The game can generate some bullshit but so far I've found it pretty managable provided you've got a re-wind handy to deal with unpleasant surprises and aren't greedy.
In general unless I'm really comfortable with the layout of a level I find the objective, find the lift and leave immediately. The extra stuff usually isn't worth getting your run screwed up by a dead agent from dragging your feet.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Oh man, I'm eagerly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but this run is going quite well, I've liberated two agents, bringing my team up to four. Started with Decker and Internationale, added Dr. Xu and Banks, in that order.
And point of amusement: The corps are literally actively hunting you down, but you still have to pay cleanup costs if you kill people. Also apparently in the future we have decided robots are people, because I had to pay 50 credits to clean up after a camera drone I had Xu EMP.
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
Pretty sure the cleanup costs are more scrubbing traceable evidence from their records and less hiring the viscera cleanup detail.
Other news: dang, Expert Ironman is rough. Two turns of KO? Two? I am learning the value of leaving well enough alone unless I really need that guard out of the way, because those random hunts when they wake up are killing me.
I would love for there to be a gag level on viscera cleanup where you have to find all the sleeping guards hidden in vents and on rooftops because someone was doing a "no-kill run".
+5
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Oh man, I'm eagerly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but this run is going quite well, I've liberated two agents, bringing my team up to four. Started with Decker and Internationale, added Dr. Xu and Banks, in that order.
Well, it got super hairy, but I managed to pull through a win on Experienced! I am reasonably sure this should not have worked, but it did.
So early game got bogged the hell down by patrolling and/or stationary guards around my beam-in, composed of the firewall shield guys (who helpfully start at around 8 firewalls) and one of the Armor 3 guys, and all I had to get me through that was monst3r's daemon gun. Explore what I can, eventually realize that the security hub is on the far end of all those meatwalls, so I made with a lot of KOing and pinning/dragging, which was expedited by having a full team plus the NPCs. But of course, as the security level rises, you get fresh guards, plus during the security hub hacking I got a daemon that revealed an agent's location every turn. But still I prevailed, and it looked like I would have a clean run for the final objective.
Except for that first armor 3 guy I let wake up ages ago, who I discovered standing in the door to the mainframe access, with monst3r's gun still on 6 rounds of cooldown from dealing with another one. So I moved the vital NPCs into cover, then sprinted an agent behind the guy to get his attention, and made my victory.
NEO|Phyte on
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
+3
Options
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited May 2015
Finished Expert without using Internationale.
I took Central and Banks. Central ended up being... nothing special really; Banks ended up being a Hacker.
Only managed to get 1 extra agent, a Decker who ended up sitting around also not doing a great deal.
Some thoughts on Expert:
Limited rewinds mean being really careful on how you enter rooms, as enemies can patrol in from another room and do so regularly.
If you don't get upgrades for Incognita early, you may lose out unless you have a good source of power; by Alert level 3, if you haven't found many safes or cameras, you're going to be in trouble, especially if there's an enemy Hacker rebooting them constantly.
Daemons are likewise hard to deal with without a programme for them.
Ended up failing one interrogation mission (guy was in the last possible room, and it was alert 5 at that point, with a camera still on. Fortunately I was right by the exit, so we left with what we'd stolen. Monst3r then offered the vault key for 400, which was picked up and worth it on the next mission.
Final mission was a nightmare. If you pick Central (and presumably Monst3r), you're one agent short for the last mission. The Security Terminal was behind the most horrific bottleneck imaginable, and Decker and Monst3r were basically pinned in there when it spawned extra guards. I was never offered any armour piercing weapons in the game, and after Monst3r was killed I had no way of taking down any guards. For about 20 turns, Central and Banks avoided a dozen guards (well, Banks played bait, Central very very very slowly attempted to reach Monst3r). Banks got shot when she finally ran out of places to hide, but Central managed to get Monst3r back up and they got to the mainframe while the OMNIs were presumably teabagging Banks' corpse.
The 5 power turned into 15 power ability for Incognita is really good in general, especially if you can get the backup generator that gives you 5 power (3 turn cd) if you're below 3 at the start of a turn.
Good fun all in all, I guess I'll give some of the extra modes a go tomorrow.
