Grr... I was 1 turn away from getting Nika out after rescuing her. I feel worse than I should that all she got to do was run toward the exit before getting gunned down. The math works out; Dr. Xu and Internationale are upgraded and carrying stuff, but still... she was the whole reason I went on that mission.
I want to say I'm getting better at this, but that last mission was a complete clusterfuck, and I still didn't complete it.
Monst3r died right after getting the door codes, and Central had died a turn before that. I had no MedGel and about 10 guards swarming the central room. I found the mainframe though, and Internationale and Decker hung out there until turn 53. It was oddly cool to have eyes on the whole facility watching as guards ever so slowly closed in on my position.
Grr... I was 1 turn away from getting Nika out after rescuing her. I feel worse than I should that all she got to do was run toward the exit before getting gunned down. The math works out; Dr. Xu and Internationale are upgraded and carrying stuff, but still... she was the whole reason I went on that mission.
I managed to get Shalem11 shot about 2 rounds from the exit on his breakout mission. Luckily the space he got shot in was just through a door. Nika was behind the door, closed it, and managed to drag Shalem's punctured hide to the teleporter. Mission successful!
That mission was interesting because it's the first time on Expert that I've had the whole complex alerted and searching for me that I've managed to pull through a victory. My favorite thing is to use drones to distract guards by having them reboot in their area. The guards will go check them out before moving on to trying to find my agents.
I've yet to succeed a breakout mission other than the one I did on beginner. I've done two on experienced and they were both just completely ridiculous. I had one that was basically 6 rooms in a + layout, with 5 guards. 3 guards patrolled in and out of the central room and one of the side rooms, 2 guards in with the cells both looking at each other and covering the door (so it's impossible to open without both going to investigate).
And 2 of the guards were hackers that recaptured the cameras every turn. I basically just noped straight out of the level taking what safes I could. I think I future I'm going to do a detention centre asap instead of prioritising better software and armour piercing weapons. Detention centres on 3+ level security seem at least twice as hard as any other mission type.
Right now I've reached the final mission on experienced with just Internationale and Xu. I got two armour piercing augments early on to give international 2 piercing, and just now on the penultimate mission I finally found another armour piercing weapon for Xu, despite raiding 3 nanofabs and getting nothing but junk DARTs every time.
Also don't have anything to deal with daemons and nothing but power drip for bonus power so I think I'm probably fucked considering all of the firewall guards that will be walking around.
The only good thing is I have discovered just how far you can push it when it comes to standing right next to guards without being spotted, I rarely KO people any more.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I've yet to succeed a breakout mission other than the one I did on beginner. I've done two on experienced and they were both just completely ridiculous. I had one that was basically 6 rooms in a + layout, with 5 guards. 3 guards patrolled in and out of the central room and one of the side rooms, 2 guards in with the cells both looking at each other and covering the door (so it's impossible to open without both going to investigate).
And 2 of the guards were hackers that recaptured the cameras every turn. I basically just noped straight out of the level taking what safes I could. I think I future I'm going to do a detention centre asap instead of prioritising better software and armour piercing weapons. Detention centres on 3+ level security seem at least twice as hard as any other mission type.
Right now I've reached the final mission on experienced with just Internationale and Xu. I got two armour piercing augments early on to give international 2 piercing, and just now on the penultimate mission I finally found another armour piercing weapon for Xu, despite raiding 3 nanofabs and getting nothing but junk DARTs every time.
Also don't have anything to deal with daemons and nothing but power drip for bonus power so I think I'm probably fucked considering all of the firewall guards that will be walking around.
The only good thing is I have discovered just how far you can push it when it comes to standing right next to guards without being spotted, I rarely KO people any more.
While I love, love, love the Plastech guards, conceptually, if you're not prepared to deal with them yoinking back devices (or their KO daemons, for that matter), you're going to have a bad time raiding their facilities.
One pro-tip I can offer is find out what attracts a guard's attention, but doesn't put him on alert status. Opening a door (as long as you're not standing right behind it) will do it. Stepping on a tile that gives you a yellow line is the guard's peripheral vision, and seeing your agent there will make them come check out that space, not point his gun at you. I often distract a guard by stepping into his peripheral vision, then hide behind furniture so that when he goes to check the space, I can slip behind him and into the next room.
