What's the most ridiculous AP total possible, and what do you think about it?


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So, max speed 13, +6 from net downlink, +6x8 from chameleon movement combined with subdermal cloak.

8 stims, for 10 each.

-1 for encumbrance.

You probably need to use Xu, as anyone else would require an equipment slot and a lot of power to make 8 attacks to trigger all the chameleon movement, so -1. 

Total = 142?

 

I know this is theoretical, but is Invisible. Inc supposed to simulate someone covering over 20 times more ground than a normal person running?

 

I've long thought that some restrictions, like one stim per turn, or even a personal drug cooldown would be good, (unrelated, but I'd also like to see a "clothing" inventory slot for cloaking devices, which you can only equip pre-mission). 142 APs is just silly.

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Nika + Predictive Brawling (18 AP every turn for as little as 4 pwr) is pretty much the baseline for ridiculous amounts of AP before going into infinite movement Olivia stim IV abuse. And either Nika or predictive brawling is essential for the Olivia infinite AP glitch anyway.

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So the answer to my question is an infinite amount of AP? Can you provide a link?

 

Basically, Olivia (Augment grants PWR equal to her knockout time for each attack she does), Stim 4 (10 AP plus infinite attacks for one turn), a volt disruptor (costs pwr but doesn't have cooldown and so can be used repeatedly), enough bonuses to KO time that she gains more pwr from her augment than the disruptor costs, predictive brawling (+6 AP per melee attack), and voila! You can just keep hitting guards to gain more AP and never run out of pwr, and you can keep recharging whenever you want at a guard as long as you can knock them out.

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I am happy with it personally. There are quite a number of powerful combos that some might consider too strong, but you're always welcome to just avoid those to increase your personal difficulty. A huge amount of AP is pretty low on my "concerns about this game" list though. Also note that the infinite AP trick described only works once per level per Stim IV (since Stim IV can only be used once per level). You can of course carry charge packs or additional Stim IVs for additional uses though.

 

If anything, Central alone is more consistently valuable in endless mode than the infinite AP trick in my opinion. One turn of infinite AP versus near-infinite power (late game once daemons are everywhere)...I'll take the power! AP are only as good as the rooms you can move into and the devices you can operate, both of which are determined by your power and programs.

 

As an afterthought, this is also a roguelike game and it's not uncommon for rogulikes to have a wide range of "power levels" for combos you can achieve throughout play. The thing that makes this game unique with respect to roguelikes in my experience however is that it's easier throughout a long game to get a build you are aiming for rather than just a purely random assortment of skills, augments, and equipment. Campaign mode does limit that more and it's more of a "work with what you have" mode.

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I brought up the topic because I was struck by the dramatic difference I had in two successive playthroughs.

In the first, everything came together and I had four agents, two with ridiculous AP potential, rapier, and I was completing endgame levels with max credit totals at security level 0 or 1.

In the second, I've been stuck with two agents, low AP potentials, and no cloaks. The game is, so far, much more entertaining! Not because of the lack of agents, but just because it's a significantly more satisfying experience playing with lower AP counts.

 

If it were up to me, I would want combos to be effective, fun to explore, but stopping significantly shy of the point of clearing entire levels in a turn or two at no risk. Making "infinite" not infinite, using stim-use cooldowns, capping cloak use, maybe an AP cap, all these kinds of things could only improve the experience of the game, as far as I'm concerned.

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It is obviously an exploit. Worse still if combined with cloak 3. But if people enjoy playing that way, whats the problem? Everything's right there in the custom settings to make the game as Easy/Hard as you want.

 

I think stacking cloak 3's is probably a bigger exploit. Nika + Predictive Brawling leaves only two slots for PenScanners (unless you want to drop 2x attack). Likewise with Olivia - only dropping to 1 if you take Titanium Rods. That means the highest armor level they can bypass with a Volt Disrupter is 3/4 without a Ventricular Lance or Aces. Go far enough in to endless+ and that wont be enough. In campaign you'll need to be very lucky with nanofabs and grafters.

 

It's true that the game suffers some balance problems later on, but overall I think the game does a decent job of encouraging us to use varied loadouts and agent combos. The ArchDaemons might be a crude way to balance late game, but they're effective for the most part. And who really enjoys running around with 16 cloak 3's anyways? 

