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Invisible Inc.

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
Tried out the new build. I like the changes.
They got rid of the movement + action point system and replaced with only action points which works much better. Some actions are free (like opening doors) but peeking
costs 1 AP which is valuable since agents start with only 8 AP.
Items now have cooldowns which I think works better than consumables since you didn't get many of them and items provide options for dealing with the current situation.
Inventory is now limited (agents have 4 slots) but can be upgraded for money. You can steal and loot items from guards.
There's an "overworld" map which allows choosing missions but that's about it (I hope they have plans for doing something concrete with it).
Mainframe mode was almost completely overhauled and works much better. CPUs give power and you have a limit on that so you can't hoard the power. There are various mainframe tools now with tradeoffs power vs firewall breaking etc. Oh and Mainframe mode is now called Incognita.
Overall the gameplay itself feels much better and with more options of dealing with the situation.
And a nice feature was added: you can spend an AP to "Observe" a guard which tells you in which direction will he go.
The main flaw I have with the game is cluttered visuals and pop up icons for various actions.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
Better, but still frustrating. I could live with only two agents on a mission. Just let me hire replacements if one dies.
 

Jaedar

Arcane
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Aug 5, 2009
Messages
9,839
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Bought this. Seems very good, good enough that I don't really want to spoil myself on an unfinished build.

The random map generator can be goofy sometimes too.
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
I second that. This certainly looks like the best Klei game so far and it's also really challenging.

I look forward to playing the full version, the beta is certainly interesting.
 

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
Yes, I just beat it an hour ago (the final mission seemed far too easy, but I guess I got lucky with equipment I got and map layout). And that was on my 3rd try for this update.

I think the difficulty is just about right. Unfortunately the problem is there is no real mechanics explanation and a lot of the times you find how things work through experimentation (and I do recommend to experiment a lot even though the game will punish your mistake fataly). After you figure out how things work you can really start to enjoy the game and experience its tense moments (and believe me, I haven't had such a tense stealth experience since playing Thief for the first time).
 

Eyeball

Arcane
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
2,541
My games tend to end at the beginning of the 2nd day. Mind sharing a tip or two on how you can succeed?
 

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
Sure, but I don't know exactly what I'm doing right.
My general playstyle is fast but safe, meaning I don't overextend myself trying to get to every room. I usually go for the Detention center as my 2nd mission and get my 3rd agent. (Currently I find 3 agents to be optimal.) I use Deckard as a fast scout, and when I have 3 agents he usually goes solo in the other direction (because he is fast and he has cloak). I focus on Stealth as upgrades for my agents, and Inventory upgrade can easily be bought during gameplay if you need a slot. Later, hacking is good for Internationale to get extra power off of CPUs. Regarding equipment so far I've focused on augmentations and hacking tools. One med-gel is usually enough to get through any tough situation. Overall I'm always min-maxing whenever I play strategy based games so I'll use exploits like standing next to a guard I know will turn around and not see me instead of KOing him (I tend to avoid them as much as I can) - Observe is your friend here.

Edit: Oh, and you can exploit the "noticed" area of guard's vision. It means he will investigate that point on his turn, which means you can slip by him without him shooting at you or even coming to him for a KO.
 
Last edited:

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
(the final mission seemed far too easy, but I guess I got lucky with equipment I got and map layout).

Lately ive been keeping a gun handy for screwups.
Also that final mission is temporary.

Yeah, as far as I heard from their dev diary, current final mission will be something like terror missions in X-Com.
And about the gun, yeah I've been using that too. Even that shitty 1/1 gun with no armor piercing can be a life saver.
 

Elthosian

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
Messages
1,138
Visual cluttering has always been an issue with the game but they seem to be getting better at that with each version, now if only they made all chars available since the start...
 

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
And I got my 2nd win half an hour ago. That makes 2 wins in total, and 2 in a row :)
This time the last mission was a lot more tougher. I was stuck with 2 agents from the start. Visited 3 detention centres, 2 had a crippled prisoner and one had an agent which unfortunately died on the same mission. The thing what improved my chances was visiting that Nanofabricator location which supplied me with some incredible equipment.
Final level started really nicely then all went to hell. Every guard on the map was trying to find me before I even found the prisoner. As I never give up I used all the turrets against them which made the map into a bloodbath. And with some luck and OP equipment (Cloak lvl 2 which cloaks allies in a small radius) I managed to get to a good position.
I think this was the most hectic mission I ever experienced, but persistance and exploiting guard movements (via Observe) really paid off providing a narrow escape.

