've survived 2 more missions, but it'll take a while to finish writing them up and doing the updates. I should have the next one up sometime during next week.
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Jun 24, 2016 02:47
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 Welcome back to Invisible Inc! Last time we stole a vault card from a financial executive, and this time we'll be going to a cybernetics lab hoping to put the card to some good use. Let's get prepped for the next mission.  Unfortunately, I'm just shy of the 500 credits I need to boost Gladstone's speed. This is really annoying, but I did get a lot of nice toys instead, including the Leash program.  Monst3r's got a lethal handgun for sale. Holds 3 bullets at a time, but no armor piercing. Even if I did want it, I couldn't afford it without selling off all my cool stuff. So that's a no.  I can't afford any more speed, but I can afford some more strength to help me carry all these items. Each strength upgrade lets you carry another item before you get encumbered. It can also improve your dragging speed. This stat boost goes to Internationale again, since the cloak and stim have a speed requirement so she's the one carrying the most toys.  I shuffled my items around so Gladstone's carrying the keycard, and she's also got the smoke grenade just in case. With that, we're ready to go.  Plastech's main gimmick is a special type of cybernetic guard, but they won't show up until the difficulty gets higher. So this should be another vanilla mission for now.  Off we go!   We've got a security door in the first room. Would've been nice to have Banks around, since her ability is to open these doors even without a card. But we can still peek through it.  We get a nice view of a big room over here with 2 guards, and a power supply that must control some laser wall somewhere.  Internationale can sense a camera over here, so we probably won't be able to get far this turn.  I use up Gladstone's AP to observe these guards in the meantime, and get a better idea of their patterns.  I hacked the camera and the power supply, but not the other thing. That other thing is a console database, which reveals the location of all consoles across the map. It isn't that useful when Internationale can already sense them at a distance. But it might help give us a sense of the shape of the whole level, when we've found it so early. So I might hack it next turn.  I only just noticed another door leading into that big room, which makes the red door kind of moot.  This side of the room ended up being a dead end, but I did sense a nanofab that I can get to hacking.  Gladstone gets ready just behind the door. There's nowhere good to hide in the room up ahead, so she'll have to wait here for now.  I hack the other camera, and also the nanofab. The console database can still wait.   Since I hacked the power supply, I can see where the laser wall used to be. It's switched off now, but I'll need to be careful approaching that area. During the enemy turn, I heard another guard walking around there. That's in addition to the guy you can see in this screenshot.  This could get awkward. There's nowhere to hide around here. Gladstone could cross through the room behind this guard, but then he's just going to walk right towards her so I'll need a good hiding place once I get there. Going into the new room blind, I don't know if that'll happen. Plus I might run smack into the other guard I heard pacing around in there.  The solution is to hold off and wait for Internationale to scope it out first. She has higher speed, and also the stim which can grant her 4 more AP if she needs it. Not to mention the cloak. She can definitely handle this.   Some technician walked in, he's the guy with the question mark over his head. The DLC adds some special characters like this for potential bonus rewards. There's no way I can easily get to him right now though.  That technician must've been the other person I heard walking around in this room. I can only see the one guard in here right now.  This is the tactical view, which I hadn't bothered showing off before. It strips away most of the graphics so you can more easily see which tiles are safe, noticed, and watched, and where there are cover objects. (but sometimes you need to be a bit careful about that last one) Internationale could just make it behind that cover there, and probably be okay when the guard walks back.  But I'll use the stim instead, to get a bit further in. This gives me 4 more AP, and it has a long cooldown of 9 turns.  Now I can go here right behind the laser wall, and check out this side room. I couldn't see much when I peeked in, so I'll just wait in ambush in case some guard was hiding in here.  We've found a whole bunch of safes now! I'll have the parasites working through 1-2 of them each turn.  Gladstone won't move on yet, she just observes what these guys are up to for now.  Now that this guard has walked back, I can draw him away with some noise.  He'll come looking this way instead of his usual patrol.  Now I'll hide out in this room. This spot would've been okay anyway, since he'd just walk past me. But then he'd be hanging around in my way next turn.  Internationale checks out the side room now. Just one safe, and a guard entrance.  I loot the safe, and get ready to grab these ones next in the following turns.    We're at Alarm Level 1 now, so here come the rest of the cameras. There's two of them in the same room, watching that one safe in the NW. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to when there's 4 safes down here with no camera.  Internationale just looted 2 of them, and next turn that one in the corner will be open.  I'll let Gladstone look after opening last safe. Internationale can focus on investigating this other door down here instead.   Ooh, that door led to the cyberlab! And even better, there's a vault door! Bonus machines!   We need to hack the machines before we can use them.  Gladstone ended up not moving much cause that guard was looking back this way, but that's all right. We'll be hanging around here a while, while we get all the machines hacked.  I thought this big object just in front of the door would be blocking the way, but this guard still has a view of the door itself. When I open it, it draws his attention over here.  So, I just slip through the other door to get behind him. Gladstone's having a slightly harder time making her way around here with her lower speed, but there's no big rush right now.  This first machine is under our control now, so I can move up to it and have a look at what augment it's got.  Nice, Net Downlink is a wonderful augment! It grants you a bonus 2 AP every time you hack something. (up to 6 AP max per turn) I definitely want Internationale to get this.  But just to play it by the books, I'm going to wait and check the other machines first, and get a plan of attack on how I want to use them. Internationale isn't holding the vault card, so she can't get the door open yet. But she can sense the machines behind it to get started on hacking them.  A view of the level so far. Despite that annoying big room with no cover being a nasty roadblock, things are looking pretty good right now. We've already found the cyber lab and a bunch of safes, so once we clear it all out, all that's left is to head up north to the unexplored area. The exit's got to be up that way. So we can probably just zap our way through it if need be.  I was going to have Gladstone sprint/sneak to lure this guy around in a circle, but it turns out she can just make it through the door into the cyberlab room if she sprints the whole way.  Let's go for it. Looks like the guard isn't going to come all the way over here. But even if he did, we can easily hide behind all the machines in here.   The 2nd machine is open now, let's see what else we got.  Piercing Scanner gives us extra armor piercing when using ranged weapons. I don't even have any good ranged weapons yet. I'll pass on this one for now.  If you don't like the augment a machine has on offer, you can use it to grant you an empty augment socket instead. This procedure will knock you out for 2 turns while it's getting installed. A minor inconvenience for what you get in return. I like to be really picky about the augments I get on cyberlab missions, cause you can always find more augments later. But you can't use them unless you've got the slots to hold them.  I'm just going to go ahead and do that now. Internationale takes a nice little nap behind the machine.  Oh right, the countermeasure.  In cyberlab missions, the countermeasure kicks in once you actually use one of the machines. It randomly reboots a few devices that you've already hacked. I usually forget this even happens, cause it's more of a mild annoyance. I just re-hack whatever it switched on while I'm busy getting augmented.  Now that Gladstone's made it here, she can use the vault card to open this door.   We'll have to wait another turn to find out what's on those machines, cause the firewalls just got boosted.  Gladstone's in position now to use them next turn.  Internationale's also woken up from her nap. Let's check out the next machine!  Hmm, Subdermal Cloak. It has a really nice effect, it cloaks you anytime you use a stim. And I do love using stims. But note the catch - it consumes a whole 5 PWR when used! I'm not going to get this augment, because I plan to use my stims to avoid the need for cloaking.  Now that I've granted Internationale a new slot, I stop stuffing around and give her the Net Downlink augment. It's really good, and totally worth passing up the empty slot. She still has one empty slot saved for later.  