Endless end game best team/strategy

[Jarcionek]

I just hit day 20 in endless and wanted to share my views on best strategy and hopefully learn something from others too before my attempt on Endless Plus :)

===== Challenges =====

A couple of end game difficulties to address:

• Every guard has 5+ armour which makes all weapons useless
  
• Every device has 10+ firewalls which requires a lot of power to break through
  
• Almost every device has a daemon and you start the game with 2-3 daemons active, these include:
  
  • +10 alarms at the beginning of the level
    
  • increased PWR usage
    
  • decreased firewalls broken by programs
    
  • increased items cooldown
    
  • various boosts for guards (armour, KO resistance etc.)
• Exit is behind a locked door, so you have to find the exit card in the safe, so you need to explore entire map

===== Strategies =====

Dealing with heavy armoured guards

Best weapon, is actually not a weapon, but a trap, namely Shock Trap III. Although it costs 3 PWR, it has huge range, knocks out every guard for 5 turns (no matter their armour) and every drone for 2 turns (no matter their firewalls).

My second best choice (and I actually use both) is Cloaking Rig III with Holocircuit Overloaders augment. Cloak allows you to move easily between guards/drones on overwatch - it is generally a must and with 8 turn cooldown, I tend to give my agents two of them. The augment knocks out everything, similarly to Shock Trap, but in a smaller radius and for 2 turns only.

Once guards/drones are knocked out, I usually drag them all to the same location and pin them down in such a way, that they all wake up at the same time, so that I can use only one trap to put them all to sleep again.

Remember that one agent can pin two targets at once - just drag the body and stand over another one. You won't be able to drop the body until you move, but both are effectively pinned down.

Don't be afraid to get spotted. Although alarm will go up, the Elite Reinforcers that come in are ironically the weakest guards. Watch the path of guards/drones and position your agents in such a way that guards spot you form a place you want them to come to. This is really useful when you would like to move knocked out drones.

Try to always have one agent next to a door, so that when guards wake up, you can install the trap and activate it by opening the doors - none of these actions cause guards on overwatch to shoot. Remember about a daemon which can make guards wake up early. Worst case, you can always use cloak or come in with another agent from another room to save those agents who got spotted.

Finally, leave all doors open, so that guards don't destroy them.

Dealing with high firewalls

Here Dr. Xu is the answer. I think it is the best agent in the game. Early game he can open safes with 5+ firewalls, as long as they don't have magnetic reinforcements (if device has more than 2 firewalls, EMP decreases firewall by 2 instead of disabling the device), and safes with daemons without triggering then. End game, with Stim IV giving him infinite attacks and every device having magnetic reinforcements, he can break through hundreds of firewalls in a single turn.

Have you ever seen a safe with 72 firewalls? 2 daemons giving safes x3 firewalls and that's it... But for Dr. Xu it is not a problem - you just have to maximise his AP so that he can run through multiple devices in the single turn: Stims, Cloaking Rigs, Chameleon Movement augment (+6 AP when becomes cloaked) and Subdermal Cloak augment (when using stim it consumes 5 PWR but gives agent cloak, which triggers the other two augments: knock out and extra AP).

Dealing with Daemons

Daemons everywhere? Don't fight them - embrace them! Forget about agents, items and programs that allow you to neutralise or recognise them. Get Bless program, which gives passive ability "Daemons have -2 duration". Consider taking Brimstone for its passive ability - 10% chance of daemon reversal. Pick Central as one of your agents - you will start each map with 20 PWR and will be able to generate a lot of power during your turn, just by hacking the right devices.

PWR generation

Shock Traps, Subdermal Cloak and Incognita programs will consume a lot of power, so bringing a bunch of portable servers III is a must. In my playthrough I didn't have Central and was using Olivia (she generates PWR equal to KO damage done) as an extra PWR generator, but after day 15 she became useless - at this point I was bringing 5 portable servers with me giving me 10 extra PWR every turn.

