About usability, performance and crazy laser traps...


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I do enjoy Invisible Inc. a lot! It has been one of my favourite games since Commandos 2 back in the days. I love that it is very hard and each mission requires you to be careful because you cannot save.

 

I found out a strategy which I consider totally broken though:

 

In missions with LaserTraps, you can basically kill every guard on the map (even on level 6 alarm) and win the mission every time... When I find a LaserTrap, I hack it and stun the next guard I find. Then I drag the body in the LaserTrap's (deactivated at this moment) area. When you activate it, the guard will die. You can then immediately deactivate it. Each guard that sees the corpse, will stand in your traps range and you can kill it, by simply switching the LaserTrap on and off in your turn.

 

Almost the same works with a turret behind a door, you just have to close the door each round, your turret will turn to overwatch, the enemy opens the door and dies. You close the door, the next enemy opens the door... etc.

 

These two strategies are fundamentally broken at the moment. Especially in levels containing a vault:

Hack both laser barriers, get behind the glass-columns in the back, and just keep the laser next to you active all time. Just toggle the entry laser until you wiped the whole map.

 

Getting the loot & the vault money will make the cleanup worthwhile. I do think this is one of the only ways to finish the game to be honest. I do stumble in very unfair situations quite often...

 

Here are some other things, bugs and exploits, I discovered:

 

Interface / Usability Issue:

When I use the small shops on a map (forgot how they are called), I sometimes bought / sold items by accident. One time I pressed with the right mouse button to check if there are some additional infos and I straight up bought an item. I also tried to rearrange my inventory (on top) and found myself selling and items although I was still holding down my mouse button... I do think you should offer an "undo" option in the store or create a little square, where you can drop items to sell (Like in FTL for example).

 

Big Bug:

If I stun 2 enemies in the same round, pick one of them up, drop him immediately and then pick the other one up and drag him on top of the first one, there disabled times do stack. Which means, that if you have disabled both for 2 rounds each, if I drag one over the other one, both are disabled for 4 rounds. It seems, that I have to drag both with the same agent though.

 

Performance Issues:

If you have more than 5-7 corpses lying around and are constantly switching 4-6 LaserTraps on / off, the performance gets really bad. I'm running the game on a 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB Ram, Intel i7 2.3 and the Geforce GT750M. I can reproduce this anytime in the Incognito (Hacking) Mode. Each time I toggle the Lasers, I receive the infamous Beachball which appears when some application blocks the main thread. (Running OSX 10.9)

 

Suggestion regarding the game balance:

Currently I do find, that many items are not worth their price. If I buy a pistol for 1000 Credits, I can use it once or twice until I have to spend another 400$ + n * cleanup cost. I know, you want to make killing the very last option, but I do think the ammunition should refill between missions and the pistol should make a loud noise. You could then make it a bit cheaper compared to the sleeping-dart gun. It would also enable new strategies, if you are able to lure guards into one direction by shooting into the air for example. (Maybe create shootable map elements like fire extinguishers and the infamous red barrels? ;-))

 

Also some area of effect abilities would be really nice. I know there is EMP, but it is really, really situational.

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(Sorry for the double post, but I cannot edit my original post)

Suggestions regarding the LaserTrap problem:

 

- Toggling could cost Power Points

- You can toggle once per round?

- Guards on Level 6 (Enforcers?) have special beacons, which disable all LaserTraps

- Drones could pass through LaserTraps, so you cannot hide that easily

- New guard type carrying a triangle shaped shield that blocks / redirects(?) the laser

-> This shield could be taken by the player and enable new tactics by redirecting lasers and shielding the player from shots

 

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I think most of these problems can be solved by simply improving guard AI.

Right now they just run to every corpse they see. That's against everything you get taught anywhere, and even against common sense.

If I were to, absurdly hypothetically, see a corpse, I would try to see WHY there's a corpse, then check it out.

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Well, the obvious downside to the "bug zapper" tactic are the heart monitors/+2 timer. But sometimes, the tactic has to be resorted to IMO.

 

My last mission, I took control of a far away camera, and discovered the elevator room ... with five guards in it.

 

Yes five. In the elevator room. Two were stationary, three were patrolling, two were elite armor 1s.

 

Fortunately there was a laser wall in the next room. I Pinged 4 of the 5 guards to the middle of it, but was only able to zap one. The other three checked out the question mark, randomly moved off in the same turn, then two wandered back to their stations before noticing the dead body. One DID see the body, ran to check it out, lingered in the square for a moment, then ZAP! So, I got 2 out of 4 with that Ping.

 

But the three remaining guards near the elevator were manageable, and I was able to escape ... with my 4th agent Banks from the jail cell in tow.

 

Anyways, seems to me it isn't quite a surefire strategy, in that guard movement is often unpredictable, and some of the guards will randomly move away before you can turn on the zapper.

 

And on top of that, I dunno if the "bug zapper" tactic its any more unfair than, say, 5 guards in the elevator room.

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It would certainly make more sense for them not to stand on the laser are when they are investigating how their colleagues got killed by a laser malfunction, but on the other hand, we would need a activate laser switch overwatch mode for it to be fair then (as we cannot activate the laser during their turn).

 

One of the problems of the corpse removal cost is that it does not scale up :

Later day mission payoffs are usually higher, but the corpse clearing cost remains the same, so you have little incentive not to laser everyone to death later on.

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