Time to check out the last machine.  Reactive Moyomer reduces your starting AP by 2, but then increases it by 1 each time the alarm level rises. I haven't actually tried this out before, I'm going to give it a go cause it looks interesting.  It'll go on Gladstone, not Internationale. I want Internationale to stay as fast as possible at the start so she can scout the map with her ability. Gladstone can lag behind while she's doing that, but then this augment can help her catch up to speed while we're making our escape.  Then I'll use the last machine to grant Gladstone an extra slot, so she also has a spare space for later.  Naptime!   Internationale gets ready to leave the cyberlab, but the guard noticed when I opened the door.  The tile in front of the door is solid red, too. Fully watched.  I don't want to keep sitting around here while this guy takes a leisurely look around. Let's use the cloak to slip past the danger zone.  The level 1 cloak is very weak, and wears off if you move more than 4 tiles. But that's all I need.  By now my stim has just cooled down again, so I can use it to get into a proper hiding spot.   Oh yeah, I still had this safe to grab over here.  And I'd like to grab that last one up there. That camera and safe should be hacked again by the time I can make it into that room.  Gladstone just woke up, but she's stuck waiting behind the vault door until this guy moves out of the way.   Still waiting. The tile just ahead of the door is watched, because that pit in the floor doesn't provide any cover. This is something to really watch out for if you rely heavily on the tactical view. Impassable tiles like this pit will look like cover objects, even when they're not. It's a moot point now since you can see the place I want to walk to is already watched, but it could trip you up if you're picking out a supposedly safe hiding spot for later.  Internationale cleared out this last safe.  And I can finally start hacking the stuff up this way. Can't wait to see if there's anything nice at the shop.    This is pretty good. The new guard who came in at Alarm Level 3 is in the little side room.  He might momentarily get in Gladstone's way for now, but he'll be out of the way as we make our escape.  I just had her run up here, cause they're too far to hear her sprinting.  Speedy Internationale has no problems making it through the big wide open room now.. Her new augment gave her some bonus AP this turn.  The camera up there is pretty well blocked off, so I can make good progress even before it's hacked.   This guard is just pacing back and forth along the north side of the room. I'll go shopping while we wait for Gladstone to catch up.  Econ chips seem fun, they let you pull money out of a console instead of power. I've never had a good chance to really try them out properly. Unfortunately, I'm still not going to try one yet cause it's too expensive.  A Neural Disrupter II would be nice. It's an upgrade from the standard weapon to add a bit of Armor Piercing.  But here's what I really want. Torque Injectors. It's an augment that reduces all your item cooldowns by 1 turn, and at just 300 credits it's ridiculously cheap. I'll give it to Gladstone, cause my overall game plan is to have her on backup with anarchy-based items while Internationale focuses on running around as fast as possible. It would be nice to get another one of these for Internationale later, though. She can always use reduced cooldowns too, on her stims and cloaks. It's a great augment to give to pretty much anybody, really.  Speaking of anarchy-based items, I might also buy this shock trap. You use these to put a trap on a door, which knocks out anyone who opens it. The best part is, it ignores armor completely. I like to have some of these in my kit to deal with heavily armored guards, and then I don't need to try too hard to win the armor-piercing arms race.  I'll have Gladstone buy that stuff later when she gets here.  It might take her a while, though. When she got that moyomer thing installed, it reduced her AP by 2. Even though we're at Alarm Level 3 now, she isn't getting ahead on AP yet cause she's only got +1 AP so far to start compensating. She didn't get any bonus for hitting Alarm Levels 1 and 2, cause she didn't have the augment installed yet.   Just plugging along here, moving up to the next bit of cover. drat, it looks busy up there.  There's still a bit left up here for Internationale to explore in the meantime. I peeked over here to see where the guard keeps pacing to, but there's nothing of interest.  Still a whole lot of activity in that big room. The level 3 guard has decided to hang out with all his buds instead of staying down there by the side room and cyberlab. Internationale might have to help Gladstone out.  But first I looked up here to confirm where the exit was, and ran smack into another guard. There's still another side room over on the left though, maybe I can go hide in there.  Oh, this room is where that technician went. I forgot all about him. If we'd intercepted him before he got here, we could have got some free program or something, but now it's too late so we missed out. But chasing after him through that big room before we got the augments could have really derailed the mission. I think it was the right choice to just ignore him.  Back to Gladstone's gradual escape. Let's keep this guard busy down here for a while.  He'll come look around this table, and I'll switch back to sneaking so I can move up here and pick his pockets.  He's got a keycard, which I'll grab just in case.   That guard Internationale found near the exit ended up following her this way, so he got ambushed.  The extra alarm from his heart monitor pushes us up to Level 4.  The new guard is off on the right side of this screen, visible in red. With my luck, he's probably going to go join the party in the big room.  This area by the door was noticed, but I can go hide in the side room with the safe for now.  Then maybe next turn I can go hide up behind the power supply. We'll see what happens.  The guard I knocked out has a charge pack. I'll probably just sell it off for extra credits, but it's nice to have just in case.   Okay, here's where we're at now. The new guard's still over in his side room, but he's going to walk right in here next turn. Plus these other 2 guys are hanging out right next to me. Right now Gladstone can't really do anything cause the space outside is fully watched. But that should change next turn.  She'll just sit tight for now and wait for her chance.  I was dragging the guard down this way for the hell of it, in case I wanted to try and bring Internationale back to help Gladstone after all. But then I remembered I hadn't robbed this guy yet. So I thought I'd do that while he's standing right here next to the door.  But opening the door next to him caught his attention, so after I robbed him I ran back to hide in the compile room. While dragging the guard body. It's nice to have a lot of AP.  Gladstone's got to move from this side room, it's not so safe anymore. Going through this guy's noticed zone will keep him looking at this door next turn.  And this guy will walk straight past her while she hides beside this door.  During the next turn, I came and hid over here instead. I'm really stuffing around here, but even if I used the smoke grenade, it's a lot of ground to cover to make it up to that north door. I'm just going to wait for Level 5 so Gladstone will get another AP from her moyomer thingo, and then we'll see what we can do. I'll only use the grenade if I actually get in trouble.   Gladstone shifted over here again, trying to draw the guard's attention towards the SE door with a sprint/sneak.  Internationale's still chilling up here with this guy.  This time the distraction finally did a decent job. I've got 2 guards down there checking out that area.   Level 5 will give Gladstone a much needed AP boost, and the enforcer came in near the cyberlab, nicely out of the way.  This pinpointing should actually help to distract the guards even more. Now I can finally make some progress.  I can bring Gladstone up here behind the power supply, and next turn I think she can make it through the top door.   This guy surprised me a bit by staying in the same place. Going to level 5 got everyone into hunting mode, which changes their behavior. He stood in place instead of patrolling, and actually turned his head around to get a proper look at things. But everyone else is out of the way now, so I'll just zap him and keep running.   I made it to the nanofab now! Gladstone grabbed herself the torque injector augment, and dropped the keycard to carry the shock trap.  We're on the home stretch.  Since the guards are hunting now, I'm going to stay safe and zap this other guy when he comes in here. I had to move Internationale over a bit, cause you can't keep a guard pinned and attack someone else at the same time.  Gladstone's almost there.   That zap kicks us up to Level 6. So 2 new enforcers come in, both agent locations pinpointed, yadda yadda yadda...  Who cares when we're right by the teleporter?   That went pretty well. Waiting around for Gladstone was a drag, but next mission she'll have that augment installed from the very start so it'll pay off faster. We've crossed over into Day 2 now, so next update we'll see some new mission choices pop up. The difficulty will also be increased. I'll see about doing little mini-updates from now on in between missions, to go over the preparations and recap how much we've got in credits and items.
