My 170 hours with Invisible Inc.


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My 170 hours with Invisible Inc.

 

I just noticed my time with Invisible Inc. on Steam the other day.  I haven’t sunk this many hours into a game since FTL took over my life three years ago.  I have nothing but praise for Invisible Inc. (even the title’s subtle pun is awesome).  The gameplay is so tightly tuned, while the aesthetics are very slick and stylish.  And the atmosphere, oh man, don’t even get me started on that.  Even after all the time I’ve spent with the game, each mission’s pervading sense of tension and dread still makes my body pump out adrenaline without fail.

 

I’m done with the game for now, waiting to see what new stuff the free update and paid DLC will bring next month, but I thought I’d share my tips, advice, and minor gameplay strategies for anyone interested.

 

A note on the game modes before I begin in earnest; I’ve beaten the game numerous times on all the difficulty levels and completed all the achievements except Time Attack (don’t think my aging heart would like the extra stress), Daemon Code (tried a game with Faust and found it very annoying), and Never Look Back (I’m not that much of a masochist).  Although I like the Story modes just fine, I’m a little more partial to the Endless modes since they give me more time to develop my agents instead of just cobbling together a random mix of characters, augments, and equipment in the hope that it’ll all hold together in the final mission.

 

Let’s get started.

 

Agents

 

Dr. Xu

 

This guy is hands down the best agent in my opinion.  Though I don’t usually start games with him, I breathe a huge sigh of relief whenever I see him in a detention center.  His subdermal tools augment is the most versatile and useful of any in the game.

 

Suited for:

  • killing camera drones.
  • opening safes (especially those with daemons installed, since his tools don’t remove firewalls).
  • disabling generators so all your other agents can waltz past turrets and laser grids.
  • disabling heart monitors on guards so my firearms specialist can shoot them in the face with no repercussions.
  • disabling the shielding of Omni Protectors (who are a huge pain in the ass otherwise) AND their heart monitors all in one go, so the agent with the plasma gun can shoot them in the face.
  • disabling larger drones (you can do this indefinitely with one drone if you hang around and stun it every turn).
  • removing 2 firewalls on devices with magnetic reinforcements.

Tips:

  • using his subdermal tools counts as an attack so you can’t attack anyone during that turn or disable more than one device per turn (unless you use a Stim III).
  • because using his tools counts as an attack it also declocaks you, so sending him cloaked into a monitored room to disable a device is not possible without arousing attention.
  • I generally try and make a path for him so he can use his tools as often as possible (ideally every turn), and send him to rooms with multiple daemon protected safes whenever viable.
  • I like augmenting him with Net Downlink, Torque Injectors, and a Penetration Scanner.
  • I like giving him a Cloaking Rig, a Stim III, and a Buster Chip or two (for magnetically reinforced devices).

 

Internationale

 

Almost always one of my starting agents, her unique augment is incredibly useful on all difficulties, but especially on Expert Plus and Endless Plus when camera and turret visibility cones are hidden.

 

Suited for:

  • scouting new rooms for cameras, turrets, safes, and other devices without actually going inside them.
  • scouting for drones and Omni Protectors in new rooms without going inside them.
  • hacking a console for power at a distance.
  • using EMP packs (she can use EMP I packs with no further investment in hacking skill).

Tips:

  • I don’t always use her to hack consoles at a distance when I have someone on my team that can get more power from said console with an Accelerator Chip, but when in a power emergency (when you absolutely MUST have a few extra power to disable a drone, device, or Omni Protectors shielding) or when going into a room is not really worthwhile (too many guards to stun/distract or too many cameras to disable) her ability to get power from consoles over a distance and through walls is priceless.
  • if she has spare APs and I’m stuck in a room waiting for a guard to pass or for Parasite to disable a camera or device, I often have her run the perimeter of the room to see if she can detect any devices in neighboring rooms.
  • I like augmenting her with Net Downlink, and two units of Distributed Processing.
  • I like giving her EMP packs, Med Gel, and Portable Servers.

 

Banks

 

Almost always my other starting agent, her augment isn’t as unique as Dr. Xu’s or Internationale’s (you can find multiple security cards on guards in every mission) but it is nevertheless very useful in opening up new paths for exploration/escape, especially when faced with an overwhelming security presence.  Her starting stats and equipment also make her a very useful starting agent.  With Level 2 Anarchy, she can steal from all the guards in the first mission without knocking them out, and when you do have to knock one or two guards out, her custom paralyzer means you don’t have to babysit those guards for fear of them waking up.

 

Suited for:

  • scouting new paths through locked doors
  • stealing from guards

Tips:

  • don’t unlock doors unless it offers very a tangible advantage, guards will never open these doors but will take very circuitous paths to get to what’s on the other side.  These doors prove very useful in controlling guard traffic when alarms rise to dangerous levels.
  • opening a locked door sometimes changes a guard’s patrol path; usually this happens when going through the newly unlocked door will make their patrol path shorter.  This can sometimes be beneficial, but has led to a few tense situations when a guard walked into a room I thought was safe.
  • although Banks can be tailored to many playstyles, I generally boost her Anarchy to Level 4 as soon as possible and make her take the lead in scouting new rooms and stealing from guards.  I try and avoid stealing from guards with other agents if they have lower Anarchy skill.  If I stun or kill a guard with another agent, I try and get Banks near them first to get more credits before letting another agent pilfer any items.
  • a lot of useful gear (Buster Chips, Accelerator Chips, and Paralyzers) are dependent on the Anarchy skill and I usually make Banks the one who carries and uses most of these high level items.
  • I like augmenting her with Net Downlink, Torque Injectors, and a Penetration Scanner.
  • I like giving her a Cloaking Rig, a Stim III, an Accelerator Chip, Buster Chips, and sometimes a Portable Server (if I upgrade Banks’ hacking skill before Internationale).

 

Nika

 

Although many of the other agents (Shalem, Sharp, or even Decker) can fill the final role on my ideal team, none do it as well as Nika.  The role in question is the one that comes to the fore when the proverbial **** hits the fan.  Nika’s unique augment let’s her kill or stun twice as many foes as anyone else in a single turn.

 

Suited for:

  • eliminating the opposition with extreme prejudice

Tips:

  • although Nika is quite scary in a melee role (especially if you augment her with Predictive Brawling), unless you give her a Power Disruptor or multiple Neural Disruptors, she won’t be able to make full use of her two attacks per turn.  This is why I usually make her responsible for the ranged weapons in my team.
  • when paired together with Dr. Xu, they can make a great kill squad.  Use Dr. Xu to disable guard’s heart monitors and then have Nika shoot them in the face.
  • when conserving power or in an emergency, firearms can also be used to take out cameras.  The cost/benefit ratio of this is pretty crappy at the beginning of the game when cameras have low level firewalls and no daemons, but with an efficient gun like the Hand Cannon (3 shots per charge) it becomes a much more plausible option when you have cameras with 6 or 7 firewalls and may have a daemon installed.
  • I like augmenting her with Net Downlink, and two levels of Piercing Scanners.  If I don’t have Dr. Xu on my team, I trade the Net Downlink for Anatomy Analysis so I can still go lethal without too much hassle.  You need to remember to have enough power before you make a kill using Anatomy Analysis, or alarms will sound.  No such problems when you have Dr. Xu on your team.
  • I like giving her a Hand Cannon, a Drilling D.A.R.T., one or two Stim IIIs, a Ventricular Lance, a Holographic Projector, and a charge pack.

 

Programs

 

Programs can be roughly broken down into categories:  power generation, hacking, daemon control, and miscellaneous.  I find that you need at least one program from the first three (though I usually try to have Parasite and another program for hacking) while the miscellaneous ones add perks to your playstyle.

 

Power Generation

 

Fusion is really a no-brainer once you unlock it, as a source of power it’s nearly twice as good as Power Drip.  It does need a little strategy to use though, because it requires 5 power to run and you may find yourself without power if you let your reserves drop below 5 with no console in sight.  A certain arch daemon in Endless runs can make this a very expensive source of power, especially on Plus modes so it’s good to have some other way of generating power (with portable servers, a console hacking agent with an high level Accelerator Chip, or an agent with few of the Distributed Processing augments).

