Beginner -> Experienced jump tips?

[Midnight Tea]

Right now where I am in Invisible Inc. in developing my own infiltration skills, I'm currently in that gap where Beginner is almost effortless, but I'm still making a lot of mission-ending (or curtailing) blunders anytime I try to make the jump to Experienced. I couldn't find any guides online about preparing oneself for this jump and I'm willing to bet the jump from Experienced to Expert is a much smaller gap, so this seemed like a good place to bring it up as any.

 

Any good habits that expert players would recommend developing? Especially early on in a level (or run) where how quickly and smoothly you acquire intel and clean out areas determines how long you can stay.

[RaustBD]

Right now where I am in Invisible Inc. in developing my own infiltration skills, I'm currently in that gap where Beginner is almost effortless, but I'm still making a lot of mission-ending (or curtailing) blunders anytime I try to make the jump to Experienced. I couldn't find any guides online about preparing oneself for this jump and I'm willing to bet the jump from Experienced to Expert is a much smaller gap, so this seemed like a good place to bring it up as any.

 

Any good habits that expert players would recommend developing? Especially early on in a level (or run) where how quickly and smoothly you acquire intel and clean out areas determines how long you can stay.

 

Keep money to spare so you're able to buy anything super important you see in a nanofab or server terminal in any mission, and make sure you check those on the way out. Also, if you see a T.A.G. Pistol, BUY ONE, it is arguably the single most useful item in the entire game and allows you to thoroughly keep track of and predict enemy movements, and if you have Nika, give it to her, she makes the best use of it. If you can't find a T.A.G. Pistol, get Wisp.

 

Also, If you haven't already figured out that you don't want to knock out every guard you see (I managed to get away with that in beginner mode), now's the time to learn it. Keep track of enemy patrol patterns and always remember that guards' vision cone (including noticing spaces) reaches a 45 degree angle from wherever they're facing.

 

Also, I'd highly recommend using Nika. She's an invaluable aid for beginning players who can make a lot of challenges more forgiving if you happen to screw up (especially if you give her a cloaking rig), and she's extremely useful for clearing a path making mad, desperate dashes to the exit.

 

Finally, Power Drip is kinda useless, you'll want to use one of the other restorative programs if you aren't already, I recommend Fusion (as long as you remember to boot it up every few turns and don't trap yourself with less than 5 pwr, it's way better than Power Drip and has no downsides like Faust or Dynamo). I also like using Parasite as my beginning program, but you have to make sure you find a better one for faster hacking in emergencies or you'll be hanging around in a level for way too long.

[DGM]

I gave tips for manipulating the guards over in this thread: http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/59370-rookie-on-first-playthrough-trying-to-figure-stuff-out/

[StaypuftMMM]

I never played the game in beginner mode (I don't think).  Would you be able to highlight some of the differences/difficulties you are experiencing? That way we can help explain what may help you.

[wodzu_93]

Changes from Beginner to Experienced:

1. 3 Rewinds (from 5)

2. Level Retries OFF (from ON)

3. Alarm Stages NORMAL (from EASY)

4. Guards per level NORMAL (from LESS)

5. Safe Guard Patrols OFF (from ON)

6. Increased Final Resistance ON (from OFF)

7. Daemon Quantity NORMAL (from LESS)

 

Points 1 and 2 are obvious, thinner safety net.

 

Point 3: This removes the warning message at alarm level 1 and further effects are triggered 5 turns earlier. In general, take note of inactive cameras (activate at alarm level 1) and try to hack as much stuff as possible before firewalls go up (alarm level 2).

 

Point 4: Difficulty 2 missions have one Camera Drone (from 0) and one normal guard gets replaced by stronger one on further difficulties in comparison to Beginner. This should not be a problem.