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Jun 27, 2016 03:14
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Fedule posted:It took me a couple playthroughs to notice but Incognita's dialogues for these change during the OMNI missions when she's on low power. I love Parasite 2.0 and will definitely make the upgrade if I get the opportunity. The extra cost often doesn't matter when I'm using Seed, unless I'm hacking more than 1 thing per turn. But by the time I have a full program roster and have to worry about ditching the old version to make room, the extra hacking speed is more than worth it. Ping and Wisp and Hunter are my other favourites too, I'd just add Leash to your list there because it is so drat handy. Scout further with the camera and pulse drones for 3 whole turns! Control Obake or Akuma drones for twice as long instead of just the 1 turn!  I almost never get to experiment anymore with new and interesting combinations of programs though, cause I'm always juggling around which ones I want the most from my top shelf list.
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Jun 27, 2016 10:49
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Thanks for the heads up about it being on sale. Even if you don't spring for the DLC the main game is already great for the price. And it might be worthwhile to get used to the basic game before you add all the DLC stuff and make it even more complicated. For anyone debating on whether to get it or not, the DLC adds a couple new agents, new items and programs and augments to choose from, just basically a lot more variation to the game. And it offers the option to play a much longer campaign mode with some new special plot missions along the way.
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Jun 30, 2016 02:37
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Morning goons, we just had an election yesterday in Australia, and I still have no clue who actually won it but here's an Invisible Inc avatar I made if anyone wants it: I'm probably going to get the next update up on Friday. Thats when I normally have a few hours of downtime to crank them out.
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Jul 3, 2016 00:58
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No worries, it was fun to make and you might still need it if Auspol gets hit again. 
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Jul 3, 2016 01:46
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I'm pretty sure there isn't another way. Which does sound like a pain in the rear end for that program! It would be nice to at least get the option to abandon programs at will, even if you can't get compensated for them at the shop.
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Jul 5, 2016 09:28
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Update may be slightly delayed due to great Facebook drama and Pokemon escapism. But I'm going to do a mini-update soon just to sum up all our items and junk to start Day 2.
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Jul 8, 2016 05:01
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 1 day down!  Now that we've reached a new day, a few new missions will spawn on the map. Let's check them out, get prepped, then recap where we're at to kick off Day 2. This K&O vault mission is still here, but they've increased their security. It's now level 2 difficulty instead of 1. I'll skip this one even though it's the closest, since I've used up the vault card. One thing to note is the travel time: 6 hours. Even though it looks very close by, all missions have a minimum travel time of 5 hours no matter what. This puts a hard limit on how many missions you can squeeze in per day.  There's a new detention centre mission in New Zealand. These missions let you add a new agent to the team, by breaking them out of prison. But I'll have to put it off for now. It's level 3, and right at the start of the day is not a good time to try jumping ahead in difficulty. Not to mention, it's not always a good idea to expand your team right away. Your new agent will have no starting items, and only their base-level stats. So they may lag behind your other agents, and be more of a liability until you can get them armed and level them up.  There's a server farm in Perth. This type of mission is basically a shopping mission, which gives you a wide selection of programs for Incognita. But I don't feel like flying out all that way yet, with the only other mission close by being that detention centre. Ideally I should save up some money beforehand, too.  In North America, there are new financial suite and executive terminal missions. Another financial suite sounds great. I could maybe go check out that vault later once I get another card. Although I've already shown this type of mission, hell it's even the same corporation as last time, this time I can show off what's changed between day 1 and day 2. Now that that's decided, let's get prepped.  Monst3r's selling a smoke grenade, but I've already got one. Instead I'll sell him stuff, to make room in my inventory and get some more money for stats. Starting with this charge pack. Charge packs are common and disposable, so they're first on the chopping block.  I also sell off my cloak. While even the lovely weakest cloak can help save your rear end in a tight situation, I should be able to keep everything under control if I keep pumping up Internationale's speed. The extra money from this cloak will let me buy her another point for 700 credits. I was already planning to trade this cloak in for a better version as fast as possible anyway, so might as well sell it off now when those credits can make a real difference.  That leaves me with the smoke grenade, shock trap, and stim left for special items, and then the speed upgrade for Internationale. Internationale gets the stim since she's the only one who can use it. Gladstone will carry the other toys so she can use them if her slow rear end gets in trouble.  Now I'm ready to head to the next mission, which I'll cover in the next update (real soon now). But in the meantime, let's recap everything we've got. DAY 2 REPORT CREDITS: 146 (NET WORTH: 10146)  Incognita Programs: 3 out of 5 currently equipped Seed - Passive ability. The first program you use each turn has its PWR cost reduced by 4. Parasite - 0 PWR*. Infects a mainframe device with a parasite, which then breaks 1 firewall per turn. *Power cost increases by 1 for each Parasite already in use. Leash - Passive ability. Extends your control over all hacked drones by 1 turn.  Augments: Wireless Emitter - Starting augment. Detect nearby mainframe devices, and wirelessly hijack consoles. Net Downlink - Grants 2 AP each time a device is hacked. (max: 6 AP per turn) Weapon: Neural Disrupter. No armor piercing. Knocks out a guard for 2 turns. 3 turn cooldown. Items: Stim I - Grants 4 AP. 9 turn cooldown. Requires 2 Speed to use. Stats: 4 Speed gives her a base AP of 11, and allows her to use speed-based items like cloaks and stims. 2 Hacking grants +1 bonus PWR whenever she hijacks a console. 2 Strength lets her carry 4 items without being encumbered. Improves dragging speed. 2 Anarchy allows robbing guards from behind, and use of some special items with an anarchy requirement.  Augments: Antiviral Proxy - Starting augment. Grants 5 PWR whenever an enemy daemon program is activated. Reactive Moyomer - Reduces her starting AP to 6, but adds 1 max AP each alarm level. Torque Injectors - Reduces all her item cooldowns by 1 turn. Weapon: Neural Disrupter. No armor piercing. Knocks out a guard for 2 turns. 3 turn cooldown. Items: Smoke Grenade - Disposable. Creates a cloud that blocks vision for 3 tiles. Shock Trap I - Traps a door to knock out whoever opens it for 3 turns. Ignores armor. Requires 2 Anarchy to use. Stats: 1 Speed gives her a base AP of 8. 1 Hacking gives no bonus when hacking consoles. 1 Strength lets her carry 3 items without being encumbered. 3 Anarchy allows robbing guards from behind, with a small monetary bonus. Allows use of some special items with an anarchy requirement. Next stop: FTM Financial Suite (revisited) 
Bifauxnen fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 11, 2016 |
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Jul 11, 2016 02:32
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Felinoid posted:Ummm...what? Something seems a touch off in this image. Yikes, must've messed up some of my copy pasting while I was rushing through it at work. Will fix it up soon as Minifauxnen goes to sleep.
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Jul 11, 2016 09:01
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Ok, that should be fixed now, but gently caress the new Imgur beta. It's really messing with my uploads.