 

Seed turns the idea of power generation on its head, but once you wrap your mind around how it works and find a few good programs to complement it, it’s incredibly strong.  It reduces the cost of the first program you use each turn by four.  As long as you’re hacking each turn, and the first program you use costs at least 4 power, Seed is essentially giving you 4 power each turn (which is more than double the power that Fusion provides per turn, and quadruple the amount that Power Drip gives).  The catch is that you won’t be hacking every single turn, and it may take you some time before you find the programs that really take advantage of it.  A program that really makes Seed shine is Oracle.  Oracle costs 4 power, so with Seed you can hack one random camera for free each turn.  This synergy is already quite powerful at the beginning of the game, but later on it saves you a crazy amount of power as well as giving you unparalleled situational awareness of the entire level for free.  Hammer (5 firewalls for 5 power) and Hunter (kills daemon for 5 power) are also great programs to use along with Seed since judicious use of them each turn will only cost you one power.

 

Hacking

 

Parasite allows you to hack single devices for no power, one firewall per turn, but it becomes less economical the more devices you’re trying to hack with it at once.  It’s great for hacking devices in waves of 3 or 4, or for slowly hacking devices with large firewalls that you know you’ll need to hack before the end of the mission (an Omni Protector or a camera at the exit for example).  There are two things to keep in mind when using Parasite later on in the game.  Parasite will continue hacking a safe that you’ve disabled and opened using EMP.  So using Parasite to lower firewalls on safes protected by a daemons to lower their firewalls enough so magnetic reinforcements don’t kick in before blasting them with EMP will still trigger the daemon a turn or two later when the Parasite finished hacking the device.  A similar situation happens with Omni Protectors.  Parasite is great for lowering their firewall based armor but will continue hacking their firewall even after you’ve knocked them out.

 

While Parasite is great for systemic hacking, a program that lets you remove firewalls right away is nearly essential.  Lockpick v2.0 (2 firewalls for 3 power) is my favorite but if I can’t find it, I’ll use Lockpick v1.0 (1 firewall for 2 power).  Rapier is one of the most economical programs on low alarm levels (1 firewall for 1 power), but becomes prohibitive after alarm level 3 and very dangerous to use on Endless runs when certain arch daemons install.  Both Dagger v1.0 and v2.0 are good for this role too, but their cooldowns often become a problem.

 

Daemon Control

 

Daemons really make their presence felt in the mid to later parts of the game, and some way of dealing with them is quite helpful, though not absolutely necessary.  The Daemon Sniffer will identify a daemon on any device for no power cost with a 3 turn cooldown, but as useful as that is, it’s not really worth filling up a program slot with it.  Decker’s augment lets you identify daemons on adjacent devices, and there’s an item (Scan Chip) that does the same thing with a 2 turn cooldown.  Knowing what to expect can mitigate the damage of a daemon install but two programs let you avoid the daemons all together.

 

Taurus lets you move a daemon to a random device for 2 power and I’d say it’s perfect for “story” runs when there are devices you can move the daemon to.  Sometimes it’s worthwhile to leave some devices online just for this purpose.  One of my favorite ways to get rid of daemons via Taurus permanently is to get them on a camera drone just before I fry it with an EMP pack or Dr. Xu’s subdermal tools (you need to get lucky though).

 

Hunter lets you kill any daemon for 5 power with a 3 turn cooldown and is my ideal choice for Endless runs when certain arch daemons make Taurus next to useless.  Another feature of Hunter is that it kills the unconscious Plastech hacker guards who possess mainframe devices if you use it to eliminate their daemon.  This does set off their heart monitor though with the raised alarm levels that come with it.  I haven't tried disabling their heart monitors before using Hunter, and I don't see a reason why that shouldn't work.

 

Miscellaneous

 

Oracle could probably fit in the hacking category since cameras are one of a few devices that nearly always have to get hacked to progress through a level.  Oracle hacks a random camera for 4 power.  In the early game this isn’t very economical with camera firewalls at level 1 or 2, but later on when you find some cameras have 6 or 7 firewalls it’s an absolute power bargain.  It’s very useful to use on the first turn of a mission if you can’t find anything to hack with Parasite right away.  To get the most out of it, try and hack all the low firewall cameras before using this program.  Hacking cameras with Oracle does count towards getting your agents extra APs via Net Downlink but also installs any daemons that were protecting said cameras.  Oracle only hacks active cameras, the cameras that go online after alarm level 1 are only hackable by Oracle after they boot following alarms elevating to level 1.  Finally, when there are no more hackable cameras on a level, Oracle lets you know with a message when you mouse over the program icon.  This very convenient because it lets you run around the level with a little more freedom on Plus modes, knowing you don’t need to peek into rooms and around corners looking for cameras.

 

Another miscellaneous program of note is Ping.  It lets you create a noise anywhere on the map for 1 power with a 4 turn cooldown.  Although not necessary by any means, it is very useful in those “Oh, ****!” moments when you have a horde of Enforcers bearing down on you or when a 9 armor Omni Protector finds the drone you just hacked.  New distractions supersede a guard’s previous task, so make sure you use Ping after all the suspicious activity it’s meant to cover up.  I recall a few  times when my carefully planned use of Ping was wasted because I decided to close a door after using it within view of the guard that I was trying to distract.

 

Augments

 

I imagine all the augments have their uses in various playstyles, here are my favorites:

 

Net Downlink

 

This is by far the best augment in my opinion.  When playing Endless, I try and get every agent on my team with this augment.  You get 2 AP for every device you hack (including devices you hack using Buster Chips) up to a maximum of 6 AP per turn.  Stuck out of cover in the middle of a room?  Hack a camera or two and you’ve got a few extra APs to get behind a desk.  Short a tile or two from a guard that’s going to shoot another agent in the face?  Hack that forgotten turret in the corner of the map and you’re golden.  A few steps short of a Nano Fabricator but need to spend all your money ‘cause your Parasite is eating the last firewall protected by a Felix daemon?  Hack that useless camera drone that’s ineffectually searching for your team on the other side of the map again and you’re good to go.  I cannot count the number of times this augment has saved my skin.

 

One of two strategies I use when I have agents with this augment is what I call the hack/explore cycle.  I spend a turn consolidating my position in a room and hacking devices (Parasite is extremely useful for this) so their firewalls go down on the next turn.  With six extra APs on the next turn it’s much easier to explore new rooms and find three more devices to hack.  The second strategy involves hacking only the devices that are necessary at the moment, and saving others like out-of-the-way cameras/turrets, or console databases (and lowering their firewalls if possible) so I can hack them quickly in the future if I desperately need a couple APs for an agent.

 

Torque Injectors

 

This augment lowers item cooldown by one turn.  It doesn’t sound like much and doesn’t have a huge effect on high cooldown items.  However, when paired with low cooldown items like Accelerator Chips or high level Buster Chips and Stims, it lets you use them very often indeed.  Accelerator Chips have a cooldown of 2, with Torque Injectors you can use them every turn.  Level III Buster Chips have a cooldown of 3, with Torque Injectors you can remove 4 firewalls on devices every other turn.  With Torque Injectors, Stim IIIs can start being a regularly used item instead of being saved for those “Oh ****!” moments.

 

Penetration Scanner

 

You really need at least one agent on your team with this augment and a Neural Disruptor III or guards with Armor 3 become very difficult to deal with.

 

Piercing Scanner

 

These turn the more economical firearms into more potent weapons.  With just one level of this augment, the Hand Cannon becomes just as effective as a vanilla Cooker, but uses three times less ammo.

 

Distributed Processing

 

Free power.  Two of these give you an average of 1 power per turn (though not always - but in essence this is like having the Power Drip program without taking up a program slot).  Extra power is useful all the time, but a certain arch daemon in Endless runs make it extremely valuable.  There are quicker ways of getting power with items (Accelerator Chips and Portable Servers), but Accelerator Chips require you to go hunting for consoles, while Portable Servers need to get deployed and picked up again.  Distributed Processing isn't really a better alternative to these, but it does keep you stocked with a little bit of power while mobile which is quite useful on certain level layouts.

 

Weapons and Items

 

The game has plethora of items, all of them useful, but some very situational.  Here are my favorites.