 

Point 5: This is a big change. Guards now can patrol between rooms and can partol into your starting room. I think this is why you have problems on Experienced. My advice:

 

Always peek into room you're about to enter for the first time. Open doors only if guards don't see the tile with a door you're about to open (they WILL spot you opening the door otherwise, even if the tile has yellow marking("Hidden")) unless you want to purposefully distract them. Always end your turn with all agents in cover or at least one tile away from cover in case of emergencies. Take note of guard patrols: if you enter a room with no guards, end your turn in cover and observe if any guards enter that room. If not, then that room is safe and no guard will come there unless given a reason to (hunting, distracted). Always close doors behind you if you can.

 

Point 6: This applies to final mission, expect two nasty Daemons when Monster jacks in to Security Hub.

 

Point 7: More Daemons on devices. I recommend to always try to identify Daemons if possible, this makes them MUCH easier to plan around. Daemon Database, Daemon Sniffer program, Scan Chip item and On File Decker's augment will help with identification, while Taurus and Hunter programs help getting rid of Daemons. Arguably the worst Daemon is Validate, avoid this one as much as possible. Mask is harmless if you control Daemon Database.

 

EDIT:

You can watch those two guys on Youtube. They explain their thought process and you can learn a lot from them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSzYc9hNynCVpd-BPJgMR--QDJ6wZIMko  -- warfreak2

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxkox17P5VE9yeArdEnETqQ -- JayRiviera

[warfreak2]

The absolute #1 difference is that the alarm stage effects all happen 5 turns earlier. Speed is most important - split your agents up to explore the map faster, and upgrade speed as one of your highest priorities. The major deadline is alarm level 2, when the firewalls go up - this is now only 10 turns in, and you want to do almost all of your hacking before it happens.

[Midnight Tea]

Thanks for the phenomenal feedback, guys!   Part of why I think Invisible Inc is pure brilliance is that a lot of what I'm being suggested is very intuitive to the game. Like you figure out eventually that leveling agents has sharply diminish returns compared to having enough credits for a killer disruptor or program at the right time. I also pretty much discovered fusion + parasite on my own as well, though the temptation to stick to power drip is very tempting early on even though it's probably the least useful power-feed program. Parasite is a weird one because on paper it sounds awful but in practice it lets you hack just a ton of stuff at once, which is nigh unbeatable efficiency in the early-game. I adore Parasite 2.0 and Wrench later on, though I suspect it's possible Wrench becomes less useful in late endless.

 

I'd say the two biggest traps for me so far, and I daresay most beginners, is indeed not knowing whether you can open a door and restraining the impulse to gnaw your arm off spending an extra turn in the starting room to make sure no patrols go through the immediate adjacent one. And yeah, getting a sense of when to split up agents and when to have them support each other is difficult to get a rhythm for.  My current hard rule is that if it's necessary to spend a whole alarm cycle to get to one safe (4-5 turns), either get another agent to distract/dispatch+pin a guard or give up on it. Again, resisting that temptation is hard!

[RaustBD]

I'd say the two biggest traps for me so far, and I daresay most beginners, is indeed not knowing whether you can open a door

 

A good way to tell whether that red is from a camera or a guard is to check if you see any "noticed" squares. Cameras don't notice things, they either see them or don't. If you see notice squares, it's almost certainly not safe to open. Though even if it's all red then I don't think it's a guarantee because there might be notice squares overwritten by the red from cameras, I don't know.

 

 

At any rate just be sure to open doors at an angle with enough AP to run for cover if somebody sees you opening the door.

[MrP]

 

At any rate just be sure to open doors at an angle with enough AP to run for cover if somebody sees you opening the door.

 

Alternatively, before opening a door,  if a guard is on patrol they will not notice you if you stand in the square either side of a door when they enter, as long as their path does not run diagonally through the square directly in front of you (or they have greater than 90 degree vision e.g. spec ops). Typically this wont be the case making either side of a door a relatively safe place to end a turn if you're confident that door is the only way for a guard to enter. That way you can open doors with full AP at the start of turns after spending an enemy phase listening out for movement. Don't worry about which wall an agent hugs if you're in a corner, it's purely cosmetic.

