obliviondoll

I initially skimmed over this post and wasn't going to bother, but I just had a quick look for sources on this. Didn't take long. Maybe 5 minutes, inlcuding the time I spent ordering pizza. http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/8834/Sneaking-Into-Invisible-Inc-Early-Access.html "there are definitely some roguelike elements to Invisible, Inc." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible,_Inc. "incorporating elements of roguelike gameplay" And lastly, A QUOTE FROM ONE OF THE DEVS on their recent Reddit AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2e00uc/we_are_klei_entertainment_creators_of_dont_starve/ "You could say the game is something of a rogu-trapdoor opens and I fall down into a pit of angry Nethack players"

The idea of manual saving and loading being a "feature" and not a design decision makes sense within the context of many games. For a game with "hardcore" and "permadeath" in the core design philosophy, that isn't the case. Manual saving, IN THIS CASE, is a design decision. And the devs, IN THIS CASE, have made the decision NOT to include it. Most importantly of all though, IN THIS CASE, as evidenced by the majority of people discussing the topic, it was the right choice. If - and it's a very big "if" - they were to consider this as a possibility, I would want to see it ONLY as a "casual save mode" option which can be turned on. It should be an option that is DISABLED by default, and preferably should only be available on easy mode. If they add any kind of leaderboards, enabling the option of manual saves should prevent your score from being uploaded, because you probably cheated by save-scumming. And yes, for the context of this game, save-scumming IS CHEATING.

You STILL haven't told us why you aren't hacking the beams, though.

I'd assumed it was the infrared "alarm" beam instead of lasers. I never try walking through any of those barriers, so I don't remember which is which except laser = death.

As people have said, until you hack the lasers (necessary to reach the non-security door), you can't say this is an unwinnable situation. Even if you can't hack them for some reason, which your screenshots so far DON'T show, you might be able to use Internationale's wireless scanner to light up a console behind one of those security doors, and get lucky with the console activation unlocking the doors for you (it's a random event, but it's worth trying for if all else fails).

Having an OPTIONAL mode which removes manual saving is VERY different from having it as the standard way the game works. Many players (and a few of the devs) said that ironman was how XCOM is "meant to" be played, but that doesn't stop the majority of players from NOT doing so. The game has permadeath, but very few players actually accept those deaths. Also, unlike this game, XCOM only saves at the end of the turn, so a well timed restart of the game can give you an undo button even in ironman mode.

Adding player-controlled save fucntions would severely impact the game's claim to being a permadeath roguelike. XCOM has saves because that was never the point. It's based on the old XCOM, in which manual saving and loading was core to the game mechanics. This game isn't MEANT to allow you to undo your mistakes. You have to think carefully about everything you do. You have to take calculated risks, and if the risk doesn't pay off, you SHOULDN'T be going back and saying "yeah, I don't like how that played out, load previous save". You should be saying "that didn't go how I hoped, better luck next time!" and either carrying on or restarting, depending on whether you have any other agents left or not.

Well, luckily for the people who suck as bad as me but don't have my patience and ability to understand my mistakes, the devs are making an easy mode! ...yeah, don't take that response seriously. Apart from the "easy mode" part. That's legitimately actually coming. I honestly do think the current difficulty has occasional too-high spikes for a "normal" setting, but they're primarily due to bugs and other unintended behaviours. I'd like to see normal difficulty at least roughly where the game is now, with easy taking a small step or two down and a hard mode to push those rare people who legitimately find the game easy.

Guards have a limited radius in which they'll hear running (much tighter than the radius where you hear THEM moving), and they'll only be in "investigating" status, not "hunting" - if they check out the sound they hear and find nothing, they'll shrug it off and go back to their patrol. Also, you can quite often already know where most enemies are and have a reasonable expectation of not triggering an alert after a partial exploration of an area, making running much safer in those situations. Running through most (not all) of an early mission will often be beneficial more than it's dangerous. It gets trickier in later missions, but by then you'll often have upgraded stealth and you'll be able to do without running so much. First move running is pretty risky though, and I wouldn't personally recommend it if you can avoid doing so.

It certainly DOESN'T force you to "rush through rooms as fast as possible". It ENCOURAGES you to move as fast as is PRACTICAL. There are plenty of times where you're better off NOT rushing, spending a turn waiting for an out-of-place agent to move into position while another agent spends 0AP sitting in a corner or beside a door. When there's a single guarded room you have to pass through, sometimes there will be an opening you can see every few turns which gives you the opportunity to slip into a covered position inside the room, then next turn (or maybe the turn after) make it to a different door and into the next room. Or maybe if you don't have visibility on the room you'll want to move up, peek into the room, then fall back with a better idea of what you're getting into. If you're rushing, you'll run into the room, knock out a guard or two, move into the next room leaving them with 2 turn KO timers, and do the same in the next room. You'll have 2 - 4 guards who are waking up over the next couple of turns after you move on, all of whom will be actively searching for you for the rest of the mission, while I take 3 or 4 turns longer to cross those rooms, but have NO extra alerted guards. Sometimes, yes, taking a guard down is necessary. And sometimes, without being necessary, it's still the best option. But it shouldn't be the go-to solution to every problem all the time.