 

Hand Cannon

 

My favorite lethal weapon.  You need a few Piercing Scanner augments to make it useful against armored targets, but even without that, the three round magazine makes it very economical against soft targets and cameras.

 

Holographic Projector

 

It provides on square of cover anywhere you throw it.  Needless to say it is extremely useful in the early game when your agents don’t have many APs and can’t run through a room in one turn before a guard can return from a patrol.  Also useful for your firearms agent since you can shoot at anything over cover but must step into doorways and from behind corners to aim at targets you can see while peeking.  Two things to keep in mind:  you cannot place the projector next to a guard or so that he passes next to it on his patrol path, even if they’re on the other side of a wall (they’ll get alerted and you’ll lose your cover), and you cannot deploy the projector in a guard’s visibility cone (again they’ll get alerted and you’ll lose your cover).  Otherwise it’s a great way of screening your agents, guard bodies, knocked out drones, or your portable server from prying eyes.  Try not to forget it when leaving a mission; I still sometimes forget to pick it up when heading for the exit.

 

Stim III

 

Not only does it give you 8 APs, it also refreshes your attack.  Great for getting back into cover while exploring and very useful for knocking out or killing multiple targets in one turn.  Dr. Xu can use this to use his subdermal tools again during the same turn.

 

Accelerator Chip III

 

The best way to get the most out of consoles and once you have a dedicated agent with one of these running around, the hacking side of the game gets a lot easier.

 

Buster Chip III

 

Higher level Buster Chips not only burn more firewalls but also have lower cooldowns.  An agent with two or three of these is a walking hacking machine.  They are a lifesaver on Endless runs when a certain arch daemon makes hacking using Incognita less than viable.

 

Cloaking Rig III

 

Can cloak your entire team if they’re grouped tightly enough together but has a fairly long cooldown.  It lasts until the start of your next turn so any cameras/turrets which finish getting hacked by Parasite at the start of the turn won’t see you.  I generally save the Cloaking Rigs for when things go south or if I’m really pressed for time and need to get by a room with two or more stationary guards/drones.  Attacks – including Dr. Xu’s subdermal tools – make you decloak so hack any cameras/turrets and make sure you’re out of other’s guards’ visibility cones before disabling things with Dr. Xu or attacking.

 

Portable Server III

 

Two power every turn when deployed really helps to alleviate any power shortages.  Make sure to deploy it out of sight of guards or you’ll lose it.  Remember to pick it up before leaving the mission.

 

Missions

 

All missions give you the opportunity to get cash and buy gear at each level’s Nanofab.  Some give you the opportunity to reap more unique rewards, but since time is never on your side I usually do all missions near each other before moving on to a different continent.  Minor spoilers below.

 

Detention Center missions are the ones I will go out of my way to do if I don’t have a full team.  Additional agents on your team are the best possible reward in my opinion and greatly expand you options in future missions.

 

I go to Cybernetic Labs to install new augment slots for my agents, not really for the free augments (I usually end up getting most of my augments from Nanofab Vestibule missions or regular Nanofabs).  Once you use one of the Augment Grafters, some devices that you hacked get taken back from you.  This is sometimes a pain but also provides hidden opportunity.  The devices that come back on have only one firewall so they are ripe for hacking when you need a few more APs via Net Downlink.  They’re also great for when you need to move a newly discovered daemon using Taurus and are one of the only ways to use Taurus on Endless mode when a certain arch daemon spawns daemons on every single device in a level.

 

My favorite missions are at Financial Suites.  The executive always has a great deal of cash on him, and the vault access card you get from him once successful can net a huge load of credits if you’re lucky enough to have a Corporate Vault mission available nearby afterwards.  A few turns after you knock the executive out, an Enforcer spawns and makes a beeline for the last known position of the executive, so you need to be ready for him.  When alarmed, the executive will make a run for the nearest guard spawn point and leave the level.  This is sometimes preferable if he’ll end up running towards your agents, but not always easy to pull off.  If you step too far away from the executive while his brain is getting hacked, you will fail to obtain the Vault Access card you would normally get once the process is done.

 

Corporate Vault and Security Dispatch are straight forward smash and grab endeavors.  An Enforcer spawns when you open a container in the Vault, while the nearest guard will come to investigate when you open the item locker on Security Dispatch missions.  Both missions have laser grids blocking the way to the goods (the Vault laser grid always has its own power generator), while the door to the item locker in Security Dispatch missions always requires a keycard or Banks.

 

I don’t usually go out of my way to do Server Farm and Executive Terminal missions unless I’ve had horrible luck finding programs, or when my team is still only two agents and there are no Detention Centers to be found.  This is still very luck based.  On my last Endless Plus game, I ended up doing three Executive Terminal missions before finally getting a Detention Center to spawn.

 

Corporations

 

My favorite corporation to plunder is FTM.  The unique challenge of doing missions on their turf seems to be the Scanning AMP, a special device which while active will make a nearby guard investigate the location of one agent at each alarm level.  Sounds scary but the AMP is always easy to find since it makes a droning noise when you pan your view over its location on the map (it doesn’t need to be visible for this to work) so right off the bat you should know which direction to start heading for at the start of the mission.  If you don’t manage to disable it before a change in alarm levels, it’s not that big of a deal, you just need to make sure the guard sent to investigate doesn’t see anything suspicious and he’ll be back to his normal patrol route in no time.  Finally, when you do disable the AMP, you can loot it for an item that nets you free credits at the end of the mission.  Talk about win-win.  FTM seem to have a bigger security camera presence but it could just be me.

 

K&O have hardly any security cameras on their levels, making up for that with automated turrets.  I find their missions to be quite difficult on Plus difficulty since without a camera presence, you’re often running a little blind and their guards with 180 degree vision cones are much more difficult to hide from.  The one saving grace of K&O missions is that the turrets are a double edged sword.  Hacking their generators disables them, but hacking the turrets themselves makes them actively target and engage guards.  This is incredibly useful in an emergency, when everyone is on alert actively hunting your agents and you’re trying to retreat towards the exit.  My tensest moment in the game came at a K&O Nanofab on the fifth day of my first Endless playthrough when an arch daemon raised alarm levels to two and all hell broke loose when Countermeasures kicked five turns later while I was trying to figure out why the door to the exit was locked.  With not nearly enough agents and Paralyzers to stem the tidal surge of rampaging guards, I resorted to dragging their unconscious bodies into the fields of fire of hacked turrets and letting them wake up to the sound of their own doom.

 

Sankaku levels are covered with sound bugs which make running and firing weapons a last resort unless you hack them.  Akuma drones with 180 degree vision cones are also a huge pain.  If you have a good source of power these levels can be quite easy since nearly everything here is hackable.  With Parasite it’s often a good idea to slowly hack a path through sound bugs so you can run to the exit without attracting too much attention at the end of the mission.  When in dire straits, a good strategy is taking over any weaponized drones and using them to thin the numbers of other hostile drones and guards.  Good drones for this job are Akuma (they can pierce two levels of armor) and Obake v2.0 (they can pierce one level of armor).

 

Plastech takes the crown for hosting the most annoying missions.  Their guards have an ability to take back devices within a six tile radius at the start of their turn and it can be a major pain in the ass when you’re trying to sneak by and they keep turning a security camera back on.  Stunning isn’t a great course of action because they spawn as daemons on devices when unconscious, so I very often go weapons free and kill them outright to avoid constantly fighting over a camera or power generator.  I don’t always kill them though because their hacking back of devices does have a silver lining.  The devices that get hacked back only get one firewall, so if you have Parasite and some agents with Net Downlink, they can be a source of free extra APs every turn.  When dealing with them remember that they hack back devices only at the start of their turn, and not along their patrol path, so avoid hacking devices near them at the end of your turn because you’ll end up losing them right away.  If you want to avoid stunning or killing the guard, shooting the camera they keep hacking back is a viable alternative.

