Digital security offline. Preparing for analog failure. Let's Play Invisible, Inc.

Hey kids!



Let's play Invisible, Inc!

Klei Entertainment hit the market originally with their game Mark of the Ninja, another game I've considered LPing and basically one of the best stealth games out there. Invisible, Inc. is ALSO a stealth game, but rather than the standard of being a real-time actiony doodad, they instead took it in a direction reminiscent of Fire Emblem, and gave it a delicious cyberpunk frosting: you operate a number of field agents trying to infiltrate corporate holdings, and it's both turn and grid based. What's more, it does that one thing where it randomly generates level layouts to increase replayability, while at the same time decreasing story length and adding permadeath elements. What's the term again... pseudofighter? Clericoid? Ah, forget it.



Since first LP updates are already way too huge, and Fire Emblem has set a precedent for also being a huge series to LP, we're coming in nice and easy with the tutorial. That'll get the mechanics out of the way while also showing what to expect.



The game doesn't have anywhere NEAR as much text as Fire Emblem (and I swear I'll stop drawing comparisons to it eventually, don't have many other grid-based reference points) but it has some. And even if it's not an especially gripping story to read, the text is pretty funny, especially some of the pre-mission banter between agents.



But I'm getting ahead of myself, we got a tutorial to do.



For the tutorial, we're only given the one agent, Decker. For now, that's really all we need to know.



At the start of each turn, agents get their AP refilled. The standard for AP is 8, they're just giving us 3 here to give a nice clear look at how it's used for movement. Orthogonal moves cost 1, diagonals cost 1.5 (in practice, they alternate between a cost of 2 and 1). AP is almost always used for movement, other actions usually have different costs.



They start Decker off with 3 for the first turn, but he'll go back up to 8 in a second.



OH NO THE ENEMY IS NOW ACTING



Okay enough of that. So this door here is locked, but once we properly tutorial by peeking through...



And that's why Medusa Security Systems went out of business so quickly.

Peeking costs 1 AP, but it lets you glance around corners and through closed doors without risking your agent's visibility. It's a good idea for scouting, but taking the time to peek might mean you're 1 AP shy of getting into cover, which means your agent gets seen. Still, handy tool.



Safes tend to have pretty heavy security. This one doesn't for tutorial reasons, though. Any agent can loot a safe by standing next to it and interacting with it, and doing so costs no AP, so feel free to snag from them as you move through an area.



And inside is a very standard-issue melee weapon. Get used to seeing these around.



OH NO WE HAVE ENDED OUR TURN WITH ZERO AP AND IT'S GOING TO BE THE ENEMY'S TURN AND OH NO



I AM WHOLLY TERRIFIED AND PANICKING



So, the Neural Disrupter. It works really simply: just approach an enemy in melee range (even if they've noticed you) and click the shiny little KO button.



And that guard is out like a light.



Strategy-wise, knocking out guards is a good way to get them out of your hair in a pinch, but it's not good in the long term. Either you have to dedicate an agent to pinning them down, or you risk them coming back to bite you in the ass a few turns down the road. One thing that's very important to learn is when to just leave a guard alone and sneak around their path. Klei Entertainment did a pretty good job of improving in that vein over Mark of the Ninja, which made the same mistake a lot of stealth games do of the best strat being just murdering the entire floor. (You can still use this strat in Invisible, Inc but it's costlier in many ways.)



That said, it's a little harder to rob a guard blind if they're conscious. Not that we need to do so for the tutorial, but no real reason not to, either.



Doors are a highly advanced form of witchcraft in this game, the nuances of which could take a lifetime to even approach the barest shred of mastery. But generally speaking, you'll want to leave most of them closed. Open doors tend to leave longer sight lines for guards, and as a rule, they have longer range than you.



And now we're getting to the cyberpunk part of things.

The currency of the hacking system is PWR, and the main way of acquiring it is those consoles. Just like safes, any agent can hijack a console at no AP cost by standing next to one.



Direction doesn't matter, so pick your favorite and go to town. Some agents are better than others at this, but we'll worry about that later.



Anyhoo, the next room is a bit trickier. Peeking in reveals that the entire room is being observed by someone.



Or something. Cameras can't shoot your agents, but being seen by one still sucks and will send a nearby guard to investigate, so try not to run through camera areas unless you have to.

But you're all probably wondering "wtf is with this weird popup on the screen"?



Turns out we also have access to a cutting-edge mainframe-hacking AI. Incognita here will supply support to agents in the field by using her programs to gain control of mainframe devices on the map. In this case, we're going to use Lockpick 1.0, the default firewall breaker, to control this camera. It costs 2 PWR per use...



But once done, the camera is ours. This lets us keep an eye on any guards in the area without risking precious human resources, so try to hack as many cameras as you can in a mission, especially if they're overlooking critical areas.

Psh, there's no risk. That door's locked anyway. (And I'm pretty sure guards can't open locked doors? Not 100% on it though.)



On the other side is a guard, looking directly at the door. We open it, which gives the guard reason to investigate.

Sometimes, the game will put you somewhere where there's no way to advance without getting a guard's attention, which sucks. Ideally, you orchestrate these situations yourself and plan accordingly (for example, if Decker just rolled on through the door without looking first, he'd be dead now). In this case, the guard is going to go see why the door decided to open without human authorization, and Decker's going to prepare for this by going into Ambush stance. In short, the first enemy that gets in melee range gets a faceful of Neural Disrupter.



This isn't wholly unconditional, though. You can't ambush enemies you aren't capable of attacking with your current weapon, and if your Neural Disrupter is on cooldown like ours is (3 turns between uses) you're going to look pretty silly for trying. Still, ambushing is a very important part of keeping agents safe. And it doesn't cost AP either, but taking any actions that move your agent leave ambush. You also can't ambush while pinning an enemy.



Nice and unambiguous, that.

Reading visual zones is also pretty important. Bright red means that any agent in or entering that square WILL be caught on film or at gunpoint. Dim red means that you'll still be noticed, but no immediate action will be taken, so you can hurry through those zones in a pinch. There's also yellow, but the tutorial will tell us how that works momentarily.



First things first. You will never find a console in the wild that grants 6 PWR, by the way. Just doesn't happen.



As a general rule of thumb, if you can ONLY see bright red, it usually means a camera. Dim red tends to happen on the peripheral range of a guard's cone of vision. This helps you tell whether it's safe to open a watched door for a better look.



Moving right along, though.



So, the yellow zones. Those are areas where, despite being in a visual area, your agent will be able to rely on cover, at least for the moment, to safely avoid all notice. In this case, Decker can skulk behind the desks without once getting the attention of that enforcer.

And a good thing too: his Neural Disrupter doesn't have the punch needed to get past that armor. Armored units are simple: if you don't have enough armor piercing on your weapon, you can't use it on them (which includes ambush). Either find a better weapon or leave these guys alone.



Thankfully, we have no problems with the second.



Home stretch. That teleporter is how your agents leave the mission, ideally with objectives completed.

Also, any agent can spend 1 AP to observe a guard they can see, either directly or via camera. This will tell you what move they'll make on their next turn, assuming nothing new catches their attention. Like peeking, this is very valuable for scouting, but don't overspend or you won't have a way to avoid that route.

This is a good way for agents who have no interest in moving to spend their AP, by the way: scroll over the level and see what guards they can observe through cameras.



Not that it matters here: it's a straight shot to the goal and you have a contiguous wall of cover to work with. Decker would have to actively try to get noticed here.



WE OUT, HOMES.



So that more or less covers the basics of Invisible, Inc. gameplay. It gets a lot hairier in practice, but knowing the rules is still critical. Good luck playing this without running the tutorial first.