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Jul 12, 2016 01:59
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  Welcome back, comrades. Today we're doing another financial suite mission at FTM Wholesalers. This time around, we'll actually start to see some of FTM's trademark gimmick.  Here's the starting room. For some reason I've already got a red silhouette showing this special scientist character, but I'm honestly not sure why.   A peek through the security door shows nothing special.  Down here though, we've already found the exit. And this time I've got a much better shot at doing the side mission. Let's rob this guy and see what he's got.  He's carrying a compile key, which we can use if we make it to his special room. Last time the room closed down because we left him alone too long, and he finished up his work. But he should have a harder time with that now that we stole his key!  Coming out here to rob this guy ASAP left me a bit stranded out in the open. I pop a stim so I have enough AP to get back into hiding.   At the end of the turn, this happened.  This is the FTM corporate gimmick kicking in now that we're on Day 2. Somewhere in the facility is a security router. As long as it stays up and running, it'll randomly add 1 firewall to something every turn. Disabling this router just got added to our list of objectives.  I'm following right behind the technician for now. There's a small opening to the left, leading to a larger area and laser wall.   Whoah! Good thing I peeked around here. There's an armored guard, and I have no way to knock him out except the shock trap. I need to be real careful with him. There's hidden spots in the thin hallway, but approaching him directly is impossible. Once the hallway gets around that bend, it's totally watched. And he's standing still in place, so that's not going to change unless we lure him away.  It's also annoying that his vision is still getting in our way on this side of the room, but Internationale was able to carefully slip through. Just need to hug the console to cross past his line of sight.   But there is some good news - I found the router. Once we hack this device, its firewall-boosting routine will stop.  Over by the armored guard is a Daemon Database. Hacking this will identify all the daemon programs on the level, so I'll know what I'm dealing with when they show up. I'll explain this more later once we actually see one.  Time to try and lure this guy away with some sprinting noise. After this, I go run and hide back by the teleporter.  Meanwhile, Internationale checks out an alternate route. If there's anything over by that guard, we could get to it by going through this back way instead, past the laser wall.  But we'll also need a security card to get through the back route. The red line shows the security door, while the yellow line near the guard is a standard door. Might be faster to just distract him after all, since it looks like both doors go to the same place and we haven't found a keycard yet.   Another turn, another firewall got boosted somewhere. But not for long. Next turn the security router will be hacked. Thankfully it didn't boost the camera's firewalls. It's been hacked now, and Internationale gets +2 bonus AP from her net downlink.  The guard has started looking over this way, as shown by his red silhouette. But I need to draw him even farther away to get through that bottleneck. More sprinting will do the job.  Internationale keeps looking around for a power supply, to turn off the lasers. Nothing of interest in the room up here. But there's a safe off to the right. Let's check out what else is in that room before moving on any farther.  Hello. Opening this door caught a guard's attention, and it's a new type: a Support Guard. These guys are packing flash grenades. You really don't want to get hit by one cause it'll knock you out for a couple turns. Although you don't need a medgel to wake back up from that, the alarm will be raised and you'll probably have more guards on alert all swarming around you by then. Hell, even just the wasted time would be annoying enough. So as I was saying, flash grenades are definitely not good.  I didn't see anything else in that room besides the one safe, so we'll just leave that guy well alone for now. Found a couple more safes up here, but still no sign of the power supply.   The armored guard comes this way, and I can hear him searching around. Guess it was nothing!   New cameras are coming online for Alarm Level 1, but at least the router's off. Gladstone is giving a hint here that you can also loot the router after it's been hacked.  Behind this door, Internationale has sensed a new type of enemy: the Pulse Drone. They can't attack us directly, but they can alert guards to our presence. They're very similar to the camera drones, which haven't appeared yet. But instead of a camera that faces one direction, their pulse scan searches a radius around them, ignoring cover.  Like camera drones, they're usually easy to hack with weak firewalls, and can be controlled for 2 turns after you hack them. Or in my case, for 3 turns thanks to the Leash program. They make excellent scouts.  Gladstone does another sprint/sneak to lure the armored guard even further away. Next turn she should finally get a chance to slip past him. When he turns to look at the "?" tile, she can get behind him and start running back to his original post.  Ah-hah, found the power supply.  And now I can finally get to explaining daemons. Any mainframe device can have a daemon program installed on it, which shows up in the Incognita view. The daemon will take effect and do something bad to us as soon as we finish hacking it. Since we've hacked the daemon database, we can see the names of the daemons and review their effects. But if we hadn't done this, all we'd see is the extra red border around the device. We'd be able to detect that some kind of daemon is on there, but we'd have no idea what it does. Some are much worse than others. This Fractal daemon guarding the safe is a real toss-up. It doesn't do anything to you directly, but it spawns 2 new daemons which might be a pain later.  The power supply is guarded by a Siphon daemon. Hacking this saps some of your PWR. But with Gladstone around, this daemon is completely neutered. We get a 5 PWR bonus every time a daemon comes online, so sometimes it can even be a net positive. I don't get around to hacking it just yet, though. I have a few parasites out now, so I'm trying to clear out the cheap 1-firewall stuff first before we hit Alarm Level 2.  While the parasites are doing their job, let's go back to loot the router.  You can take this item from the router called "valuable tech", which is worth some decent credits. The downside is it takes up a slot in your inventory, and can't be sold off at the nanofab. You can only cash it in if you're carrying it at the end of the mission. Then Monst3r automatically fences it for you.    The guards do some fruitless searching.  While I was hacking it, the pulse drone made its way to the suite. Now that it's under my control, I get a nice view of the room and spot the executive.   Gladstone's finally making her move. I sprinted around the desk then switched back to sneaking. This will keep the guard delayed for one more turn looking around in the same room, to give me a small head start.  I want to hurry up and take out the exec, instead of putting it off as long as last time. This guard's a bit in my way, but I just need to cross through a noticed tile and then I'm all good. Checking out this tile will keep him busy while Internationale gets way the hell away, with a whopping 13 AP left. Net downlink is so good.  I'm near the suite now and still have some AP left, but I should take out the camera first.  There's also another room off to the SW to check out, where the guard is going.  I have the pulse drone scout out the rest of the big suite. There's no other doors past here, this is the end of the line.   When the guard walked through the door, I caught a quick glimpse of the technician and his lab. I'd nearly forgotten about it. My priority for now though, is the executive. So long as I've got the compile key, I don't need to worry about missing out on the sidequest.  I don't really need to scout anywhere else anymore, except for that area back by the armored guard. So my pulse drone has finished its purpose. I have it hide over here behind the table, so no one can notice when it reboots.  Gladstone's just made it to this room where the armored guard used to be.   I still haven't got around to hacking the power supply yet, because Gladstone's been taking a long time anyway and wouldn't need to go through the laser area yet. But I should probably do that soon. I've been hacking all the easy stuff first to keep a steady stream of bonus AP flowing in for Internationale.  This guard is pretty well hidden away, between a little wall and the safe. If I hadn't peeked around this little wall first before moving on, it would've been real easy to walk straight into his watched area before I even knew he was there. Just part of the fun of Expert Plus. He's stationary though, so I don't need to worry about him for now.  On to the main objective.   I can drag bodies a lot farther than last time we did this. I'm already in a decent spot between this sculpture and the table. Now back to Gladstone.  What the -  Oh. Gladstone walked straight into a camera.  I was so excited about moving on past the armored guard's post, I totally forgot to check the ominous dark corner of this room where the camera was hiding. This camera now has the "REC" symbol to show it spotted us. But this is hardly the end of the world. Cameras can't shoot you, so it just increases the alarm level, and prompts an investigation in the place where it saw me. Sometimes it's actually worthwhile to cop the alarm hit and run right past a camera, if it'll save you a heap of time in exchange. But I must admit I don't take that option too often, just cause it feels like bad form.   Our pulse drone buddy is now taking a nap to reboot.  I drag the executive around some more. I can't really decide on the best place to wait. There's not even anybody around here except the pulse drone.  