 

On Daemons

 

During my first few playthroughs, I compulsively tried to avoid triggering any daemons.  This attitude proved quite futile however when I got past day 5 on my first Endless playthrough and a certain arch daemon gave me no choice at all in the matter.  With the exception of Validate (spawns an extra guard who starts in an already suspicious state) and Blowfish (advances the alarm tracker) nearly all the remaining security daemons are quite manageable and are merely annoying but it’s very useful to know what you’re up against before triggering them, so hacking daemon databases is quite useful.  Another perk of hacking daemon databses is that the Mask daemon doesn't hide them again.  When faced with many of the same security daemon, I try and trigger them all at the same time (Parasite is great for this) because some of the effects are not cumulative (the exceptions to this are Labyrinth, Felix, Rubix, and Siphon).  For example, triggering three Paradox daemons at once will likely only stop you hacking for 2-3 turns, but if you triggered them one after the other you might be unable to hack for three times as long.  Another great strategy is putting yourself in a situation where their effect is negligible.  Triggering Siphon (drains power) when you have no power left to drain is harmless.  Similarly, triggering Felix (drains credits) right after spending most of your credits at a Nanofab is a great idea.  On high level missions on Endless runs, I’ve had Felix try and drain as much as 2000 credits.  In those instances it may even be worthwhile to first spend your 2000 credits at a Nanofab on anything offered, and then sell it back after triggering the daemon to at least get half your money back.  A further note on Paradox, it may stop your active hacking efforts, but any Parasites already deployed will keep hacking while Paradox is installed.  Same goes for Fusion.  You cannot activate Fusion when Paradox is installed, but if you activated Fusion just before triggering Paradox, it will fill you up on power over four turns as normal.  Finally, when triggering daemons, there’s always a small chance (15% I believe) that Incognita will convert the daemon to a beneficial one.  So, if you have excess power and have already hacked everything essential to the level or opened all the safes on a level, go ahead and hack that turret with Rubix (raises firewalls) or that power generator with Authority (puts alarms on all the safes).  You don't really have anything to lose while there’s a small chance that Incognita will turn those daemons around, and a third of the time this happens you get 200 credits.  Free money.  One further note on the Authority daemon.  It not only alarms all the traditional safes, but also other lootable objects like the display cases in vaults and the secure item lockers in Security Dispatch missions.  Opening those up when Authority is active will raise the alarm ticker by one and a guard will come to investigate as usual.

 

Other Stuff

 

To kill or not to kill?

 

The game does a good job of making you feel quite powerless and vulnerable on missions and does a great job of steering you away from playing levels like Rambo.  That said, taking guards out permanently has some very tangible benefits.  The obvious one is that they don’t wake up, so quite often if I absolutely must take a guard out right at the start of a mission, I opt to light his face up with plasma instead of using up paralyzers or having one of my agents sit on top of him like some very expensive paperweight.  Stunning Plastech guards spawns daemons, so they’re also one of my primary candidates for a plasma facial (killing those spawned daemons with the Hunter program kills the unconcious guard by the way).  Omni Protectors start regenerating their firewall shields after you knock them out, so I often like to kill them after bringing their shields down the first time so I don’t have to worry about the possibility of running into them when they’re pissed off and their armor is back up to 9.  Finally, stunning guards on Plus difficulty raises the alarm tracker, while killing them when their heart monitors are disabled does not.  Dr. Xu is perfect for disabling heart monitors, EMP packs do the job but aren’t nearly as good because they activate at the end of your turn, and the Anatomy Analysi lets you bypass regular heart monitors on guards for 3 power per kill (though you still get docked the power cost even if the guard's monitor was already disabled by Dr. Xu or and EMP pack).  Killing guards and destroying drones also comes with a financial penalty in the form of cleanup costs.  The costs don’t scale in a linear fashion, so killing too many guards in a mission can be quite hard on your wallet.  If I remember correctly, one dead drone or body costs 50 credits (very affordable), two dead bodies/drones costs 123 credits (still not so bad), while three corpses will set you back 208credits.  This is where I usually draw the line for financial reasons, but if the alternative is losing an agent or failing a mission objective, I never hesitate to leave more corpses.  One final thing I've noticed is that on max alarm levels more guards will spawn to replace the ones you kill, so even though a dead guard won't wake up in two turns, he'll usually get replaced by a live one at the start of the next turn.

 

Sound

 

Running and shooting near guards will make them come and investigate, while doing the same near Sankaku’s sound bugs will raise the alarm tracker, send guards to investigate, and change their states to alerted (not a good thing).  A general rule of thumb is to be at least 4 tiles away from a guard or sound bug when making noise.  The exception here is when you’re directly in line with a guard or sound bug, and then you need to have at least five tiles of space between them and you.  Guards investigate the latest sound they hear, so if you mess up and have a guard coming to investigate a place where your running agent just ran out of APs, make some noise with another agent to take the guard in another direction.  I believe that EMP packs also make a noise when they detonate at the end of a turn, so avoid putting them near guards unless you want them to come to investigate or don't care.

 

Doors

 

Guards investigate doors on the side that they were opened/closed from.  Seems obvious and is regularly quite predictable, but this behavior can cause problems when you’re cloaked and trying to run out of a room with a guard watching.  Opening the door from inside the room will make him investigate the spot in front of the door, but if you close the door when in the next room, the guard will investigate the tile on the other side of the door which can spell disaster if you’re out of APs and hiding just behind the door or on either side of it.  It’s prudent to leave such doors open and let the guard investigate it from inside the initial room while your agent hides just on the other side of the wall.  Guards standing right next to a door will also get alerted when it opens even if their vision cone isn’t on the door.  Drones can open doors as well and guards don’t get alerted when this happens, so if you there’s a drone nearby and you need a door open or closed without alerting a guard watching said door, you can go ahead and hack the drone to have it open/close the door for you without repercussions.  Guards in the alerted state don’t like closed doors and they’ll smash them down to investigate the other side, but they will use up that turn doing so, which lets you slow them down somewhat if their original path sent them deep into the next room.

 

APs and Running

 

You can only toggle between running and sneaking when your agents have full APs.  So if you start the turn encumbered (-1AP per extra item) or you decide to investigate a guard’s patrol path or peek behind a corner at the start of an agent’s turn you will no longer have that option.  With that in mind it’s good to peek or observe guards’ paths with agents you know don’t need to run that turn.  Another trick to remain in control of the run/sneak toggle is to drop all your extra items at the end of a turn.  Picking them back up at the start of the next turn will still give you the encumbrance penalty but you can toggle into running mode before that happens and gain a few precious APs.  Another quite powerful trick becomes available when your agent has some Stims or the Net Downlink augment.  The toggle gets disabled only when you’re under the starting APs for your agent, but if you manage to gain more APs to bring you back up to the starting number, you can toggle between sneaking and running again.  This is useful for creating a sound for a guard to investigate, but then switching back to sneak so he can’t hear where you ended your movement at.  It’s also useful in Sankaku missions when you can run through parts of the level where there are no active sound bugs but need to get back to sneaking when within range of active ones in another room.

 

Patrol Paths

 

Most guards and drones have two-turn patrol paths, with the exception of stationary guards/drones who don't move at all and Omni Harbingers who can cross nearly a whole level before turning back around.  Observing guards’ patrol paths is extremely useful and only costs one AP.  Guards in rooms with cameras or within view of a hacked drone can be observed by any agent on the level.  You can take advantage of this by having an agent who is somewhat stationary observe all the guards’ patrol paths while the other agents focus using their APs on movement.  Unlocking doors may change a guard’s patrol path, as does having a guard return from investigating something suspicious so it’s very prudent to once again observe a guard’s patrol path when one of those things happens.  Observing guards’ patrol paths becomes even more crucial when they reach an alerted state and start running all over the map.  This is not an easy situation to deal with (especially when every single guard on a level enters the alerted state) but by no means is it the end of the world if you remember to use some of your agents APs to observe all the guards and avoid their paths.

 

Magnetic Reinforcements

 

You only really have to worry about these when playing on the Endless modes.  Many devices later on come with these extra security features.  Scrolling over any device will let you see if magnetic reinforcements are installed.  They prevent you from disabling them via EMP or Dr. Xu’s subdermal tools unless you lower the device’s firewall to 2 or less.  Dr. Xu stops being the uber safe cracker that you’ve gotten used to when this happens but his tools and EMP packs remain quite potent.  You just need to carry around a Buster Chip or two (preferably of different levels) so you can lower firewalls enough for EMP packs and Dr. Xu’s subdermal tools to have the desired disabling effect.  One positive side effect of magnetic reinforcements is that they turn EMP packs and Dr. Xu's subdermal tools into new ways of removing firewalls.  You can use EMP Packs and Dr. Xu’s subdermal tools to remove 2 levels of firewalls per attack on devices that would otherwise be shut down (Nanofabs and Secondary Terminals for example).  Just make sure those devices are indeed protected by magnetic reinforcements and their firewalls are at 3 or more before proceeding.