Woo mission report. This tells us guard state (we alerted two and left two undisturbed), hacking (we seized two cameras and there was a magically unlocked safe), items acquired (ERMAHGERD STANDARD NEURAL DISRUPTER), and credits we stole (because we could).

Yes, you can lose agents in the field. Which is really painful, not least because you can't easily savescum like in Fire Emblem to avoid this, but there's a way to recover them if that happens.

As for Net Worth: say hello to your score. Most things increase this, and a few things decrease it, most notably a cleanup cost if you murder anyone on-site. (This is surprisingly hard to do.)



Okay, now the fun really begins.

Invisible, Inc. has a difficulty settings system that could beat up DoomRL AND Kid Icarus: Uprising AND Bastion all at the same time. To start with, it provides three standardized difficulty settings, four more complex ones, and the ability to freely customize each and every one of them. I'll summarize them in this spoilerpop below, but for now, just know that unless I get a really stupid idea, I'm going to run through on Expert until I win (which shouldn't be hard), and then once more with the Contingency Plan DLC that basically adds a postgame.

Two of them are immediately important: Rewinds and Level Retries. Rewinds are the game's answer to savescumming in Fire Emblem: a limited resource of "go back to the turn before this one". You can give yourself 0 if you want to play Ironman, or 10 or even 99 if you want to. Level Retries are exactly what they sound like, but instead of having a limit, it simply generates an entirely new level for you with the same rules in play (still the same objective and corporation). I usually don't futz with these but am very happy that they exist.

Beginner gives you Level Retries and 5 Rewinds. Experienced takes away Level Retries and only gives 3 Rewinds. Expert only gives 1 Rewind and is the standard difficulty for the game. If you want to see the finer details, again, this spoilerpop will tell you more.



While the NEEEEERDS among you read that, here's an intro cutscene!



Optimistic!



Even outside of difficulty settings, there's a lot of choice to be had for starting your game! You get your choice of two agents and two programs. Ordinarily you start with the defaults of agents Decker and Internationale, and the programs Power Drip and Lockpick 1.0, but you unlock more by playing the game and cashing in XP. It takes maybe two or three successful runs, tops, to unlock literally everything.

To avoid overloading you guys on choices, as well as for reasons of plot, I'm going to limit voting on starting agents (which we are, of course, doing) to the following list.

• Decker is the one in the tutorial for a reason. He's a very solid all-around agent, with a bit more AP than average, a cloaking rig to help him avoid notice for a turn, and the ability to detect daemons in mainframe devices he gets close to. Plus, he puts on the airs of a film noir detective because he's salty about all this cyberpunk going on. What's not to like? Again, a very solid all-around contender that works well with almost anyone.
• Internationale is everyone's favorite Social Justice Hacker, and your other starting agent. Unlike Decker, she isn't chosen as such because of all-around utility. No, she's chosen for one reason and one reason only: her innate ability to sense mainframe devices and consoles wirelessly, and hijack the latter remotely. Internationale is probably my choice for the strongest agent in the game.
• Shalem 11 is what you get if you make James Bond into a Lebanese sniper with zero regard for human life. Remember how I said killing enemies was really hard to do? Shalem 11 starts the game with a lethal ranged weapon and the knowhow to make it work on almost anything. Just be careful, because corporations start to notice dead bodies REAL quick, and Shalem's starting Neural Disrupter sucks.
• Banks is a cautionary tale about the dangers of both brain damage and manic pixie dream girls. But if you need to break into something without leaving bodies, she's one of the best. She can open most locked doors without an access card, begins the game with the ability to steal from guard without KOing them, and if you really DO need a guard to stay KO'd, she can keep them down for a long time with her custom Paralyzer.
• Dr. Xu is my favorite agent, being a sarcastic academic turned to a life of crime, but not necessarily the best. Among his toys are a limited-range EMP, which consumes his attack to disable any electronic device in range for 1 turn, and a Shock Trap that gives the next guard to open the rigged door a nasty surprise. Any other agent would have to rely on Incognita to break a safe: Dr. Xu just pokes it and it opens. That EMP is tiring, though, and he comes with less AP than most, so be careful when using him.
• Nika is the other agent prominently featured in the intro cutscene, where she takes on an entire attacking guard troop head-on. Unlike everyone else, she favors a Volt Disrupter, which loses the cooldown of the Neural Disrupter in exchange for a PWR cost per attack. She also gets two attacks a turn and an AP boost on attacking. If you have the PWR to fuel her, she can tear through guards like nobody's business.
• Sharp fills our Transhumanist Asshole Cyborg quota for the setting. Most agents begin the game with one augment and one empty slot for another, and getting more slots for augments is a risky proposition. Sharp begins the game with an augment that translates to 5 empty slots, and he gets better at punching things the more augments he gets. If you can get enough augments onto him, he's a terrifying force of nature, but it takes a while to build him up that far.
• Prism is a holovid star who faked her death following an extensive smear campaign about her anti-corporate history. I bet there's any number of real-world analogues for her. Whenever you successfully hack a mainframe device, Prism translates that into a bit of extra power gain. This is a good way to ease up on the PWR consumption most firewall-breaking programs have, and it requires nothing other than her presence on the level. Internationale is still better at PWR gain overall, but Prism is no slouch.
• Rush is the first of the two Contingency Plan DLC characters I'm submitting here, and is the result of the trend to actually let augmented athletes compete in games of their own division. Ordinarily, your agents can start off their turn with a sprint, which gives +3 AP in exchange for making noise when running, which is a good way to get noticed. Rush also hits harder with KO weapons while sprinting, making her a great agent for saving your others when they get noticed. Plus, she starts with a stim for even more AP in a pinch, and hey, free AP.
• Draco is your only other choice if you want to have lethal options early on. And unlike Shalem 11, where you do so only in an emergency, Draco will do so in order to use his unique ability, which lets him gain bonuses by scanning guards, and which are permanent if the guard in question is dead. He cannot gain skill upgrades normally (everyone else can buy them between missions), however, so you'll ride a fine line between killing guards for stats and surviving on what you have available.

We also get a choice of programs in two categories: one for gaining PWR, and one for breaking firewalls. These I won't leave up to vote unless you guys get a really creative combo in mind, but I'll list them out anyway.

For PWR gain:

• Power Drip is what you start the game with, and it's very straightforward: you gain 1 PWR every turn. This REALLY isn't very much, though, so you're better off with something that better suits your playstyle, or by supplementing this with agents that will get you ACTUAL levels of PWR.
• Fusion was available when I started playing for some reason. Dunno why. Anyway, it costs 5 PWR to activate, but once you do, it generates 3 PWR at the start of each turn during its 4 turn cooldown. Fusion works best when you don't expect to use much PWR regularly, but anticipate a massive consumption coming up. Nine times out of ten it's better than Power Drip. Just be careful not to overspend on your gain before you have to activate it again.
• Seed is a really neat program I would probably never see myself using. Simply put, your first program each turn is discounted by 4 PWR. This creates some really strong combos with other programs, very few of which you can select to start the game. Select this if you're okay with a rocky start for PWR and plan to hit up server farms to get Incognita fully upgraded.
• Faust gives 2 PWR each turn, but with one giant honking caveat of a 20% chance of installing a daemon each turn. If you skipped the settings spoilerpop, daemons are basically traps the corporation triggers when you hack certain mainframe devices, and they all hurt like hell. Go with this if you expect PWR consumption to pose a bigger threat than anything else in your game.
• Dynamo is my JAM! This one also generates 2 PWR a turn, but it doesn't actually do that until the alarm level hits 2. This makes it a good option if you anticipate needing lots of PWR later on and little early... which isn't usually the case on account of all the cameras you'll need to hack. But if those aren't a concern, go with Dynamo.
• Burst is a program from the Contingency Plan DLC, and it's basically bizarro Fusion. When used, you get 3 PWR and all of your agents get 3 AP, which is great! But while it's on its 2 turn cooldown, all your agents are at -3 AP. Which is very bad. The good news is, you'll usually only need that AP boost for a single turn, in which you set up enough to offset the penalty. Still, -3 AP for two turns is an excellent way to undo that progress you earned.