My favorite distraction is the rebooting drone. Yesterday I had a mission where I had to shut down an F&M tracking scanner while I raided a detention center. The scanner was in a hallway with three guards, one stationary and two patrolling. There was also, however, a camera drone. I hacked the drone and sent it down the hall, in view of all three guards. When it shut down, the guards went to go look at it, and Nika snuck behind them to yank the circuitry on the scanner. Meanwhile Banks was sacking all the safes and searching for the detention area. After Nika finished, I hacked the drone again and distracted the guards so she could slip out again. Actual combat drones are even better to hack, because when, in the unfortunate circumstance that they have to shoot somebody, the rest of the guards may spend a round attacking the drone, or they'll investigate the rebooting drone, or investigating their co-worker's corpse, or all of the above.
Like the ambushes where there's two guards on the other side of the door pointing their guns at you. You close it and put your guys on ambush before watching them file in one at a time to get zapped.
Like the ambushes where there's two guards on the other side of the door pointing their guns at you. You close it and put your guys on ambush before watching them file in one at a time to get zapped.
WE NEVER EXPECTED THIS AMBUSH.
Well, most corps don't hire their security guards based on IQ tests. Plastech does, but they're of the opinion that they're more dangerous to you unconscious instead of awake.
Yeah I use doors to distract sometimes, I just have no idea how to deal with guards that have to be dealt with in pairs and they always seem to show up in detention centres.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
Yeah I use doors to distract sometimes, I just have no idea how to deal with guards that have to be dealt with in pairs and they always seem to show up in detention centres.
You can often distract one but not the other. If you open a door that only one of them can see, only that one will come to investigate. You can dodge him or pin him as needed, and then navigate past the other guard.
Ping is great for distraction. I was running parasite, the power that gives you three power every turn for four turns for five power, and ping. It was awesome until those 8 armor guards in the final mission.
I usually just run Parasite, Seed, and either Taurus or Hunter, with whatever else interesting on hand (currently have Leash and Dagger). Ping is pretty darn good and it's saved at least one Detention Center rescue for me.
Parasite + Seed means that I can always start at least one Parasite each turn, almost regardless of how many I have running or how much power I have on-hand, and makes it so that hacking is purely gravy. And now that I think about it that way, I should probably start running Archive Banks to start making money off of all that unused power...
Well I beat the game on experienced this run after all. Final mission was surprisingly easy. Had a clear shot to security and all of the guards were patrolling in and out of a central bottleneck. Once the security hack was complete and they all started converging I was able to just hide beside the doors as basically every guard in the level ran past us and left the way to the end clear.
KOd two guys who patrolled into my side room early and just sat on them all game. The trickiest thing is the random recaptures of security cams but I only got caught out once and had about 2 power left at the end. Finished before alarm level 4.
Unlocked 8 new agents, the last 4 and the first 4 archives. Not really sure anything can beat Internationale and Xu's free safe cracking.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
Yeah, parasite is absolutely incredible but if you pick it you always need to go out of your way to hit a server farm to get a less situational breaker so that high pressure situations can't destroy you.
Also you can disable firewall shielded guards with Xu if he's on your team.
Yeah, parasite is absolutely incredible but if you pick it you always need to go out of your way to hit a server farm to get a less situational breaker so that high pressure situations can't destroy you.
Also you can disable firewall shielded guards with Xu if he's on your team.
I really did not understand Xu's power on my last run where I rescued him. I thought he was only good for shutting down heart monitors and disabling generators.
Yeah, parasite is absolutely incredible but if you pick it you always need to go out of your way to hit a server farm to get a less situational breaker so that high pressure situations can't destroy you.
Also you can disable firewall shielded guards with Xu if he's on your team.
I really did not understand Xu's power on my last run where I rescued him. I thought he was only good for shutting down heart monitors and disabling generators.
Safecracking, dogg. My current game on Expert Plus is going pretty great. I think it was on your recommendation that I'm going with Seed and Parasite, and I'm really digging it. Archive Banks and Prism were my first agents, plus I picked up Internationale on my third mission, and I've got the program that Tags all visible guards for 3 power (a.k.a. free if it's the first program in a turn) and the program that breaks one firewall on everything detected in a huge area (again, free if first).
Now I need Taurus or Hunter, or barring that, Dr. Xu. I'd actually prefer Tony, but seems like much more of a long shot.
Just got through my first Experienced game with only one casualty in the last mission, Xu, who threw himself into harm's way purposefully in order to buy time for Monst3r's slow ass to get to the mainframe.
Can you stab the thing with your EMP? Do it and see what happens.