 

That about does it.  I hope people find some of these tips useful and they increases their enjoyment of what is undeniably an awesome game.  If any of the info is wrong, feel free to post below.

 

And for all the people at Klei, a great big THANK YOU for making another unique and captivating game.  I don’t know how you guys do it.   I own Shank 1&2, Mark of the Ninja, and Don’t Starve as well.  They’re all on my list of favorite games.  How do you manage to make such diverse and incredible games time after time?  Is it because you’re Canadian?

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Damn what a post. I'm 288 hours myself, finally settled on my preferred endless+ squad and am now item capped and 100k net worth by day 8. Of course no perma-Cloaking 3 cheese, only 1 cloak per agent. Mostly just waiting patiently for the DLC now.

 

I agree that Net Downlink is very good, but for endless I prefer Chameleon Movement over it if I have to pick one over the other. I generally only cloak to quickly bypass a Harbinger patrol or Fractal cameras/turrets, or I screwed up and I need to move off of imminent danger so Chameleon movement is guaranteed 6 AP on demand. Most of the time I can't rely on Net downlink especially during Fractal2.0.

 

For me Torque Injectors is hands down the most impactful augment. It earns a spot on every agent even for the 8 turn cooldown giants of emp3 and cloak3, since I have 4 of each and can rotate through them to make quick and safe progress on the map and to hopefully always have one ready to disable heart monitors. And of course Torque is incredible for the low cd stuff too like econ chip and buster 3.

 

Also I don't really see the point of Distributed Processing (~0.5 power per turn) when Server 3's exist. I know most of the augments aren't that amazing compared to items but I don't value 1 item slot equal to 4 augment slots. I just take 4 server 3's and be perfectly fine on power.

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Cant believe you put that many hours in and havent 100% the game... you know you can get daemon code on easy mode right? For ironman mode, the best run I ever had was on an ironman mode, the never getting a chance to undo things really makes you have to play it by ear and it makes you realize that you can come back from almost anything. Finally time attack is my favorite mode, you dont realize how much time you waste a turn until you try time attack. 2 minutes a turn is a lot, the quickest I've won a full game of expert plus, ironman, time attack was with 1 min a turn, a total of 1 hour and 10 mins. I definitely recommend finishing the achievements especially if it puts you out of your comfort zone.

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Also I don't really see the point of Distributed Processing (~0.5 power per turn) when Server 3's exist. I know most of the augments aren't that amazing compared to items but I don't value 1 item slot equal to 4 augment slots. I just take 4 server 3's and be perfectly fine on power.

 

I felt the same way as you for awhile.  However, I got tired of having to make a base and layout out Portable Server(s) III.  With the decision to keep everyone mobile, servers had to be scratched off the list for reliable power.  

 

Currently, I use Seed as well as taking advantage of items like the EMP (Xu's included) as well as the Buster, Accelerator, and Prototype Chips.  Overall, it works out great but never hurts to have even more power.  Had some extra augment slots available so added 2 Distributed Processing. 

 

For my style of play, this made sense but everyone has their own methods. 

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Power Generation

 

Fusion is really a no-brainer once you unlock it, as a source of power it’s nearly twice as good as Power Drip.  It does need a little strategy to use though, because it requires 5 power to run and you may find yourself without power if you let your reserves drop below 5 with no console in sight.  A certain arch daemon in Endless runs can make this a very expensive source of power, especially on Plus modes so it’s good to have some other way of generating power (with portable servers, a console hacking agent with an high level Accelerator Chip, or an agent with few of the Distributed Processing augments).

 

Hacking

 

Parasite allows you to hack single devices for no power, one firewall per turn, but it becomes less economical the more devices you’re trying to hack with it at once.  It’s great for hacking devices in waves of 3 or 4, or for slowly hacking devices with large firewalls that you know you’ll need to hack before the end of the mission (an Omni Protector or a camera at the exit for example).  There are two things to keep in mind when using Parasite later on in the game.  Parasite will continue hacking a safe that you’ve disabled and opened using EMP.  So using Parasite to lower firewalls on safes protected by a daemons to lower their firewalls enough so magnetic reinforcements don’t kick in before blasting them with EMP will still trigger the daemon a turn or two later when the Parasite finished hacking the device.  A similar situation happens with Omni Protectors.  Parasite is great for lowering their firewall based armor but will continue hacking their firewall even after you’ve knocked them out.

 

While Parasite is great for systemic hacking, a program that lets you remove firewalls right away is nearly essential.  Lockpick v2.0 (2 firewalls for 3 power) is my favorite but if I can’t find it, I’ll use Lockpick v1.0 (1 firewall for 2 power).  Rapier is one of the most economical programs on low alarm levels (1 firewall for 1 power), but becomes prohibitive after alarm level 3 and very dangerous to use on Endless runs when certain arch daemons install.  Both Dagger v1.0 and v2.0 are good for this role too, but their cooldowns often become a problem.

 

 

 

Did you ever try Seed out?  I'd like to hear what you think about it.

Initially, I thought it would be a terrible program until finally giving it a whirl.  Fusion was my go to but now I don't think I could ever go back.  They both operate differently so I can see how it would be difficult to adjust from one to the other. 

 

 

Sounds like we each use Xu's EMP quite a lot for Daemons.  So, I agree with you about Parasite.  Finally had to sell it off because it fails to have any value anymore when most firewalls have Daemons attached and it ends up triggering them long after I've popped the safe.

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Wow, I love topics like this. Read your entire post BuzuBuzu - very interesting! :) I remember there was a similar post a few months ago, but it was still for the early access version and most of it is outdated by now (stacking torque injectors...so nice, but oh so broken)

 

If you don't mind, I'd just like to ask a few questions: Did I get you right, that you would chose Lockpick 2.0 over Parasite for late game? And then you'd use lockpick 2.0 as your single hacking tool? (Your mentioned loadout would be: Fusion, Lockpick, Hunter, Ping and Oracle. I might consider Dagger 2.0 over Oracle or ping maybe, but i've never come this far in endless plus to be honest) Ever considered selling fusion for lategame and generate all the power with agents/consoles/portable servers? This was absolutely viable in early access versions, but might be too risky for now. What do you think?

 

And second, you chose the drilling dart over the biogenic dart? Is it really better? (I always thought the biogenic dart was the best you could get, as it comes with AP2 and no ammunition requirement.)

 

Also you did completely leave out the archive versions of all agents, as well as the 4 "new" agents (new in the sense of not being in the early access version :D) Was this intended in any way, or are On-File Banks, Tony, Internationale and Nika just the best team in your opinion?

 

And last: Have you ever considered Shalem over Nika? For the sole purpose of him bringing in the Desert wind? (Which, I think, just has a lot of style. And AP1+2 charges is really strong) But I guess, just getting one more piercing scanner and sticking to the hand cannon is just better overall...

 

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Also I don't really see the point of Distributed Processing (~0.5 power per turn) when Server 3's exist. I know most of the augments aren't that amazing compared to items but I don't value 1 item slot equal to 4 augment slots. I just take 4 server 3's and be perfectly fine on power.

 

Wow!  Four Server IIIs!  That is ridiculous, but I mean that in the most positive sense of the word.  I got a small chuckle thinking about your agents covering every tile of the starting room with Server IIIs.

 

You're absolutely right though, with enough Server IIIs, Distributed Processing is rendered obsolete, but setting them all up and then picking them all back up each mission might get a little tedious after a while.  And like you mentioned, there aren't that many "must have" augments, so when I see Distributed Processing in a store and Internationale has an empty slot, I usually pull my credit chip out.