For breaking firewalls:

• Lockpick 1.0 is what we used in the tutorial, and it sets the baseline for PWR vs. firewalls, spending 2 of the former to break 1 of the latter. A good, solid option early on, but by lategame you'll need more specialized tools, either to supply you with the PWR to break more, or to break more firewalls in specific situations.
• Parasite lets you basically inflict damage over time to mainframe devices. At the start of each of your turns, the Parasite automatically breaks 1 firewall. The first Parasite is free, but subsequent ones cost 1 PWR per existing Parasite. This is extremely economical in terms of PWR, but the cost is paid several times over in turn count, especially later on. And be very careful about things that can spawn daemons on mainframe devices, because once a Parasite is placed, it stays there.
• Rapier is perfect for rushing players. It costs only 1 PWR per firewall, but that cost goes up by 1 with each alarm level. If you don't have everything hacked by alarm level 3 or so, you are never going to get it hacked, so it's imperative that you move fast if you plan on running Rapier.
• Brimstone is your best anti-Daemon option. It costs 3 PWR per firewall, which is frankly ludicrous, but having the program at all grants you +10% chance for what's called a Daemon Reversal. In such an instance, Incognita reverse-engineers a daemon before it does damage, and you instead get a temporary benefit. There's an achievement for winning a game with Faust and Brimstone, but frankly I can't see pairing these two programs with anything but each other.
• Mercenary is an interesting choice, and probably your best bet for pairing with Seed to start with. It breaks 2 firewalls for 0 PWR, which is INSANE, but each subsequent usage increases the PWR cost by 2. This cost rests to 0 with each alarm level, so you basically have to play Mercenary by keeping a close eye on the alarm level and not overspending on breaking things unless you NEED to in order to survive.
• Golem is the other DLC program. It's basically the complete opposite of Rapier, with a fairly inefficient 4 PWR per 2 firewalls, but it decreases its cost by 1 each turn until you use it again. This sounds strong on paper, but as with Parasite, this just won't be able to stay competitive later on, and unlike Parasite, a single double-break in a vacuum isn't going to be as good as reliably breaking one each turn.

But for now, let's keep it simple. Two most popular agents get to go on a cyberpunk ADVENTURE! Where absolutely nothing horrible will happen, because cyberpunk is all about how the world is a good place where nothing ever goes wrong!

Next Time: Scorched Earth

I vote for Internationale and Banks, because that sounds like fun.

Internationale is my favorite agent by far, so I must insist that you use the Contingency Planning characters. For programs, go with Parasite forever and ever, or failing at that, Faust+Brimstone.

I finished my first Expert run over Christmas after picking up some very useful tips from someone else's no-rewind Expert Plus run. Highlights include my first ever time dragging an incapacitated agent to the elevator plus fending off about ten simultaneous guards in the final mission.

Nika, because the solution to the problems caused by punching too many guards is to punch them some more.

AGENTS I GUESS

Dr. Xu and Sharp!

Also Dynamo and Mercenary even though you don't care.

Never mind, LP on hold while I unlock the elusive Agents character. Expect it to return by 2025.

Dr Xu and whoever and whatever else.

I vote for Banks. It's time for sleepy boys.

Well, I still need to translate the one FAQ I found detailing how to unlock Agents, so for now we'll start a run with Dr. Xu and Banks. I'll get right on that.

This is the team I learned the game with, so in the interest of making things silly, I'm taking Seed and Mercenary as my programs, having never used either one. So that might backfire, but if it does, we'll ALL learn something.



Hope my resize didn't ruin the text's readability for you. Long story short: welcome to cyberpunk roguelike.



DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY

72 HOURS REMAIN



So, this is Central. She's about as close as Invisible, Inc. gets to having a main protagonist. Not Decker, and not Internationale, but Central. And honestly, for a game where you barely even get to use the main protagonist, she's pretty neat. Much like Fire Emblem, the individual characters stand out just enough to make them interesting.



Speaking of, let's take a closer look at our team.

Dr. Xu will be doing all of the safecracking for our team, as he is wont to do. In a pinch, we can use Mercenary to break them open, but Mercenary adds up quickly if used where it's not needed. He'll also do a lot to help contain guards and keep them out of our hair with his Modded Shock Trap. However, his base of 7 AP is going to slow our ground progress quite a bit.

Banks will therefore be handling scouting whenever possible. And she's well suited to it, too: locked doors mean nothing to her, and she can steal from guards without KOing them. And if she DOES need to KO them, her Custom Paralyzer will ensure they stay down for a long time.

Both of them start with a Neural Disrupter, and our team won't want for money, but we'll have a few issues with getting PWR and taking on guards until we get more kit. That said, Seed and Mercenary pair together extremely well. That gives us a total of 6 firewall breaks among 3 objects for only 2 PWR if we play it right, which is overkill now, but will be extremely powerful later. Timing will be critical with these programs.



Anyway, you always begin the game with one Executive Terminals mission. Missions have three parameters you know about going into them: corporation, objective, and overall difficulty.



For now, the corporation doesn't matter, and the objective is fixed (get the site list to expand later choices for missions). Difficulty starts at 1 and goes as high as 5 normally, and 8 in the DLC extended endgame. Which I accidentally left all the DLC on for this. WELP.

I'll clear this mission anyway cuz I already took all the screenshots... but I'll be blunt: we're probably not gonna keep this run. Not only should you leave the extended endgame until you're very familiar with the base game, but I haven't actually full cleared it yet. The only file I have that's close enough is sitting right outside the final mission.

That said, unlike most roguelikes, Invisible, Inc. lets you keep a grand total of 4 savefiles. So even with this and my current game, we still have room for two more files. So we have a few options there, the cleanest of which I can think of is starting up a new file without the DLC, but leaving this one on standby for now until we clear that one (or crash it into the ocean).



But we'll worry about that later. Right now, we got a flight to catch.



Splash screen splash screen splash screen. Yes there are different ones.



READY!



Here are our objectives. I dunno what it means by "secondary objective", because that is always a thing we are going to do.

That said, even if you fail one or most of your objectives, as long as at least one agent makes it to the pad and escapes, it's not game over. I mean, it'll probably suck out loud, but you CAN salvage a run this way.



Oh, and by the way. See that wheel in the upper right? That's the mysterious alarm level that's been discussed. Every turn, a new section will add itself to the wheel. Once all five are in, the alarm level rises, which not only means we get a new security measure, but it also means Mercenary's cost resets.



Banks goes to check out the door and immediately sees a guard playing Hoplite on their phone. Thankfully, they're not keeping an eye on anything but what's right ahead, but that's two doors they're overlooking. Not promising.



To the right is a laser tripwire. These come in three flavors: alarm, daemon, and murder. Try not to trip any if you can help it. They automatically disable when a guard's in the path, which you can use to slip through if need be.



Dr. Xu trudges into position, and I let the enemy have their turn, where nothing happens but the security level increasing.



Now then, let's get some neat prizes.



All agents have four stats, most of which start at 1.