My favourite Xu moment so far has being hacking a turret before casually strolling behind a guard in the same room, disabling his heart monitor and leaving to let what happens naturally when a machine gun finds squishy targets.
He's genuinely the guy I think helps more than anyone else. Even more than Internationale. The amount of power saved and momentum you can get from his ability is fantastic.
Can you stab the thing with your EMP? Do it and see what happens.
My favourite Xu moment so far has being hacking a turret before casually strolling behind a guard in the same room, disabling his heart monitor and leaving to let what happens naturally when a machine gun finds squishy targets.
He's genuinely the guy I think helps more than anyone else. Even more than Internationale. The amount of power saved and momentum you can get from his ability is fantastic.
Xu, Internationale is my favorite starting team so far. I just rescued Decker, and he does not feel great without his cloaking rig.
Final team was Archive Nika (Predictive Brawling, Torque Injectors), Banks, Decker (largely useless without his cloak, I gave him two paralyzers and put him on pinning/dragging duty), and Shalem11 with a Hand Cannon, a Drilling DART, 2 charge clips, and the augment that negates heart monitors.
Final level was a very long corridor, with the Sec Office in the north, and the Mainframe in the Northeast, separated by two fairly large rooms. I was a little worried when I saw the Armor 3 guard patrolling the mainframe, but remembered Monst3r's gun, and figured he could wait until Monst3r was freed up.
Everything went pretty smoothly. When the Sec Office started summoning guards, I positioned Shalem11 at the far end of the hall. I can just imagine him saying, "This is what I was born for!" and opening up on every goddamn guard that walked toward that office. Starting to turn around on the whole aversion to ranged combat bit.
One guard slipped by Shalem and was pinning Central, Monst3r, and Decker in the Sec Office, but Nika with her Stim II and Predictive Brawling ninja'd in there, knocked him out, and was gone before Gladstone even got worried.
In the end, that AR3 guard shot up Banks before Monst3r got there to tranq him, but Decker put his body-dragging skills to good use and hauled her to the Mainframe, where I imagine she was safe until someone hit up a nanofab for medigel. Successful mission!
My experience with Expert Plus:
Begin Ex+ game at 23:25, figuring I have time for one mission before going to bed.
All agents lost by 23:40, on initial mission.
It was going well, up until the point where it wasn't. I stayed out of everyone's way, Prism pickpocketing as she went. I used up my rewind when I got caught out by two security cameras, then Nika got caught by a guard.
I then learned that you can't melee a guard when he has you at gunpoint. Prism came up behind him and took him out, but that added the pressure to get the list and get out.
Then a newly spawned guard entered the room and set his sights on Prism. Nika saved her, but had to sprint to do it, which let the guard next door hear her, so he came to see what was going on.
Two agents, nowhere to dodge.
I think the inability to melee guards in the face is going to be a bigger problem for me than the hidden view cones.
My advice from this failed run:
Peek at a door, wait a turn (on ambush) for anything to move in there, then open and peek again before entering.
I've made it to the final mission on my first attempt at Expert. But man did I get screwed. 2 server farms, 1 security dispatch and 2 nanofab raids and all I've gotten to show for it is Hunter and the gauntlet with 1 armour piercing. Every time it was just the 8 worst programs and the 4 worst weapons available.
So I'm going to have to hope the layout is similar to my experienced run and I can completely avoid the guards. But the real problem is going to be not having enough power for all the cameras.
Rami on
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I gotta say, playing with Archive Nika has soured me on Volt Disruptors. Ain't nobody got that much Power, and Archive Nika's special lets her use a regular Neural Disruptor every other round, or every round with Torque Injectors, for zero Power. I suppose the Volt Disruptors do let Original Recipe Nika stun two guys a round, but I generally play Seed/Parasite, so I have to very carefully manage my actual Power use (maps with lots of shooty drones and turrets become very interesting with Seed/Parasite...)
My experience with Expert Plus:
Begin Ex+ game at 23:25, figuring I have time for one mission before going to bed.
All agents lost by 23:40, on initial mission.
It was going well, up until the point where it wasn't. I stayed out of everyone's way, Prism pickpocketing as she went. I used up my rewind when I got caught out by two security cameras, then Nika got caught by a guard.
I then learned that you can't melee a guard when he has you at gunpoint. Prism came up behind him and took him out, but that added the pressure to get the list and get out.
Then a newly spawned guard entered the room and set his sights on Prism. Nika saved her, but had to sprint to do it, which let the guard next door hear her, so he came to see what was going on.