Bethryn on
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Pretty sure the cleanup costs are more scrubbing traceable evidence from their records and less hiring the viscera cleanup detail.
Eh, it just doesn't hold up outside of being a 'murder bad' mechanic. Under normal circumstances, yes, you want to go in and remove evidence you may have left behind, but we're already actively on the run from the megacorps in our bitchin' stealth jet. What is that broken camera drone going to tell them that it being in an alert state wouldn't? Or all the firewall hacks, for that matter.
Though really, it's mostly the fact that the cleanup cost credit deduction had the stereotypical chalk outline despite the supposed body being a camera drone that made me comment on it.
:edit: unrelated to cleaner discussions, does ammo-using stuff get refilled between missions, or do you have to scrounge up charge packs?
:edit2: No ammo does not get refilled between missions, that really makes me sideeye alt Decker and his six shots ever gun.
NEO|Phyte on
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
Alt Decker?
There are alt characters? I thought I'd unlocked everything.
I've been shying away from ammo weapons, mainly because I didn't want to end up trying to save the shots until it was too late, but mostly because all the guns I've come across have had limited armor piercing. If the guards aren't armoured, I've generally managed to melee them, which seemed safer all around.
I might try some gun-heavy runs if I can find them early enough, though. Charge packs aren't too hard to come by, and a team of Shalem / Nika could probably clean up pretty quickly, in the right circumstances.
Mission report: 1st Expert run through, 27 hours remaining.
I'm doing pretty well, although there have been some close calls. My team is now Sharp, Prism, Banks and Decker (does that sound like a power tool manufacturer to anyone else? Just me? Okay then). Prism's ability, paired with the hacking ability that takes -4 pwr from the first incognita action, the ability that costs the current alarm level per firewall hack, and the ability to kill a daemon for five power, is keeping me fairly efficient power wise. I try to hack everything I can before the alert level rises, and I haven't run out yet.
Weapons are looking worse than I'd like, but there are a few bright spots.
Sharp's just blown the last of my funds on a Biogenic D.A.R.T., but paired with that augment that adds +1 armor piercing to ranged weapons, I now have someone who can take out the heavy armor guys in the endgame without spawning fresh daemons (unless they go to higher armor levels on Expert. Please tell me they don't go to higher armor levels on Expert). I'm going to load him up with any charge packs I can find.
Prism and Banks have a Neural Disruptor and a Power Disruptor, so they're on strictly low-level guard neutralisation duty, while the recently rescued Decker is having to make do with a Shock Trap. He hasn't had occasion to use it yet, as he's mostly been limited to pinning duties.
(Is this the only game that grants an actual gameplay benefit to teabagging? I think it might be)
Hah, you bloody ripper! I struggled like hell through the Early Access version of this game yet I just snapped up an Experienced victory on my very first attempt. I don't think I've ever done that for a rogue-like game before, it feels crazy.
A door-mounted shock trap, a smoke grenade and PING each turned out to be exactly what I needed at exactly the right time in the last mission, the latter especially. I don't think I'll leave home without it ever again
Yeah, there are 'archive' characters for the first 5 or so people that have palette swaps and completely different loadouts.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
edited May 2015
My current run is going worryingly well. Banks and Internationale, Fusion and Parasite start. Just started day three and I've got Hunter (first time I've seen a way to actually kill daemons rather than just knowing what you're about to unleash on yourself), Dagger, Decker, an AP1 stunner, an AP2 stunner, one of the augments that reduces item cooldown, and I just pushed over a vault (with vault key) so I blew loads of money on Speed upgrades.
:edit: and victory again, managed to liberate Shalem 11 and visit an unlocked nanofab before the end, so I was well loaded. End mission went far better this time.
Apparently I've unlocked everything as well, XP is capped out, and the achievement popped. Seems odd that only 6 of the 10 agents have alt versions, but what can you do.
NEO|Phyte on
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
I lost on the first mission, on beginner. Mind you, I was being greedy, and not using rewinds, but still, I think I might be the absolute worst garbage at this game
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
So I've been playing Endless and oh boy, it creates some seriously sphincter-clenching experiences.
There are three big handicaps you're given on Endless which cause... problems.