Speed gives the agent more AP. Non-Xu agents start at 8, with +1 AP per level of Speed. At max Speed, you also get a boost to sprinting movement. Some items, like stims and cloaking rigs, require a certain level of Speed from the user. Everyone wants Speed, but it's the most expensive stat to upgrade.

Hacking gives the agent more PWR whenever they hijack a console. It's also necessary for the usage of certain items, like portable servers and EMP packs. It's always a good idea to have at least one agent with a high Hacking score (and if you have Internationale, it's going to be her).

Strength gives one extra inventory space per point. Agents CAN carry items over their limit, but each one reduces their AP by 1. Even numbers of Strength also boost the speed you can drag bodies, and the highest one increases KO damage from melee weapons. Again, everyone wants Strength, but not usually as much as they'd want Speed. Strength is way cheaper, though.

Anarchy improves the agent's ability to steal from guards. Ordinarily, you have to KO a guard to rifle through their pockets, but the first extra point, which Banks starts play with, lets you do it just by being adjacent. Higher levels get more creds, and eventually more items, from guards, and the score is also used for a wide number of delightful sabotage items. Like Hacking, you want at least one agent with a high score here, but for everyone else, just Anarchy 2 is usually enough.



While you were reading all of that, Banks stole the guard's wallet.



Just behind her is a Nano Fabricator. This is basically the game's equivalent of a shop. In the not-so-distant future, we will use devices like these to 3D-print all manner of life's necessities with the ease and cost of one of our normal vending machines!

Unless they're locked.



Not to worry there, Mercenary's got our back.



I accidentally covered most of the gadgetry stock here, but I can explain what we have here.

First, there's always one augment for sale. Augments are cybernetic enhancements that, once installed, stay on their agent for good. Each agent begins the game with one augment installed and space for one more by default, and if you want more augment slots, go see a cybernetics lab. The augment being sold here is Predictive Brawling, one of my favorites, which grants a windfall of 6 AP whenever you melee a guard. That was definitely tempting...

But I elected to buy the T.A.G. Pistol instead. This is a ranged weapon that grants the ability to safely tag guards from a distance, which is effectively a free Observe action on the guard every turn. However, it costs 1 PWR per use. That said, tagged guards are WAY WAY EASIER to deal with than untagged guards, not least because you can detect their path even if you can't actually see the guard in question.

As for the other things, every Nanofab always offers a Med Gel and a Charge Pack. Med Gels let you revive agents that have fallen in the field for any reason, while Charge Packs let you both speed up the cooldown on items that have one, like Neural Disrupters, or reload weapons that have ammo. This one's also selling two Econ Chips, which can be used by a sufficiently skilled anarchist to convert PWR gain from consoles into credits. Even if I could afford and use those, with this team and program setup? Not happening.



Let's take it for a test toast!



Tag, you're it.

Why am I tagging a stationary guard? The answer is because they sure as hell aren't gonna be stationary in a few turns if this keeps up.



I smell camera.



Remember, if an area has lots of bright red in it, but no dim red like Mr. iPhone over there, that usually means a camera. Which should mean it's safe for Dr. Xu to open the door.

Right, let's do this.



Ordinarily, Mercenary would cost 2 PWR since we've used it once this alarm level already, but Seed can foot the bill this turn.



I don't like having to do this, but this guard is overlooking a ton of the level and we can't afford to waste time, now or ever.



Have a seat, buddy.



And with this Paralyzer in tow, he'll be out of commission ideally for long enough to scout what's there and leave us alone.



Not done yet, though. We're gonna put him somewhere nice and out of the way before we move on.

Dragging guards applies a multiplier to the AP cost for moving, depending on the character's Strength score. I dunno the exact details, but basically Banks can't move more than a few squares with the guard's body.



Which is fine. She dumps him in a corner and heads off on her merry way.



Meanwhile, Dr. Xu can see something a little ways ahead, but can't make out the details.



Behind Door #1 for Banks is a dead end with a single console. We'll want that, because unlike every other starting program in its class, Seed has no passive PWR gain. We have a hard limit on available PWR on each mission, so we'll want to make these consoles count.



Oh hey, a safe. And unlike the one in the tutorial, this one's got firewalls on it barring entry.



Dr. Xu does not care about any of that and gets right to work with his EMP.



Feel free to call it the EMPunch if you want.



That should help recoup the costs from the T.A.G. Pistol.



Welp, first alarm level. Barely made any progress, I swear.

Anyway, the threat here is that previously inactive cameras will now switch on. This isn't a big problem this time since we've barely seen any of the level, let alone cameras, but we'll be careful. Really this is a boon, since Mercenary's cost has now reset to 0.



Why yes I always split up my agents, why do you ask?



Guard ahead. Let's see what this guy's doing, eh?



Oh, and another console, can't forget that.



Nothing up this way, at least not yet.



Down here, though, is another story.

Automated defenses, like laser grids, always have a power source. You can't hack the grid directly, and must instead hack the power source. Or you could EMP it to temporarily disable it if it comes to that.



We also hack open this secondary server terminal, which is the second kind of shop.



However, this one sells programs Incognita can use. We can also sell off our own programs if we really wanted to, though. And AAAARGH I want both of these so badly.

Abacus lets us start off each mission with an extra 4 PWR. Ordinarily I wouldn't bother buying that, but as I've already said, each mission gives us a hard cap on how much PWR we can generate from it thanks to Seed, so Abacus becomes a lot more tempting, at least until we get a proper program for PWR gain.

Hunter, on the other hand, is one we'd probably want later on than this, but which I am REALLY not wanting to pass up thanks to having Seed. Hunter is the only program in the GAME that kills daemons. You don't even risk triggering them, you just destroy it dead, fatally. Ordinarily the 5 PWR cost and 3 turn cooldown is prohibitively high, but again, we're running Seed. We could kill daemons for 1 PWR.

But I can't make this decision right now, not until I get more credits. Neither one is immediately helpful for the mission, since we've already started so Abacus does nothing, and we are way too early to encounter daemons for Hunter to kill.



Really, Plastech? Another stationary guard overlooking a door that I HAVE to KO to get around?



And our first buddy is coming back. Great. Phenomenal.



Our first action that turn is to break the firewalls on the Facility Database, which gives us a vague map. And see that shape at the end of the room just ahead of Banks? Yep, that's our objective. Banks is gonna have to fight one more guard.



Meanwhile Dr. Xu's progress gets a very solid wall in the form of two cameras.

Time to get stupid. Banks can't distract the guard with a door, and if she walks into his line of sight we'll raise the alarm level and she'll have a hard time ambushing him, so we're going to start running in place to generate enough noise to get his attention.



This'll have the guard walk over here, at which point Banks can take him down with an ambush.



And, naturally, go through his pockets too.



May as well drop a paralyzer here too. The longer we stay still, the more likely our first buddy comes in and catches us.



Screw it, buying Abacus now. We'll need it more early on.



We can hear the guard's approach even if we haven't tagged him, but we don't know precise location and facing without visuals somehow.



ARE YOU FOR REAL.

Okay yeah great we found the executive terminals, now with MORE GUARDS WE HAVE TO KO TO PROGRESS. I'm pretty sure that's literally every single guard in the facility, all grouped together for Banks to deal with.



Yeah opening this stupid thing up.



And opening THIS stupid thing up.



Dr. Xu can just wait there until Alarm Level 2, when Mercenary's cost resets.



Oh no everything that formerly had 1 firewall now has 2! Ordinarily that would be an actual issue. But we're running Mercenary and its cost just reset, so.

This WILL become an issue later on, where 2 firewall things suddenly become 3 firewall, and Mercenary becomes prohibitively expensive even with support from Seed.



