Tips for newcomers

[csvii]

I will attempt to collate all tips into this post so people don't have to trawl page after page.

Map of all Districts (ATM's, Cameras + Data Terminals) by Shemone
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520519112496857331/

- When you enter a new zone, set all the relay beacons (these allow fast travel from the map and offer new missions) and hack all the ATMs for money.

-You are able to select missions via map. Just click the compound core icon and, if available, the related mission dossier can be opened.(yDNA tip)

- Robbing banks will increase the money from ATMs and give you a big payoff (and also display all ATM locations on the map for that zone). Banks regen money very slowly over time.

- When inside a compound, use silence mods on your weapons otherwise shooting will attract attention. 4 silenced rifles can 1-shot a drone. Long gun-fights with guards will also attract attention.

-. Shooting a camera will spawn an extra guard. This may be worth it if you can't hack the security system.

People usually say not to shoot cameras. I'm actually strongly in favor of shooting cameras. Not always, of course. If you can disable them, that's often preferable.

However, while destroying a camera often spawns an extra enemy or 3, they're not always spawned nearby, and they don't automatically know where you are, only where the camera was. All guards in the area will go to the camera to see what's up. So, if you take advantage of that and dont stick around, it can actually draw guards away from your destination as they leave their patrol to check out the camera. And then you don't have to worry about that camera on your way out either. Finally, if you destroy several cameras in a row, I think only the first one will spawn more baddies.(Ensvey tip)

- When a guard has an exclamation mark "!" he is calling for reinforcements. Take him down quickly. You can also run up close to him and kick him to stop this. If you don't stop this you may end up with infinite spawning guards

- If you get spotted by a camera (it will display "?"), quickly run out of sight or it will call reinforcements (the "?" will turn into "!")

- It is OK to run away and try again later if you are being swarmed by guards ;)

- Rewards for breaking into compounds are randomised. You can buy other blueprints from the black market dealer in your mission list.

- The game does not have combat pause but you can learn a skill that slows down time, Matrix style. As of v1.03 there is a new game option to unlock this skill right from the start for everyone who insists on real-time with pause.

CTRL+A = select all.
SPACE = draw guns toggle.
ALT+1, ALT+2 = select secondary / main weapon
ALT+right click = sneak up close to head shot someone (I don't use this, I prefer long range kills). If that doesn't work, try Left Alt + Left Shift + Right-click (Gillsing tip)
CTRL+F1 (or F2 etc) = create custom group of agents
F1 = select custom group
y = world scan
v = hijack

- You can just brute force or stealth your way past the check points into new zones (cheaper than paying $50,000)

- Enemies scale roughly to your level. As you get stronger, so do they, to keep the challenge up. Scaling is not based on time spent, it's a combination of gear, stats, skills and xp (WetWired dev)

- If you can't beat a particular mission, come back later when you have better augs/mods/weapons/skills

MrMurlock tips
- SHIFT key allows you to queue orders for your agents. I like using it to set up kill orders since agents dont fire at will at the moment and instead just stand there.

- The Soldier's DRAW FIRE is also a priority ability for your agent's survival.
I tend to prop him beside a wall for maximum protection, not even attacking anything, then turn on the ability and all enemy units focus on him while the others flank for easy kills.

TwistedMinds tips
- When a fight is taking too long because of covers, it might be well worth it to stop the covering fire of one of your guy (S for stop) and attack manually when he stands up to shoot at you. Pistols are particularly effective in this situation.

Manwolf tips
get these skills EARLY:
- explosives expert (or something) with soldier: UNLOCKS: GRENADES!
'nades give massive damage and destroy most regular cover, all lower ones that arent fixed pipes, or alike. also enemies are knocked back.
- world scan: saves you money for scanning clones
- hijack: get better/stronger clones and up to 5 extra guns.
- engineer skill, of you get lasers early.
- the blade, for the infiltrator: great for sneaking (one hit drones, and persuade the guard) and killing "!" close by.
- mule: esp for soldier and support, it really pays off!


