Thanks for your interest everyone! I'm going to start this off by saying its been a long day and the operator (that's me!) is tired. I say this because its going to become relevant.
So, Decker buys his shiny new T.A.G. pistol. He's just itching to take it for a spin, so after hacking a safe he tests it out on a guard who haplessly wanders in:
The guard is none the wiser, happily going about his day unaware that his geo-locational data now belongs to Decker for the next 730 days. Banks goes about relieving a guard of his wallet and a console of its data. The guard is carrying... a key card. Banks doesn't need that, but she still takes it and drops it on the floor in case Decker wants it. This almost never matters so in the future just assume I do that as it comes up. She checks the next door and finds...
The exit! This huge. See, executive console missions are arguably the hardest type aside from the final mission. The moment the data is removed, the guard duty changes, which means every guard on the level wakes up simultaneously and picks new points on the level to patrol between. Effectively, all guard movement becomes random for a few turns and we might as well just cower in a corner. So if the situation gets bad enough, I might want to avoid that risk and get out without even attempting the objective. Don't hold your breath for that kind of restraint; looting the facilities in Invisible Inc. is like betting double or nothing. Its hard to stop until its too late.
Decker walks through the tagged guard's peripheral vision to get to the rest of the level faster. When the team is split up, you can only advance as fast as the slowest agent and Banks is at a dead end. So Decker shaving off a turn in his exploration effectively saves the entire team a turn. The gamble pays off. I expected to find the objective through the door there, but instead I found another guard elevator. This means both the guard elevators are at a dead end not really blocking the exit. He also finds a large safe.
I've already hacked the safe once this turn. I'm waiting till the next turn to hack it twice, which will cost us power but Decker needs to get out of there. When the alarm level hits 3 a guard will come to reinforce. Because of the elevator placement he WILL appear there. Decker could probably hide but guards are impossible to observe or tag in the elevators and their movement is decently random, so he really does want to make himself scarce. The observant among you may have noticed this.
This door. The last unopened door I can see, probably the last in the level. Taunting me. Its back the way we came. I'm not going to give you the play by play of walking through already explored areas, but anyway, Banks gets to the door and peaks it, discovering that it is the executive's posh office. Although oddly enough his terminal doesn't have a chair in front of it. I guess he likes standing, or his boss likes him being uncomfortable. Anyway, she can't safely move inside this turn so she waits, during which the two guards come back. Then she goes inside, catching the attention of a guard while she does. Decker, meanwhile, continues gathering data on office fauna.
Decker closes the door and then waits in front of it, so he'll be one tile closer if he needs to move to help Banks.
...
Remember when I said I was tired? Well, if you're paying attention you know what it is. Go look at that last picture again. The guard Decker tagged and Banks distracted WAS NOT THE ONE WALKING BACK INTO DECKER'S ROOM.
Decker is found, although if he can break line of site by moving one tile he can save himself. As is customary in Invisible Inc., I curse loudly, gather myself, and then stare at the screen for a bit. I measure out some distances and examine everything. And then I reach a decision: we're going loud.
Banks sprints behind one enemy and knocks him out. Then she fills him full of her special mix, which I would show you a picture of because its hilarious but this post is long enough as it is. Because she sprinted she has enough move to run back and grab the data out of the executive's console. Sprinting makes noise but the only person who heard her is being introduced to the finer points of the film noir genre. Speaking of which, Decker steps off the line of attack, and tags his opponent because even though he's about to be knocked the fuck out the guard might still wake up and chase us.
Then he goes into ambush, which is the melee equivalent of Xcom's overwatch.
Sorry, did I say he went into overwatch? I meant to say he wastes his cloak and moves to the other side of the room because you only get one attack in a turn and the T.A.G. pistol counts as using it.
Well, regardless, it works out. Mostly. Decker could hide and let the guard move on but his next move is going to be towards Banks and we can't get bogged down. Alerted guards are highly dangerous because they're one of the few random elements Invisible Inc. has outside of level generation. Until an alerted guard thinks of his next move, I don't know what it is. So as long as these guys are standing, my plans get more and more vague the further ahead they are. Decker decides not to take the risk and introduces the guard to the wonders of electricity.
Guards brought in in this manner move randomly. Since we got the data out of the objective, the other guards will also be moving randomly for a few turns. Basically, everyone is moving randomly, there are a lot of guards, they're all being funneled through a single room between us and the exit, and the next alarm level the corps pull out the big guns. We need to
leave.
This move was pretty risky. Banks takes out the guard above but I know that there's a single guard in one of the four rooms on the way to the exit. If he chooses to walk through the second security door Banks opened offscreen, Banks will have no cover, and Decker will almost certainly have to leave her behind.
I actually see noise pings from out of sight; he was in the area of the security door, but didn't walk through it. Alarm level 5 triggers, calling in an elite enforcer (thankfully knowhere near us), and, well...
Doesn't matter, just one guard between us and the exit.
I expected this to be broken up by you guys choosing which programs to buy but I never found a secondary server terminal. Either the first mission doesn't spawn one or there was another door in the part of the executive's office I didn't have time to explore. Tomorrow I'll post the mission results, as well as our purchasing options and what missions our new Facebook friends list gets us. I'll give you a hint: the mission choices we got were not particularly lucky. Now I'm going to bed.
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Topic: Invisible Inc LP: Introducing FTM (Read 22952 times)