As such, I have no problems hacking both cameras that are adjacent to one another for some reason. Who the hell designed this facility.



This frees up Dr. Xu to go pretend to be useful again.



Meanwhile Banks has to hope dearly that the first guard isn't about to get line of sight to her current position, because if that does happen she is dead as hell.



Nope, we're safe. FOR NOW.



And this guard has a LOT of neat toys on hand. The creds we snatch up instantly, of course.

The Level 1 Security Passcard, in addition to giving a cafeteria discount, opens almost all locked doors you can see. But Banks' Crypto Computer already opens those doors and makes everything taste like key lime pie anyway, so we leave it.

The Charge Pack I'd ordinarily leave there, but Banks is overusing all of her stuff at an incredible pace, so we're taking it and will use it somewhere in the vicinity of immediately.



Meanwhile Dr. Xu finds another camera and no opposition, but more importantly, he found the teleporter. All Banks has to do now is get that site list, make it back here, and optionally not die in the process.



Dr. Xu needs to get the hell out of there and go help her with that already.



We're recharging the Paralyzer, by the way. Doing that gives us a one turn cooldown, which is fine since Banks is pinning the guard anyway and we're not fistfighting that other guard if we can afford it.



May as well tag him too.



Bah, not only are we gonna have to paralyze this guard, but move him out of the way to avoid the alarm level rising more than it already has.



I realized I should've had Dr. Xu sprinting a second after giving him his move for the turn. Bah.



The guard turns around and looks exactly the wrong way, buying Banks a bit more time to get to the terminal and get the site list.



I'm not taking it straight out, though. Grabbing the site list will change the guard patrols slightly, which would give a very real chance of the guard turning around and seeing Banks without cover. So slow and steady we shall remain.



Got it.

If we don't leave the stage with this, naturally, we don't get as many targets to choose from next time. Which suuuuuuucks. And yes, this will put Banks over her item cap by 1, so she'll be slowed down a bit. Oh well.

The silver lining to this is that the other guard decided to use this notification to go head off in the complete wrong direction, giving Dr. Xu something to actually worry about and taking the heat off of Banks for a split second.



Dr. Xu plans accordingly.



The Shock Trap will trigger on the first guard that opens the door, and although it's nonfatal, it WILL put them down for a long time. It hits on both sides of the door, though, so make sure your agent is well away from the trapped door before it opens.



Okay this is where things start to get annoying.



See those red doors? Those are guard teleporters. We can't use them, and they're where new guards enter the level from. So of COURSE they're gonna drop one right in Banks' escape route because why WOULDN'T THEY.



If we close our eyes they can't see us, right?



Dr. Xu continues his leisurely stroll around the facility, thinking about polymers or something.



I do want to check out what's over here, mind you, but it'd be nice if, y'know, the threat was a bit more spread out. We're facing a very real possibility of Dr. Xu having to drag Banks back to the teleporter.



Thankfully, the reinforcements appear to have wandered off somewhere else completely.



In potentially related news, the Shock Trap goes off.



Yeah where did the new guy go? I'm baffled.



Aha, found him.



Meanwhile Dr. Xu discovers the true meaning of Christmas. That would be one camera and THREE safes.



There's also an incredibly pointless security door. Dr. Xu could use the keycard to unlock it, while Banks could just naturally do it, but it goes to a room we can access normally without bothering, so we won't.



Employee of the Year goes into the room we teleported into, totally missing his unconscious buddies at every opportunity.



He's heading back towards Banks' position, though, so she needs to move quickly and quietly.



Nailed it.



Dr. Meanwhile continues his lucrative work. The only downside is that since this consumes his attack action, he can only personally crack one safe each turn.



This guard is now basically set to a patrol route and will bounce back and forth between these two points unless something important catches his eye. Unlike literally every other guard, who are all well aware there's an intruder and will do everything in their power to locate and kill them.



Banks takes the more immediate threat out of the picture and gets behind the door.



As for Dr. Xu, HURRY THE HELL UP, YOU'RE NOT GONNA STAY OUT OF THE PICTURE MUCH LONGER



Okay, think we're out of trouble now. Dr. Xu can run into Banks' room, she can hand him the site list, and we can leave with nothing else going wrong.



Alarm level 4 is the same as level 3, by the way.



And this time they have the common courtesy to stay clear out of our path.



Right, start running, doctor.

Hey guys can you tell what boneheaded mistake I made here?



I didn't put Dr. Xu in cover, and suddenly Employee of the Year gets a chance to actually earn that title.

When they discover an agent, guards immediately enter Overwatch, which is the ranged equivalent of Ambush. Basically, unless your next move either gets you behind cover or disables the guard in question within 1 AP, that agent is getting shot. Other agents can help out by blindsiding the guard from another angle, but either way you need to act fast.



Fortunately, Dr. Xu wasn't very far from cover, so he's able to duck into the corner and get ready for an ambush. Still, that guard won't be leisurely patrolling anymore, and that plus discovering guard bodies sent our alarm level skyrocketing.



In light of this, I have Banks postpone her escape in favor of getting in a position to help Dr. Xu without exposing herself.



That's one guard down.



But more are on the way, and Dr. Xu can't ambush while pinning, and he has only one (bad) option for hiding, by backtracking down the hallway.



Thankfully, Banks is used to this by now.



And that's the only other threat on the map right now, so here goes.



If a guard suspects strongly that an agent is behind a door, they'll kick it down rather than opening it. This still triggers Shock Traps, but either way you have the problem of that door no longer existing.



But now all pretense of stealth is basically out the window.



Enforcers are the game's way of saying "no more easymode". Not only do they come with scanning grenades...



But they deploy with the location of one of your agents pinpointed. That enforcer is GOING to be there unless we catch their attention sooner.



So let's get going while we can. Banks hands Dr. Xu the site list so she can get back up to normal speed.



Thankfully, the guards find something a little more interesting than a busted door to check out.



Dr. Xu locks the door behind us, and at this point we have absolutely no threats between us and the exit.



And the best part is that thanks to those fifty-kajillion safes Dr. Xu looted, we can pick up Hunter in addition to Abacus.



This mission is basically done at this point, so let's fastforward a bit.



MISSION COMPLETE!



So that was basically a prologue mission. Easy peasy, am I right?



Whee mission report.



Hey, remember that guy from the intro cutscene who warned Central about the raid?



Here he is!

Monst3r will serve as a store for us between missions. Not a very impressive one, but he'll buy swag we don't need, and occasionally sell things at us, if we're interested. His offers go away as soon as you move onto your next mission.



But that's still a ways off. We have missions to choose.



So like I said, missions have three parameters: corporation, objective, and difficulty.

Over in North America, we see another Executive Terminals mission, this one at a branch of Factory to Market Wholesalers, the same guys that captured Decker in the tutorial. I find that even if they're not 1:1 comparisons, it helps to compare the corps here to the ones in Netrunner. In this case, FTM equates to NBN: not very dangerous in a direct confrontation, but they WILL track down your agents unless you move fast.

There's a Nanofab Vestibule mission in each of South America and Africa, both the province of Plastech Cybermedical. These guards tend to have augments that let them cooperate with the mainframe devices in their facilities, making these guys the Jinteki of the game: the big threat here is when something you thought was safe turns out to be a trap closing in behind you. Nanofab Vestibule missions, by the way, grant access to a Nano Fabricator that has a much wider stock than the ones you'll find really anywhere else. Very good for kitting out your crew, but you need a lot of money to handle them. We don't have the creds to make these pay off, but we might come back for them later.