The first after a certain point, to leave a level, you need to find an Exit Key. They're kept in a random safe on the level, and if you don't have it, you can't rush for the exit if things get too hairy.
The second is that after day 5, you start the day with an amped up Daemon pre-installed for 20 turns. Nasty stuff like all programmes costing 2 PWR more, or starting at Stage 2 alert. The least punishing is probably the one that increases item CDs by 3 turns.
And on alert 3 of every mission, the game will spawn an extra patrol and a daemon that marks one of your agents for that turn (and does this for 3 turns). Result? Guards will enter Disturbed/Alerted state, and things get dicey.
Anyway, this results in some pretty serious complications to your best-laid plans
Case in point, around day 7, I got a vault mission.
Finding the vault and the door to the escape elevator wasn't too hard. But by the time I'd looted the place, we were already on Alert 4, and climbing. For reference here is the final picture of the level, just before I made my escape.
Now the vault is a one-way in deal, with a nasty choke in front of the vault grid:
So getting out of there was a minor nightmare, and ended up involving an ever-growing pile of unconscious guards in the antechamber. Then I headed 'south', because the only safes I could see were down near where the elevator is. Both had Daemons and 6-7 firewalls...
Well, it turns out, no, that's not where the escape key is. So I'm wondering where the hell it is, and I realise that there's an area in the northeast that I had assumed was just as guard elevator, but does have room for more.
Yes, down two corridor's worth of no cover, with the high alert still spawning new guards in, while the old lot are still out baying for my blood.
You see that bastard safe nestled away in the eastern corner? That's the fucker. Of course, just as I reach it (after creating several distractions, involving sacrificing and reviving a squad member), the game adds a friendly OMNI guard spawn into the mix, so I have to take that down too. And where, pray tell, have the horde of bastard corp guards congregated while I'm getting the key? That's right, in the south-facing corridor that is the only way for me to get back to the elevator.
Thankfully, I learnt two things this day.
One. Identical items do not share cooldowns. What this means is that something like Cloak III, which cloaks your entire team until the start of your next turn, is fantastic if you can get more than one, as it lets you chain cloaks without the enemy getting a shot off.
Two. Say No To Stim. Stim packs are amazing. You can create a bucket chain and pass them back to the slowest member of your team. They happened to be an MVP in another hunt-the-exit-key escapade (I had to sprint, Cloaked, down a corridor of guards with Decker who had finally managed to find the key, and then pop one Stim on him and one Stim on Prism, in order to get everyone into the elevator before we were summarily executed), but here they just managed to get everyone through without taking a bullet to the head.
Pictured: final screen just before everyone gets into the damn elevator. Not visible is just how many other guards are searching that room.
And the score screen:
So yeah, late-game Endless is balls to the wall difficult, but intensely rewarding when you pull it off. My last four or five missions have been nailbiters, including realising that I simply had to bail on a Sankaku vault, and spending something like 10 turns pinned down by homicidal murderbots, trying to get Nika back up so we could all get out of there alive.
My first beginner game I got all the way to the last level with only one character having something that would do armor piercing level 1. I restarted that level a bunch of times trying to finish it, but finally gave up. I didnt have much of an option to get AP items, so it kinda sucked. now that i know i need them, its something to keep in mind.
I just tried this game yesterday and I am delighted. But I quit out of a campaign and it told me I had unlocked two characters, and then I started over from the last day of that campaign and saw no unlocks. Are they only unlocked for the next completely fresh campaign?
Yes, when you unlock a character and you start a completely new game, you can choose your two starting characters from all unlocked characters.
For instance, you unlock 2 characters in your first game. you cant quite beat the last level, so you conceed the game, start a new one. This time you get to pick 2 characters from the 4 total you have unlocked. When the game starts you only have access to the 2 characters you picked. (I suppose you could 'rescue' characters that you already have unlocked) in your game.
So when I rescued Nika in my first campaign it doesn't open her up for selection in further campaigns? Only the 2 that it told me I unlocked upon beating beginner last night?
Well that's a bummer. She's not one of the 2 I unlocked after the campaign concluded, but I really liked having her available for my last 3 missions and was planning on putting her on my team as I make the jump to normal difficulty.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
edited May 2015
Oh neat, there's an inventory slot version of Internationale's wireless scanner, just pulled it out of one of those security dispatch vaults.
