What I've found out about XP gains

[Gillsing]

Agents gain XP from hacking and hardwiring, but not from hijacking. They also get XP from doing damage to people and property, and one agent gets XP for breaching each facility even if they all go in at the same time. But the brunt of agent XP gains comes from moving around in restricted areas, and every time an agent gets XP, a quarter of that XP is given to each of the three other agents, even if they're not in the game yet.

This means that if the player brings only a single agent into a restricted area for a mission, 175% XP is made: 100% XP for the agent doing the mission, plus 25% 'side XP' for each one of the other three agents. If all three other agents come along for the mission, 700% XP is made: 100% for each agent, plus 4 x 3 x 25% = 300% for the side XP they're all giving each other. Thus the game is encouraging all agents to be active all the time, which is really only convenient for a single player if the agents are played like a four person blob.

When running various tests it sometimes looked like varying ratios of side XP were being given to the agents, perhaps depending on distance between the active agent and the recipient of side XP. But now it looks like XP for movement isn't given immediately, but might take a few seconds. I've noticed XP going up slightly even when the game is paused and I'm checking how much XP each agent had at a specific moment. XP also seems to be stored as a floating point variable, so sometimes there is rounding to explain the differences between XP gains among the agents. And when it comes to movement it seems that slower agents might get more XP for the same distance, so maybe XP for movement isn't awarded by distance, but over time, and it takes slightly more time for a slower agent to run the same distance.

The XP coming in over time even when agents have stopped moving could also explain why I've had the impression that agents can gain XP by hiding near guard patrols. That might have just been my agents hiding after moving, and then a guard passed by while XP was still coming in, making one of my agents gain a skill point while the agents were stationary. When checking specifically for this, it seems that sitting still and waiting for an opportunity to sneak past patrols earns no XP at all. If your stealthy agents aren't moving they aren't learning.

[Caldor]

Interesting

[Zephyr]

So basically, if you are behind a cover and waiting, you should always walk the dinosaur behind your stack of crates to maximise xp gain?...

[Gillsing]

Maybe, but from one little test I did I got the impression that you get a lot less XP when you rethread recently threaded ground.

[Caldor]

Hmmmm... maybe I could make a mod that logs XP gains? Not sure how to catch all the XP gains though. Would generally be nice with some kind of log where you could overall send data, rather than only having those pop up messages in the game. I would have to figure out how to make some custom UI first though, which is not so easy when it all has to be done through code.

[Gillsing]

I'm not sure that would be useful, as XP trickle in all the time in restricted areas. How would a human know where it's from? Couldn't keep up in game, and reading the log afterwards wouldn't say much, would it?

[Caldor]

I mean an in-game log... I guess I could make it so that it only shows how much XP you can every 10 seconds, and sums up all the XP you gained, per agent, those last 10 seconds.

Like in World of Warcraft, where you have a chat / log in the bottom right or something that would show the most recent stuff and was scrollable, maybe with a few filters.

[Gillsing]

Ah ok, that could be useful. But while playing some multiplayer with the No Big Brother fix mod, I found that it was really annoying to get the '11 cameras destroyed' message flashing in a huge box when we weren't even close to having destroyed all the cameras in a district.

Maybe I should only have that mod active when I'm actually going to attempt one of those achievements, but it's so much easier to simply have it added to the Steam version of the game, and I never know when I might decide to do something like destroying everything up in Dracogenics Tower district. (At the end the agents just split up and ran around after they'd killed the last enemies.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1372824551

[Cap'n Saccade]

Only one agent needs to do anything. So long as the rest are in the "danger zone", so long as one is active (or even a hijacked guard) - everyone will level up. It's possible to leave all the agents in a safe place in a zone and have a hijacked guard run around and shoot out cameras and still notice the XP bar gain for all characters.

[Cap'n Saccade]

That's kinda boring though...

It's more fun to play the game and have the agents perform their roles, by the time they reach the CBD, they should have all skills maxed out if firefights have been minimal and most of the time in missions has been spent doing what is required to remain undetected and to shut everything down.

Doing all the missions in a zone at one time appears to be quicker at gathering XP than doing one mission, exiting so it saves, then going back in to do the next part.

[Gillsing]

Originally posted by Cap'n Saccade:

... so long as one is active (or even a hijacked guard) - everyone will level up.

I'm pretty sure none of the agents gain XP from a hijacked unit running around in a restricted area. You could make a note of one or all of your agents' XP and then send in a hijacked unit to do stuff, and see if that changes the XP of the agents. But even if it's an agent you have running around alone, that will not give your agents as much XP as when they're all running around and doing stuff.

Originally posted by Cap'n Saccade:

... by the time they reach the CBD, they should have all skills maxed out ...

My agents never have all skills maxed out when they reach CBD, even if I complete all the other districts first. They'll have many of the skills maxed, but not all of them. Maybe they had all skills maxed out the first time I played the game and had to spend a lot of time running around in unfamiliar compounds, but I doubt that. I always have to grind XP to reach max skill points.

[Cap'n Saccade]

As I've said before, Gillsing, I believe you and I have very different playstyles.