 

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Cant believe you put that many hours in and havent 100% the game... you know you can get daemon code on easy mode right? For ironman mode, the best run I ever had was on an ironman mode, the never getting a chance to undo things really makes you have to play it by ear and it makes you realize that you can come back from almost anything. Finally time attack is my favorite mode, you dont realize how much time you waste a turn until you try time attack. 2 minutes a turn is a lot, the quickest I've won a full game of expert plus, ironman, time attack was with 1 min a turn, a total of 1 hour and 10 mins. I definitely recommend finishing the achievements especially if it puts you out of your comfort zone.

 

Yes, you're right about being able to get Daemon Code on easy and I am obssesive compulsive enough to have thought about it and I did start a game with exactly that in mind, but it was really annoying so I quit.  My OCD my win out in the future but right now I'm making a symbolic stand.

 

I agree with you 100% that getting taken out of your comfort zone in this game makes you quite a lot better at it.  I orignally couldn't even contemplate playing on Plus modes because I got so used to just peeking behind doors only once to see if there's any vision cones crisscrossing the room but after taking the plunge I got accustomed to not having the vision cones visible and now Plus is all I play.

 

You're also also right about being able to come back from almost anything.  I remember quite a few times where I wanted to rage quit and start over, but saved the game instead and came back to it later to find that I could finish the mission without any losses.  I may give Time Attack and Ironman a go in the future, but currently am a little tired of playing the game (which is probably part of the reason I spent my time writing that long post and not playing in the first place).

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Did you ever try Seed out?  I'd like to hear what you think about it.

Initially, I thought it would be a terrible program until finally giving it a whirl.  Fusion was my go to but now I don't think I could ever go back.  They both operate differently so I can see how it would be difficult to adjust from one to the other. 

 

 

Sounds like we each use Xu's EMP quite a lot for Daemons.  So, I agree with you about Parasite.  Finally had to sell it off because it fails to have any value anymore when most firewalls have Daemons attached and it ends up triggering them long after I've popped the safe.

 

I never did give Seed a go.  It does sound tempting since in essence it feels like 4 free power per turn, but there isn't really another useful hacking program that you can pair with Seed to take full advantage of the bonus every single turn.  I don't know if I would use it to replace Fusion though but I guess you really don't get a choice in the matter since you can only start with one or the other.  But if you started with Fusion and then found Seed later on in the game, they could work well together.  Every time you'd need to start Fusion it would only end up costing you one power (making Fusion give you 12 power back for only 1 power in).  It actually sounds pretty good now that I think of it.  Fusion, Seed, Parasite, Lockpick 2.0, and maybe Hunter or another power intensive program could be a nice program loadout.

 

I don't get rid of Parasite because it doesn't do so well against daemon protected devices, I still find it very useful for hacking everything else, but maybe getting rid of it and experimenting with other programs isn't such a bad idea either.

 

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If you don't mind, I'd just like to ask a few questions: Did I get you right, that you would chose Lockpick 2.0 over Parasite for late game? And then you'd use lockpick 2.0 as your single hacking tool? (Your mentioned loadout would be: Fusion, Lockpick, Hunter, Ping and Oracle. I might consider Dagger 2.0 over Oracle or ping maybe, but i've never come this far in endless plus to be honest) Ever considered selling fusion for lategame and generate all the power with agents/consoles/portable servers? This was absolutely viable in early access versions, but might be too risky for now. What do you think?

 

And second, you chose the drilling dart over the biogenic dart? Is it really better? (I always thought the biogenic dart was the best you could get, as it comes with AP2 and no ammunition requirement.)

 

Also you did completely leave out the archive versions of all agents, as well as the 4 "new" agents (new in the sense of not being in the early access version :grin:) Was this intended in any way, or are On-File Banks, Tony, Internationale and Nika just the best team in your opinion?

 

And last: Have you ever considered Shalem over Nika? For the sole purpose of him bringing in the Desert wind? (Which, I think, just has a lot of style. And AP1+2 charges is really strong) But I guess, just getting one more piercing scanner and sticking to the hand cannon is just better overall...

 

No, I never get rid of Parasite, it's one of my favorite programs.  I make it a priority though to pick another program up (ideally Lockpick 2.0) to pair with Parsite when I need to hack through something right away.  On later missions when you're up against high firewalls on cameras and turrets, you don't have the luxury of waiting for Parasite to hack those devices only to find that the next room has another camera or turret that needs just as much time.  In the late game I use Parasite for slowly eating away at safes and other devices that don't need to get hacked ASAP, synchornizing hacking of devices (this is really the only way to trigger more than one Paradox daemon at once), as well as chipping a firewall off odd number firewalled devices so I can hack them more efficiently with Lockpick 2.0.

 

Biogenic Dart is a great weapon and I'll often stick with it on story runs, but on Endless runs where I have Nika and enough credits to augment her exactly the way I want (with two Piercing Scanners), the Drilling DART wins out.  The main reason being that because of its cooldown you can't fire the Biogenic Dart very often, and when push comes to shove I like having Nika shooting things twice or even three times (with Stim IIIs) per turn.  With two Piercing Scanners it can still knock out any one up to Armor 3, and later on in the game credits are plentiful enough that I usually buy a charge pack every mission to top up either the Drilling DART or the Hand Cannon.

 

I took a good look at the archived version of the agents but didn't really find them all that appealing.  Archive Decker is probably a little more useful than the original with that very unique gun and augment but that still wouldn't make me want to start a game with him.  Archive Intarnationale's unique augment is much less useful than her original one.  Archive Banks trades her great augment in for a dart gun and the Econ Chip (not really the best use of power in my opinion) while Archive Shalem starts with the great Hand Cannon but he doesn't even get a starting augment.  Archive versions of Dr. Xu and Nika aren't very good because their augments are much more inferior.  I'm much too used to starting my games with Internationale and Banks, that I haven't started with Sharp or Prism at all really (plus I've never actually found them in a Detention Center, it's always been Decker, Shalem, Xu, or Nika for me).  Central and Monst3r I got to play in story mode every time I got to the final mission.  Of those two, Central is the clear winner and I admit it would be interesting to start with her instead of Banks.  Anarchy 3 right off the bat could net you a few more credits over the course of a playthrough, and her unique augment (5 power per daemon install) could prove to be quite powerful on higher difficulty levels.  I guess I'm too used to having Banks being able to open doors, but your question has got me thinking of starting a game with Internationale and Central.

 

Just out of curiosity, what happens on the final mission in story mode when you started out with Central or Monst3r?  I imagine they don't get replaced by any new agents and you lose the numerical advantage you would normally get.  Am I right?

 

In my opinion Shalem's gun is the only good thing about Shalem.  I'd take Nika over him any time, and wouldn't start with him just for the gun.  If the gun had +2 piercing and 3 ammo then maybe I'd consider it.  I think they should give Shalem a better starting augment instead of the generic +1 piercing to ranged weapons whose equivalent you very often find in Nanofabs.  If they gave him an upgraded version of Anatomy Analysis where the power cost is 1 or 2 instead of 3 per kill, then maybe I'd consider him more carefully as well.

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Wow!  Four Server IIIs!  That is ridiculous, but I mean that in the most positive sense of the word.  I got a small chuckle thinking about your agents covering every tile of the starting room with Server IIIs.

 

You're absolutely right though, with enough Server IIIs, Distributed Processing is rendered obsolete, but setting them all up and then picking them all back up each mission might get a little tedious after a while.  And like you mentioned, there aren't that many "must have" augments, so when I see Distributed Processing in a store and Internationale has an empty slot, I usually pull my credit chip out.

 

I've gotten used to it. At first my mistake was I had every agent hold one so they could all have 6 other items, but once the mission objective is completed picking the servers up is the pinnacle of tedium because I couldn't just send 1 agent to pick them up because they wouldn't have enough space. 

 

Now I've just got a dedicated "half-pack-mule" agent with 4 server 3's, shock trap 3, cloaking 3, EMP 3, and she's the first one to pop cloak/emp near the start of the mission, other than that I don't move her too far from the servers simply because she's not needed in the thick of it and if she does go with the others I end up wasting a couple turns recollecting the servers once the objective is done.