Incognita programs

• Oracle is a must - hacking a camera with 10+ firewalls for just 4 PWR is the best deal you can get. Also it gives you the idea of how the facility looks like. There is often camera next to the exit, so you know where you will have to go. It is a bit useless against Kelfried & Odin corporation, as they tend to have turrets instead of cameras (usually there will still be 1 or 2 cameras)
  
• Bless - already mentioned, reduces daemons' duration by 2. You will often get very negative daemons like prevent Incognota from hacking for 3 turns - but shortened to 1 turn it is not that bad any more
  
• Data Blast - breaks 1 firewall in 5 tile range for just 3 PWR meaning that you can easily achieve cost/firewall ratio less than 1
  
• Faust as a starting PWR generation program - 2 PWR per turn with chance of a daemon. Remember that you always need to have 3 PWR to use Shock Trap in an emergency situation (like daemon causing guards to wake up sooner)
  
• Parasite v1 - not entirely sure about this one, but I quite like it. Very cheap and over time it can break through a lot of firewalls. The game is going to take you 10-20 turns, so placing them on farther devices (Oracle comes useful here) is a good deal. Parasite is however quite slow in the early game and I made a mistake of starting with it
  
• Brimstone - breaks only 1 firewall for 3 PWR, so it's the same cost as Data Blast (minus area of effect), but its 10% passive daemon reversal might come in useful

You can notice that I have skipped all the programs that allow to break through more than 1 firewall in one go - this is intentional, as I often get daemon which reduces number of firewalls broken by programs by 2 (to the minimum of 1). The only exception is Oracle that is not affected by this daemon (and I still have Dr. Xu to deal with firewalls).

For the starting choice, I would go with Faust and Brimstone.

Agents

In regards to the choice of agents, given that end game guards have 5+ armour, I would reject all of those that have something to do with attack (like extra piercing, KO damage, PWR generated on attack, extra attack per turn and so on). This doesn't actually leave much of a choice:

• Dr. Xu with his EMP attack
  
• Central with her PWR generation
  
• Banks so you don't have to worry to look for security cards
  
• Prism who can generate 2 PWR per turn
  
• Internationale for scouting (although Wireless Scanner exists as an item) and remote console hacking
  
• Sharp with his 6 augment slots
  
• Archive Prism although I am not sure how that kind of cloaking augment works
  
• Derek with a teleportation device (see [BFT]Paul1159's comment below for more info)

Given that Central I think cannot be found in detention centers and Dr. Xu is a must, it doesn't leave much choice for the starting team.

Augments

Again, given all end game challenges, I don't think there is a lot to choose from.

The cloak related augments are quite good:

• Chameleon Movement which gives +6 AP on cloak activation
  
• Holocircuit Overloaders which knocks out everything on cloak activation
  
• Subdermal Cloak which at the cost of 5 PWR gives cloak on stim activation (which in turn triggers the two above)

Others that I would consider

• Carbon Myomer which gives +1 inventory slot so that I can sprint with full inventory
  
• Torque Injectors which reduces items cooldown by 1
  
• Skeletal Suspension for improved drag speed
  
• Distributed Processing for extra PWR, however it gives only 0.5 PWR per turn on average and is not predictable, so comparing to Portable Servers III which give 2 PWR per turn, it's probably not worth it

Early game survival

That might be a bit of a challenge. I was lucky to find Econ Chip early that can give credits instead of PWR when hacking consoles. I then gave it to one agent, together with all the Cloaking Rigs I got hold of, maxed this agent hacking skill and then I was evacuating everyone, except this one, until he hacked all the consoles. At this point the alarm was at level 6 for a while already (Econ Chip has 5 turn cooldown), but it was great strategy - around day 8 I had all agents' skills maxed out.