Gillsing tips
Get your soldier into the bank for even more money. And the hacker for more money from ATMs, and possibly a map of all the ATMs unless you already got that with the infiltrator. Half of the ATMs you can hack with only Hacking 1, and Hacking 2 will get you three more for Downtown, the rest require 3 and 4. But robbing banks is more fun.

Fighting and sneaking around in cover in restricted areas will get you more skill points, breaching facilities will get you prototypes to research. Try to do all the city-stuff first though. Find the information broker and pay for all the information you can, such as which prototypes are in which facilities. Pay/assassinate to open as many security doors as you can inside all the compounds. But don't pay Mr Smith until you can afford to lose the 5,000 he's owed.

The information broker is a mission in Downtown, just find the VIP and have a chat. I don't even think you have to pay any money up front, it just opens up the option to 'purchase item information' for the missions to Dracogenics Military compound and Wyvern Inc.

Ban Zogu VIII of Albania tips
-Doing Favours can reduce the amount of money you have to pay for a checkpoint pass.
-Hate stealth? Do a Hit and Run but make sure to protect the hacker, soldier and/or infiltrator while they're doing their jobs.
-You Can Force Kill gates by alt clicking, The alternative to breaking gates is throwing a grenade
-In addition to Hacking skills, Hardwiring also comes in useful when you want to turn off the cameras, disable sentries completely or get into gates where you cant hack it.
-Apart from quicktravel, going to a relay also heals your shields/armor/health so if you're wounded from a recent mission or in a chase, make sure to go to a relay.
-Enemies also wont find you at relays so make sure to unequip your weapons to make the cooldown timer faster (and so does your wanted meter). This can also apply for areas in the city that arent compounds.

How do I "recruit" researchers?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518688943573963/
Do not always use fast travel to move your agents. Take the time to walk around the city with the Support's agent World Scan ability activated to discover researches and bribe them to join your Research team. VIPs are showed highlighted in yellow. Scientists have an atom icon when you hover the mouse above them. Bribed scientists can help you avoid the cost of outsourced resources you may need during R&D.(yDNA tip)

I hate the corporation logos, is there a mod?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053451904433/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/517141882713533792/

What are jammers?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053452944730/

Why are there infinite spawning guards?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053453188023/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053450212735/

How do you get arrested?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518688937358886/

WTH is scramble?
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053448814723/

What does "clone degradation" mean?
If you're swapping from an old clone to to a fresh one the stats on the fresh clone aren't degraded until that fresh clone dies. (WetWired dev)
http://steamcommunity.com/app/268870/discussions/0/520518053441669933/


Feel free to add more useful tips below

[Waschbär42]

Nice little collection of tips!

I would like to add one thing that helped me tremendously:

Starting with level 2 of the hijacking skill you can controll the weak guards. Guards are allowed to pass all gates. So no hacking/hardwiring required to get in or out. Just have your friendly guard nearby to walk you through the gate if necessary.
Plus those guys are not just a few more guns but they can also shoot cameras, scout and increase your sight in big compounds and cause general distraction whenever needed. They are extremely expendable as well.
Just be carefull when leaving downtown. In the other districts, you will need a guard of the corresponding faction to the compound you are about to enter. So if you enter a Usy Corp compound with a draconis guard/drone it will get treated like any other intruder.

Second little thing to add:

If you like the stealth approach, use the hacker and the intruder as a team as soon as have the cloaking generator. The hacker hijacks, the intruder uses melee - these two simple and silent "kills" will get you through most of the early to mid compounds. (Just murder the hijacked guard with the alt-move - which requires a drawn weapon btw - to make space for the next victim)

Last and final tip:

If the compund is not that big and there are not that many guards (maybe cause you distracted them..), just grab a guard to open the gates and then run with him and your guys to the target. When your guys get out the target door again, let the guard attack his former buddies as soon as he is not need anymore and escape with your team. A bit dirty but it's working surprisingly well. ;)

[C.]