 

Archive Banks trades her great augment in for a dart gun and the Econ Chip (not really the best use of power in my opinion) while Archive Shalem starts with the great Hand Cannon but he doesn't even get a starting augment.  Archive versions of Dr. Xu and Nika aren't very good because their augments are much more inferior.

My recent endless+ started with archive Banks and archive Nika. It's a dirty combo because Nika can punch a guard every turn to lower cd on econ chip. Even without the synergy they're both amazing in their own right, especially archive Nika for endless.

 

I have a suspicion that if they care about balance they'll nerf archive Nika's augment because at the moment I've got 2 neural disrupter 3's and a stim 3 and this lets me double punch a guard every turn, lowering the cooldown of items by 2 on top of the usual 1 for the turn being over (and get +20 AP from predictive brawling + stim 3). Even if they fix it and cap it at being procced only once a turn it will still be really strong because it's essentially another Torque injectors that can be reprocced every turn.

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I have a suspicion that if they care about balance they'll nerf archive Nika's augment because at the moment I've got 2 neural disrupter 3's and a stim 3 and this lets me double punch a guard every turn, lowering the cooldown of items by 2 on top of the usual 1 for the turn being over (and get +20 AP from predictive brawling + stim 3). Even if they fix it and cap it at being procced only once a turn it will still be really strong because it's essentially another Torque injectors that can be reprocced every turn.

 

Let me get this right, you've got a guard down already and then you punch him once, use a stim III, punch him again and then use those APs to do laps of the level?  That's quite a clever use of the game mechanics, but somewhat immersion breaking, no?

 

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Let me get this right, you've got a guard down already and then you punch him once, use a stim III, punch him again and then use those APs to do laps of the level?  That's quite a clever use of the game mechanics, but somewhat immersion breaking, no?

 

What I'd call immersion breaking is if I were to use 3 stim 3's to attack constantly and rack up infinite AP and infinite buster chip refreshes, so with enough time you could 1 shot the map in a single turn with archive Nika. I don't want to trivialise the game so I'm sticking with one stim 3. The point is archive Nika is really strong; each to their own with regards to 'immersion'.

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No, I never get rid of Parasite, it's one of my favorite programs.  [...]

I see, this was a bit confusing in your opening post.  :-) But this means, you'd always get fusion, parasite and lockpick 2.0. And hunter as well. So in a "perfect game", would you rather get ping, or oracle? Or even consider selling fusion later in the game? I mean, unfortunately, incognitas capacity is capped at 5 programs :/ So, to ask a bit more precise: What would your ideal with incognita programs be, considering you have all the luck to get them?

And you'd definitely choose Parasite 1.0 over 2.0?

 

Considering the drilling/biogenic dart: Have you considered just getting two biogenic darts instead for Nika? I've done that before and it works quite neat I mean, i must admit I just like the idea of a ranged weapon without ammo. :grin: But I can imagine deep inside endless plus mode, charge packs are really plenty, so it honestly doesn't matter. (I mean, you "could" charge the biogenic dart with a charge pack as well, but -2 cooldowns for a whole chargepack is quite a joke i think)

 

I must say, i really like Shalems gun. But for a long term run, you might as well get one more piercing scanner on your "ranged agent" than you would with the Desert Wind and you have an even better weapon (the hand cannon with 3 shots, to be precise). You could, *in theory*, start with Shalem, take his gun, and deliberately sacrifice him in a mission, so Nika could take it - and get all your other agents from detention centers :grin: But I guess this would be a little bit too much effort just for the +1 AP. (But just in theory, Nika with Desert Wind would surely be nice)

Edit:

And by the way, thanks for your long and detailed reply. This topic is really interesting :)

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I see, this was a bit confusing in your opening post.  :-) But this means, you'd always get fusion, parasite and lockpick 2.0. And hunter as well. So in a "perfect game", would you rather get ping, or oracle? Or even consider selling fusion later in the game? I mean, unfortunately, incognitas capacity is capped at 5 programs :/ So, to ask a bit more precise: What would your ideal with incognita programs be, considering you have all the luck to get them?

And you'd definitely choose Parasite 1.0 over 2.0?

 

Considering the drilling/biogenic dart: Have you considered just getting two biogenic darts instead for Nika? I've done that before and it works quite neat I mean, i must admit I just like the idea of a ranged weapon without ammo. :grin: But I can imagine deep inside endless plus mode, charge packs are really plenty, so it honestly doesn't matter. (I mean, you "could" charge the biogenic dart with a charge pack as well, but -2 cooldowns for a whole chargepack is quite a joke i think)

 

I must say, i really like Shalems gun. But for a long term run, you might as well get one more piercing scanner on your "ranged agent" than you would with the Desert Wind and you have an even better weapon (the hand cannon with 3 shots, to be precise). You could, *in theory*, start with Shalem, take his gun, and deliberately sacrifice him in a mission, so Nika could take it - and get all your other agents from detention centers :grin: But I guess this would be a little bit too much effort just for the +1 AP. (But just in theory, Nika with Desert Wind would surely be nice)

Edit:

And by the way, thanks for your long and detailed reply. This topic is really interesting :-)

 

Yes, I fixed the ambiguity about Parasite in my original post.

 

An ideal program loadout for me would be Fusion and Parasite to start with, followed by grabbing Lockpick 2.0 within a day or two.  I'd already be very content with those three.  Picking up Hunter would sweeten the deal even further.  Faced with a choice between Ping and Oracle, I'd probably go with Ping.  Oracle is great in that given enough power you can get a feel of the entire level without even leaving your starting room (I did just that on the final level the first time I beat the game on Expert Plus, when a total of four guards spawned stationary and on patrols outside my starting room), but those cameras you hack with Oracle can be just as easily hacked with Parasite and Lockpick.  The usefullness of Ping on the other hand, especially when you're faced with multiple alerted guards is beyond measure.

 

That's just my opinion though, and I'm sure there are many other nice program loadouts with excellent synergy.  I think the great appeal of this game is in the playthroughs that are far from perfect, where you have to improvise and make the best with what you can get your hands on.  I'm trying to beat the game on Ironman at the moment.  I started with Fusion and Parasite but haven't had any luck getting other usefull programs.  It's nearly the end of day 3 and out of desperation for something I can hack on demand with I bought Datablast (1 firewall off devices withing 5 tile radius) and a Wrench (breaks only 3 firewalls for 2 power).  Datablast is really cool for those rooms with clustered safes, while Wrench lets me quickly finish off firewalls that I start hacking with Parasite to bring them down to 3.  An ideal setup this is not, but I can't say I'm not enjoying it.

 

I'm sure having two Biogenic Darts is quite viable.  Having that added +1 piercing vs. the Drilling Dart would give you a bigger margin of error when facing off against armored guards or even let you invest in another augment for your firearms agent instead of having two Piercing Scanners.  Personally, I'd still lean towards the Drilling Dart though.  More often then not, the final mission on story mode ends up in a firefight as I try to protect Monst3r when he makes the run from the security hub to the mainframe entrance.  Having to wait for cooldowns with all of the guards on that level swarming in his vicinity would have made those runs nigh impossible. 

 

I've heard of people starting with Shalem, stashing his gun, and then abandoning him at the first opportune moment.  Sounds like quite a bit of hassle to me, but then again, having some extra goal like that is what makes Endless runs even more fun.

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Faust+Brimstone:

start with Central! she makes this a lot less annoying. and if you've been doing expert+ you should be able do this on expert at least. if you don't do ironman you can use the rewind in case the wrong daemon installs at the wrong time.

 

Iroman:

do it! the difference is actually quite big. as long as I was playing with rewinds I was constantly doing move which are safe 95% but where I got screwed over on the other 5%. because when the 5% happen I could just rewind. once I stripped away the last rewind I was forced to play it safe. there's a guy called Deducter SC who has a few expert+ ironman playthoughs on youtube which I enjoyed watching. he points this out quite often and explains what is safe to do. this also increases the value of (dart-)guns quite a bit because they give you extra safety, or cloaking rigs. but the biggest reason to play ironman imho is that it forces you to play out bad situations which you would have otherwise skipped with a rewind. the most exciting and awesome moments I've had where in ironman games!

 

Accelerator Chips:

on endless I prefer the Prototype variant. it usually offers more firewall levels broken per PWR. and I get enough regular PWR for incognita through PS III's.