:edit: well partially, I have no clue if it's range is the same, and it doesn't let you suck consoles remotely, but it def reveals things.
NEO|Phyte on
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
I think there's probably some meta-gaming you could do regarding who you pick to start with, based on their starting gear as much as their usefulness.
Internationale's wireless hacking is awesome, but since it's an augment, you'll still get it if you rescue her during the campaign.
Whereas I find Decker more useful for having a cloak from the start, rather than his daemon-identifying augment. If I rescue him later on, he's missing his best feature. Likewise, picking up Shalem later on means you might have a perfect killing machine but no lethal weapons to give him.
I'm nearing the end of Expert, and the last two missions have been real skin of my teeth, one-more-turn-and-I'd-have-been-doomed escapes. Flash and smoke grenades have been real life-savers, I'm going to have to try to find some more going into the final mission, as I'd never have made it without them.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
0
Options
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
So apparently the piercing cyberware doesn't stack in the same slot. Was deep in a game with alt-Shalem fitted out with a melee and a ranged piercing weapon and got a second ranged pierce mod, but I'd filled his slots.
Finished anyway, but I was a bit annoyed. It's hard enough to fill those slots as it is, might as well let them stack where applicable.
Just finished for the first time on Experienced. I had a couple of bad runs, runs where I didn't even get close to the target and there was far too much heat. I did, however, on those runs pick up a Cloak III for Internationale; combined with her augments to give her +6 AP on a cloak, and knock out every opponent within 2 squares when she cloaks, I managed to pull some later runs out of the fire and finish the game. That cloak knock-out is amazing because it ignores armor (very handy in the last mission).
Started with Banks & Internationale, picked up Decker near the end. Right before the final mission I milked a Fabricator facility dry, so I had AP 2 self-reloading dart guns on Decker & Banks, and everybody with stunners. Banks and Internationale both had Paralyzers, which I used with perhaps too much gusto, dragging guys along, pinning them until the cooldown was up so I could walk away from them with 5 to 8 rounds of KO.
For Incognita I had Parasite, Ping, Hunter, and Fusion. Ping was very useful in the Decker prison break to let him squeak past an elite guard while he was still weaponless.
I started a new game with Nika and Sharp, just to see how a game with just murderous sociopaths goes.
I'm quite fond of Sharpe now. On Expert, it's rather useful having someone who can just put a guard out of commission for half the level.
0
Options
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Fair warning: Shock Traps do not distinguish between your agents, and enemies.
If there's one on a door, and your agent is the one to open it, they're the one going down for 4 turns (and the enemy AI will then try and keep them pinned afterwards).
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
0
Options
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Just finished for the first time on Experienced. I had a couple of bad runs, runs where I didn't even get close to the target and there was far too much heat. I did, however, on those runs pick up a Cloak III for Internationale; combined with her augments to give her +6 AP on a cloak, and knock out every opponent within 2 squares when she cloaks, I managed to pull some later runs out of the fire and finish the game. That cloak knock-out is amazing because it ignores armor (very handy in the last mission).
Started with Banks & Internationale, picked up Decker near the end. Right before the final mission I milked a Fabricator facility dry, so I had AP 2 self-reloading dart guns on Decker & Banks, and everybody with stunners. Banks and Internationale both had Paralyzers, which I used with perhaps too much gusto, dragging guys along, pinning them until the cooldown was up so I could walk away from them with 5 to 8 rounds of KO.
For Incognita I had Parasite, Ping, Hunter, and Fusion. Ping was very useful in the Decker prison break to let him squeak past an elite guard while he was still weaponless.
I started a new game with Nika and Sharp, just to see how a game with just murderous sociopaths goes.
At least during the beta, that stupid cloak-bomb augment made noise. Made it dicey but neat.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
So on a lark, I decided to do a Custom game, used Expert as the baseline, but turned off alert auto incrementing (so it only goes up if you get spotted/kill guards/etc), and jacked the cash options to max.