Oh and stim screwed me over, good thing I always have a backup plan. It seems Stim is currently bugged and doesn't give you another attack.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
RPS review:

Invisible, Inc. Early Acccess Impressions:

Invisible Inc is a turn-based, grid-based, cyberpunkish stealth strategy game from Klei, creators of Don’t Starve and Mark of the Ninja. It’s about secret agents breaking into sinister corporations to steal cash and data. It’s about risking everything and losing everything, but then trying it all again because you’re damn sure you can do better. It’s out now on Steam Early Access, and I’ve spent the last couple of days sheltered within its billowing trenchcoat.

New favourite thing! New favourite thing! You know I love XCOM dearly (as long as you don’t get me started on the satellite rush bobbins) but it’s not exactly convenient to have the thing take over my whole damn life for a couple of weeks when all I wanted was a quick hit of tactical action. Invisible Inc looks at the whole affair from a distinctly different angle – pure stealth, combat as a supremely tense last resort – but most of all it does it quickly, and fat-free. And it has trilby hats, trenchcoats, hiding in cupboards and people called ‘Deckard.’

No more than two agents, and if they both bite it then it’s game over, a time limit, almost no mucking around in the base beyond some basic character upgrades, and the use of cover not to affect hit chances, but as vital concealment. This is a supremely tense game of movement squares: as the mission timer wears on, the amount of enemies and cameras, and the cost of hacks, rises.

Have you spent too long mucking around, trying to grab all the loot you get your black gloved hands on? Good for you, but you’ve made getting out of here alive so much tougher. Risk/reward underpins it all, but too much risk – too much time – is genuinely suicidal.

You have to be comfortable with cutting your losses, with exiting the building knowing full well there’s a still-locked safe full of who knows what over in that side room, or an encrpyted vending machine that might hold live-saving goodies if only you could get over there and hack it.

It’s as tough as Lee Marvin’s most sun-baked boots, and for that reason there’s immense satisfaction to be had. The final moments of a mission, as guards and their sinister Elite variants slowly close on your location while you try and peg it to the elevator, elicit pounding adrenaline. The great uncertainty of survival, and the terrible knowledge that if you fail, it’s all over.

There are no new recruits to turn to if your best agents fall: this is it. Let them get spotted once and they’re almost certainly dead. Don’t get spotted, get both characters (sometimes with a rescued prisoner in tow, much like XCOM’s escort missions) through the lift doors, and you’ll feel like the king of thieves.

Invisible Inc falls squarely into the ‘early access done right’ camp, as its core concept and major mechanics are all in place. There’ll be many features, characters and variations upon mission settings and types to come, but unlike the initial releases of games such as Clockwork Empires and Space Base, the current build makes it perfectly clear what kind of game we’re going to have by end of all this. ‘A rather good one’, say I.

The rules are clear. The number of possible actions are few, and even though each mission map is procedurally-generated, I’ve yet to encounter any situation that I could describe as unfair. If I failed – and I failed repeatedly – it was without doubt a result of my own error or recklessness. A possibleexception to that is the use of a timer system for the default taser weapon each Agent carries.

You can either sneak up on an unware guard or lie in wait behind cover (i.e. Overwatch) for one you believe is heading your way, at which point your fragile thief will zap ‘em and pin ‘em to the ground – but it’ll be three turns before you can do that again. If another guard is hot on the heels of the downed guy, you are most probably screwed – but flashes of last-second ingenuity can rescue the day.

At times, this recharge timer did seem overly cruel, but I quickly realised my mistake was to have gotten myself into that situation in the first place. I shouldn’t have risked that stun if I didn’t have a surefire means of taking out or avoiding immediate reinforcements. For instance, I could have used Deckard’s stealth vest to turn invisible for a single turn, or Shalem 11′s short-range silenced rifle to pick off the second pursuer. In that case, however, I’d used the stealth vest the turn before and had already fired both rounds of ammo for the gun.

That latter aspect did bother me more, as the game doesn’t replenish ammo between missions, so you’ll spend half of the next one scouring the map for a vending machine before you can use the gun. But: you shouldn’t really use the gun unless there’s no other option, as the level’s security increases if it detects a stopped heartbeat. Avoid; stun; kill: those are your prime directives, and the further down that short list you go, the more you’re putting your own neck in harm’s way.

Underneath the Bond-does-cyberpunk skin – visually it’s a meeting of Shadowrun Returns and Evil Genius – it’s primarily a resource management game. How to best spend your movement points and your precious and slow-to-recharge attacks, or how to obtain more PWR, the hacking resource. While you can pick up a little more of this during missions, really once it’s gone it’s gone, so there’s an ongoing dilemma over whether to spend it on hacking cash-filled safes or deactivating security cameras and turrets.