 

Seed:

It's the best. start with Seed+Parasite. non of the starting programs has good synergy with Seed, but Parasite is nice once you pick up something else. you can always keep one running for free.

for Seed you'd optimally want programs that cost 4 PWR but anything from 3-5 is good. LP 2.0, Oracle, Hammer, Wisp, Wrench 4, Hunter are all good programs to use with seed. one of my endless program suite is: Seed, Hunter, Hammer, Wrench 4, Brimstone (can be LP 1.0 as well). Consume Seed with either Hammer, Wrench or Hunter. Then use BS/LP1.0 to lower some firewalls so you can use Wrench next turn. spend extra PWR as needed.

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Nice comprehensive guide.

I use 3 Server IIIs with Fusion and it provides just enough power for anything. Internationale's console hacking provides the starting power I need before deploying Server IIIs.

There's a trick you can do on Endless mode. You can do an Executive Suite mission and get a vault card. You can then use the vault card to unlock an exit door on any mission. When you find a proper exit card on the same level, you get to keep the exit card when you leave!

This means that on Day 5+ missions, I start with an exit card. Look for the exit door, and then deploy my server farm on the exit elevator. As guards rarely ever patrol into the exit room on their own, my servers are usually unmolested and I can just pick them up when I leave the level. With that advantage, I have a safe source of power while I clean the place out.

My 'oh crap' button is cloaks with overloaders (augment). Having overloaders installed on 2 of your agents is great. This means if your agent doesn't have good enough weapons to penetrate a guard, the overloader is still able to do so (since it ignores armor). As such, I prioritize cloaks+overloaders on agents who are least combat proficient. It's possible to keep an entire facility suppressed with cloaks+overloaders, door traps, paralyzers and such.

For Sankaku runs, I usually try to find out where all the bots are. When it's time to go loud, I typically take over bigger bots and use em to kill the smaller ones.

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I never did give Seed a go.  It does sound tempting since in essence it feels like 4 free power per turn, but there isn't really another useful hacking program that you can pair with Seed to take full advantage of the bonus every single turn. 

Since you are a fan of Parasite like me you should really give a try to a start Parasite + Seed it's oddly strong. What I do is setting 2-3 Parasite for a little PWR cost (1-3) so the following will cost nothing. Once you get your hand on a Portable Server to generate some power it's a no brainer.

 

A lot of Hacking programs do wonders with Seed. Oracle is probably the best, it saves you a straight 7*4 PWR per level (or more/less depending on the camera settings). Datablast and Lockpick V2 are still a 3 PWR saved per turn. Even Lockpick will count as a 2 PWR generation (unless you have nothing left to hack of course) which is higher than Power Drip.

 

Only downside of Seed is that it doesn't generate Power which can be a problem when you use Volt Disruptor or other PWR-consumption items.

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Only downside of Seed is that it doesn't generate Power which can be a problem when you use Volt Disruptor or other PWR-consumption items.

 

This is pretty much why I view Central as a must-have on later Endless levels, as I run PWR-heavy builds (multiple Flurry Guns, Sharp + Nika w/ Volt Disrupter IIIs, Subdermal Cloak on Sharp for 3-turn cd Cloaks, etc) and don't use Portable Server IIIs at all.

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This is pretty much why I view Central as a must-have on later Endless levels, as I run PWR-heavy builds (multiple Flurry Guns, Sharp + Nika w/ Volt Disrupter IIIs, Subdermal Cloak on Sharp for 3-turn cd Cloaks, etc) and don't use Portable Server IIIs at all.

This sounds so foreign to me because I do pretty much the complete opposite. The nicest way I can put this is in my opinion they're all garbage except Flurries but nobody wants to kill Harbingers so I don't need more than one. Volt Disrupter 3's cost 5 power but it's implied you have to use it twice (10 power) within a short time otherwise it should have been a Neural Disrupter instead and use 0 power.

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Central's not bad. It's almost inevitable that one would eat a daemon every once in awhile, especially with certain arch daemons active.

 

As far as Volt Disruptors go, just give Nika's Volt Disruptor to Sharp and load him up with augments that increase armor pen and KO time (if going the non-lethal route). Then you are free to make Nika your ranged fighter with a Volt or Neural Disruptor III in reserve, her and sharp can take down a whole facility John Woo style.

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but to get Nikas Volt Disruptor, Sharp and Central you have to mod the game.

 

I'm not a fan of Volt Disruptors or Subdermal Cloak. waste of PWR imho. my version of Sharp get 2 Neural Disruptor II, together with Troque Injectors and two Penetration Scanners you can knock out one guy every turn. or use a Stim and knock out two guys if both are off cooldown. never had the need for more. and there always my ranged specialist as backup with 2 Biogenic Darts and 2 Flurry Guns.

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Yes, I fixed the ambiguity about Parasite in my original post.

 

An ideal program loadout for me would be Fusion and Parasite to start with, followed by grabbing Lockpick 2.0 within a day or two.  I'd already be very content with those three.  Picking up Hunter would sweeten the deal even further.  Faced with a choice between Ping and Oracle, I'd probably go with Ping.  Oracle is great in that given enough power you can get a feel of the entire level without even leaving your starting room (I did just that on the final level the first time I beat the game on Expert Plus, when a total of four guards spawned stationary and on patrols outside my starting room), but those cameras you hack with Oracle can be just as easily hacked with Parasite and Lockpick.  The usefullness of Ping on the other hand, especially when you're faced with multiple alerted guards is beyond measure.

Well, sorry to ask again, but selling Fusion deep into an endless run to get "parasite 1.0, lp 2.0, hunter, ping and oracle" is out of question for you? If you could generate the power with consoles and portable servers? (And maybe distributed processing) Like I said, in the early-access version this was absolutely viable, but I don't know about the archdaemons later in endless games now...

 

 

 

I'm sure having two Biogenic Darts is quite viable.  Having that added +1 piercing vs. the Drilling Dart would give you a bigger margin of error when facing off against armored guards or even let you invest in another augment for your firearms agent instead of having two Piercing Scanners.  Personally, I'd still lean towards the Drilling Dart though.  More often then not, the final mission on story mode ends up in a firefight as I try to protect Monst3r when he makes the run from the security hub to the mainframe entrance.  Having to wait for cooldowns with all of the guards on that level swarming in his vicinity would have made those runs nigh impossible. 

 

I've heard of people starting with Shalem, stashing his gun, and then abandoning him at the first opportune moment.  Sounds like quite a bit of hassle to me, but then again, having some extra goal like that is what makes Endless runs even more fun.

The longer I think about it, the better drilling dart probably is indeed. +1 AP can easily be achieved by another piering scanner. And having all guns on cd *can* one day be the end of an endless run which could have been saved with more darts in the air. With charge packs you can plan ahead and let nika shoot 6 darts in 3 turns (or even more with stimpacks) if this is the very only option which gets your agents out alive. But that's just me playing TheoryInc - i haven't played so much endless games myself I must admit (but i'm planning to!)

 

Starting with Shalem only for his rifle seems a bit "over the top", but we're talking about ideal builds here, aren't we? And I like this idea quite a bit. The Desert Wind is arguably the best ammo based lethal gun in the game (and if not, definitely the second best after the hand cannon) But of course, it is substitutable easily by one more armor piercing augment or one or two emergency flurry guns - which even save on ammo. Or just a biogenic / drilling dart. Because in most cases where you "must" shoot a guard, it doesn't really matter if it's lethal or not. I think I will still try a run like that soon - Desert Wind without Shalem :)

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Well, sorry to ask again, but selling Fusion deep into an endless run to get "parasite 1.0, lp 2.0, hunter, ping and oracle" is out of question for you? If you could generate the power with consoles and portable servers? (And maybe distributed processing) Like I said, in the early-access version this was absolutely viable, but I don't know about the archdaemons later in endless games now...

If you're going to use server 3's Fusion is not worth keeping. I like to think of Fusion as "1.75 power per turn but start with 5 less power at start of mission" which is clearly not worth a program slot when you have 4+ power per turn from servers. Seed is the only "generator" worth keeping but even still, item slots for 2 more servers are aplenty whereas you still only have 5 program slots.

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