Finally, over in Australia, we have a Vault owned by Kelfried & Odin Weapons Foundry, operating out of Europe. The comparison here is Weyland Consortium: not much for fancy tricks, but you need to be heavily armed to keep up with their raw power. Expect lots of automated defense systems and heavy-armored guards. Vaults are a good source of safes for looting, but the real prizes are kept behind a door requiring a vault access card. And those aren't on-site: you'll need to bring them from somewhere else.

Another issue to consider is that each mission has a flight time involved. Remember, we only have 72 hours of prep time and we've already spent 10 of them. Flight time has a lower bound of 5 hours and an upper bound of 12. Yes, the Nanofab Vestibule here is closest, but it's also very high security for the moment and we don't even have the money to upgrade anyone's Strength to carry the stuff home. I think our best bets for mission selection here are the Executive Terminals to look up a more appetizing target, or the Vault even without a card to get more dosh to work with. I'll probably go with the Terminals assuming we don't table this for the moment in favor of a normal run of the game.



And just for the hell of it, here's an example of Monst3r making an offer. He does this as soon as you have access to him, which a lot of people miss out on the first time, since it's on the same screen you're brought to after a mission, but he hasn't contacted you yet.

The Hand Cannon he's offering is the most ammo-efficient of the normal lethal weapons you can access in the game. That's three shots per Charge Pack, which is a bargain. The big problem isn't even the lack of armor piercing (I can think of plenty of guard types I'd be happy to shoot that don't have armor), the problem is the Heart Monitors guards all have by default. Unless you disable that with an EMP somehow, killing a guard will cause the alarm level to go up by 2 points. And any time an Enforcer is killed, they just beam in a new one. Still, good to have for emergencies.

But yeah, we have decisions. Do we keep going with this run, knowing we're not going to be experiencing a normal game, or do I scrap/table this and start a new run without the extended endgame attached? Bear in mind that I have not completed the extended endgame, or even played the final mission yet.

Next Time: Access to Globalsec

On one hand, it's probably sensible to have you play the game you know how to play.

On the other hand, YOLO LET'S KEEP GOING

When you say you haven't played the final mission, you mean you've never beaten the base game? Or do you mean the final mission of Contingency?

Contingency Plan. I've beaten the normal game, but the DLC adds an extended endgame right between the end of the 72 hours and the normal final mission.

I was gonna say, you have a lot of unlocks for someone who hasn't beaten the game (and I was pretty sure Certain Characters require a win to unlock).

I want to see some Contingency Planning, but then I'm already familiar with the base game. Are you going to pick a new pair of agents/programs if you do a second run?

Screw it, let's keep this going.

By the way, if we DO decide we're tabling this run, I wouldn't hold another vote for agents (whose unlock continues to evade me despite having cleared Contingency Plan last night). Instead, I'd start a game with the same agents, but in their Archive mode. With the exception of the DLC agents and two of the mainline ones, every agent can start the game in their Archive mode, representing a younger version of themselves before they signed on with Invisible, Inc. proper. So we'd be playing with a Tony Xu not yet at his doctorate, and a Banks pre-brain damage. They get different abilities and starting gear as well, but you can never find them once you've started a campaign, for obvious reasons, so if you want an Archive character, you begin play with them.



Anyway. Second verse, same as the first. The fact that we're hitting FTM rather than Plastech doesn't mean much, not this early on.



Mission is still fundamentally the same: find the terminal, loot the site data, rob everyone blind, and GTFO.



Most of the time, one of your characters will open the mission with a oneliner, but occasionally two of them will start up a conversation. This is as close as you get to support conversations, and the main way of uncovering lore about the setting and characters you're working with. This pretty clearly defines Banks as someone who, pre-injury, did not give a damn about the risks, and prior to that encounter, that probably paid off.

But, uh, we aren't going to hit anything near that high of security, and even if we do we're sure as hell not taking it all on, even with Seed and Hunter.



Not much over here...



Not much but a FACILITY DATABASE SON

This'll cut down our blind searching by a lot. The layout doesn't tell us a lot, but it does let us know when a dead end is going to happen much quicker.



Oh. This might be bad.



WELL THEN WE'RE OFF TO A BRILLIANT START



Banks didn't need to get behind cover, Dr. Xu could've just closed the door and kept his ambush ready. But don't forget, Banks has a T.A.G. Pistol. We want that guy tagged, and we can't do it if we're getting shot back.



Don't even bother myself with closing the door, I just let them walk right in and have Dr. Xu do his worst.



Right, Banks can go that way, because like hell are we leaving this guy without a dose of Paralyzer. Dr. Xu takes the other route.



Well, that was quick. And once again, Banks doesn't have the inventory space to carry the site data without losing AP. But this time, that's not actually a major impediment on account of the lower guard count around here.



No time like the present. With Seed and Mercenary, you want to start hacking sooner than later.



I bring up the possibility of hitting the nanofab with an EMPunch only to say that you should never do it. The security remains the same, this just prevents you from actually using the damn thing. Try not to hit anything you could conceivably use with an EMP, handheld or otherwise. Save it for safes and automated defenses.



Lotta cool stuff in this one. Once again we have Predictive Brawling available, and once again I'm going to ignore it, this time for lack of funds.

The Thermal Disrupter II is a new type of melee weapon in the DLC. Prior to Contingency Plan, you either had Neural Disrupters like everyone but Nika starts with, and Volt Disrupters which trade the cooldown for a PWR cost. Thermal Disrupters have both a cooldown and a PWR cost, but the upside is that they excel at punching through armor. Against unarmored foes they're more expensive Neurals, but for every point of armor they can potentially pierce, you spend 2 PWR. If you're running a high PWR generation setup, these are awesome, but even in a pinch they work just fine.

Two new gadgets, both actually within usability range for Banks on account of her starting Anarchy score! The Flash Pack is from the DLC, and it's a remote stun mine that knocks out multiple guards within range, and which can be remotely detonated via Incognita. This sounds excellent until you look at the 12 turn cooldown. Ugh. Still, you don't get many area attacks in this game, and this is the easiest one to use.

The Accelerator Chip is actually considerable for us, letting us use that at consoles we hijack to increase PWR gain. This stacks with the user's Hacking score, so if you have both a good Accelerator Chip and a good Hacking score, you can milk even 1 PWR consoles for insane amounts of PWR.

But the painful fact of the matter is that we just don't have the creds to work with most of this right now. We probably won't buy anything here unless we get a LOT of cash or some really good leads from the executive terminal.



Banks peers around the corner rather than gunning right for the terminal. I've been burned this way before.



Dr. Xu finds most of the cameras, overlooking the exit teleporter. We could totally cash out of the level right now, but we haven't found a single safe yet. We're not leaving.



So, here's the reason to hit Executive Terminals missions after the first one. Unlike that, any future ones let you choose from a pool mid-mission. Whatever site you select here will be guaranteed to generate on the mission list after this, and you'll get a couple more besides.

Since we're already in FTM territory, I'm gonna go with another FTM mission. Whenever infiltrating basically any corporation except for K&O, this is usually the best plan to minimize travel time (K&O either generates in Europe or Australia, remember).

And we have two choices here. I'll start with the one I'm not selecting: the Chief Financial Suite is home to a hard-working executive who carries some very valuable things. First, they have a ton of creds on them, so that's immediately lucrative. Second, they have a Vault Access Card. These can be used in Vault missions, or on occasion one other mission type, to get to the most delicious bits.

But there's no way I'm doing that this early when there's a Detention Center mission staring me in the face. These missions are the ONLY way to get new agents on your team. Either a random agent or a prisoner will be in here ripe for the rescue. Saving an agent is an obvious boon, but even if you get the prisoner, rescuing them still pays off handsomely.



What guard patrols? We only saw the one guard, and they're still unconscious.