It is nice being able to go at your own pace. Last mission was still a pain because RNG didn't give me a ranged AP augment to go with the biogenic D.A.R.T.s I bought, so AP 3 was a no-go. And on top of that, while the daemon description is that it has a guard investigate the location of an agent a turn, in practice it was 'everyone on the map dogpiles into the security mainframe at once.' Had three guys snoozing in the door, and was luckily able to kite the surviving armor 3 guy into the room without spotting anyone so I could have everyone run out.
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
Fair warning: Shock Traps do not distinguish between your agents, and enemies.
If there's one on a door, and your agent is the one to open it, they're the one going down for 4 turns (and the enemy AI will then try and keep them pinned afterwards).
I've had to rewind four times because I've messed that up.
Two of those times were me screwing up on the same door with the same agent, twice in a row.
In other news, I completed Expert! Final level was fun. I had four agents up and hunting me during my push to the final room, and I was out of usable tools to take most of them down.
So my agents decided (not entirely of their own volition, I admit) to distract the guards while Central and Monst3r ran for the target.
By the final turn, three of my agents were down, and the last one cornered in a room with no escape.
But I still won, so suck it, enemies!
I'm going to see how many mistakes I make in Time Attack. I'm guessing a lot.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
0
Options
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Yeah, I adore how much they let you tweak the difficulty.
Even if I think that being able to go at your own pace kinda sounds like something that could break the games risk/reward structure pretty hard.
Not having a doom clock absolutely breaks the risk/reward structure, because the only risk is if you screw up and alert a guard, rather than taking too long and oh god where did all these enforcers come from and why do they know where I am.
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
I'm sure I will get into trouble later, but so far Parasite is a great Incognita program. I've paired it with the one that costs 5 power but gives you 3 power per turn for 4 turns. I also completely botched the first mission with Shalem and Banks. Everything went fine when I got Decker and Internationale back.
I'm sure I will get into trouble later, but so far Parasite is a great Incognita program. I've paired it with the one that costs 5 power but gives you 3 power per turn for 4 turns. I also completely botched the first mission with Shalem and Banks. Everything went fine when I got Decker and Internationale back.
Yeah, Fusion + Parasite were what I used for my winning run. They're practically E-Z mode. You kinda have to be careful to make sure you have 5 power at the end of the Fusion's duration so you can activate it again, but if you can do that then you're golden.
My new game was with Parasite and the one that takes 4 power off your first ability usage per turn. This is not an ideal combo, because often your first use of Parasite is 0-cost anyway.
The -4 power ability is great once you've picked up some new programs. The one that kills daemons can be pretty handy, especially when it only costs you 1 power.
One downside of parasite that I've run into: When new cameras come online, I usually hack the ones that I know are going to give me trouble while they're still booting up. They come online under my control from the off, and all is well.
But setting Parasite on them, even with just the 1 firewall to break, means they'll come online under enemy control, see anyone in their field-of-view, react, then get hacked by Parasite. So if you've got anyone standing in their sightline as they're coming on, get them out of it.
I had one cakewalk mission suddenly turn quite tense while I learned that.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
+1
Options
The JudgeThe Terwilliger CurvesRegistered Userregular
My current mission has been a game of Musical Taser.
Example: Agent covered by a guard on overwatch.
Second agent with stunner will not make it in time.
Second agent sprints to where the third agent is, hands off the stunner.
Third agent, also sprinting, has JUST enough AP to get to the side of the guard and take them out.
I must have done this three times on this level alone.
Last pint: Turmoil CDA / Barley Brown's - Untappd: TheJudge_PDX
My run started with Xu and Internationale and the Power Drip and Parasite programs. I got to pick up Banks, Shalem, and a program that took out 1 firewall in a certain radius for 3 power.
The mainframe was in a room next to spawn and the first objective Monst3r has to hack was on the other end of the map. Two agents down before he got there and Xu was the only agent left alive by the time Monst3r got back to the mainframe.
Something that I'm still not sure is if a guard is in overwatch on Agent 1, if Agent 2 goes into a noticed tile, will the guard shoot Agent 2? I'm fairly sure this happens if they go into a Watched tile, but I swear sometimes they ignore the agent in the noticed tile and sometimes they turn to shoot.
Posts
In general unless I'm really comfortable with the layout of a level I find the objective, find the lift and leave immediately. The extra stuff usually isn't worth getting your run screwed up by a dead agent from dragging your feet.