Every decision has consequences, because you’re locking off other opportunities and invariably attracting the attention of the guards. Time too is a resource: ‘spend’ too much of it and you’re faced with a base in lockdown. High stakes, high stress, big old butterfly effect. It all coalesces into a fiercely compelling juggling act, but crucially one where you always feel there’s at least a possibility of recovering before the balls all tumble to the floor.

This is wonderful stuff: tactical, tense, characterful, confident enough to never depart from the realm of stealth, and so far with a random map generator that’s kept me on my toes rather than see me turn away from over-familiarity. Even going on just this alpha/beta/whatever you want to call it build, I’m certain that I’ll be revisiting Invisible Inc often as the year wears on.

Invisible Inc is available via Steam Early Access now.
 

Elthosian

Arcane
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
Messages
1,138
New update:

IMPORTANT NOTE!

As we continue to update the game, we are very careful to preserve player progress. However, mission saves are actually replays of your moves, so any change in balance will invalidate the current mission. In order to maintain compatibility and preserve campaign progress after a balance change, we rewind the simulation back to the last visit to the Map Screen.



--



Welcome Operators.



It's the first update of Invisible, Inc since hitting Early Access. @jamesl, @Bigfoot, the crew and I have been really grateful for the enthusiastic response from all of you. Reading about your strategies is endlessly interesting, and we're looking forward to layer more and more interesting options and challenges as we continue development.



In addition, we've thought a lot about the difficulty, and obviously read the myriad of comments regarding it. Invisible Inc is meant to be a challenging, tight, thrilling experience. You are a skilled yet vulnerable spy in a hostile environment, always riding the razors edge with each move being a crucial decision. We want to retain that experience, even for beginning players.



With that in mind, we've now split the difficulty into two settings:

  • Easy mode gives a bit more breathing room. Agents earn more money from guards and safes, each knock out lasts an extra turn, and crucially there alarm level 1 is now a warning level and doesn't increase the danger.
  • Normal mode tightens the belt. We've beefed up the game to make it more challenging: money comes in slower, and the firewalls increase more steeply as you go further in.
What this should do is allow beginner players to ease into the game, and gives expert players even more interesting decisions, especially later in the game, where currently a strong build can overrun the corporations.



Teaser for the next update:

The corporations are learning. They've had their top security complexes compromised more times than they admit on their monthly reports and had more of their secrets exposed than the budget was allowing for. New training facilities and security protocols have begun even as we speak.



Patch notes for Update 1: PWR Play

Build 109992



New Features

* 1 new program, item and daemon (go find them!)

* Difficulty settings :

  • Easy
    • Safes, guards, and rewards are more lucrative.

    • Alarm stages ramp less quickly.

    • Neural Disrupters knock out for longer
  • Normal
    • Safes, guards and rewards are less lucrative.

    • More firewalls protect the mainframe.


Bug fixes

* Bioshot recharges properly

* Dropping body bug fix.

* Artifacts give proper rewards.

* Tool tips clean up.

* Myriad of small bug fixes





Hot fixes



* Fixed several crashes with melee weapons

* Fixed a crash when trying to steal from a conscious guard

* Fixed a crash when trying to continue a game saved in the campaign map screen (these games now default to Normal difficulty)

* Fixed a crash when trying to play tutorial (now defaults to Easy difficulty)

Great that they made the game more difficult than previous versions for the new Normal Mode, you going to do another playthrough with it, 7h30n?
 

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
Absoluty, especially since the game is more difficult. Unfortunely I don't have as much time since my vacation is over and am back to work... And on top of that I bought Crusader Kings 2 and got totally hooked.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
And I got my 2nd win half an hour ago. That makes 2 wins in total, and 2 in a row :)
This time the last mission was a lot more tougher. I was stuck with 2 agents from the start. Visited 3 detention centres, 2 had a crippled prisoner and one had an agent which unfortunately died on the same mission. The thing what improved my chances was visiting that Nanofabricator location which supplied me with some incredible equipment.
Final level started really nicely then all went to hell. Every guard on the map was trying to find me before I even found the prisoner. As I never give up I used all the turrets against them which made the map into a bloodbath. And with some luck and OP equipment (Cloak lvl 2 which cloaks allies in a small radius) I managed to get to a good position.
I think this was the most hectic mission I ever experienced, but persistance and exploiting guard movements (via Observe) really paid off providing a narrow escape.

