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[FallacyofUrist]

... did you mean to link somewhere?

Yeah, a buster chip seems like a good idea.

[ATHATH]

What does Titanium Rods do?

This

Also, a Buster Chip seems a good investment, thoughts?

They increase our melee KO damage by one.

Get the hologram projector. You can place it in front of doors, and I don't think guards will path-find through them (if the hologram is on their side of the door).  Since the objective rooms of the final mission only have one door each, I suspect it will be useful.

[EnigmaticHat]

Titanium rods increase KO time of melee'd opponents (as others have said).

Get the hologram projector. You can place it in front of doors, and I don't think guards will path-find through them (if the hologram is on their side of the door).

I'm... tempted to say that counts as an exploit.  I dunno what everyone else thinks about that tho.

[Teneb]

Whatever we pick, remember we need cash for programs.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I'd say give it a shot, if only to see if it works. (Know nothing lurker here )

[Thexor]

I did a little fiddling with a hologram projector (read: used it exactly twice). Guards can detect the hologram as a foreign object, and I think it's caused by proximity - I had a distracted guard move close, notice the hologram, and on his next turn he walked over and picked it up. (I then stole it back from his inventory, because anarchy OP.) It still seems really useful, though, and buying it would allow for some more SCIENCE!

^{and any science done now means fewer mistakes in my next campaign}

[RAM]

Ugh, I woulda preferred the neural, but volt... This run has been unrelentingly terrible for penetration and programs... The volt disruptor is just so crazily expensive to use(and buy) but, ehh, I do not want to abandon armour penetration 2 this late in our career... I am voting no, but reconsider when we see the server farm.

Rods are nice, no disputing that, but are they worth it? Ehh, we have paralyser... We are rapidly exhausting our supply of aygmentation opportunities, so that slot is not as valuable as it could be... I think that we can afford to miss it and it won't make much difference to this mission, voting no, but reconsider when we see the server farm...

The hologram is such a huge hassle, I have left more than one behind just from forgetting it. Still, they work wile they are themselves in cover and are easy to recover if you do that and can easily be the difference between getting into a room undetected or being forced to distract a guard.*sighs*...

I am voting no to everything on the theory that we can come back later...

[Thexor]

The one caveat is (unless a rewind is used here), we've now got (at least?) two alerted guards running around, one with armour. It might not be safe to come back to the nano fab, depending on where exactly they run to.

That said, the fabricator is close enough to the exit that we'll probably have another shot at it. I'd consider buying the Volt Disruptor, mainly because it provides an ammo-free way of taking out that one alerted armoured guy if necessary, but other than that we can probably wait until after checking out the farm.

[EnigmaticHat]

The one caveat is (unless a rewind is used here), we've now got (at least?) two alerted guards running around, one with armour. It might not be safe to come back to the nano fab, depending on where exactly they run to.

That said, the fabricator is close enough to the exit that we'll probably have another shot at it. I'd consider buying the Volt Disruptor, mainly because it provides an ammo-free way of taking out that one alerted armoured guy if necessary, but other than that we can probably wait until after checking out the farm.

No rewinds this playthrough

[ATHATH]

I did a little fiddling with a hologram projector (read: used it exactly twice). Guards can detect the hologram as a foreign object, and I think it's caused by proximity - I had a distracted guard move close, notice the hologram, and on his next turn he walked over and picked it up. (I then stole it back from his inventory, because anarchy OP.) It still seems really useful, though, and buying it would allow for some more SCIENCE!

^{and any science done now means fewer mistakes in my next campaign}

Oh. I thought that that only happened when they walked within a tile of it. Still pick it up though; it's useful (throw it to distract guards!).

[EnigmaticHat]

I have the content and I *just* don't have enough time to finish writing the post before work.  Blerg.

[EnigmaticHat]

So, that's an unanimous vote for buying the hologram projector, and some people who wanted the buster chip which no one was opposed to.

Banks only has inventory space for the holograph projector, so she buys it, takes a step away from the 3D printer, and then throws it next to Prism.

Spoiler: Catch! (click to show/hide)

Prism steps onto it, putting herself behind the cover she SHOULD have been behind last turn, and picks up the projector.  Then Banks steps back and buys the buster chip for herself, seeing as only she can use it.  Prism runs around the cover to escape; a single enemy with no upgrades is not going to catch anyone here, especially since he's tagged.  Decker tags the other guy and then checks the daemon on a secondary server terminal.

