Can someone explain Countermeasures?

[Ocelost]

The Countermeasures description reads, "One guard is sent to investigate the location of an agent each turn." Okay, but in the game I just played, all of these things happened when Countermeasures was installed at alarm level 3:

• Two new guards appeared.
• One guard was sent to investigate an agent's location.
• Every guard and drone on the entire level immediately switched to Hunting mode.

Are all those things really supposed to happen when alarm level 3 is reached? That last one was especially surprising.

[WilliamGreywind]

Countermeasures is one of the dangerous Archdaemons. Whenever you have the misfortune of getting it, it will ALWAYS trigger every guard on the stage. It happens in the Final Mission of Story Mode, and happens all the time no matter what you do when you get it.

 

It's pretty dangerous, that's for sure. Definitely will keep you on your toes.

[Ocelost]

Countermeasures is one of the dangerous Archdaemons.

 

Huh? Is this documented somewhere? The only place I see archdaemons mentioned is this wikia page, and Countermeasures is not among them, nor do I see any mention that it will always install at alarm level 3 in endless mode.

[Cyberboy2000]

That wiki page is outdated and unreliable. The daemons listed are not in the game, just a leftover from early access. Most people refer to archdaemons as daemons that don't appear during normal levels, so this includes countermeasures, failsafe and all v 2.0 daemons.

[Shirsh]

Huh? Is this documented somewhere? 

Of course not. You suppose to see it by your own eyes, seriously. Did you played videogames before?

[Ocelost]

Of course not. You suppose to see it by your own eyes, seriously. Did you played videogames before?

 

Yes, I have played video games quite a lot. Most of them (especially strategy games like this one) have some way of documenting their rules, either in writing or with clear examples. Invisible, Inc. is sorely lacking in this area, and it definitely has bugs, so it is very difficult to tell whether surprising behavior is intended or not. It can be quite frustrating.

 

This leaves players little choice but to ask questions when something odd happens, just like I did. When a response comes from a non-official source and contains errors, like the one above, it is obviously not a reliable answer. More information is needed to clear up the issue.

 

Also, there's no need to be an arrogant jerk.

[ik1ne]

The Countermeasures description reads, "One guard is sent to investigate the location of an agent each turn." Okay, but in the game I just played, all of these things happened when Countermeasures was installed at alarm level 3:

• Two new guards appeared.
• One guard was sent to investigate an agent's location.
• Every guard and drone on the entire level immediately switched to Hunting mode.

Are all those things really supposed to happen when alarm level 3 is reached? That last one was especially surprising.

• Two new guards appeared.

One guard from Alarm Level increment(as usual), One more guard from Countermeasure itself. So yes, Countermeasure is upgrade version of Validate.

• One guard was sent to investigate an agent's location.

Yes, as the description does. The game picks random agent and gives his/her location to nearest guard For 3 turns. The random agent picking happens every turn, so it can be 3 different agents or one agent, and so on.

• Every guard and drone on the entire level immediately switched to Hunting mode.

I'm not sure it's bug or not, but when Countermeasure is activated all guards enter hunting mode no matter what they're doing.

[Ocelost]

• Every guard and drone on the entire level immediately switched to Hunting mode.

I'm not sure it's bug or not, but when Countermeasure is activated all guards enter hunting mode no matter what they're doing.

 

 

That's the part that surprised me the most. This undocumented behavior from Countermeasures doesn't make much sense to me in light of the other, documented things that it also does. Smells like a bug.

 

Klei developers, would you care to weigh in on this?

 

(The fact that Countermeasures always seems to activate at alarm level 3 surprised me a little too, since I don't remember it mentioned in the tutorial or help screens, but it seems consistent enough with the rest of the game that I guess it's probably intended behavior.)

[Cyberboy2000]

The part that makes guards go into hunting mode is not a bug, nor is the fact that it always activates on security level three (though only on endless after day 5), the only problem is that it is not explained well enough.

[leonseye]

The part that makes guards go into hunting mode is not a bug, nor is the fact that it always activates on security level three (though only on endless after day 5), the only problem is that it is not explained well enough.

 

Pretty much this.

 

You can turn Countermeasures off in the options when making a new game, btw.  It's the "Increased Resistance" (or something like that) checkbox.

 

Personally, I like it.