 

I try to time my moves so I end up next to a door with enough AP to peak both directly through and from an angle. Of course hunting/investigating guards are a different matter.

[StaypuftMMM]

Sometimes drawing attention can be advantageous.  

For example, I may move an agent which draws the attention of a guard.  This same agent may not be able to hide properly and is doomed to be spotted when the turn is over.  If I have another agent nearby, I will use him/her to draw the attention of the same guard and lead him away from the first one.  

Guards will investigate the last point of interest so this technique helps when I find one of my agents in a pinch due to bad luck or my stupidity.  Be careful though, because some drones are visual only, so running and/or Ping will not deter them from following the first person.

 

[Nxf7]

While not at all required to beat Experienced, a very useful piece of information to know is that guard peripheral vision is ignored while they are turning. So there are situations where you can hide agents in ridiculous places. The thread which initially discussed this is here. 

[Midnight Tea]

While not at all required to beat Experienced, a very useful piece of information to know is that guard peripheral vision is ignored while they are turning. So there are situations where you can hide agents in ridiculous places. The thread which initially discussed this is here. 

 

Holy hell, that is hilarious. I knew guards turned on a dime but I had no idea their peripheral vision was THAT bad.

[DGM]

They don't turn so much as invert in place like the T-1000 from Terminator 2.  If they're reversing direction you can have agents standing right on both sides of them and they won't notice.  "Hilarious" is exactly the right word for it.

[syrant]

Invisible Inc is a very strategic game, and it's good to review your mistakes when you make them. And there's a lot of things you pick up that only take time and practice/failure to fully understand: anticipating patrol paths, the special alarm levels, guard behavior, etc.

 

Here are couple of things that I find pretty useful, which took me a lot of time to actual start doing:

1) Pay attention to sound. You can mouse over a dark portion of the map to hear scanners and certain drones.

 

2) Learn to count movement. Guards move 8 tiles, drones move 6 tiles. Diagonals movement alternate in costs (1st diagonal costs 2, 2nd costs 1, 3rd costs 2, 4th costs 1, etc.). You can anticipate how far things move in one turn, and possibly where they will be.

 

3) If a guard/drone is patrolling, it's good to memorize their end points.

 

4) At the start of a mission, it's better to play it safe. Stay under cover, peek into rooms, don't be afraid to not use all your action points.

 

5) There are a lot of ways to distract guards (if you don't want to or can't KO them). Stuff like: EMP blast, program Ping, deliberately going into a camera's view, door way tricks, and toggling sprinting. I'm a big fan of door way tricks myself, since you can almost permanently stall a group of a guards with it. It requires you to get the guard(s) to investigate a doorway, and be in a room that has cover during the inspection. Your agent then opens/closes the door and goes back into cover.. repeat for as long as you like. (I think most of the tricks aren't really that necessary until the hardest difficulty mode, though.)

[Nxf7]

They don't turn so much as invert in place like the T-1000 from Terminator 2.  If they're reversing direction you can have agents standing right on both sides of them and they won't notice.  "Hilarious" is exactly the right word for it.

I know that they don't rotate when attempting to face a new direction, but that wasn't the point. And your example is not the same thing that my post was describing, go click on the first link.

[PlainOldCookies]

Thanks for the phenomenal feedback, guys!   Part of why I think Invisible Inc is pure brilliance is that a lot of what I'm being suggested is very intuitive to the game. Like you figure out eventually that leveling agents has sharply diminish returns compared to having enough credits for a killer disruptor or program at the right time. I also pretty much discovered fusion + parasite on my own as well, though the temptation to stick to power drip is very tempting early on even though it's probably the least useful power-feed program. Parasite is a weird one because on paper it sounds awful but in practice it lets you hack just a ton of stuff at once, which is nigh unbeatable efficiency in the early-game. I adore Parasite 2.0 and Wrench later on, though I suspect it's possible Wrench becomes less useful in late endless.