===== My current team =====

Dr. Xu
- unique augment Subdermal Tool
- augment Chamaleon Movement
- augment Holocircuit Overloaders
- augment Subdermal Cloak
- 2x Cloaking Rig III
- 2x Shock Trap III
- 2x Stim IV

Banks
- unique augment Crypto Computer
- augment Chamaleon Movement
- augment Holocircuit Overloaders
- augment Carbon Myomer (+1 inventory slot)
- 2x Cloaking Rig III
- 2x Shock Trap III
- 1x Stim III
- 2x Portable Server III

Decker
- augment Chamaleon Movement
- augment Holocircuit Overloaders
- augment Torque Injectors (items cooldown reduction by 1)
- augment Distributed Processing (50% chance to gain 1 PWR at the beginning of turn)
- 2x Cloaking Rig III
- 2x Shock Trap III
- 1x Stim III
- 2x Portable Server III

Olivia
- unique augment Ambient Turbine (generates PWR equal to KO damage done)
- augment Torque Injectors
- augment Titanium Rods (+1 KO damage)
- augment Penetration Scanner (+1 armour piercing)
- 2x Neural Disrupter III (3 KO damage, 2 armour piercing, 4 turn cooldown)
- 1x Cloaking Rig III
- 1x Shock Trap III
- 1x Stim III
- 2x Portable Server III

===== The team I wish I had =====

Agents: Dr. Xu, Central, Banks and maybe Prism or Sharp.

I would go with the same augments for everyone: Chamaleon Movement, Holocircuit Overloaders and Subdermal Cloak (plus their unique ones of course).

I wouldn't install other augments, even "temporarily", because removing them is quite time consuming - it requires about 3-4 missions (getting vault pass and infiltrating augmentation centre, which might have no vault or vault with 2 grafters instead of a drill).

In regards to items, I think the current setup I have is good:
- 2x Cloaking Rig III
- 2x Shock Trap III
- 1x Stim III
- 2x Portable Server III

With the exception of Dr. Xu where I would try to give him even more AP (around 80 should be doable):
- 2-3x Cloaking Rig III
- 2x Stim IV
- 2x Stim III

[Geothermal1159]

Originally posted by jarcionek:

Agents

In regards to the choice of agents, given that end game guards have 5+ armour, I would reject all of those that have something to do with attack (like extra piercing, KO damage, PWR generated on attack, extra attack per turn and so on). This doesn't actually leave much of a choice:

• Dr. Xu with his EMP attack
  
• Central with her PWR generation
  
• Banks so you don't have to worry to look for security cards
  
• Prism who can generate 2 PWR per turn
  
• Internationale for scouting (although Wireless Scanner exists as an item) and remote console hacking
  
• Sharp with his 6 augment slots
  
• Archive Prism although I am not sure how that kind of cloaking augment works
  
• Derek with some sort of teleporter

*chokes a bit* some sort of teleporter?!?!?!? Blasphamy!
That teleporter is one of the best items (in my opinion) because of the amount of ways it can be used to get through missions quickly as well as getting you out of a jam.

Originally posted by jarcionek:

Given that Central I think cannot be found in detention centers and Dr. Xu is a must, it doesn't leave much choice for the starting team.

*gasp* Again Blasphamy!
Well alright maybe not blasphamy but Derek is definatly a major option to go for since you can't get him in levels unlike Dr. Zu who you have up to 20 days to get in regards to the achevment.

In anycase I think I will tell you a bit about the magic that is Derek and his teleportation device and why I think it is such a handy thing to have.

The teleportation device is a throwable item that once thrown gives you an option to interact with it on the Incognita screen (at a cost of 4 PWR) to teleport only Derek (and anything/anyone he might be holding hint hint) to said device.

Now what you can do with said device gets fun.
You can:

• As meantioned grab downed agents wth Derek and teleport them directly to the elevator.
  (assuming you have the teleportation device in the elevator mind you)
  
• Teleport Dereks unconscious/dying body to the elevator after having stuffed it to the max with loot and objective items.
  
