Moving up from Easy to Normal


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Having successfully managed to complete Easy a few times (after various mishaps, mistakes and plain OMG WTF do I do now? moments), I decided it was time to put my hard won knowledge and skills to the test by moving up to Normal.

 

Ouch :)

 

Ok, so I'm getting better, moving faster, and often managing to slip out of situations which were looking deeply unpromising.  The biggest issue I have now is cash.  Cash for equipment, programs and upgrades.  Unless you get pretty lucky with a couple of tasty vault raids and security depots it seems to be really difficult to be able to afford what you need to be able to "stay on the rolling log" of progressively harder missions, armoured guards, and programs to deal with Droids and Daemons.

 

There seem to be randomly occuring situations where you basically "need" particular items (cloaks, EMPs, programs, guns, etc) in order to have a chance of dealing with them.  I.e. the classic heavily armoured stationary guard covering the choke point you simply have to get through.

 

Obviously I'm open to advice here, but have chucked in various games purely on not really getting very good missions to play - too far apart, not the stuff you need (lovely to visit a nano-fab or server farm...but not if you have no cash anyway and are only likely to find a pretty limited amount).  I usually start with Banks and Internationale (cos Banks can hack doors and do paralysing serum), try to get more anarchy early for the money, hit vaults and detention centers if at all possible, and sometimes get myself killed trying to rob as many safes as possible :)

 

However, I do think there could do to be an adjustment in the cash relative to difficulty.  There's a huge drop from Easy to Normal, let alone the extra time restraints.  Maybe Klei could add a "hard" mode with similar cash to Normal, and put normal up a little?

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There seem to be randomly occuring situations where you basically "need" particular items (cloaks, EMPs, programs, guns, etc) in order to have a chance of dealing with them.  I.e. the classic heavily armoured stationary guard covering the choke point you simply have to get through.

 

 

There aren't very many straight up gear checks. The only one I can really think of is null drones hanging out with other drones. Even armored guards can be lured out of position with a little finesse. 

 

A big part of normal mode is getting the job done without a lot of fancy gear. The only gear that I think is absolutely vital is a disruptor with two AP and a cheap gun to take out null drones that can't be avoided. Any gear past that is gravy. 

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Ok, so I'm getting better, moving faster, and often managing to slip out of situations which were looking deeply unpromising. The biggest issue I have now is cash. Cash for equipment, programs and upgrades. Unless you get pretty lucky with a couple of tasty vault raids and security depots it seems to be really difficult to be able to afford what you need to be able to "stay on the rolling log" of progressively harder missions, armoured guards, and programs to deal with Droids and Daemons.

I do tend to reroll my starting map if I don't like what I see (Executive Terminal missions I'm looking at you!), or when my starting Security Dispatch gives me something really useless (Accelerator Chip I'm looking at you!), and try to find a map with Vaults, Detention Centers and Security Dispatches to start with, once you've got the ball rolling it becomes easier.

As for the statonary Heavy Guard problem, try luring him away with creative use of door opening, and getting into his Noticed visual cone and then slip past while he's busy with his wild Moose chase.

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Thanks for the advice guys, I'm aware that I'm still learning new tricks and figuring out better ways to deal with difficult situations.  A 2 AP stunner is usually top of my shopping list (even better if you can just get one from a security dispatch - damned accelator chips :(), but sometimes you do come across these rooms that are just crawling with security, including heavily armoured, and lacking cover or door vision you can use.

 

I think has already been suggested somewhere, but making server farms and nano-fabs more potentially profitable would seem part of the solution.  Maybe you can get contracts to install a program or make a particular object for a third party respectively at these locations - something that isn't useful to you, and carries a risk/penalty of increasing the alarm level when you do it, but can be sold at a reasonably good profit afterwards?

 

As it stands, I frequently just turn over the guards and safes in these locations (unless the early vault/detention runs have been particularly successful) and don't even bother accessing the primary objective because it's a waste of time seeing "what you could have bought if you had any money".  Often those cool toys you found at the security dispatch require a fairly substantial investment to be usable (hacking 4 or anarchy 4) and I sometimes find myself losing at Very Guarded before I can actually make these tools usable!

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I just moved up as well, and seem to be doing fine so far. The most important learning point for me was being able to differentiate really useful stuff from the this seems practical. For example, anarchy level 2 on agents allows you to sneak but still have access to guards' pockets. My biggest change in playstyle is simply luring guards and understanding the difference between their "huh?" and "aha!". Once they're looking for you, things get a lot more difficult (i.e. it's a lot easier to make do with less gear and skill levels if you can just avoid the guards more). Obviously a takeout is typically inevitable at some point, but then my strategy is to pin that guard for as long as possible, until I need both agents or another guard is taken out by the other agent. I also use the run button more freely - guards can only detect it a few (5?) tiles away, so after knowing where the guards are, you know approximately when you can run (I used to only run when making it to the elevator on the last turn before).

 

As for the expensive security dispatch tools, they are great for selling at a nanofabricator for the extra cash you need for the really useful stuff. Also consider selling other items you never really need, but find convenient once in a while.

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Aha, finally made it!  Had a reasonable early run but ended up with tons of executive suites and not a lot of money.  The way things turned out, I never had a chance at getting additional agents (2 client prisoners only), AP weaponry or EMPs - didn't even see em.  I managed to get a melee AP upgrade bionic thingy to get me AP 1 on Banks, a shock trap 2, and enough paralyser to tranquilize a reasonable sized herd of buffalo.  And Dagger. 

 

That was about it, so the last few "extremely guarded" missions tended to be an exercise in evasion, survival, and running like hell for the exit while trying to grab any loose cash that was floating about.  I approached the final mission with a sense of "meh, well, this is probably not gonna happen...".  Then I saw this:

 

invisinc.png

invisinc1.png

 

It turns out the rest of the level was pretty much unconnected, with the courier to the south of the big corridor, and the elevator to the north...so I definitely had to get through this checkpoint, and then free the courier, and get him back across the corridor to the top!

 

I must have learnt something though...some cleverly planned diversions, some madcap robot on robot action, three guards dosed with enough paralyzer to placate a ramapaging wilderbeast, and one OMG daemon turned out to be a blowfish later...everyone made it to the lift just ahead of the pack of elite enforcers...

 

:grin:

 

BTW I do have the save file for this if anybody wants a go, I hadn't saved before this point, and made it on my first go!

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