I don't normally have Gladstone hijack the consoles, but she might as well grab this one cause I'm not going to bother bringing Internationale over here. Turns out this whole wild goose chase with the armored guard was for practically nothing, just this console and one safe.  Gladstone might be stuck here for a while. The armored guard has caught up, and before he goes back to standing around at his post, he needs to investigate what the camera saw.  For some reason, I still haven't got around to hacking the power supply either. I think I just forgot while staring at those big sexy safes. But let me draw your attention to the one with the Labyrinth daemon. It's got just 1 firewall left, so next turn it'll get hacked and the daemon will activate.   Or not! Green is good. We got a daemon reversal! Incognita doesn't just sit there and take it whenever an enemy program attacks. There's always a chance the daemon will backfire, and you'll get a special bonus from Incognita instead. The Attune algorithm gives us an AP bonus, but just for 2 turns. You can see a list of all active daemons or algorithms on the right side of the screen, just below the alarm tracker.  The pulse drone's rebooted now, so I can hack it again. It won't be much use as a scout anymore, but I don't want it getting in my way while I'm doing the brain scan.  As long as the armored guard's looking towards the door, I can open it to distract him from his post again. Then I'll just do the same thing as last time, lure him around until I can slip behind him. I guess I could use the shock trap to knock him out, but I'd really like to avoid him going on alert.    There's the enforcer, coming to check up on the exec. He's got a long way to go. One other thing I just noticed is the technician is wandering back over this way, making things even messier for Gladstone.  I tried robbing the armored guard while he was here, but still no sign of a keycard. So I can't just duck out through the security door. But I do find an EMP pack! They can be really handy in the right circumstances. You can use them to quickly take out a well-guarded device with lots of firewalls, or you can permanently kill off camera drones and pulse drones. Gladstone can't use it yet cause it requires 2 hacking skill, but she'll still lift it for later. This'll make me encumbered, but I think it's worth it. Gladstone's going to be lagging about in here anyway while Internationale flies around the rest of the level on her way back. Might as well grab everything useful that I can.  The biggest drawback to being encumbered isn't just the AP loss. It's losing the ability to sprint for making distractions. I could've done some juggling and dropped an item on the floor first to work in a sprint/sneak before I got encumbered, but I forgot. So instead of luring the guard further, I'll just let him return to his post. This might not be such a bad move though, since I don't know what that technician's up to yet.  And now I finally remember to hack the bloody power supply!   Gladstone held her ground and didn't move yet, since the technician came down here after all. Not sure why he wants to investigate this area too, but he should clear out soon.  Level 3 spawns one more average guard somewhere in the middle of the level, closer to Internationale. Ho hum. She was getting bored waiting around for the enforcer.  Now that the technician's walked through, Gladstone can come back out and loot the nearby safe. It has a paralyzer inside, which would make her even more encumbered! But it's such a great item I take it anyway. That's what we got the moyomer augment for, to give Gladstone more AP back, right? Anyway, if I have to knock anybody out, using a paralyzer on them will make them stay down for longer.  The brain scan is nearly done. I've been dragging this guy all around the room cause I had nothing better to do.   2 daemons just activated from the stuff I hacked this turn. Siphon drains 5 PWR which would normally hurt, but Gladstone's ability gives us 5 PWR back. So there's basically no effect whatsoever. Fractal will spawn 2 new daemons, but I shouldn't have anything left to hack at this point, so they won't bother me.  The Siphon daemon was from the power supply, which means the laser wall's finally down. Gladstone could make her way up here to follow behind the technician.  Internationale grabs the vault card, which makes her also encumbered. But she's got more AP than she knows what to do with.  Literally. She can't exit the suite yet cause the enforcer's just made it here. He's far too late to stop the brain scan, but just in time to stand right in front of the door and block my way for a bit. Hm. Actually, I changed my mind about getting encumbered, let's just drop the valuable tech. I might need to sprint and make some distractions on the way back.   Lazy-rear end enforcers, quit throwing your Pokeballs around, and try actually walking somewhere for once.  Turns out I did have one last thing I might want to hack. The pulse drone woke up. Now you can see what an unidentified daemon looks like. This one was just spawned by Fractal, so it didn't exist in the database. But how bad could it be?  At the last second, I decided against sending Gladstone past the lasers. I got an idea to just lure the guard in a circle now by stepping into his noticed tiles. I wouldn't even need to sprint.  Internationale is still waiting for a chance to slip out of the suite. After having nothing but peace and quiet the whole time she was scanning, the new guys are getting in her way now.  The enforcer just spotted the unconscious exec. That should hold their attention for a while.  The hidden surprise daemon on the pulse drone was a Felix daemon. Doesn't hurt me at all, since I've already hacked all the firewalls on the safes. 2x0 is still zero.  And now I can make my way over here to these safes. But what to do with this guard that's still standing around here? I'll have to figure it out next turn cause I've used up all Internationale's AP.  I move Gladstone around and drop her extra items at her feet. This way she can sprint at the start of next turn if I need to make a new distraction.   Like so. Now that his attention's drawn over here, I can go pick up my stuff again.  I'm luring him over to the left side now, so next turn I should finally be able to get away from this guy.  Back to looting the safes. It turns out the area behind this safe was only noticed, not watched. So I can just walk right up and grab the cash.  Same for the other safe, this space next to it is completely hidden. This guard could've been a big problem if he'd surprised me before I knew he was there. But since I did spot him first, he's no threat anymore. Being hidden away in that little corner seriously cut down his vision.  My stim has cooled down, so let's use it to make more progress. I'd like to press a bit farther so I can get out of this room, put some more distance between me and the suite, and keep an eye on the path ahead.    This new guy came in next to Flash Grenade guy, where I still have a safe left to loot. But it's just a standard guard, and he might stray from his starting position. We'll see what happens when we get there.  Before I move on, I want to grab this safe and check out the technician's room. The guard here has been patrolling in and out of the technician's room. So I sprint/sneak to keep him busy looking over here for a sec.  Now I can wait just outside the technician's door without getting spotted by the guard walking in on me.  Finally, all that farting around with Gladstone is over. The guard's busy staring in the corner, so I could make it through the hallway and hide behind the console where it's safe. The extra AP from the alarm levels going up sure helped.   I don't even have to knock out the technician while he's standing around here. I can just come around the side here to use the key. But how long is it going to take to finish?  7 TURNS?! gently caress that. That's just cruel to put one of these guys on the same level as a financial exec. This was a waste of time. I wish I'd just ignored the sidequest again. I'm just going to leave it and cut my losses. Let's go back to Gladstone, how's she doing?  OH GODDAMMIT So... around the start of Day 2 is a very dangerous time for me. I start getting into a good groove from the end of Day 1, and forgetting that I'm supposed to be super paranoid, and just start winging it more quickly with my moves. And then I do poo poo like this - totally forgetting that this guy could actually see out here and walking right into his sights once I couldn't see the danger zones. Let's take a moment to explain what happens now.  The sign over the guard's head means he has me in overwatch. And if I hover over Gladstone, it says "AGENT TRACKED". The guard is fully watching me now and intending to shoot, which unlocks the advanced guard maneuver of "head turning". Just trying to step back out of his range isn't going to cut it anymore, cause his angle of vision will move with me. To escape overwatch, you need to be right next to actual cover. If you step on a tile without cover, or finish your turn without moving, you get shot. This can quickly spiral out of control if other guards are nearby. But for now it's just this one guy, and there is cover nearby, in the yellow space just behind the console. I could move there and be stay safe for now. But then that armored guard will be actively hunting me from now on. I'm gonna use my rewind instead.  On the plus side, I can waste less time on the scientist junk this time around.  Here we are, back at the start of turn 19. Internationale will loot the safe again, but drop the compile key and get on her way.  And this time, Gladstone will just stay by the console and not try to venture past it.  The newest guard is heading down towards Gladstone, to check out the useless little side room.  Internationale is also heading towards Gladstone, she covered a lot of ground after ignoring the technician's room. She'll chill up here behind the desk to finish her move.  Gladstone came back near the exit. She can drop her extra items in the teleporter, to pick them back up at the last second when we're ready to go.  