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Stim IV is kind of sort of broken, and I really don't think it should exist as is. Frankly, most of the IV-tier items have serious issues, either obscenely worthless or way too good.

 

Personal cooldowns would be helpful in general. I tend not to stick more than one copy of an item on an agent anyways. They don't need to exist for everything, but for, say, cloaking rigs or whatever they're pretty important.

 

Also, I hate the stim-cloak augment. I just don't use it, it breaks the game.

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It is obviously an exploit. Worse still if combined with cloak 3. But if people enjoy playing that way, whats the problem? Everything's right there in the custom settings to make the game as Easy/Hard as you want.

The problem is when people start gloating about it. My guess it Klei doesn't want people talking on forums about the edge cases where their game becomes trivial. It's bad publicity for potential buyers to know that the pinnacle of strategy this game offers involves breaking it. Even worse because most of the people that are doing it aren't good enough to beat Expert Plus without it, so they make the game out to be super hard and it implies that abusing infinite AP is the only way to win.

 

Anyway this thread was actually supposed to be addressing the immersion breaking of having high AP in a turn-based environment wouldn't translate to a real-time environment. Everyone missed that point or just didn't care, like me. It's a game so the only thing I care about is game balance, not how realistically accurate it is.

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Anyway this thread was actually supposed to be addressing the immersion breaking of having high AP in a turn-based environment wouldn't translate to a real-time environment. Everyone missed that point or just didn't care, like me. It's a game so the only thing I care about is game balance, not how realistically accurate it is.

 

Well, for me the two are intertwined. I'd like a "realistic" limit on AP, partly because an agent clearing an entire level in the time it takes for a guard to walk a patrol route seems silly, but also because anything that eliminates the balance the kind of risk/reward decisions that you are presented with at the start of the game makes it less fun. Now I know that there are a variety of ways to get ridiculous amounts of AP, I'd like to see all of them toned down, for a more "balanced" game. Same goes for infinite power and infinite attacks. Infinite anything is very risky to add to turn-based games, and I think more care should be taken in regard to possible combinations of effects.

 

I have no interest in endless mode, but even in an extended campaign some combinations can and do remove all the tension and interest from later levels. I've heard Klei mention that they prefer to keep the crazy combos, and beef security, but I don't think that adding the (very occasional) extra power to security is an effective way at rebalancing things. Clearing a level in one turn should never be possible.

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I think clear exploits like this should be patched out somehow.  If people enjoy them enough, sure, go ahead and leave them in as a custom option, but not as default.

 

I strongly disagree with the "well, if you don't like it, you don't need to use it" attitude towards exploits, at least for the default behaviour.  

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I don't disagree that the game would be improved by curbing some exploits. InvisibleInc is more fun when you're clearing levels by the finest margins than later on when you're pretty much ready for anything. I just think the infinite AP issue; 1) requires a ton of luck to get during campaign , whilst 2) restricts you to starting with Nika and 3) isn't all that helpful during late endless anyways. Crank up some of the custom options or put it on time attack and you can make it totally pointless.

 

I'm interested in making the game more fun for me, I really couldn't care less if others like breaking the game and playing it over and over with the same two agents, four augments and an inventory full of stims and cloaks.

 

Stacking Cloak3's and the infinite power gen trick is far more game breaking at the highest difficulties. I'm sure they'll get round to addressing it. The new Archdaemons and ridiculous Armor levels are decent improvements, if a bit crude. Admittedly endless is still a bit routine, the anti cloak detection is worthless (haven't seen it work once, though I don't cloak much) and outside of the new weapons a lot of the new items aren't well balanced. Stim IV is a major issue. I would like to see separate inventories for Cloaks, Charge Packs and Vault Access Cards for various reasons. Yet even as it is right now, exploits included, level 20 missions do offer a challenge if you're not perma-cloaked. I still can't even complete time attack mode (there's even a 30sec option!). 

 

 

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I don't know you need to be that lucky.  I didn't have Nika, wasn't planning on doing the exploit, and just happened to fall into since I had given Olivia some KO upgrades.  Then you just use a normal volt disruptor and boom, infinite power/ap.

 

Was actually my first run of the game!

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Yeah, stim iv has made it easier tbh. That setup will only work with 0 Armor guards who phase out quickly even in campaign. I'd maintain the infinite PWR is a bigger advantage than AP. As is the Stim iv and multi-cloaking.