Still, Xu's gonna keep an eye out.



No sign of trouble so far, that's good.



And the original guard woke up again. No big deal, Banks can handle him en route.



Here we go. Here's the big bucks.



Good morning.



Getting on the cameras in the prize room, and it turns out one of the level's guards is there too. So that's nice.

Cameras are all mine now, though!



Only problem is, THIS would be a great situation for Banks to appear, as we lack a keycard.



Wait, belay that...



This guy probably came from that corner way up top when we looted the terminal.



ALL THE WORLD'S CAMERAS ARE MINE TO KEEP!



Okay cool, those doors are open season now.



Don't think we need that terminal, really. We've got plenty of PWR since we've been careful with Seed and Mercenary (not to mention Abacus pulling its weight).



So, why am I bothering with Paralyzers when you can just punch guards while they're down?

Simple. KO attacks don't actually stack on unconscious guards, they just set it to the KO value if it's higher. But Paralyzers DO increase the KO count. Still, if you just need to buy a few turns, feel free to hit 'em while they're down. (Nika does this a lot.)



Right, first door open. Get in there, doc.



And take this stupid thing with you.



Ah, the good ol' EMPunch.



Not gonna KO this guard. His patrol route is largely inoffensive, and I'm pretty sure that room he's exploring is mostly useless to us anyway.



While Dr. Xu does his job, Banks has to keep the guard outside down and out. Without her Paralyzer prepped again, that guy is a ticking time bomb. She can run minor support, tagging the active guard and opening the other door, but she's more useful keeping the guard down.



Remember, no dim red == camera. We're gonna hide behind this safe to grant Dr. Xu line of sight so Incognita can hack it.



Okay this is a slight problem. We don't know WHERE the guards spawn, since we haven't seen the elevators, but we have two options. They either spawn in that room right by Dr. Xu, OR in the room just past the telprot.



Thankfully, we lucked out. This guy won't pose any kind of problem until we're well and done with the mission.



And the Paralyzer's back. Now Banks can help out by stealing from the active guard!



First things first. We don't have infinite AP here.



But at this point we have all the PWR we will ever need.



Hey new guy, what's shakin'?



Last safe, then Dr. Xu needs to get OUT of there.



Oh right, sometimes safes have items in them.

In this case, the Paralyzer I is useless to us. Even if we took it, it'd weigh down the doctor too much to make it worthwhile to sell. And Banks' custom one is far and away better than this anyway. Still, sometimes you can find some excellent swag in safes.



Banks confirms for us that no, there is nothing of value up here. Just leave, guys.



That new guard is in here and still hasn't found whatever he's investigating, so we'll need to keep an eye out for that, but it shouldn't be a problem.



Not sure why I'm going this way. Probably just paranoid about approaching the door on the right.

But hey, Banks confirms that the other guard is still well out.



Oh, and before I forget: that blue circle thing I've left for a while is the key card. No sense clogging inventory with it when we've already unlocked everything.



Good, new guy found the end of his patrol route. Should be super easy to sneak past him.



Unfortunately, the very first guard is gonna be gunning through here really soon, so that's something we'll have to deal with.



And more company from the back end, not that we care.



Even though tags tell you a guard's patrol path for the next turn, they don't indicate their end goal. Observing them, however, does. So since we know this guard is gonna stop right at a really stupid spot, we can safely move Dr. Xu up and get ready for both of them to move ahead.



We also confirm that the other guard has now settled into routine.



So Banks and Dr. Xu can both hide behind that couch, but if the alert guard stays active, they'll check in on them and it'll all be over.



So Banks goes first and tags the passive one.



Dr. Xu follows up by Disrupting the alert one, then trapping the door behind them. That quarantines that entire half of the level, leaving this one guard patrolling as the sole danger they have to deal with, and he's already a non-issue.



The guards are waking up and heading in the completely wrong direction, too.



As tempting as the other choices are, knowing we have a Detention Center mission in our very near future, I go with the Thermal Disrupter. Rescued agents start with NO equipment (with one exception from the DLC), so we'll want a spare disrupter on hand.



Hey guys I found the power source for that laser grid from earlier.



Looks like someone tripped the Shock Trap. Whoops!



Which in turn calls in an Elite Enforcer, NOT THAT WE CARE.



Because we are leaving this mission as of this turn!



So despite the rocky start, that was a generally 100% excellent and safe mission. Still a level 1 mission, mind, but take what you can get.



We didn't have to hack any of the safes. Dr. Xu, remember?



And as much as I hate emptying my coffers so fast, we NEED someone with a bit of extra Strength. And having that as our designated safecracker makes a lot of sense.



Remember, the whole reason we're going through with all the hit and run is to find resources enough to get Incognita running, because she is our absolute last line of defense.



And holy snapple and a half did we get some good haul from this mission when it comes to intel.

In addition to the detention center, we pulled up the location of an FTM Cybernetics Lab. Labs like these come with two augment grafters, each with an augment installed. You can either install that augment for free, OR use the grafter to add an empty augment slot to an agent. Doing the latter requires a bit of surgery that leaves them KO'd for a few turns, but it's still well worth it if you're expecting a lot of augments. Occasionally, you can use a Vault Access Card to get into a back room for even more stuff.

Meanwhile, we also uncovered a Plastech Server Farm. These are the program equivalent of Nanofab Vestibules, home to a wide array of programs we can buy. I'll probably want to hit this one eventually even if we don't have much cash, since we'll probably be able to sell Abacus for something that continually generates PWR, and we REALLY want more cool stuff to combo off of Seed with.

But for now, we know our route for the next few missions almost exactly.

Next Time: Lockdown

JAILBREAK! I'M FREE! I'M FREE, MOTHADUCKAS!

So yeah. This is the way to add new agents to the team once you've begun a game! No longer will we just have Dr. Xu and Banks to drive.



And as this tooltip oh-so-helpfully indicates, you can find agents you've lost in other missions here, too. That doesn't mean you should go around losing agents regularly, mind.



Thankfully, this is a largely straightforward mission, and one that springs relatively few surprises on a player after taking the objective.



First things first: we started with a locked door in our room. Banks fixes that somewhere in the vicinity of immediately.



The room beyond holds a Nanofab and a Console Database. We don't have the creds for the former, but the latter is a welcome sight for any Seed user.



Since Dr. Xu spent most of his AP getting into position because he is a slowpoke, we're gonna take it nice and cautious early on.



Okay that's a pretty reasonable camera to work with.



So's that one, but that's a LOT of things to hack this early, and the consoles are a ways off. Mercenary's starting to cost us even with Seed's help.



Patrolling guard ahead. Not a big problem though, we have plenty of cover.



HEY DR. XU GET OVER HERE



Oh nice, a camera BEFORE alarm level 1. In this state, it's off and doesn't permit hacking.



Screw it, let's check the Nanofab for the sake of showcasing.



The Piercing Scanner augments adds a point of armor-piercing to all ranged weapons. Shalem 11 begins the game with a slightly different augment that has the same effect, but I've no idea if the two stack. Either way, +1 armor piercing is more than enough for most of the game, but by the time we hit extended endgame it'll be mandatory on anyone seriously trying to fight guards.

The Riot D.A.R.T. is a KO oriented version of the hand cannon. To make up for the decreased lethality, it comes with 2 armor piercing right out of the gate, which is frankly amazing. And again, 3 ammo is as efficient as clip size gets for normal weapons. But that still means this is a really expensive choice, not least because you'll want a Charge Pack or two on hand for reloading.