And point of amusement: The corps are literally actively hunting you down, but you still have to pay cleanup costs if you kill people. Also apparently in the future we have decided robots are people, because I had to pay 50 credits to clean up after a camera drone I had Xu EMP.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Other news: dang, Expert Ironman is rough. Two turns of KO? Two? I am learning the value of leaving well enough alone unless I really need that guard out of the way, because those random hunts when they wake up are killing me.
Well, it got super hairy, but I managed to pull through a win on Experienced! I am reasonably sure this should not have worked, but it did.
Except for that first armor 3 guy I let wake up ages ago, who I discovered standing in the door to the mainframe access, with monst3r's gun still on 6 rounds of cooldown from dealing with another one. So I moved the vital NPCs into cover, then sprinted an agent behind the guy to get his attention, and made my victory.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Only managed to get 1 extra agent, a Decker who ended up sitting around also not doing a great deal.
Some thoughts on Expert:
Limited rewinds mean being really careful on how you enter rooms, as enemies can patrol in from another room and do so regularly.
If you don't get upgrades for Incognita early, you may lose out unless you have a good source of power; by Alert level 3, if you haven't found many safes or cameras, you're going to be in trouble, especially if there's an enemy Hacker rebooting them constantly.
Daemons are likewise hard to deal with without a programme for them.
Ended up failing one interrogation mission (guy was in the last possible room, and it was alert 5 at that point, with a camera still on. Fortunately I was right by the exit, so we left with what we'd stolen. Monst3r then offered the vault key for 400, which was picked up and worth it on the next mission.
Final mission was a nightmare. If you pick Central (and presumably Monst3r), you're one agent short for the last mission. The Security Terminal was behind the most horrific bottleneck imaginable, and Decker and Monst3r were basically pinned in there when it spawned extra guards. I was never offered any armour piercing weapons in the game, and after Monst3r was killed I had no way of taking down any guards. For about 20 turns, Central and Banks avoided a dozen guards (well, Banks played bait, Central very very very slowly attempted to reach Monst3r). Banks got shot when she finally ran out of places to hide, but Central managed to get Monst3r back up and they got to the mainframe while the OMNIs were presumably teabagging Banks' corpse.
The 5 power turned into 15 power ability for Incognita is really good in general, especially if you can get the backup generator that gives you 5 power (3 turn cd) if you're below 3 at the start of a turn.
Good fun all in all, I guess I'll give some of the extra modes a go tomorrow.
Though really, it's mostly the fact that the cleanup cost credit deduction had the stereotypical chalk outline despite the supposed body being a camera drone that made me comment on it.
:edit: unrelated to cleaner discussions, does ammo-using stuff get refilled between missions, or do you have to scrounge up charge packs?
:edit2: No ammo does not get refilled between missions, that really makes me sideeye alt Decker and his six shots ever gun.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
There are alt characters? I thought I'd unlocked everything.
I've been shying away from ammo weapons, mainly because I didn't want to end up trying to save the shots until it was too late, but mostly because all the guns I've come across have had limited armor piercing. If the guards aren't armoured, I've generally managed to melee them, which seemed safer all around.
I might try some gun-heavy runs if I can find them early enough, though. Charge packs aren't too hard to come by, and a team of Shalem / Nika could probably clean up pretty quickly, in the right circumstances.
Mission report: 1st Expert run through, 27 hours remaining.
Weapons are looking worse than I'd like, but there are a few bright spots.
Sharp's just blown the last of my funds on a Biogenic D.A.R.T., but paired with that augment that adds +1 armor piercing to ranged weapons, I now have someone who can take out the heavy armor guys in the endgame without spawning fresh daemons (unless they go to higher armor levels on Expert. Please tell me they don't go to higher armor levels on Expert). I'm going to load him up with any charge packs I can find.
Prism and Banks have a Neural Disruptor and a Power Disruptor, so they're on strictly low-level guard neutralisation duty, while the recently rescued Decker is having to make do with a Shock Trap. He hasn't had occasion to use it yet, as he's mostly been limited to pinning duties.