Fortunately for you, I was due to start a new game, and the new game has both the Detention Centre and Executive Terminals mission types available. Detention Centre shot: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/67873315864087389/131D5CF3F57377F5757061D6DD166A8092A104BD/ Executive Terminals: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/67873315864090333/B8F6E79D0FBD39192099BB21703306CAD0B8F5D8/ Will edit in a bonus shot of what the containment cell area in the detention centre looks like EDIT: Deckard peeking into the room: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/67873315864952098/3F89AA5191986DC827C1A803A8EBC7C40F266499/ Deckard ready to unlock the cell doors and rescue our new friend: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/67873315864966176/8B44B833B3E5E9635F651ADB3278F61DAFDE9181/ And the team escapes, with a new addition: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/67873315864976578/B4FFF39D73F15D7677EC3CD7E65D39D45818B171/ ENJOY!

The missions you have available on each playthrough are randomly generated. Detention Centres are one mission type that can show up. Sometimes you'll see them, sometimes you won't. If you can't get a detention centre, look for Executive Terminals. The latter mission type unlocks new missions for you, which means you have another chance for the game to provide you with a Detention Centre as one of your options.

In the first turn, you are ALWAYS blind to guard movements. Many players have requested guard movement on "turn 0" to alleviate this problem. It seems like a good solution to this problem. There is still the "problem" that agents with AP-recovering tools or high stealth level can move further than your ability to hear guard patrols, but this isn't a mistake with the game, it's an encouragement to be cautious in new areas. If you're moving a long way into an area you don't have clear vision over (in all directions), EXPECT to be ambushed. If possible, put your agents in cover, or in positions the enemy is unlikely to look for them. http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/39858-tutorial-design-sneaking-instead-of-disrupting/ That's how.

If you can't get to anything, that's a shame. Sometimes, it happens. You get missions where you just have to bail. I've had them before. I've had missions where I've come away with only a handful of extra credits from looting one downed guard, and I left with nothing more. And if you had no option to retreat, then yeah, sometimes you're backed into a corner. In that situation, it sounds like you had Deckard/Internationale, because Shalem gives you a way to deal with armour and Banks lets you bypass the security doors. I've had a game where I stepped out of the spawn room and had 3 null drones drive in around me. That taught me to not rush into the first room even when it looks clear. It also taught me that null drones are evil. Sometimes, one tiny mistake will kill you. Sometimes, you won't have the resources necessary to deal with a particular enemy the game throws at you. These things are going to happen occasionally. Keep in mind that this is still early access, and that many things will be changing. Some of the "unbeatable" scenarios are ones which you COULD beat with a different team structure, or with more preparation (which will probably be an option in future updates). In part, you need to keep in mind that this game is a roguelike, and there is the expectation that you're going to lose a lot before you win. And in part, you need to keep in mind that it's not finished, and sometimes you're going to lose because of something that's NOT intended as part of the game. Tonight, I made it to the final mission for my second time. I had a full team of 4 agents, all relatively well-equipped, considering the fact that I hadn't seen the option for a single Nanofab mission in my entire playthrough. I was stuck relying on Shalem's rifle as my only armour piercing weapon. And he got killed by a glitchy non-overwatch shot from a guard who just ran around the corner and instakilled him with no reaction chance. There was an armoured guard I needed to get rid of at the time, and I ended up having to leave Shalem behind and sacrifice Internationale in order to let Banks reach Shalem's rifle and keep Deckard alive. Even though I got through that particular encounter, it killed off two agents I couldn't afford to lose so early in the mission, and I ended up failing because too many guards showed up and I didn't have enough of my own people to handle the situation. Even though it was a glitch, I pressed on to see how far I could get. I didn't make it, but I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to at the point where I was cheated out of two agents. At the moment, glitches happen. I haven't reported this incident because I've seen official "we know what causes this and are working on it" posts from the devs already. If you're dealing with a legitimately unfair situation on your game where the map generation has set you up to fail, report it. post images and if possible, relevant game data.

Dead end hallway with both spawns and the elevator: Time to cut and run. Spend the first 2 alarm levels (free of spwaning guards) exploring and collecting what you can without wasting too much power or alerting too many guards, then fall back to the lift before ticking up to level 3. Small bottleneck room with armoured guards looking at the other door: RUN. Seriously. Make one of your agents run in the next room. The guards will hear the sound and move in to investigate. Once you've lured them out of position, you can pass through the room they were guarding and move on. Difficulty spike: From what the devs have said, this is going to be changing in future. They're looking at adding difficulty settings. One idea being considered is that easy mode could have an extra alarm level at the beginning of each mission where nothing happens. No confirmation on the possibility of a hard mode or what changes that might entail. I know there are people who would welcome even more challenge though (I haven't finished story mode, so I think I'll stick to "normal"). On top of these changes, there has been mention of the full game being planned to be longer. The current final mission is a stand-in and will be used as a "special mission" type that will show up occasionally. In endless mode, there are two such mission types (one the same as the final mission). A lot of people are expecting that with a longer playtime, you'll get more missions on guarded/very guarded at the beginning of the game, giving you more time to build up and get ready for the heavily guarded and eventually extremely guarded missions that follow. It should also give you more opportunities to take Detention Centre missions and potentially unlock more agents. The changes planned and being considered should be quite helpful to alleviate the frustration aspect that settles in for a lot of players when reaching that mid-game point.