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Yeah, stim iv has made it easier tbh. That setup will only work with 0 Armor guards who phase out quickly even in campaign. I'd maintain the infinite PWR is a bigger advantage than AP. As is the Stim iv and multi-cloaking.

 

2 armour guards, which is sufficient for the entire campaign.

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2 armour guards, which is sufficient for the entire campaign.

 

Sure, with a VD3 you can take down 2 armor guards. But I thought nearly all guards have level3 armor or a barrier shield at the end of campaign, except the harbingers? And getting a VD3 and Stim4 requires a fair bit of luck.

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Sure, with a VD3 you can take down 2 armor guards. But I thought nearly all guards have level3 armor or a barrier shield at the end of campaign, except the harbingers? And getting a VD3 and Stim4 requires a fair bit of luck.

Aside from Chiten, Omni Protectors have 0 armour after hacking their shield to 0.

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Aside from Chiten, Omni Protectors have 0 armour after hacking their shield to 0.

Of course, but really shows that Olivia's infinite power gen > infinite AP. Really, infinite AP is only useful when you can hack everything you need to. 

 

I haven't done this myself with Olivia, but I assume to use a VD3 to create infinite PWR means you need to stack 3 Titanium Rod augments? Would give you +1 PWR per attack until the KO resistance countermeasure sets in. I guess its the same for the VD2 as its 4PWR/2KO I think? I guess the way to do it is choose file Nika and new Olivia and give her NikasVD to PWRgen, then hand Nika's VD back to APgen. Olivia will still need 1 set of Titanium Rods though (+ two Stim4's or one Stim4 and PredictiveBrawling) . To use the exploit on armored guards will require either better VD's and more TRods or Penetration Scanners (not to mention extra slots at the grafters).

 

I don't want to start going round in circles, I just think even if you start with these builds in mind, to complete them in the space of a single campaign requires a fair bit of luck. Pre-dlc I had runs where I couldn't find a single PiercingScanner, PenetrationScanner or weapon with armor bypass, having to attempt the last mission reliant on ShockTraps. Maybe I'll try an expert+ run with Nika and Olivia to try it out.

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Of course, but really shows that Olivia's infinite power gen > infinite AP. Really, infinite AP is only useful when you can hack everything you need to.

Ok but what's your point with this? So far the only 2 methods of infinite AP have also given you infinite hacking. With enough patience Archive Nika could use buster chips to hack the map.

 

As for Olivia's cheese, I think you're forgetting the +1 KO you gain from having strength maxed. So the most efficient setup would be a volt disrupter 3 and 5 strength which costs 5 power per punch, KO's for +4 power, and penetrates 2. Base augment + 2 KO augments + predictive brawling. Done. You have until alarm level 4 to cheese the map.
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Ok but what's your point with this? So far the only 2 methods of infinite AP have also given you infinite hacking. With enough patience Archive Nika could use buster chips to hack the map.

 

As for Olivia's cheese, I think you're forgetting the +1 KO you gain from having strength maxed. So the most efficient setup would be a volt disrupter 3 and 5 strength which costs 5 power per punch, KO's for +4 power, and penetrates 2. Base augment + 2 KO augments + predictive brawling. Done. You have until alarm level 4 to cheese the map.

 

Man, this is dragging on a bit. To quote myself earlier (can't get multiquote working?) "I just think the infinite AP issue; 1) requires a ton of luck to get during campaign , whilst 2) restricts you to starting with Nika and 3) isn't all that helpful during late endless anyways." and that "Stacking Cloak3's and the infinite power gen trick is far more game breaking at the highest difficulties." Apart from missing out 'and/or Olivia for 2), these quotes really sum up my position.

 

Certainly I forgot the Strength 5 KO bonus, still costs ~2.2k to get though. Getting a VD3 and a Stim4 early is tough enough, then augments, extra slots plus 2k strength upgrade. Hard to do even in the new 5 day campaign. Really I suppose you can abuse APgen by just giving file Nika PredictiveBrawling and Stim4, with 20 PWR you can get +120 AP. Not infinite AP though. Should be nerfed, sure, but not close to number 1 priority for me. Would be better if bonuses weren't given for KOing grounded guards (or at least advances the tracker).

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