 

I'd say the two biggest traps for me so far, and I daresay most beginners, is indeed not knowing whether you can open a door and restraining the impulse to gnaw your arm off spending an extra turn in the starting room to make sure no patrols go through the immediate adjacent one. And yeah, getting a sense of when to split up agents and when to have them support each other is difficult to get a rhythm for.  My current hard rule is that if it's necessary to spend a whole alarm cycle to get to one safe (4-5 turns), either get another agent to distract/dispatch+pin a guard or give up on it. Again, resisting that temptation is hard!

Waw. You basically just read my mind as a beginner/learning experienced player, like yourself.

I got myself so accustomed to Rush's AP bonus that I basically exclusively sprinted, because I could get away with it (Torque Injectors is probably one of the best augments, or at least for me who is really good at getting myself into trouble.) For me, I just have to see everything on the level. Absolutely everything. At the moment, my team is Internationale and Xu (Free Safe hacks are just really good.) and welp, I like to think I don't make many tactical errors... aside from reaching alarm level 3 in about 7 turns in Sanaku thanks to all of the sound bugs.

Just got to learn to live with it, I suppose. The other thing would be triggering too many guards at a time. In beginner, I beat the game by brute forcing everything with a 6 KO thermal disrupter III + Predictive Brawling. It was awesome, but likely not a good habit to learn from, managing with only 3 turns at most.

[RalphKastro]

my only tip is: Don't play it like it's Mark of the Ninja. I've learned my lesson.

[MvBuren]

One more thing, from one not very good player to another—I think it's tempting to worry a lot about the alarm levels, and to knock out guards to save time. Actually, alarm levels take a long time to get dangerous, but when a guard wakes up from stun he starts hunting, which makes him unpredictable and therefore dangerous right away. On the other hand, a guard who "notices" something just takes the shortest route to check it out, and then goes back to what he was doing before, so you can easily move inconvenient guards out of the way by opening doors or dashing into the edge of their peripheral vision. So try taking it slow and safe, and it should be pretty easy to clear maps up through security level two or three without leaning on KO's. A good benchmark to aim for is doing most missions without any guards going into hunt mode.

 

Of course, there's more aggressive styles and some harder maps really demand more aggressive play, but learning to ghost levels forces you to learn exactly how guards move, which you need to pull that kind of approach off.

One more thing, from one not very good player to another—I think it's tempting to worry a lot about the alarm levels, and to knock out guards to save time. Actually, alarm levels take a long time to get dangerous, but when a guard wakes up from stun he starts hunting, which makes him unpredictable and therefore dangerous right away. On the other hand, a guard who "notices" something just takes the shortest route to check it out, and then goes back to what he was doing before, so you can easily move inconvenient guards out of the way by opening doors or dashing into the edge of their peripheral vision. So try taking it slow and safe, and it should be pretty easy to clear maps up through security level two or three without leaning on KO's. A good benchmark to aim for is doing most missions without any guards going into hunt mode.

 

Of course, there's more aggressive styles and some harder maps really demand more aggressive play, but learning to ghost levels forces you to learn exactly how guards move, which you need to pull that kind of approach off.

[DaveGold]

Peek often at the end of your turn to get better views in the enemy turn. If you are next to a door then you keep full view from a peek even after you close the door (until you move).

 

Stack bodies (two) and drones (many) so you can pin efficiently. Controlled drones can even move themselves onto your stack.

 

Be more scared of the guards you can't see than the guards you can. Take a turn to watch new doors from a safe place before ending a turn exposed to them.

 

Try to get up to 4 people as fast as you can and find roles for your people. For example, pinning guards is a valid role and doesn't need any ability. Spend money on the agents who do the hard work.

 

If a mission goes bad remember that the nanofab always has med gel and a charge pack.