The items are sitting in the teleporter now. You can hover over them to see what's been left on the ground. I dropped the EMP, cause I got nothing left to hack, and the pulse drone's well out of my way. I also dropped the paralyzer. Even if I need to knock someone out on the final stretch, I shouldn't need the extra turns to keep them down. I hang onto the shock trap though, and the smoke grenade, cause those I might conceivably use to help deal with Annoying Flash Grenade Guy.  Speaking of that, Internationale opened up the door and caught that guy's attention.  The area near the door is noticed, but there's some nice hidden spots just nearby that I can slip into.  Ugh, of course he's just gonna throw a grenade over here instead of walking. While I technically could move up behind the safe this turn, I'd have to cross through another noticed tile. Then I might get myself pinned. I'll try closing the door, so he can't throw the grenade through it anymore.  That did it! Now he's going to actually walk up here to open the door.  Now I'll just move as close as I can to the safe, (remembering to close the door again behind me),and wait to zap his rear end. We'll do this the quick way, cause I'm real close to the exit.  That was the last safe I needed to loot. Now I just need to watch myself going back so I don't repeat that mistake with the armored guard. Gladstone comes back up here to scope out the safe areas again and refresh my memory.  Then I'll slip back near the exit so that other guard doesn't see me.  Internationale will keep this guy pinned while she waits for the other guard to walk through.   And of course, the enforcer spawns right next to us. This could be a pain.  Internationale can just make it into this little safe room without having to sprint. (and without crossing through the invisible danger zone) Gladstone has a ! on her tile, cause she was the one pinpointed for level 5.  I need to check what the armored guy's up to. He's "hunting" now thanks to being at level 5, but not moving anywhere. This means he'll just look around where he's standing first.  The main problem now is I'm not sure what the guard up north is gonna do. Is he going to move on, or try and come back towards us? I decide to have Gladstone block his way back with the shock trap. Then I can be certain that I just have the enforcer and amored guy to deal with. See the little lightning bolt on the door now? Her torque injectors also kicked in, to reduce the cooldown time.  Then I wait here in ambush next to the guard entrance, in case the enforcer comes this way. I presume he's going to go check out where Gladstone was pinpointed, but you never know.  Turns out nothing much happened. The enforcer just took one leisurely step out of the teleporter.  A lot of guys are still running around up here by the suite, but we'll escape long before they get close to us. The first one to come anywhere close to us will hit the shock trap. The finance guy has also woken up and is totally freaking out. He'll just run to the nearest teleporter to escape to safety.  Let's take out the enforcer, leaving us only the armored guy to worry about. I can't take him out with the shock trap anymore cause it's on cooldown, but if I can make it through the south door to trap it anyway, we're already home free.  Now I just need to be careful stepping through here again. I hug the console to stay behind cover.  Internationale carefully follows in Gladstone's footsteps.  And we've made it! The armored guy will be busy inpecting the enforcer's body next turn. We just need to casually walk to the teleporter and pick up our extra stuff.  Guess I should probably buy some more strength again.   Another successful mission to kick off Day 2! And things seem to be well under control so long as I don't make any dumb slip-ups. Next update, we'll try and decide where to go next.
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Jul 12, 2016 08:07
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Bruceski posted:Does the technician room give anything other than a temporary boost? I too wasted a bunch of time on one for something like 2AP/turn for 3 turns payout. I did one once back when I first got the DLC, but I can't even remember what I got then. I think you get a program for Incognita. Whatever it was though, it sure can't be worth a 7 turn wait.
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Jul 12, 2016 09:13
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I've finished taking screenshots for the next mission, so sometime during the week I should have time to do the writeup for the next update.
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Jul 22, 2016 08:57
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 Welcome back to Invisible Inc. Last mission, we started off Day 2 with only minimal bumps along the way. My overall strategy of pumping up Internationale as fast as possible is paying off nicely. So long as we stick to level 2 missions, things should continue to go smoothly.  Most of the missions are very far away now, so I'm going to go ahead and pick the closest mission. Even though it's a ho-hum executive terminal, it will make some more choices pop up. Then we can probably find some better ones that aren't 12 hours away.  With all the credits I pulled in last mission, I can afford another point of speed for Internationale! Now she's maxed out!  You also get a bonus point of sprint movement at this highest speed level. This was my top priority, to help ensure my survival by having her scout the level as quickly as possible. But now I can finally start focusing my attention elsewhere. Like saving up some money for shopping missions. Or giving Gladstone's stats some attention. Gladstone gets a cheap point of strength for 300 credits, so she can carry more gear. She'll pass off the EMP to Internationale, cause Gladstone can't use it yet anyway. It requires 2 points of hacking, which Internationale starts with.  I'm leaving the vault card behind in storage since it's useless on an executive terminal mission. And also the smoke grenade, just to make more room. I don't think I'll need it after all, at least not for now.  The corporation here is FTM again. Sorry this is getting a bit repetitive, but there are still some differences to show off compared to the first mission. Also, I promise this time will be a lot more exciting!   And here we go.  Ugh, just look at this room. The only door has got clutter flanking it on each side. It means I can't get anyone to stand beside the door to open it more safely. We'll have to just peek first, through the closed door.  Welp, there's a camera just past the door. Also the daemon database. Let's get to hacking them. The database itself has a hidden daemon on it, but that's the risk I have to take if I want to find out what all of the other daemons are.  Long as we're waiting in here this turn, I had Internationale run around the edges of the room in case she could sense anything else. I did find a console, to grab some more PWR.   This is the same routine as last time, with the security router bumping up firewalls. This isn't the only type of gimmick machine FTM has, though. I was kind of hoping it would be a scanner instead so I could show that off, but I'm sure it'll come up soon enough. And as the difficulty gets higher, they'll start having more than one machine scattered around the level.  The hidden daemon wasn't bad. Having the safes alarmed means that looting one will prompt a guard to go investigate. Nothing we can't deal with, and this effect will wear off after 5 turns. Gladstone gave us a 5 PWR boost in response to this daemon.  Oh man, Internationale has 16 AP right now. She's at max speed, and her augment gave her a 4 AP boost from hacking 2 things this turn. Let's have her get scouting!  What's this little area off to the side?  Whoah, okay. Level 3 armor. If that seems like a big jump out of nowhere, it is. But the reason he's showing that off so early is because we can disable this type of "barrier" armor by hacking it.  The armor level is determined by the level of firewalls, so once it's completely hacked, he's just like a normal guard. Some barriers can get crazy high in the future, though.  He's not coming towards us, so we can leave him be for now. He's going to turn right around after peeking out here, and go back into the room behind him.  That looks like a pretty big area over there, so let's scope out the other paths a bit too before we get all committed going that way.  We'll hang out behind this desk for now, a nice solid hiding spot in case anyone comes through the unexplored door.  Before ending the turn I check what else I can hack, and notice there's a daemon on the nanofab. The Echo daemon reboots a random device to put it back under enemy control. It's probably best to get this out of the way fast, while we don't have much hacked yet and we can easily predict what could happen.  The most annoying thing it could reboot right now would be the camera in our room. But we can easily be somewhere else when that happens. I went ahead and plopped parasites on everything, cause we'll get another nice 5 PWR boost when the daemon goes off.   An armored guard walked past us during the enemy turn, giving us a glimpse of the executive terminal. He's only got level 1 normal armor, but we still don't have any armor piercing except for the shock trap. Gotta watch out for that guy.  Looks like he's just patrolling between this room and the terminal room. Internationale goes behind him to scout ahead, and spots the exit already. This could be a really quick mission if I didn't bother hacking any safes. (but I'm going to hack the safes)  To finish up Internationale's move, I come up to this side of the desk. For all I know somebody else could come in through the other doors, but they won't likely come around behind this desk. (if they did, I'd ambush them anyway)  I can sense the barrier guy over there because we have the parasite infecting him. His armor has reduced to 2 now. Gladstone hides between the desks. This spot should give me a good view of what goes on in here next turn while still staying safe.  