Two agents, nowhere to dodge.
I think the inability to melee guards in the face is going to be a bigger problem for me than the hidden view cones.
My advice from this failed run:
Peek at a door, wait a turn (on ambush) for anything to move in there, then open and peek again before entering.
I think I'm going to stay on regular Expert mode for awhile and try new combinations. Your story sounds like it would stress me out.
Volt disruptors are fine if you've got a decent hacker or are using non-conventional breakers (IE, not lockpick) because those tend to be more power efficient in return for being more awkward to use.
I'm not sure I understand how to use the flurry gun. I have one sitting with Internationale and then I picked up the augment that negates the heart monitor stuff. There were 2 downed guards and one live guard in the room and I had nobody available to take out the alive guy non-lethally, so Internationale hits him with the flurry. Before taking him out I had the "kill" crosshairs for all 3 guys. After taking out the problem guy I could no longer shoot at the downed guys to just get rid of them completely. What am I doing wrong and/or how does the flurry gun really work?
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NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Barring the use of high-grade Stims or non-archive Nika, an agent is only allowed one attack a turn. (For reference, Xu's targeted EMP counts as an attack)
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Well that's lame. The description makes it sound like the flurry is special and I could clear a room with it.
You still can, theoretically, by handing it between several agents that are standing next to each other. Basically a bucket line with a nuclear reactor gun.
I beat Expert Plus! It was really fun! I have to say, Wisp with Seed is probably my favorite program combination ever. Followed very, very closely by Seed and Datablast. Those three programs with Parasite, Taurus, and Prism ensured that I always had PWR and never had to waste AP observing guard movements.
I also really liked my other starting agent, Archive Banks, due to her having two open augmentation slots and being able to use both in a single trip to the Cybernetics Factory (Torque Injectors and Neural Downlink) and not having to worry about it again. Her Bank Chip can easily net you an extra 300 Credits per mission early on, and once you've got an agent with decent hacking, that can be increase to between 600 and 800 Credits that don't cost any power and you barely have to go out of your way for.
The final mission was practically a breeze, the only trouble I had was finding the Mainframe and the Security Terminal. They were behind a laser, locked doors that I was having trouble finding a key for, and cameras. I didn't have any casualties, knocked out 3 guards for over half the mission with a Stun Trap III, pinning, and Paralyzers, and the rest could never surprise me with their patrols due to Wisp. I actually bought a second Stun Trap III from a Nanofab on the last mission and used it to knock out another two guards on my final sprint to the Mainframe.
In summary, Seed and Wisp are amazing, hologram projectors are fun and can be used in lots of creative ways, Neural Downlink is really overpowered, and stealing from conscious guards is always preferable to knocking them out. You can also steal PWR and other cool toys (such as EMPs) from drones, and I even found a Neural Disruptor on a guard that came into the level on Alarm Level 3 with Banks at fully upgraded Anarchy.
I can reliably beat Expert most of the time, why is it I can't get past mission 1 on Expert Plus.
I somehow got a room with guards coming in from opposite sides. There was a path through, but the only way I'd have the AP to make it past without running or leaving me exposed was to enter a room without peeking.
Yeah, you guys know how this story ends, don't you?
I open the door, see nothing, set foot inside, and get spotted by a camera, ensuring that a guard was going to come looking for me before I got a chance to hide.
I managed to drag it out for a few turns, but there was no way out.
Alright! Just got the Daemon Code achievement on Expert. Whoever it was that had Central as their Daemon Code run mainstay, I could not agree more. Brimstone+Faust is basically "anything can happen at any time for no reason LOL" mode and Central's power gain on daemon install was the only thing that kept it tolerable... I almost got super-duper fucked because I randomly got "Incognita cannot hack" daemons for five straight turns just as Monst3r was getting to the Sec Office. Luckily my crack team of Archive Banks, & Internationale both had shock traps and managed the influx of new guards pretty well.
I got Xu pretty late in the game, and his Plastech detention center raid was a pretty huge mess that I'm not sure how I ever got through, but at one point on the way out of jail he hit up a nanofab for a hand cannon, and both he and Banks picked up ranged piercing augments in the cyber lab we hit just before the last mission.
This was significant because it let them shoot Elite Enforcers in the final level... basically one of the Omni shield guys had Monst3r dead to rights, Internationale ran through his peripheral vision and down the hall, distracting him and crossing the attention of the horde of guys I shock trapped earlier who were just coming to. While Central & Monst3r thought that this was good enough (agent survival is optional, after all), Xu and Banks said, "fuck that, everybody's coming home alive!"