(Is this the only game that grants an actual gameplay benefit to teabagging? I think it might be)
A door-mounted shock trap, a smoke grenade and PING each turned out to be exactly what I needed at exactly the right time in the last mission, the latter especially. I don't think I'll leave home without it ever again
:edit: and victory again, managed to liberate Shalem 11 and visit an unlocked nanofab before the end, so I was well loaded. End mission went far better this time.
Apparently I've unlocked everything as well, XP is capped out, and the achievement popped. Seems odd that only 6 of the 10 agents have alt versions, but what can you do.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Yep. Entering hour 77and on my first Xenonauts campaign, I very much agree!
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
The first after a certain point, to leave a level, you need to find an Exit Key. They're kept in a random safe on the level, and if you don't have it, you can't rush for the exit if things get too hairy.
The second is that after day 5, you start the day with an amped up Daemon pre-installed for 20 turns. Nasty stuff like all programmes costing 2 PWR more, or starting at Stage 2 alert. The least punishing is probably the one that increases item CDs by 3 turns.
And on alert 3 of every mission, the game will spawn an extra patrol and a daemon that marks one of your agents for that turn (and does this for 3 turns). Result? Guards will enter Disturbed/Alerted state, and things get dicey.
Anyway, this results in some pretty serious complications to your best-laid plans
Case in point, around day 7, I got a vault mission.
Finding the vault and the door to the escape elevator wasn't too hard. But by the time I'd looted the place, we were already on Alert 4, and climbing. For reference here is the final picture of the level, just before I made my escape.
Now the vault is a one-way in deal, with a nasty choke in front of the vault grid:
So getting out of there was a minor nightmare, and ended up involving an ever-growing pile of unconscious guards in the antechamber. Then I headed 'south', because the only safes I could see were down near where the elevator is. Both had Daemons and 6-7 firewalls...
Well, it turns out, no, that's not where the escape key is. So I'm wondering where the hell it is, and I realise that there's an area in the northeast that I had assumed was just as guard elevator, but does have room for more.
Yes, down two corridor's worth of no cover, with the high alert still spawning new guards in, while the old lot are still out baying for my blood.
You see that bastard safe nestled away in the eastern corner? That's the fucker. Of course, just as I reach it (after creating several distractions, involving sacrificing and reviving a squad member), the game adds a friendly OMNI guard spawn into the mix, so I have to take that down too. And where, pray tell, have the horde of bastard corp guards congregated while I'm getting the key? That's right, in the south-facing corridor that is the only way for me to get back to the elevator.
Thankfully, I learnt two things this day.
One. Identical items do not share cooldowns. What this means is that something like Cloak III, which cloaks your entire team until the start of your next turn, is fantastic if you can get more than one, as it lets you chain cloaks without the enemy getting a shot off.
Two. Say No To Stim. Stim packs are amazing. You can create a bucket chain and pass them back to the slowest member of your team. They happened to be an MVP in another hunt-the-exit-key escapade (I had to sprint, Cloaked, down a corridor of guards with Decker who had finally managed to find the key, and then pop one Stim on him and one Stim on Prism, in order to get everyone into the elevator before we were summarily executed), but here they just managed to get everyone through without taking a bullet to the head.
Pictured: final screen just before everyone gets into the damn elevator. Not visible is just how many other guards are searching that room.
And the score screen:
So yeah, late-game Endless is balls to the wall difficult, but intensely rewarding when you pull it off. My last four or five missions have been nailbiters, including realising that I simply had to bail on a Sankaku vault, and spending something like 10 turns pinned down by homicidal murderbots, trying to get Nika back up so we could all get out of there alive.
Are you doing Endless Plus? Or just regular Endless?
For instance, you unlock 2 characters in your first game. you cant quite beat the last level, so you conceed the game, start a new one. This time you get to pick 2 characters from the 4 total you have unlocked. When the game starts you only have access to the 2 characters you picked. (I suppose you could 'rescue' characters that you already have unlocked) in your game.
:edit: well partially, I have no clue if it's range is the same, and it doesn't let you suck consoles remotely, but it def reveals things.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Internationale's wireless hacking is awesome, but since it's an augment, you'll still get it if you rescue her during the campaign.
Whereas I find Decker more useful for having a cloak from the start, rather than his daemon-identifying augment. If I rescue him later on, he's missing his best feature. Likewise, picking up Shalem later on means you might have a perfect killing machine but no lethal weapons to give him.