The echo daemon is about to go off at the end of this turn. I'm out of the way of the camera in case it reboots.   Well that was nice! Incognita reversed the daemon, so nothing got rebooted and everyone gets a 3 AP boost for a few turns.  Between that and the stuff that got hacked this turn, Internationale has a whopping 19 AP. But I heard someone walking around near the exit during the enemy turn. Let's try and figure out what they're doing.  Just a regular run-of-the-mill security guard, patrolling back and forth in front of the exit. I also found a dead-end room with a safe.  I'll settle in here and pop it open next turn. I also sensed a camera in the room behind this wall. It'll be nice to get a view of what's over there without having to sneak around this guard by the exit.  Down here by Gladstone, another normal guard walked up during the enemy turn. He's going to patrol his way back to where the barrier guy is standing. The barrier's about to be fully broken next turn.  This room over here has got a safe, and a door leading further back. I can also use this room to go around the laser wall. But I'll stay out of the room for now cause I know the barrier guy's about to walk back in here. Let's watch by the door for now to see where he ends up.  I've got parasites on everything I can see. No need to be stingy with PWR thanks to the daemon bonuses.  21 AP!  The safe's open now, and the camera I hacked is showing me another safe up there near the exit. Oh right, that daemon's still running. When I looted the safe, an alarm went off. I forgot it also raised the tracker, instead of just prompting an investigation. Meh, no big deal.  This armored dude is going to be the one to check out the safe. That's nice, actually. Keeps him out of the way of the terminal room, which is where I want to head next.  And with Internationale's ungodly amount of AP this turn, I can make it all the way back to the terminal room already. I also spotted an extra space off to the side. There's a safe there, and a server terminal to go shopping for programs.  Barrier guy's magic armor is gone, but he's watching the back door so I can't slip behind him that way.  I'll hide behind the safe till he's gone, then I can loot it next turn. I also took a quick peek through the south door first, since I had AP to spare. I know there's another guard wandering around down there (see the red silhouette), but I couldn't spot him. Maybe if I'd opened the door instead of just peeked, but I didn't want to prompt him to come in here after me.  Looking at the new stuff I got to hack, this safe is pretty well guarded. Paradox is a very nasty daemon that puts a total freeze on your hacking until it goes away. I probably don't have much left to hack on this level, but I know I haven't found that router yet. I'll just hold off on hacking this safe for now.  A Pulse drone also came up by Internationale this turn. Thankfully it does its pulse scan before moving, not after. And now we can grab the site list.  Here's a new thing that doesn't come up on the first mission. In addition to the random missions that will pop up after we leave with the site list, you can pick and choose one new mission right now. The nanofab one is tempting. I could spend some money on getting new items instead of stats for once. But I just can't resist cyberlabs.  Gladstone loots her safe, and it has a buster chip. Totally called it that I'd find one soon. You use buster chips on any item you're standing right next to, to manually hack through some firewalls. There's a decent cooldown on it so you can't spam it, but this will be a big help to supplement my parasites.  I need to be careful cause the guard patterns will change up now that I grabbed the site list. But up here in the next room should be safe to wait in ambush. And I found that pesky router!  Oh goddammit. Of course there was an extra camera hiding there. Another hit to the alarm tracker.  The damage has already been done, so I'm just going to stay up here and hack the router. I can use my new buster chip to get it hacked straight away.  The router had a Modulate daemon on it. This raises my PWR costs for all programs until it wears off. But there's no effect on the Parasites I already have working in the background. This daemon shouldn't affect me much, especially since I got a nice 5 PWR bonus in exchange.  Looting the router would make me encumbered again. I just leave the tech sitting on the ground for now in case I want to pick it up later, but I'll probably leave it behind.  Hm, I just had a fun idea. I can use the EMP to kill off the pulse drone AND knock out the big safe with that awful daemon on it! It can just barely reach both of them at the same time. It goes off at the end of turn, so let's end the turn.    The delicate pulse drone is now permanently fried, and I can even loot it for 1 PWR. The safe however, will reboot in a couple turns.  Argh, this square right past the door is watched, but maybe I should just run in and loot it anyway?  Nah, on second thought, I'll be good. The camera's only got 1 firewall, so I'll hack it first. I want to go shopping at that server terminal too, and it'll be nice to just take my time in here without worrying about drawing the armored guy's attention.  Gladstone's going to stay hidden here behind the router a bit longer till the camera's hacked and the coast is clear. I'm not sure what's going on with the guards down there, but they don't seem to be investigating here after my camera slipup last turn. This guy nearby is investigating something else, though. Maybe it's because of me grabbing the site list, and it changing their patterns?   Whoops, forgot I was right on the cusp of Level 2, scratch what I said about stuff being hacked next turn.  That safe's going to reboot next turn, and it'll still have that nasty Paradox daemon on it. I'll just barge in after all even though the camera's still on. Better than wasting all that time waiting around to hack it again.  So here comes another camera scan. My alarm tracker's bumped up a bit, and a guard investigation's on the way.  Ooh, there's a stim inside. I'll make me encumbered, but more stims are always good.  Next, I check out the server terminal. It's got 2 lockpicking programs for sale! This is just what I need to supplement my parasites during the times I want something hacked more urgently. Lockpick 1.0 is the standard one that just breaks 1 firewall for 2 PWR.  I can only afford to buy (or carry) one of these, so I pick Data Blast. It costs a little more than Lockpick 1.0 (3 PWR instead of 2 PWR), but it can hit multiple devices at the same time if they're near each other. Definitely worth the extra cost.  I need to try and get away from this area before the guards come looking for me, so let's put my new stim to use straight away.  Now I can make it out of sight between the tables here.  Here's how Gladstone's situation looks at the moment. She's still got some guards hanging around her, so she'll just stay hidden for now. And next turn the parasite will finish hacking the camera in her room.   The guards have cleared out now, so I can move Gladstone down here. As long as she's in this area, I want to have her check out what's left in that area behind the laser wall.  Everyone's after Internationale instead. There's 3 guards all clustered around here.  Internationale can't get far, so she just scoots over to the side of the tables. I'm worried that someone's going to catch a glimpse of the dead drone and then run over to look at it, so I don't want her standing right next to it.  Gladstone came through the door and finally found what was hiding behind the laser wall. It was the power supply, to turn off the laser wall. And some consoles that I don't need. Oh well. Internationale is still waiting for the guards to clear out. Guess it might not have saved any time after all running past the camera. But then again, I don't have to worry about Incognita being locked down by the daemon.  The guard finished up his investigation, turned back around, and found the dead drone. They treat this just as seriously as finding a guard body. This guy's going to be on alert now. Yippee.  That puts us at Alarm Level 3 so a new guy spawned in the room where Gladstone had just been hiding.  Internationale's making her move. Opening this door got the guard in this room suspicious.  But the armored guard is none the wiser as she walks right behind him. I pop another stim to move farther ahead.  Now I'm way over here behind the desk where it's safe, and near the exit. Just got a couple safes left to grab while I'm waiting for Gladstone to catch up. One on each side.  Gladstone came through the laser wall to take a more direct route back. Data Blast is already coming in handy, I used it to finish up the hacking job.  That little room with all the doors in it has got lots of guards crossing through. Internationale's fine on this side of the mess, but Gladstone still has to get past somehow.  I've got a chance now to finally check out the nanofab. I'm almost out of cash, but if there was anything really good, it might have been worth selling off some other items. I'll give this stuff a miss, though. This flurry gun looks fun, but it's too pricey for me.  Internationale stays hidden next to the nanofab. I'll grab the safe on my way out next turn, but for now she can help observe some of the guards who are on camera. Gladstone needs to save her AP if possible.  If I stayed back behind the table to play it safe, this guard would be stopping right in my path. Time to start getting more aggressive. The shock trap will take care of him when he opens the door.  Then I can safely wait here, instead of up by the door where the other guard might see me.   Here comes that other guard I was worried about... just in time to see his buddy get zapped.   He ran over to check out what happened, so Gladstone zapped his rear end too.  This would've been great, except another guard was close enough to hear all the ruckus. He ran down here and put Gladstone in overwatch.  Maybe I should try a different approach.  This time, Gladstone will draw the other guard down this way.  