The Paralyzer II is basically a stronger Paralyzer I that has a higher requirement for the agent's Anarchy score, no surprises there. But the Cloaking Rig I is the first in a long line of things we actually want to use someday. I mean, come on. It's a cloaking rig in a stealth game, what's not to like? MK I only works for four steps, though, and all iterations are voided if you take attacking actions. You also need a high Speed stat to use them, but the MK I only requires a Speed of 2.

LOOK AT ALL THESE CREDS I HAVE TO SPEND ON THIS



Back on track. Next turn, Dr. Xu gets the safe, and Banks explores even more.



Alarm level 1 rolls in and the camera in the room Dr. Xu crossed earlier boots up. You get one turn to scatter like cockroaches if a camera boots in your vicinity.



Aha, here's our goal. That cell door console has to be hacked first, and then manually activated, to free whoever our prisoner of the day is.



But we have to get past the captain first. Detention Centers always have a stationary Captain guard inside, who is functionally identical to your standard security guard.

Also, that's Sharp in the cell, if I don't miss my guess.



Again, we have to bait the Captain out (though you don't always have to), but since they're the first guard we've seen and Banks has her Paralyzer on standby, I'm 100% okay with this.



Dr. Xu keeps up the scouting. Not a lot more safes this way though...



We get by.



And now our team is up by one Transhumanist Asshole Cyborg!



Alex "Sharp" McTeague begins play with a point of Hacking, making him our priority choice for console-hunting, and the Modular Cybernetic Frame, which grants him FOUR more augment slots than the average agent, and +1 KO on melee weapons per three augments, counting itself. While Banks and Dr. Xu more or less fill the same role on any team they're in (get money), Sharp will be someone we'll want to mod the HELL out of until he becomes an unstoppable combat cyborg. He'll also help a bit with PWR gain, but he's no Internationale or Prism.



Any agents you rescue start with a blank inventory, so Banks throws him a T.A.G. Pistol, both to clear her own inventory and to make sure Sharp isn't totally useless. Thankfully, Sharp doesn't start off with any especially valuable gear in vanilla play, so we're not too far off from his capabilities at the start, especially once he gets that Thermal Disruptor. (I have found Shalem 11 more times than any other agent, and finding Shalem 11 SUCKS.)



And Dr. Xu finds the exit, which unfortunately means, YET AGAIN, that all the safes are in the far other end of the facility.



There's also a stationary guard in here, not that we care. We'll KO him on the way out.

I don't NEED to disable this laser grid to continue, but there's no real reason not to.



So the plan is for Sharp to lug the Captain around while getting to a better position to either hurry to the aid of the other two or get to the exit. I don't want more points of visibility up there than is necessary, which is the main reason I'm always splitting up my agents.



Banks nicks this guy's wallet and considers briefly taking his medication.



Yep, that's gonna be painful. But necessary, too. MONEY.



Annoyingly, that guard is perfectly content to sit there and give us PTSD from our first mission.



Inside the high security safe is YET ANOTHER PARALYZER I. This one, though, we're totally keeping to sell off to Monst3r later.



Hnnnngh stupid guard! Not the one Banks is next to, they don't get a chance to see her. We're gonna have to bait out and KO the stationary one.



Which means this guy has to go down too, otherwise he'll see the deed done and it'll all be over.



BY ALL MEANS COME IN, WE'RE NOT UNDRESSING OR MOBBING YOUR COWORKERS OR BOTH



Since I have literally no idea where this guy is headed, we're gonna have Banks noisily drag this guy over to a good place for her to bait the guard into getting attacked by Dr. Xu.



I fumble with a few clicks and overspend Dr. Xu's AP, but he can still deploy the Shock Trap no problem. It might knock him out, but we've got a med gel close by to remedy that.



Or he'll be totally fine, that works too. Anyway GET IN THERE AND PILLAGE



Only problem is that this leaves Banks with the difficult task of keeping three guards down at the same time. Sharp's too far away to render assistance.



Better snag this, just in case.



SORRY PAL MY PARALYZER'S STILL FOUR TURNS AWAY AND I NEED YOU ALL TO STAY DOWN



HURRY THE HELL UP DR. XU



He gets in, loots the final safe and one of the consoles (we've already hacked more or less everything here) and we're well on our way out of here.



But one of the guards woke up, so we have to do some awkward repositioning before he runs in here.



The game reminds us that Sharp exists by spawning a guard near him. Thankfully, I parked him somewhere nice and unobtrusive.



No real reason not to put him in Overwatch, though.

Overwatch works for agents much like it does for guards. First thing that moves in their line of sight gets shot. Also like ambushing, you won't target anyone you can't hit. For most weapons that means armor piercing, but for the T.A.G. Pistol that means ignoring already-tagged guards.



Meanwhile I've properly shuffled everyone around up here and am getting to a good point for ambushing the crew there on my way out.



The new guard heads towards Sharp and he fires the tracker.



The awake guard heads into the safe room down south, and the other one wakes up facing the wall, making him easy pickings.



Sharp's hideyhole is completely out of the way of the new guard's patrol path, so we'll leave him be.



IT'S NOT ONE OF MY MISSIONS UNTIL SOMEONE GETS SEEN

No fancy tricks here, Banks just blindsides the poor guy.



And at this point they should be more or less out of harm's way.



Figuring now is a great time to get a move on to the exit, Sharp does exactly that.



Oh, Shock Traps. I keep using you where you don't matter, but you're so reassuring anyway.



THIS IS POINTLESS



The guard from earlier has finally settled into his patrol route, watching over an area of the map we give no cares to.



And we hit alarm level 5 far too late for it to scare us, even with the enforcer spawning as close as he is.



Someone needs to handle this guard first, but that ain't no thang. We have enough AP to do that AND get everyone in the telprot before the enforcer leaves his lift.



Mission complete! SHARP JOYNED TEH POTTY!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111



The hell do you mean all guards were alerted? That one guy was still harmlessly patrolling. You are a LIAR, game.



We throw our Paralyzer I in storage and give Sharp the Thermal Disruptor, ensuring he'll pack a wallop against almost any foe the game can field as of right now.



DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY

48 HOURS REMAIN



In short: our plan is to find our where the security hub is for all four megacorps and steal it for Incognita. Backrank mate, cool! I mean, the part about taunting the corps by continued high-risk hit and run, that's a bit dangerous, but still.



Anyway. Each new day adds a few new objectives to the map, same as an Executive Terminal but without the prior selection. It also jacks up the security level of each existing mission by 1, to keep things fresh and exciting as your crew gets more insane.

We have a few new objectives out there, including a mission from the last corporation, Sankaku Heavy Industries. Unlike most corps, which rely on human resources to do the bulk of their work, Sankaku specializes in drones. While you can't KO a drone via the usual method and they have standard-issue scanners that can detect threats behind cover, drones are still mainframe devices like any other, and can easily be claimed and put to work for a short time. Going back to Netrunner comparisons, these guys are Haas-Bioroid: terrifying by conventional tactics, but easy to bypass by unconventional ones.

Our overall plan remains unchanged, though. If anything, having Sharp on our team makes this Cybernetics Lab even more lucrative. After that, though, we have actual options. Two server farms, and either another Detention Center or a Nanofab Vestibule, are both within close reach, and we're starting to build up the creds to make both of them tempting choices.

So we'll start simple: do we target K&O to rescue another potential agent, or target Plastech next and gear up with the best stuff creds can buy?

You have until my next update to come to a consensus.

Next Time: Mandatory Upgrades

Go Plastech! Marginal utility for a fourth agent is pretty low.

Especially if she has Predictive Brawling! I've had her run up to a prone guard and zap him twice for no other reason than hey, 18 AP for 4 PWR.

I've never played this game so is this true?