Between Banks's Neural DART, Xu's Hand Cannon, and the two full charge clips that Xu had on him, they took down nine guards and opened a path for Internationale to escape just as Gladstone plugged Incognita into the mainframe.
I tried Expert Plus and nope'd out of it pretty hard after finding stationary guards watching the only door of the starting room, or guards that patrol into the starting room immediately the first few tries. That not being able to see the danger zone makes me feel like I'm on an episode of Archer.
I feel a little bit like the game took pity on me with the last level layout, but I finally beat Experienced this morning. I had the security hub right next door to the mainframe entrance. I'm pretty proud that I only had to stun one guard (patrolling between the security hub and the mainframe entrance), and I didn't lose anybody.
I'm not sure I'll ever try expert even though they claim it's the standard difficulty. Experienced was plenty challenging for me.
So I'm trying a Faust/Brimston run (on Beginner) because I like achievements that encourage me to play in new ways. I'm having maybe the best run I've ever had in terms of the game handing me stuff. I have 4 agents (Central, Dr. Xu, Internationale, Decker) and everybody has a weapon. I've also picked 2 additional Incognita programs (Kill 5 firewalls for 3 (I think) and kill a daemon). It's feels about as tense to me as Experienced did, but having 4 agents to explore and everybody with a weapon is amazing.
Should I assume that all detention centers from here will contain only couriers? Because I've got 2 available right now.
I'm learning I'm a masochist, as I'm trying to get 2 achievements at once; Faust/Brimstone, and Expert with no rewinds.
Three attempts later, and I manage to not get everyone killed in the first mission.
Thing is, none of the failures were Daemon related, just some horrible luck with patrolling guards.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
So, finished my first game on easy a couple days ago, and yeah. It's a good game.
Of course, I got ridiculously lucky. I got three infinite ammo AP 2 stun guns, and by the end of the game Decker had 2 packs of stims and he got 6 AP and a AOE stun every time he cloaked.
Last mission was a bit of a turkey shoot, to be honest.
I'm on Day 6 of Endless, and I'm learning just how bonkers missions can get.
I had a panic attack when a Financial Suite went south, the executive got away, and I realized that the exit was behind a vault door. I had the sinking feeling that I needed the exec's keycard just to get out of the level (which would be some serious bastardry, considering that that card was why I was hitting the place already).
My team was holed up in the exec's office and the exit was on the other side of the complex, through about eight guards. Banks had two Cloaking Rig IIIs and a bunch of stims and finally made it to the exit, where I realized that there was a separate exit key in one of the safes... and only one un-opened safe left. So the rest of my guys re-enacted the final charge from Braveheart: they fought like warrior poets, and won their freedom.
Now I'm pretty much alternating between ace runs and complete clusterfucks where I'm just robbing as many safes and guard pockets as I can before blitzing to the exit.
Just a word of warning, once you get to Day 5 or so, they start hitting you with automatic daemons that will seriously bone you... like +2 power cost for 20 turns or starting off at Alarm Level 2 automatically.
I'm a little hesitant to go back to my current game; I just rescued a courier, and I have the sinking feeling that the guy's going to take a round to the gut while my team dodges AR 3 guards and tries to escape alive.
Items marked with a * will apply to missions started before the update.
New Features
- 2 new starting programs to unlock.
- 8 new programs to find and buy at server terminals.
- Kevin's expanded agent banter added.
- New versions of the location maps:
new Vault
new CEO office
new Detention Center
new Guard Dispatch
new Server Farm
new Nanofab Vestibule
new Cyberlab (special!)
- New starting room variations
- Open single door hotkey - default is F. *
- Armor icon and stat always visible on guards. *
- Item requirements always show. *
- CTRL click for right click on MAC enabled. *
- Tooltip on guards searched and expertly searched by an agent with Anarchy 5. *
- Augment grafter panel improved. *
Balance Changes
- Felix daemon has been changed.
- Cloak Rig III has been changed.
Bug fixes
- Guards insta killing KO agents when they wake up is fixed.
- KO resistance will modify all KO effects like shocktaps and flash grenades
- Fixed blocked peeking in an obscure case. *
- Blinking rewind button no longer pauses gameplay. *
- Time attack mode will now also unlock Expert level achievements. *
- Holocircuit Overloaders do not make a noise that will alert guards.