• Have Derek (or another agent) toss the teleportation device past a fence and have Derek teleport there.
  
• You can also leave the teleporter in the elevator and have Derek:
  
  • Run to the furthest reachs of the area and teleport back to saftey
    
  • Run distrations for all ofter agents to get to the elevator saftley then teleport Dereks conscious/unconscious/dying body to the elevator.
    
  • Run a rescue mission to pick up downed agent then teleport back with the body.
    
  • Do last minute shopping with guards swarming the place because you just scrapped up enough cash to buy it then teleport him back to saftey.
    
• Give teleportation device to another agent so they can toss it:
  
  • To bring Derek over if he has the Vault Access Code or the exit card.
    
  • To let Derek teleport behind the guard then knock out said guard.
    
  • Before the agent is taken down allowing Derek to teleport near the downed agent when it is safe to pick them up.
    

This is also not everything you can do with the teleportation device and Derek but I think I got the point across about how versitile it is.

[Jarcionek]

Hmmm... That's indeed interesting choice of possibilities. Might be more useful in the early game.

[Geothermal1159]

Early, mid, late game.
Doesn't matter it is always useful in one way or another.

[cyberboy2000]

You forgot Net Downlink, easily one of the best augments in all situations. Carbon Myomer and Skeletal Suspension however are actually extremely underwhelming compared to how much raw AP you are going to get from stims and other augments (even in normal campaigns they're not usually worth bothering with).

I actually have a particular distaste for Subdermal Cloak, the problem with it is that you can't use any stim without it costing 5 pwr for a cloak when really you just want the AP.

I prefer Parasite v2.0 over v1.0 for endless, but they're both good. Seed is the only power generator that is close to being worth it for endless since you'll get most of your pwr from portable servers. Either Wisp or at least one TAG Pistol is a must, can not stress enough how good tagging is for any endless run that doesn't rely on knocking out as many guards as possible. Ping is also good for that. Brimstone is not worth it, trust me. Get Hunter or Dagger 2.0 or anything else really instead.

If you really care about getting optimal agents, wait with going to detention centers until you feel like your team is (temporarily) stable, then go for as many of them as you can. If you get an agent you don't want, leave them behind and try your luck again at a different detention center. If you rescue an agent and then regret it, leave them behind in a mission. They'll be in the next detention center, but if you ignore them you'll get a different agent in the next detention center after that.

[BFT]Paul1159, Derek can indeed be found in Detention Centers, don't know where you got that from, so no need to pick him from the start (or freak out over someone not doing so) when you can guarantee getting Xu, who literally breaks the game.

It sounds like you try to ko as many guards as possible. While that's totally a viable strategy, I much prefer stealth, which frees up the slots you'd use for shock traps and holocircuit overloaders.

Overall, it's fun to imagine how to make the optimal build for endless, but ultimately the game is not at all balanced for it. It's super easy to break the game with stims and cloaks and the point where you become able to steamroll all resistance comes long before the 20 days the dlc expects you to be able to play for.

Now if you're playing with mods (NIAA, AGP, PE, WE, Shirsh's Mod Combo, etc.), that's a completely different story...

[cyberboy2000]

Also, shameless plug for our Discord if you're interested in discussing this (or anything else related to Invisible, Inc.) further with other (more or less) experienced players.

https://discordapp.com/invite/aQrXEse

[Synavix]

My go-to team is starting with Central + Archive Prism, then picking up Xu and Derek. Dynamo for power generation for sustaining Prism's disguise full time after alarm 2. And I usually take parasite to help negate the need for power early on.

I don't take nearly as many cloaks, traps, and servers. At least not with this setup. I perfer a more rounded inventory with 1 cloak, 1 stim, usually 1 buster chip on each person. Then spread throughout the whole group I'll have 1-2 servers, 1 trap, at least 1 melee weapon, and usually 1 gun if I can get one of the really good/rare ones. I also *really* like the prototype chip on one of my stealthers. On "Plus" you don't really want to be knocking people out if you can avoid it. Much better to go with the Wisp route and just learn how to skip around their view.