Spoiler: Its felix (click to show/hide)

Remember felix?  The daemon that drains money, the reason not to hack safes if they have a daemon on them?  Well it doesn't do that any more, it changed in the update.  Now it doubles safe firewalls and adds 10% more credits to them.  I'm actually pretty tempted to do it; according to the wiki its on a timer so we can just wait it out worst comes to worst.  I trigger it by hacking the secondary server terminal, which by the way has CRAP on it.  It has the exact same two programs as a previous terminal that was terrible.  Really hope the main server has better programs on it.  Still... the felix daemon actually works out.  The safe near Decker has a daemon on it, and now has boosted firewalls, so he EMPs it.  Now not only does he get the same free access he was going to get before, but there's a nice 10% bonus absolutely free.

Prism, Decker, and the camera drone all scatter throughout the level.  Banks stays in the center to rob the elite that is checking out the disturbance.  Plastech isn't putting up any real resistance; we don't find even a single modded MK 1, which is the main trick that they have.  That combined with starting in the center means we basically explore the entire level in a few turns.  We find a few interesting things.

Spoiler: Check it out (click to show/hide)

There are two rooms.  One has two safes in it, one has the server terminal, both have a guard.  I decide to have Prism head to the safes and Banks head to the server terminal.  Banks will get to rob one guard, and Prism can reach the safe room faster and thus get back faster.

Spoiler: Meanwhile (click to show/hide)

The two guards Prism alerted are consistently blocking Decker's path to the last safe in he can reach.  But it makes no difference; since Decker is right by the exit, he can take his time looting the area.  Remember, the team is only as fast as its slowest agent, and that isn't going to be Decker.

Prism reaches the two safes.  They have, combined, six firewalls due to felix, which will go down to three next turn.  But the building is on the edge of alarm level 2, which will put them back up to five firewalls.  So, Prism decides to grab them while the 10% credit bonus is still active; to facilitate this Incognita spends eight power in one turn.  Did I mention even with no new programs we're still brushing up against the max power limit?  Plastech is putting up an absolutely pathetic effort for some reason; maybe because this is our first mission against them, they have weak firewalls and no cyborgs.  And those things are supposed to be their schtick.  Prism and Decker are also an excellent power gathering team and we made the most of rapier with our quick exploration.

Oh and Prism does a whole smash and grab thing, I'm sure it was quite dramatic:

Spoiler: Imagine sprinting, violence, looting (click to show/hide)

She still hasn't fired a single dart.

Now, for the main attraction.  Banks pickpockets the guard in the server room, and then accesses the server.

Spoiler: "I'm in" (click to show/hide)

This... just gives us a connection to Shop Cat, but its apparently a better connection than before, because we have a whole boat load of new program options:

Spoiler: On SecNet, no one knows you're a cat (click to show/hide)

I FORGIVE YOU FOR EVERYTHING GAME

So, lot of explaining to do.  Oracle grabs a random unhacked (but not necessarily known) camera for four power regardless of what its actual electronic defenses are.  Ping creates a noise for one power on a four turn cooldown, as if we had a ghost sprint-step.  Rapier is what we have, it breaks one firewall for one power + one additional power for each alarm level.  Lockpick 2.0 breaks two firewalls for three power.  Shade lowers the guards' vision (I guess incognita literally turns down the lights?), costing one power for two cooldown.  Datablast breaks one firewall on every device in a five tile radius for three power.  Abacus starts us with extra power.  Dagger breaks three firewalls for one power, on a five turn cooldown.

When we visit the server terminal, the treacherous Shop Cat adds daemons to unhacked objects, but... all known unhacked objects already have daemons, so, nothing happens.  Take that Shop Cat!

What does Incognita buy?

[birdy51]

I'll leave this one to you guys. Ping sounds interesting as a tool of last resort, but perhaps other items might do more to save our tush.

[FallacyofUrist]

Awesome.
In fact, Awesomemancer.

I'd go with Lockpick 2.0 for mid-to-late game firewall breaking, Shade for guard reduction, and Abacus for the early game boost. That's just my opinion, though.

[Teneb]

Dagger. Dagger all the way. Break 3 firewalls for 1 power? Yes. All my yes.