I'm nearing the end of Expert, and the last two missions have been real skin of my teeth, one-more-turn-and-I'd-have-been-doomed escapes. Flash and smoke grenades have been real life-savers, I'm going to have to try to find some more going into the final mission, as I'd never have made it without them.
Finished anyway, but I was a bit annoyed. It's hard enough to fill those slots as it is, might as well let them stack where applicable.
Started with Banks & Internationale, picked up Decker near the end. Right before the final mission I milked a Fabricator facility dry, so I had AP 2 self-reloading dart guns on Decker & Banks, and everybody with stunners. Banks and Internationale both had Paralyzers, which I used with perhaps too much gusto, dragging guys along, pinning them until the cooldown was up so I could walk away from them with 5 to 8 rounds of KO.
For Incognita I had Parasite, Ping, Hunter, and Fusion. Ping was very useful in the Decker prison break to let him squeak past an elite guard while he was still weaponless.
I started a new game with Nika and Sharp, just to see how a game with just murderous sociopaths goes.
If there's one on a door, and your agent is the one to open it, they're the one going down for 4 turns (and the enemy AI will then try and keep them pinned afterwards).
At least during the beta, that stupid cloak-bomb augment made noise. Made it dicey but neat.
It is nice being able to go at your own pace. Last mission was still a pain because RNG didn't give me a ranged AP augment to go with the biogenic D.A.R.T.s I bought, so AP 3 was a no-go. And on top of that, while the daemon description is that it has a guard investigate the location of an agent a turn, in practice it was 'everyone on the map dogpiles into the security mainframe at once.' Had three guys snoozing in the door, and was luckily able to kite the surviving armor 3 guy into the room without spotting anyone so I could have everyone run out.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Even if I think that being able to go at your own pace kinda sounds like something that could break the games risk/reward structure pretty hard.
I've had to rewind four times because I've messed that up.
Two of those times were me screwing up on the same door with the same agent, twice in a row.
In other news, I completed Expert! Final level was fun. I had four agents up and hunting me during my push to the final room, and I was out of usable tools to take most of them down.
So my agents decided (not entirely of their own volition, I admit) to distract the guards while Central and Monst3r ran for the target.
By the final turn, three of my agents were down, and the last one cornered in a room with no escape.
But I still won, so suck it, enemies!
I'm going to see how many mistakes I make in Time Attack. I'm guessing a lot.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Yeah, Fusion + Parasite were what I used for my winning run. They're practically E-Z mode. You kinda have to be careful to make sure you have 5 power at the end of the Fusion's duration so you can activate it again, but if you can do that then you're golden.
My new game was with Parasite and the one that takes 4 power off your first ability usage per turn. This is not an ideal combo, because often your first use of Parasite is 0-cost anyway.
I'mma gonna live with it.
One downside of parasite that I've run into: When new cameras come online, I usually hack the ones that I know are going to give me trouble while they're still booting up. They come online under my control from the off, and all is well.
But setting Parasite on them, even with just the 1 firewall to break, means they'll come online under enemy control, see anyone in their field-of-view, react, then get hacked by Parasite. So if you've got anyone standing in their sightline as they're coming on, get them out of it.
I had one cakewalk mission suddenly turn quite tense while I learned that.
Example: Agent covered by a guard on overwatch.
Second agent with stunner will not make it in time.
Second agent sprints to where the third agent is, hands off the stunner.
Third agent, also sprinting, has JUST enough AP to get to the side of the guard and take them out.
I must have done this three times on this level alone.
My run started with Xu and Internationale and the Power Drip and Parasite programs. I got to pick up Banks, Shalem, and a program that took out 1 firewall in a certain radius for 3 power.
Something that I'm still not sure is if a guard is in overwatch on Agent 1, if Agent 2 goes into a noticed tile, will the guard shoot Agent 2? I'm fairly sure this happens if they go into a Watched tile, but I swear sometimes they ignore the agent in the noticed tile and sometimes they turn to shoot.
I think it might be possible to get through it without Internationale, but it would be really really difficult...
I'm doing a run with International and Banks that looks to be going real well so far.