There hasn't been a single SP game I've played where the agents have either not been maxed, or only require a final 6-7 points in order to complete health or some other skill (eg, drone control), before entering CBD. Often after completing a mission area, there will be up to 16-18 skill points before leaving it with the prototypes.

In MP games, esp with Caldor and Ant (who introduced me to the "subtle art of using a LOT of explosives") - it's not unusual to forget about skill and realise we have a dozen or so after a single mission.

For this game, I did nothing but use hijacked units - the agents simply sat in cover, providing overwatch - agents only popping out to do a hardwire or terminal/camera hack in order to lock out or change some gas or whatever, especially for the escort missions.

During the escort missions, sometimes only the escort and their hijacked "door opener" escort will be doing anything, unless there is need to send in any particular agent along with them.

So long as the agents are in the red zone - they appear to earn XP even if it is only a hijacked guard that is doing most of the work in order to create a pathway for the agents to get where they are going.

If played "normally", ie, stealth, not really killing anyone, hardwiring and hacking, using alternative routes and dealing with the occasional firefight / assassinating or hijacking the guard(s) and quietly taking out the drones through hijack or with a katana or rage, paint target, silenced weapons, should someone get spotted - it's not unusual to be at over 500,000 credits and have all skills maxed before CBD.

No grind, only play.

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373478221 - soldier
  
• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373478267 - support
  
• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373478322 - hacker
  
• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1373478367 - infiltrator

During this game, I used mostly hijacked units to do most everything (including take out Dengler) and moved the squad only when necessary to advance).

// You are a very argumentative person. You must be young. It must be good to feel so passionate about something so inconsequential as this. Perhaps you would like to play some MP some time, next time Caldor, Antopsy and I get a match set up one weekend..? Idk when that'll be - probably when the "free rush" is over :)

[Caldor]

Originally posted by Gillsing:

Ah ok, that could be useful. But while playing some multiplayer with the No Big Brother fix mod, I found that it was really annoying to get the '11 cameras destroyed' message flashing in a huge box when we weren't even close to having destroyed all the cameras in a district.

Maybe I should only have that mod active when I'm actually going to attempt one of those achievements, but it's so much easier to simply have it added to the Steam version of the game, and I never know when I might decide to do something like destroying everything up in Dracogenics Tower district. (At the end the agents just split up and ran around after they'd killed the last enemies.)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1372824551

Yes, those messages begin after you have destroyed 10 or more cameras to help let you know how far you have come. I think the delay between each "you have destroyed cameras" becomes lower as you get closer to having destroyed all cameras... I guess it should be at least one minute in between them as long as you are below 30 destroyed cameras or something.

[Gillsing]

Originally posted by Cap'n Saccade:

As I've said before, Gillsing, I believe you and I have very different playstyles.
...

// You are a very argumentative person. You must be young.

I'm not young. I'm just immature. And easily bored. I guess I'll try making my agents earn XP by having a hijacked unit do stuff while they're immobile in a restricted area. But I think that 'playstyle' doesn't matter, and that XP is mostly a function of time spent moving around in restricted areas. And the first couple of times my agents did max out their skills without grinding, but not at the start of CBD, but rather towards the end of it.

Nowadays I spend most of the time in the city, looking for clones and researchers and generally lazing about in between doing compounds, usually all three facilities in one go, for a handful of skill points per agent. It's very unusual for a single compound to give as much as ten skill points even. Probably because I know where to go already, so my agents don't go off exploring or run back and forth a lot. And for all I know, many players are faster than me, and would get even less XP for their agents.

[Cap'n Saccade]

Originally posted by Gillsing:

Probably because I know where to go already, so my agents don't go off exploring or run back and forth a lot. And for all I know, many players are faster than me, and would get even less XP for their agents.

Maybe try mixing things up a bit - do things in a different way. Different gear, different augs, take different routes and try different tactics.

One of the great things about SR as someone and I were talking about yesterday, is that it is very non-linear and free - which is quite rare in some of the more modern games.

Going to the CBD straight away and working backwards can be a fun challenge if you are feeling that you are becoming mired in the detail of mechanics than having fun in the game:)

Even in speedrun mode, it is possible to max XP - even if it means being more selective with research.

One of the more fun challenges in the game is to turn on glass cannon mode and go for meat-squad with uzis and silent pistols, maybe not even upgrading skills except those needed to progress (eg, hardwire/hacking) only for the whole game.

I think the record for Speedrun on SR is 1hr 40mins at the moment.

// it is coop, not SP: https://youtu.be/YWoIv1lCwPw - idk SP speedrun. I think my best is ~3hrs, including the tutorial. Not sure it counts if it is not the full game and MP to say it's world record... going straight to CBD with inflitrator cloaking through the checkpoints, then using relay, come back, then teleport the whole team past the checkpoint - it is faster than this way.

[Gillsing]

I do change things up a bit, but the layout of the compounds remain the same, and one approach isn't significantly longer than another, so the time ends up being roughly the same. In my current game my agents are level 1-2 in CBD, so it's not like I haven't done that before. I did a roughly two hour speed run as well, but I'm not really into speed runs, as I play games so that I can spend my time in the game world, not finish the game as quickly as possible.