Central is usually my anchor. Her job is basically to find and secure a route to the exit, then just spot patrol routes and do power generation with servers. Sometimes taking out drones or just hiding near side objectives. She's the most likely to be carrying traps or other weapons along with a server. Net Downlink + Distributed Processing + Torque Injectors

Archive Prism does all the heavy lifting until I get better gear and fill out the squad. With Central using her AP to spot patrol routes, there's 0 danger to Prism just walking around the entire level at her own pace to loot everything while in disguise, even at later alarm levels. Once I get Derek as well (who fills a similar role), I generally send Derek as far behind enemy lines as I can, as quickly as I can, while Prism does cleanup looting on the way.

Derek's job is pretty much to just cloak + stim into impossible situations with a good buster or prototype chip, then teleport back to Central (who is carrying his beacon 90+% of the time, and should usually be right near the exit). Sometimes I'll go with an Overloader build, but for pure stealth I'll usually go with Net Downlink + Torque + Subdermal + Chameleon on both Prism and Derek (have to drop one on Derek because of his starter).

Xu's role is pretty obvious. Just have to keep him safe and let him do the heavy safe looting or assisting with wherever he's needed. Also backup power generator with Net Downlink + Distributed Processing and a second portable server.

[Chichi]

I just reached day 21 on endless with the contingency plan DLC some days ago and some of the comments here were very useful.

I started with Dr. Xu and Draco. The first one is a must with a stim IV in the late missions as it allows you to disable all safes around and find the exit pass card. Draco was more of an experiment as I did not play him too much but murdering guards for abilities in the early game is an easy way to level up.

I found Banks and Rush in rescue missions. Banks is useful to open doors but I almost never used Rush's ability. I think most of the characters are the same after day 10 as you'd rather play stealth. You need to give them a role: explore, disturb guard patrols, generate power... And sometimes the items they carry are more important and swapping them allow you to change the role.

I wish I found more cloaking rig III but I only had three. I got a prototype chip from a mission and this is very powerful as it breaks firewalls 1 for 1. I realized portable servers III are a must in the late missions and I always took two with me. I prefer buster chip III as they are reusable rather than level IV. The tag pistol is almost very useful. I also had shock traps III for emergencies.

For the programs, I started with Fusion and mercenary and then found Wisp, Hunter, parasite V2.0. It felt comfortable and never wanted to change.

The first days are quite easy for an experienced player. Of course when you reach day 10 it becomes more challenging and having two mandatory objectives to escape on top of the main one makes things harder. I almost always completed the main objective even though it becomes irrelevant in the late missions as you just want to escape.

I found myself avoiding K&O missions as I have a bad experience from previous playthroughs. After day 10, I started avoiding FTM missions as well as routers become annoying. Then I focused on Plastech and Sankaku missions which I found easier even though the Null drones are painful sometimes. It was challenging until the end even though I wish there were more changes after day 10 or 15. I just wonder how far people went on endless mode.

[Hekateras]

Nice. Draco and Dr. Xu are always a win. :D

I agree, Endless gets very repetitive after a certain point, especially since you tend to accumulate tier III shock traps and cloaks in huge amounts and can easily get around guards.

I definitely stopped after getting the 20 day achievement.

Here's the thing, though, I think Endless benefits immensely from certain mods and I think anyone going for Empire Builder should just have those enabled from the start.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=575758597
New Items and Augments: Makes the item pool a LOT more varied, overpowered items (like Cloak III, Stim IV, etc.) are removed and their effects spread over other items. Sounds bad but it's actually great because as a result you don't pick the same items at the nanofabs every time. Also introduces pretty substantial cleanup costs.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1146687208
More varied layouts, some extra side missions, some new threats.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1762663619
Agent Reserve. You can collect more than 4 agents and swap the active team out between missions, XCOM style. This is AWESOME for Endless!