- Modded plastech guard spawn rate bug fixed/
- Endless key card exploit removed/
- Central can now pick up the final mission item ( for when she starts with a full inventory).*
- Anatomy Analysis will not activate on disabled heart monitors.
- A Prisoner or Courier can abandon an agent in the field as long as at least one agent has escaped beforehand. *
- Items killed while parasited will release the parasite.
- Fusion shows the right tooltips and operates as described.
Hotfix - build 146094
NOTE: the hotfix works like the other fixes. Changes will not apply to missions saved before the hotfix was applied unless they have an *
- Taurus, Datablast and Oracle interact with Charge correctly.
- Lightning, Root and Nika tool tips corrected *
- Program Cooldown will show up more prominently on tooltips at the store *
- Server farms will not spawn the old Felix.
- Safe's will not show the steal icon unless there is something for that agent to steal
- The new Vault will no longer have guards spawn behind the vault door
That is all awesome, but I'm going to wait until they release the DLC to play more I,I. And it seems like they're expanding the scope of the DLC, so that's a happy turn of events.
That is all awesome, but I'm going to wait until they release the DLC to play more I,I. And it seems like they're expanding the scope of the DLC, so that's a happy turn of events.
I last quit mid-Day 10 of Endless, because the levels were just getting so exhausting. I'll probably get back to it when the DLC drops, too, just so I can see some fresh stuff.
It's funny; you get used to planning missions that are pretty close travel-wise so as not to waste your limited time, but by day 5 of Endless you're spending as much time in the air as possible just to get to the next day.
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I managed to get Shalem11 shot about 2 rounds from the exit on his breakout mission. Luckily the space he got shot in was just through a door. Nika was behind the door, closed it, and managed to drag Shalem's punctured hide to the teleporter. Mission successful!
That mission was interesting because it's the first time on Expert that I've had the whole complex alerted and searching for me that I've managed to pull through a victory. My favorite thing is to use drones to distract guards by having them reboot in their area. The guards will go check them out before moving on to trying to find my agents.
And 2 of the guards were hackers that recaptured the cameras every turn. I basically just noped straight out of the level taking what safes I could. I think I future I'm going to do a detention centre asap instead of prioritising better software and armour piercing weapons. Detention centres on 3+ level security seem at least twice as hard as any other mission type.
Right now I've reached the final mission on experienced with just Internationale and Xu. I got two armour piercing augments early on to give international 2 piercing, and just now on the penultimate mission I finally found another armour piercing weapon for Xu, despite raiding 3 nanofabs and getting nothing but junk DARTs every time.
Also don't have anything to deal with daemons and nothing but power drip for bonus power so I think I'm probably fucked considering all of the firewall guards that will be walking around.
The only good thing is I have discovered just how far you can push it when it comes to standing right next to guards without being spotted, I rarely KO people any more.
While I love, love, love the Plastech guards, conceptually, if you're not prepared to deal with them yoinking back devices (or their KO daemons, for that matter), you're going to have a bad time raiding their facilities.
One pro-tip I can offer is find out what attracts a guard's attention, but doesn't put him on alert status. Opening a door (as long as you're not standing right behind it) will do it. Stepping on a tile that gives you a yellow line is the guard's peripheral vision, and seeing your agent there will make them come check out that space, not point his gun at you. I often distract a guard by stepping into his peripheral vision, then hide behind furniture so that when he goes to check the space, I can slip behind him and into the next room.
My favorite distraction is the rebooting drone. Yesterday I had a mission where I had to shut down an F&M tracking scanner while I raided a detention center. The scanner was in a hallway with three guards, one stationary and two patrolling. There was also, however, a camera drone. I hacked the drone and sent it down the hall, in view of all three guards. When it shut down, the guards went to go look at it, and Nika snuck behind them to yank the circuitry on the scanner. Meanwhile Banks was sacking all the safes and searching for the detention area. After Nika finished, I hacked the drone again and distracted the guards so she could slip out again. Actual combat drones are even better to hack, because when, in the unfortunate circumstance that they have to shoot somebody, the rest of the guards may spend a round attacking the drone, or they'll investigate the rebooting drone, or investigating their co-worker's corpse, or all of the above.
Like the ambushes where there's two guards on the other side of the door pointing their guns at you. You close it and put your guys on ambush before watching them file in one at a time to get zapped.
WE NEVER EXPECTED THIS AMBUSH.