Once you get access to Proxy Hacker, give it to your Infiltrator ASAP. Now you have an agent that can effectively solo many facilities; just cloak and hack all the terminals you want. So long as your optical camo is active, cameras positioned on terminals won't spot you. If the mission doesn't require you to get another agent into the door, you can get by running one-man operations.

[Jakkar]

SNSO.

Save Now, Save Often. The game's autosave is frequent when outside hostile territory, but that's only one slot. The game does crash periodically on some system configurations, but more importantly there are still quite a few bugs. Some will merely get you killed in unpredictable ways, but others can cause missions to become either very difficult, or incompletable.

If you've only got an autosave and no manual, legacy saves to return to an earlier state - such as the beginning of a new district - you could find yourself in a campaign in which you cannot complete all the objectives you'd like to.

You may, as a very slim risk, even end up unable to complete the campaign at all.

Save frequently, using new manual save slots in the System menu.

[zharmad]

You can save up lots of money and try to roll for gear you want - since the game doesn't give you prototypes and blueprints for things you already have, you can buy up the cheap gear at the black market. Buying these first will force the game to give you others.
To help you store the money, go break into all the banks first with stealth+leadership+hacking+hardwire - it's possible to sneak past all checkpoints if everyone can cloak between hiding places.

Note that it probably doesn't work if you find out about the loot first, and then buy the black market item you're going to 'acquire'. Haven't tried this...

Also note that there's probbaly more gear item than augs and weapons, so it's more difficult to shoot for good shield and armour slots.

[superslam1]

I am loving the hijacking skill in this game. I usually max it out 2nd for hacker of course the first being hacking. A couple of tips regarding hijacking skill. I usually hijack a guard for whatever facility you are going to hit next. Use that hijacked guard to walk around the whole facility and do free non dangerous recon so you can see the best ways in and out of the place while not under any pressure. The only danger ive seen for a hijacked guard doing this recon is sentry turrets will recognize them and fire on them but you can usually just go around them. Look and see what kind of guards are in the facility and hijack one of them. If you hijack a dracogenics and send him into a uzy corp facility they will detain him like they do your characters for trespassing. I also like to cloak and then hijack cause even in a group of guards they cant find the hijacking character while cloaked, as long as the cloak lasts hijack then get the hacker out of there. I also enjoy using hijacked guards to shoot out cameras and dog patrols and other units that annoy me. Well happy hijacking. One last tip the tanks in the game can be temporarily disabled with emp weapons.

[KromeHWI]

Originally posted by Khaibit DevZer0:

Here's something I wish I had known when I had started playing SR. Your charcters level up by hiding from, or killing guards. You also get XP for completing missions, I think, however, as far as I can tell, the bulk of my XP has come from evading / killing guards. This is important, because if you need to get a couple of levels, you can always farm them by running through a facility.
Actually, there are probably some really good areas for farming XP, but I do not know the maps well enough. Suggestions?
Also, any agents who are not killing / evading do not get XP, so if you leave your more squishy characters behind, they will not level up.

i hate to say you are wrong, but this is actaully not true at all. your agents DO get xp even if you are only useing one of them. you may have to have them all in hostile territory for this to work (i havnt specifically tested this), but i know from a lot of experience that they can and do level up even if they are doing nothing but hiding near the entrance. i have had many expierences where i am sneaking around with my infiltrator and suddenly my soldier dings out of nowhere, just for sitting on his butt, doing nothing at all (good job soldier!). i am very glad for this, otherwise, with a stealth heavy approach your other agents would fall VERY far behind the XP curve and be killed in any actual combat situation. before i realized this truth, i used to send all my guys into every mission, keeping them tegether to make sure they all got XP and leveled up at the same rate, and thus got into a lot of unnessessary firefights. now, however, most of the team hangs back in a convinient hiding space while my infiltrator (and sometimes hacker) does %90 of the work.