Oh and stim screwed me over, good thing I always have a backup plan. It seems Stim is currently bugged and doesn't give you another attack.
Are you sure it is the stim's fault ? Attacking when one of your weapons is on cooldown is very buggy atm :
If I equip a character with 2 tasers, if one is on CD, he cannot melee at all, unless I get rid of the CD'ed taser, which is goofy. I really like the game so far, but I can only agree about needing to explain the game mechanics better(learning by dying is quite time consuming!).
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I have just completed Storymode in normal. It was a good ride. I started with the two girls (I like being able to disable camera without LoS), started with a vault mission which allowed me to pump Anarchy and stealth, then got very lucky and freed Salem 11 right after that. I got some good loot on opponents (stimpack 3 + energy gun). My usual behaviour is to push for safes if alert level is below 3, and to extract quickly (and only focus on the mission) after that(I end up most missions soon after it reaches alert level 5). I really liked the stun trap (place on door, guards are stunned in a radius 3 when door is opened), the cloack (I got a level 3 one allowing me to cloack friends. I think it works even if they are in sight, as long as the agent carrying it is not) and stim obviously (although I didn't use them much. It's more a "oh shit!" button). The EMP is awesome(but you need range of 5 at least) when you don't want to wait for a long time to parasite everything, or when you are too low on energy for lockpick, and it sure is the best way to disable drones (I only had the energy gun to do so permanently, but for one turn/map).

My Incognita loadout was :
power drip (I had not unlocked fusion yet, but fusion would be much better if you don't forget to activate it)
Arrow (or whatever the anti daemon program is called)
ping (awesome to lure guards away. It can be a real lifesaver when patrols are closing on your location and you are out of APs).
dagger (The cd is too high, I wish I had lockpic instead).
parasite (most hacks don't require to be effective immediately).

I ended up killing lots of guys in the last mission (all drones (4) + 3 guards, as I had the augment allowing to do so without raising the alarm level), which made things much easier.
 

cvv

Arcane
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Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Looks great, I got hooked up on Don't Starve for quite a while and Klei became one of my favourite devs. Problem with Don't Starve was a lot of people tried it out while in alpha, since it came out at the peek of the survival mania, but put it away quickly because...well it was alpha and felt quite empty. The result was they formed pretty negative opinion and never picked it up again. That's the bane of Early Access publishing, let the hell swallow it whole. But the full version was actually bursting with content and the expansion made it an incredibly fun and addictive survival roguelike.

I hope the same fate won't befall Invisible, really looking fwd to this one.
 

Jaedar

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 5, 2009
Messages
9,839
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Imo, Banks is the best character to start off with. Being able to ignore locked doors and more than double the guard ko timer is really good.

I usually pick parasite+ lockpick (or whatever the default hacking one is named). Parasite is so good, since it basically lets you hack anything for 1 power as long as you have some patience(and you usually spot stuff the turn before you need them hacked anyway).
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The last update changed quite a few things on the mission map indeed :
1) Medigel are now consumable, while remaining as expensive as before, and eating 1 inventory slot :
2) Guard destination is not displayed anymore, unless they are being observed
3) alert levels changed :
you get +1 guard at level 4, +1 elite enforcer at level 5, and +2 elite enforcers at level 6
instead of +1 elite enforcer at level 4, +2 elite enforcers at level 5 and +2 elite enforcers at level 6.
4) drones are now KOed after being hacked (ie you control them for 2 turns, then they get KOed)
5) a few new items and opponents :
Tag gun, which allows you to trace the guard movement plans if they are in the vicinity after you have tagged them (for 1 power) : I really like it. But it can get you killed as it counts as your attack.
Active recon drone (camera drone) : mobile camera you can only hack for a few turns (as with all drones).
Energy shield on guards (armor = firewall level, can be hacked)
Alert beacon or whatever : reveals one of your agents location to a single guard at each alert level until you disable it. You can recovert a part of it for money after hacking.

1)You cannot afford to get agents downed too often anymore, and you have to seriously consider dragging the agent body to the elevator to get medical assistance instead of reviving him on the field.
I really like this change (but I wish the agent who got with the wounded one in the elevator could come back). Dragging 2 wounded agents out of 4 made for some intense moments (I only managed to save one as I didn't know you could not send an agent back after he used the elevator to exit).
2) This change is for the better too. It didn't make much sense in the first place (that you knew where each guard would be investigating), and made things too easy.
3) This definitely makes high alert levels more manageable. It is quite a big difference, but guards are now much harder to deal with, because their destination is not displayed anymore.
4) It is for the better. Having the drone turn hostile the turn after you controled them made hacking them somewhat useless (you could not destroy them with a weapon while they were hacked)
5) These additions are cool overall.

The last update made things more difficult in some areas, which is pretty cool, but now, the alert level is not that drastic. I really like the changes. I don't really like not knowing against which corporation we will be operating. It removes an element of planning, and makes very little sense lorewise.
 

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