[Kira]

Oh that Agent Reserve mod looks amazing... :) I'm still enjoying playing purist, but if I ever change my mind, that will be the first mod I try.

There are ways to get around armor, I'm at day 43 in an Endless Plus game and I've just found my 8th Ventricular Lance... :) It was quite tight until the 5th copy, then it has been more and more relaxed. Aces program also helps as I'm anyway tagging every guard, it's basically -1 Armor to everyone when needed. +5 PWR if you have Central (sadly I didn't think about selecting her in that game).

The one thing I try to think through before an Endless game is which units can be found in detention centers, and whether they have any equipment that would still make them a good first pick. Out of the 12 units that can be found (current versions of the base units, plus the four contingency plan units, so no Archive agents and no Central / Monster), the only really unique item is Nika's custom volt disrupter, which is probably the best melee weapon in the game. So Nika is a good pick even though you can find her later on, because if you find her she will not have her disrupter. Derek is a special case because if you find him in a Detention Center, he will have his teleporter on him.

Of the units who cannot be found in detention centers (Archive agents, Central and Monster), the best is probably Central, her augment seems ideal for Endless runs. Archive Sharp and Archive Prism each have something you cannot replicate later on, but the rest of the crew only offer slight upgrades over the random gear you'll find. Like, ARC Decker can have lots of APs, ARC Internationale can have tons of (slow) power, but you'll anyway dedicate a lot of items to gaining APs and Power.

If there are lots of guards, I usually try to stack the bodies using non-lethal KO like the Neural Dart, the holocircuit overloaders, or even traps. Unless they actually see an agent, guards always investigate downed guards, and they conveniently stand on top of the previous guard to look around. This effectively pins the KO-ed guard(s) for a turn, and if you knock out the investigating guard with a non-melee attack, he will collapse on top of the other guards. You can stack any number of guards this way. Robots are a bit harder to stack, because of how they wake up, but not impossible (EMP helps, Leash can be good for this.) But in general, Sankaku is more difficult because of this. Important not to use melee because that places the guard in your square, not where he stood.

[❤]

Woooo I just got to day 21 on Endless Plus :D

Honestly kinda anti-climactic near the end, everything got a bit too easy so I'll def be including many more mods in my next run. Team was Archive Prism, Internationale, Nika, and Archive Dr. Xu (only first two were picked by me). Archive Prism was a huge carry for much of the game and I don't know if it would've been possible without her - from day 2-10 she pretty much solo'ed the levels while everyone else sat around and ate chips (potato not buster). My overall strategy though was just pure stealth, I think I KO'ed a total of <5 guards the whole run. By the end what turned out to be super OP was the combination of Subdermal Cloak, Chameleon Movement, Torque Injectors, and Stim III's. Generally got every level done before Alarm Level 2. I had this augment combo on Nika but I think it'd be much stronger on Internationale since she can detect and pick up PWR at a range and just blitz through the level while fueling her Subdermals with console pickups. Really want to try that next. 3x Stims, 3x Buster Chips, and go scouting for the objective items from turn 1. Ideally I would want her to trigger Subdermal 3+ times in a turn for a total of 54+ AP, but it seems like you can't manually de-cloak without having to make an attack so I dunno if that'd be possible. With Nika I actually had a TAG pistol which allowed her to make 2 attacks on guards which would de-stealth her and allow for more Subdermal usage, but it would be situational since guards weren't always around to be used for de-cloaking. PWR was also more of an issue since Internationale had a more or less immobile PWR-farming role. Wonder if there are other ways to manually de-cloak? Come to think of it, non-archive Xu might be a great choice as well since he's got an attack that is usable on any device that gets refreshed by Stim III's, but that ranged PWR pickup seems invaluable for a super scout. Anyway /end random wall of text ♥