Well, most corps don't hire their security guards based on IQ tests. Plastech does, but they're of the opinion that they're more dangerous to you unconscious instead of awake.
You can often distract one but not the other. If you open a door that only one of them can see, only that one will come to investigate. You can dodge him or pin him as needed, and then navigate past the other guard.
Parasite + Seed means that I can always start at least one Parasite each turn, almost regardless of how many I have running or how much power I have on-hand, and makes it so that hacking is purely gravy. And now that I think about it that way, I should probably start running Archive Banks to start making money off of all that unused power...
KOd two guys who patrolled into my side room early and just sat on them all game. The trickiest thing is the random recaptures of security cams but I only got caught out once and had about 2 power left at the end. Finished before alarm level 4.
Unlocked 8 new agents, the last 4 and the first 4 archives. Not really sure anything can beat Internationale and Xu's free safe cracking.
Also you can disable firewall shielded guards with Xu if he's on your team.
I really did not understand Xu's power on my last run where I rescued him. I thought he was only good for shutting down heart monitors and disabling generators.
Safecracking, dogg. My current game on Expert Plus is going pretty great. I think it was on your recommendation that I'm going with Seed and Parasite, and I'm really digging it. Archive Banks and Prism were my first agents, plus I picked up Internationale on my third mission, and I've got the program that Tags all visible guards for 3 power (a.k.a. free if it's the first program in a turn) and the program that breaks one firewall on everything detected in a huge area (again, free if first).
Now I need Taurus or Hunter, or barring that, Dr. Xu. I'd actually prefer Tony, but seems like much more of a long shot.
Can you stab the thing with your EMP? Do it and see what happens.
My favourite Xu moment so far has being hacking a turret before casually strolling behind a guard in the same room, disabling his heart monitor and leaving to let what happens naturally when a machine gun finds squishy targets.
He's genuinely the guy I think helps more than anyone else. Even more than Internationale. The amount of power saved and momentum you can get from his ability is fantastic.
Xu, Internationale is my favorite starting team so far. I just rescued Decker, and he does not feel great without his cloaking rig.
Final team was Archive Nika (Predictive Brawling, Torque Injectors), Banks, Decker (largely useless without his cloak, I gave him two paralyzers and put him on pinning/dragging duty), and Shalem11 with a Hand Cannon, a Drilling DART, 2 charge clips, and the augment that negates heart monitors.
Final level was a very long corridor, with the Sec Office in the north, and the Mainframe in the Northeast, separated by two fairly large rooms. I was a little worried when I saw the Armor 3 guard patrolling the mainframe, but remembered Monst3r's gun, and figured he could wait until Monst3r was freed up.
Everything went pretty smoothly. When the Sec Office started summoning guards, I positioned Shalem11 at the far end of the hall. I can just imagine him saying, "This is what I was born for!" and opening up on every goddamn guard that walked toward that office. Starting to turn around on the whole aversion to ranged combat bit.
One guard slipped by Shalem and was pinning Central, Monst3r, and Decker in the Sec Office, but Nika with her Stim II and Predictive Brawling ninja'd in there, knocked him out, and was gone before Gladstone even got worried.
In the end, that AR3 guard shot up Banks before Monst3r got there to tranq him, but Decker put his body-dragging skills to good use and hauled her to the Mainframe, where I imagine she was safe until someone hit up a nanofab for medigel. Successful mission!
Anyway. Now skeptically looking at Expert Plus.
My experience with Expert Plus:
Begin Ex+ game at 23:25, figuring I have time for one mission before going to bed.
All agents lost by 23:40, on initial mission.
It was going well, up until the point where it wasn't. I stayed out of everyone's way, Prism pickpocketing as she went. I used up my rewind when I got caught out by two security cameras, then Nika got caught by a guard.
I then learned that you can't melee a guard when he has you at gunpoint. Prism came up behind him and took him out, but that added the pressure to get the list and get out.
Then a newly spawned guard entered the room and set his sights on Prism. Nika saved her, but had to sprint to do it, which let the guard next door hear her, so he came to see what was going on.
Two agents, nowhere to dodge.
I think the inability to melee guards in the face is going to be a bigger problem for me than the hidden view cones.
My advice from this failed run:
Peek at a door, wait a turn (on ambush) for anything to move in there, then open and peek again before entering.
So I'm going to have to hope the layout is similar to my experienced run and I can completely avoid the guards. But the real problem is going to be not having enough power for all the cameras.