[JacksSR]

Hi there, if anyone is struggling with stealth play in this game, I have created a video guide which shows stealth runs for all the missions in the first game area, Downtown. I intend to record stealth guides for the rest of the game as well. It may help newcomers or people frustrated with certain missions.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0agGNcfCaZSUgZVEQOzofHVSnbLJ-4fR

[Mr. Wolf]

Csvii, this thread might become even more helpful if you could transfer this information into a Steam Guide. That way all these gems could be consulted using the overlay inside the game. The different components could be organized, while still giving credit to the authors.

[csvii]

Thanks, I'll look into it.

[quickthyme]

My best tip for newcomers is to not be afraid to experiment. Whenever you gain a new piece of tech, especially in the beginning, send your agent(s) to a red zone you've already explored and play with it. (Tutorial or Police Station zones are great) You will gain experience and skills faster as well as gain a better understanding of how to use your arsenal against the various challenges you will face. Keep in mind that this game is running a simulation, so experimentation will give you greater insight as to how different NPCs will react to different ideas. Besides, it's sometimes fun to scramble a guard's brains, let him run amok shooting everything, then blame it all on some innocent civilian!

Also know that shooting cameras and blowing up structures appears to release more soldiers onto the field EVERYWHERE, not just the place you are in. If you are adventuring along and come across a ridiculously huge pile of guards, it's probably because of all the mayhem you've been causing. If you've accidentally created a nightmare for yourself, simply save then reload, and the field will reset back to normal number of guards, etc.

[Bromstine]

A belated money tip (I just got it today, and it took me a few hours to realize myself...): For an easy, *very* easy 1000-1200 credits, no fighting, reenter the Francesca Industries building. The beacon is the third from the start of the map, far in the south. Fast travel, open the security gate, enter building. I just don't know how long the interval is. I only realized it when I noticed the "Money in these facilities will replenish after [some] time" in the Money page of the Tutorials tab in the Log.

[Gillsing]

Takes about 10 minutes for the money (and XP bonus) to replenish. So that's about two autopauses due to inactivity. (I did that while experimenting with something.) Only works for players going through the tutorial, because there's no way to unlock the door when skipping the tutorial.

[Nightprowler]

Hi, since the game just got given again on HB, I wanted to add that :
mind-controlling can be a real kick... factions Soldiers can open doors, draw fire, and even be used as decoy... use them to get into a facility of a different faction (eg Uzy Korp), pull aggro and run them back to the street... Uzy and Draco will fight in the street, and you are clear to get in the facility.
They can also kill all of the cameras in a place without getting you into troubles.

[Gillsing]

Originally posted by quickthyme:

Also know that shooting cameras and blowing up structures appears to release more soldiers onto the field EVERYWHERE, not just the place you are in. If you are adventuring along and come across a ridiculously huge pile of guards, it's probably because of all the mayhem you've been causing.

This would be because patrols sent out to investigate an alarm won't be despawned by the game until ten minutes have passed. I checked this by having the camera follow a Dracogenics Light Infantry who was sent out to investigate an ATM that my agents were force-hacking. The game autopaused due to my inactivity after five minutes of the camera following the guard inside the Fog of War, and then the camera followed the guard for a few more minutes before the selection portrait vanished. So ten minutes is my estimate from the time when the guard was spawned from the Spawn Point near Dirty Zen, and it probably took a couple of minutes for the guard to run down to the Fitzhardinge Square ATM, look for suspicious characters, and then give up and head back.

So if patrols have time left after investigating the locations of the alarms they get sent out to investigate, they'll go off patrolling the city or their compound, which would explain why you might see more guards elsewhere after causing a ruckus. If you kill the patrols that get sent out it shouldn't lead to more guards elsewhere, even if that can cause even more of a ruckus.

This is useful knowledge if you want to have your low-level agents sneak/break through a checkpoint: You can shoot all the cameras with a silenced sniper rifle, and if you don't want to deal with all the guard units that get spawned, you can just leave the area unmonitored in the Fog of War for ten minutes and the extra guard units should be despawned. Wouldn't have worked if cameras got repaired after ten minutes, but apparently they stay broken for a lot longer than that.

[AIFOX_viper]

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