Then she can hide over here. We'll take the longer way around instead of trying to go right for the chokepoint this turn.  Internationale redoes her turn, ignoring the nanofab and going right for the safe.   That went better.  Internationale comes back over here to regroup after grabbing the left safe. Once this guard finishes patrolling through here again, she can hop over to grab the right safe.  Gladstone will wait here till I get a better idea of what the hunting guard is up to.  Oh, there he is!  It's pretty crowded up by that door, so I'll come back down this way again.   This is starting to get frustrating. I have Internationale move down a bit to help get a look at things.  She still has enough AP left to go back the other way afterwards, and get near the last safe.  If I try and get through on the right-hand path, that one tile I need to pass through is going to be totally blocked off again. So I come hide back in this room. Next turn I might be able to slip behind the hunting guard, while the other guard is facing the corner.  Man, seems like only moments ago I was just barely hitting level 2 and feeling ahead of the game and ready to leave. Whatever happened to those days?  Once again, the new guard comes in near the security router, where Gladstone had been hiding for a while.  Some good news: I got the last safe now. Just need to get everyone to the exit. Unless there's anything through this door?  Nah, nothing but a console in a dead end.  Back to Gladstone then.... wait. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Okay notice how she has 1 AP left but can only move 1 tile directly to the side, not diagonally? Basically, this turn I was trying to do the same thing I did last time before the rewind. Where I put the shock trap on the door, then hopped back into hiding behind the table. That time I'd also had 1 AP left when I set the trap. But it was foolish of me to think the same thing would necessarily happen again in a different situation. Sometimes, depending on how much you move diagonally or not, I assume the rounding works out differently so your last AP can still allow you another diagonal move instead of just 1 tile to the side. But it didn't work out this time. gently caress this is gonna gently caress me up.  Welp, might as well still set the shock trap, cause there's prolly gonna be more guards running in this way once this dude sees me standing right here.  This guy came in and saw me first. Then his buddy turned to aim at me too.  At least I can move right into cover, but I'm still pretty stuck here. Even if I'd had a spare neural disrupter I can only do 1 attack per turn.  This requires teamwork. Internationale needs to stop being encumbered. I drop the site list here, cause it can't help me do anything. I just need to grab it again on the way out, and I'll have to pass by this way anyway.  Just stay calm, Gladsone! Help is on the way!  Yeah, she's always calm.  Now she's got just 1 dude holding her up, but another nearby.  Almost there!  This update would have been a lot funnier if I had not remembered to do this.  One more down!  Oh no guys I think the guards are gonna find out where we are   New enforcer came in way over by the last safe. That's good, I can work with that.  Might as well use my paralyzer on one of these dudes I just knocked out, to keep him out of the way longer.  Then I go and hack the camera here in the dead-end room, just to get the AP bonus.  Note the "!" over this guy's head. He's alarmed and hunting, but is not aiming his gun at us. Very important!  This means Gladstone can dash around him, passing through the "noticed" tile, then hiding behind him. Internationale ran the other way, her extra AP gave her enough to hide behind this door.  If this hadn't worked, I'd have to either run back to the nanofab for a medgel, or have Internationale try and drag Gladstone all the way to the exit. With her high AP that might have been possible, actually. It would require a lot of slow creeping around at level 6 though, and get very tedious waiting around for this area to clear out.  The new enforcer's just stuffing around in the deadend. So far so good.  But the armored guy's blocking my way, and my shock trap's still on cooldown for a while. I know what'll get their attention.  I'll just walk straight out into a watched tile where they can see me.  Now that they had a confirmed sight of me, they're gonna run down here at top speed, leaving me a clear exit up top. I just had to duck back into cover behind the table...  And then sneak around the back.  Internationale's taking care of the guard observation for now, and staying close by just in case she has to help out some more. (Not pictured: ENEMY ACTIVITY, TURN 19)  On the way out, Gladstone gives this guy another zap cause he was about to wake up next turn. This only holds him down one more turn, but every bit counts.  Looks like we might have a clear shot at the exit. Internationale's disrupter will be back online next turn in case this guy or the enforcer want to give us any trouble.   Yeah, the enforcer's going to run through here briefly, then look the other way. We got this!  I just shuffle everyone around so they aren't on the wrong side of the desk, where he's running in.  YES! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE  AAAAAAARRGGHHFFF  Internationale, go pick up the site list that I loving forgot I left sitting by the desk, please.  Pop a stim and I've got just enough move points to make it back to the teleporter.  Okay NOW let's get out of here!  Jeez, that was way more tense than I thought it was gonna be at the start. Just goes to show you how very quickly things can fall apart. See you next time, when I hopefully pick a new mission type or corporation to show off. Bifauxnen fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 03:09
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tithin posted:Hm, forums ate my other reply. Jesus that sounds nuts. I guess you'd have to do something like I did in the previous mission, where Gladstone kept leading the armoured guy farther and farther away. A lot harder to do that at the end of the level though, when the alarm level's getting up there. rchandra posted:Surprised you didn't pick up the valuable tech, it's always worth it - just drop it somewhere for a bit like the site list, if needed. Yeah I had my hands full just trying to not screw up the level, so I didn't even bother trying to bring along the tech. Little mistakes can sure add up quickly, if I hadn't got hit by that camera on the way to the router, I wouldn't have had to run Internationale past another one to beat the safe rebooting. Then the guard wouldn't have gone investigating in there, so he wouldn't have spotted the dead drone...
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Jul 26, 2016 04:33
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Fedule posted:The Buster Chip III is an incredible item. It chews firewalls, and has a short cooldown. I always grab one, sometimes more. Yeah that was the one item I might've been tempted to buy, but with my new shiny Data Blast I wasn't in a hurry to upgrade yet. Data Blast is just ridiculously good. I'm gonna have a lot of chances to show off how great its range is next mission. I might try and do more about the agent profiles when it's time to start picking new ones. btw big thanks to whoever got me the last avatar and this new one. If I was an Invisible Inc agent, Gladstone would say "Just don't ask her about Universal Basic Income"
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Jul 26, 2016 11:16
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I've survived through a few more missions, just haven't had time to sort through all the screenshots yet. Might be able to get started on that tomorrow, but the finished writeups and update probably won't be all finished till next weekend.
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Aug 6, 2016 06:17
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Updates will be on hiatus for a while since I am having laptop difficulties... If my HD is still okay though, I'll get right to uploading the images straight away once I can get the stuff off of it. Sorry for the delays, been pretty run down in RL thanks to a lot of paperwork for my kid's US citizenship, and work sucking, and so on.  If my HD ends up being dead, once I get a new laptop I'll restart with a new party you guys vote for me.
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Aug 29, 2016 04:17
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StrixNebulosa posted:Perfect. I was afraid they'd patched that out or something, and I don't relish the thought of finishing the final story missions with limited rewinds. Sharp is a lot of fun once you get him augmented up. If you find any cheap augments at the nanofab that you normally wouldn't bother with, try sticking them on Sharp cause he also gets those KO bonuses from having more augments, no matter what they are. Hardware update: I've finally got around to removing my hard drive from my laptop but haven't yet tried to get the data off it. New laptop should be arriving from the States in about a week or two though, so I want to try and figure out by then if I need to start over or not!
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Sep 18, 2016 03:48
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Woo! Good news, my hard drive is fine, and I've now copied all the photos I took off it. I'm still gonna need some time to go through them and remind myself what the hell I was doing, but at least now I know nothing's been lost.
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Oct 8, 2016 14:06
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A quick update: while I have recovered the screenshots I took of the next couple missions, I haven't got off my rear end to set up Irfanview and Photoshop and everything on my new laptop yet. In the back of my mind I've been planning to finally get around to restarting this over the Christmas break, but I don't want to overpromise as my laziness knows no bounds. Hope everyone has a good holiday!
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Dec 10, 2016 02:16
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