I think I'm going to stay on regular Expert mode for awhile and try new combinations. Your story sounds like it would stress me out.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
You still can, theoretically, by handing it between several agents that are standing next to each other. Basically a bucket line with a nuclear reactor gun.
I also really liked my other starting agent, Archive Banks, due to her having two open augmentation slots and being able to use both in a single trip to the Cybernetics Factory (Torque Injectors and Neural Downlink) and not having to worry about it again. Her Bank Chip can easily net you an extra 300 Credits per mission early on, and once you've got an agent with decent hacking, that can be increase to between 600 and 800 Credits that don't cost any power and you barely have to go out of your way for.
The final mission was practically a breeze, the only trouble I had was finding the Mainframe and the Security Terminal. They were behind a laser, locked doors that I was having trouble finding a key for, and cameras. I didn't have any casualties, knocked out 3 guards for over half the mission with a Stun Trap III, pinning, and Paralyzers, and the rest could never surprise me with their patrols due to Wisp. I actually bought a second Stun Trap III from a Nanofab on the last mission and used it to knock out another two guards on my final sprint to the Mainframe.
In summary, Seed and Wisp are amazing, hologram projectors are fun and can be used in lots of creative ways, Neural Downlink is really overpowered, and stealing from conscious guards is always preferable to knocking them out. You can also steal PWR and other cool toys (such as EMPs) from drones, and I even found a Neural Disruptor on a guard that came into the level on Alarm Level 3 with Banks at fully upgraded Anarchy.
I somehow got a room with guards coming in from opposite sides. There was a path through, but the only way I'd have the AP to make it past without running or leaving me exposed was to enter a room without peeking.
Yeah, you guys know how this story ends, don't you?
I open the door, see nothing, set foot inside, and get spotted by a camera, ensuring that a guard was going to come looking for me before I got a chance to hide.
I managed to drag it out for a few turns, but there was no way out.
I got Xu pretty late in the game, and his Plastech detention center raid was a pretty huge mess that I'm not sure how I ever got through, but at one point on the way out of jail he hit up a nanofab for a hand cannon, and both he and Banks picked up ranged piercing augments in the cyber lab we hit just before the last mission.
This was significant because it let them shoot Elite Enforcers in the final level... basically one of the Omni shield guys had Monst3r dead to rights, Internationale ran through his peripheral vision and down the hall, distracting him and crossing the attention of the horde of guys I shock trapped earlier who were just coming to. While Central & Monst3r thought that this was good enough (agent survival is optional, after all), Xu and Banks said, "fuck that, everybody's coming home alive!"
Between Banks's Neural DART, Xu's Hand Cannon, and the two full charge clips that Xu had on him, they took down nine guards and opened a path for Internationale to escape just as Gladstone plugged Incognita into the mainframe.
I tried Expert Plus and nope'd out of it pretty hard after finding stationary guards watching the only door of the starting room, or guards that patrol into the starting room immediately the first few tries. That not being able to see the danger zone makes me feel like I'm on an episode of Archer.
I'm not sure I'll ever try expert even though they claim it's the standard difficulty. Experienced was plenty challenging for me.
Should I assume that all detention centers from here will contain only couriers? Because I've got 2 available right now.
Three attempts later, and I manage to not get everyone killed in the first mission.
Thing is, none of the failures were Daemon related, just some horrible luck with patrolling guards.
Of course, I got ridiculously lucky. I got three infinite ammo AP 2 stun guns, and by the end of the game Decker had 2 packs of stims and he got 6 AP and a AOE stun every time he cloaked.
Last mission was a bit of a turkey shoot, to be honest.
Why I fear the ocean.
My team was holed up in the exec's office and the exit was on the other side of the complex, through about eight guards. Banks had two Cloaking Rig IIIs and a bunch of stims and finally made it to the exit, where I realized that there was a separate exit key in one of the safes... and only one un-opened safe left. So the rest of my guys re-enacted the final charge from Braveheart: they fought like warrior poets, and won their freedom.
Now I'm pretty much alternating between ace runs and complete clusterfucks where I'm just robbing as many safes and guard pockets as I can before blitzing to the exit.
Just a word of warning, once you get to Day 5 or so, they start hitting you with automatic daemons that will seriously bone you... like +2 power cost for 20 turns or starting off at Alarm Level 2 automatically.
I'm a little hesitant to go back to my current game; I just rescued a courier, and I have the sinking feeling that the guy's going to take a round to the gut while my team dodges AR 3 guards and tries to escape alive.