Some thoughts and need some help...

[8 Bit Rick]

My brain is all over the map with this game...

But I'll start off by asking: How in the hell do you get your cops to do investigations correctly. 9/10 times they never find clues, which then leaves me 2-3 cops short for the day. They don't get anything done with investigations. WHY. "NO CLUES FOUND"... "NO NEW FRAMES FOUND"...
UGH

So I REALLY want to love this game, I think the turn based combat has thrown me for a loop a bit, not bad, decent.

I always run into issues with not having enough cops, then missing a few calls, then losing caps or not getting enough, in turn I can't buy any more cops. Then you get cops that don't come in to work, come in drunk( Can't let them go home, only send them to Lily or let them work drunk...) So sometimes I'm left with 5-6 cops. It's a vicious cycle.

Low key wished it was more like the first game BUT I do like this one. Hopefully I can get some tips from you guys and progress more lol

[Padelboot]

Personally I think this game has much better gameplay than the first one. It can be quite difficult and you can easily land in a vicious cycle (as you described), but once you get the hang of it it can work out just fine. Random number god, thankfully, is not as much of an issue as it was in the first game how did a woman with staplers kill half my shift, despite SWAT being there, too?!).

As for the investigations: Make sure you let officers with maxed out intelligence work on the cases, such as Burch III. Especially when starting the case, as they usually get quite a lot frames and all hints you need. This allows you to finish the case the next day, if you assign a maxed out intelligence officer on the correct suspect and arrest them. You can also assign some doofus as aid, since every officer working on the case (even if they contributed nothing) will gain 50 points upon the verdict, thus granting a level up.
Make sure you select a specific suspect once you have all five clues, as seen at the start of the day. Some players seem to have a habit of not noticing you can switch what the officer will do when working on the case and thus don't get the idea to switch to a version. Most of the time by reading the clues you have a good idea which suspect is the correct one, thus you can assign the competent one on that version, while the doofus gets to work on the other. That way you can raise cops just to do the desk work (Kurosawa comes in mind).

Drunk cops may be another good option for deskwork, since... they don't drive with deskwork, thus are at no risk of crashing their car. And despite being drunk they can work just fine with paperwork. In my frist playthrough my cases were basically solved by two or three constantly drunk detectives. Though later on you have an option to cure them from their alcoholism... for a small price, that is. But it is certainly worth for people like Adkins or Chapman, as well as excellent cops turning alcoholics. Because yes, your cops can become full-blown alcoholics after being injured or seeing their collegues die in front of them.


As for having enough cops... yeah, once you are in that cycle it becomes incredibly hard to get out. Played the game when it came out and it was much, MUCH harder than now. Missed quite a number of calls on my first playthrough.
Similiar to the first game it can be quite useful to always send some rookies with experienced cops, so the rookies get some professionalism. And thanks to the skill system as well as equipment even they can, at times, be the one to solve the problem. Note that the officer who does the final thing gets 30 professionalism, the others get 10. So cops who constantly do work go up easily.

Also always try to send cops that are just enough to reach the professionalism requirement. I guess you have figured this one already, but I this is really important, especially early on. In the late game with 40 cops or so this becomes almost a non-issue.

There are two very well and entertaining written guides on steam detailing information about your officers. Skills, equipment and general tips on how to deal with them. But they also detail the special officers, some of which can actually be really useful. I highly recommend you check them out, even if you just want to see what special officers there are, so you are prepared.
Hint: Try sending out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern together and look at the professionalism. Also Spurlock just with other female officers... extremely useful.


These are just some general tips. I hope they can help you out a bit. In the worst case... you can always resort to my typical tactic, that I used in the first TITP: Reload the day if screwed up too much.

[8 Bit Rick]

Originally posted by Padelboot:

Personally I think this game has much better gameplay than the first one. It can be quite difficult and you can easily land in a vicious cycle (as you described), but once you get the hang of it it can work out just fine. Random number god, thankfully, is not as much of an issue as it was in the first game how did a woman with staplers kill half my shift, despite SWAT being there, too?!).

As for the investigations: Make sure you let officers with maxed out intelligence work on the cases, such as Burch III. Especially when starting the case, as they usually get quite a lot frames and all hints you need. This allows you to finish the case the next day, if you assign a maxed out intelligence officer on the correct suspect and arrest them. You can also assign some doofus as aid, since every officer working on the case (even if they contributed nothing) will gain 50 points upon the verdict, thus granting a level up.
Make sure you select a specific suspect once you have all five clues, as seen at the start of the day. Some players seem to have a habit of not noticing you can switch what the officer will do when working on the case and thus don't get the idea to switch to a version. Most of the time by reading the clues you have a good idea which suspect is the correct one, thus you can assign the competent one on that version, while the doofus gets to work on the other. That way you can raise cops just to do the desk work (Kurosawa comes in mind).

Drunk cops may be another good option for deskwork, since... they don't drive with deskwork, thus are at no risk of crashing their car. And despite being drunk they can work just fine with paperwork. In my frist playthrough my cases were basically solved by two or three constantly drunk detectives. Though later on you have an option to cure them from their alcoholism... for a small price, that is. But it is certainly worth for people like Adkins or Chapman, as well as excellent cops turning alcoholics. Because yes, your cops can become full-blown alcoholics after being injured or seeing their collegues die in front of them.


As for having enough cops... yeah, once you are in that cycle it becomes incredibly hard to get out. Played the game when it came out and it was much, MUCH harder than now. Missed quite a number of calls on my first playthrough.
Similiar to the first game it can be quite useful to always send some rookies with experienced cops, so the rookies get some professionalism. And thanks to the skill system as well as equipment even they can, at times, be the one to solve the problem. Note that the officer who does the final thing gets 30 professionalism, the others get 10. So cops who constantly do work go up easily.

Also always try to send cops that are just enough to reach the professionalism requirement. I guess you have figured this one already, but I this is really important, especially early on. In the late game with 40 cops or so this becomes almost a non-issue.

There are two very well and entertaining written guides on steam detailing information about your officers. Skills, equipment and general tips on how to deal with them. But they also detail the special officers, some of which can actually be really useful. I highly recommend you check them out, even if you just want to see what special officers there are, so you are prepared.
Hint: Try sending out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern together and look at the professionalism. Also Spurlock just with other female officers... extremely useful.


These are just some general tips. I hope they can help you out a bit. In the worst case... you can always resort to my typical tactic, that I used in the first TITP: Reload the day if screwed up too much.

Yeah I've been sending cops with 2-3 bars of intelligence and still nothing, well nothing after a few clues. I'll keep trying on it.

What is this "Desk work" you speak of?

Yeah the drunk cops are just killing me, would make sense that you could chose a driver, why tf would you let the drunk cop drive lmao?

Yeah I'm trying to get more cops in general, but always trying to raise their professionalism as much as I can. I just don't have many, and some don't come in, or drunk, or "don't work everyday". Sometimes I only have 6 cops lol

Thanks a lot for the tips! Appreciated!

[Padelboot]

If you made sure that you used an officer with maxed out intelligence, made them look for frames for a specific suspect (not picking "Look for clues" on the start of the day), and they don't get any frames despite not having all six for the suspect then it could be a bug. Because officers with maxed out intelligence ALWAYS find at least a few frames for a suspect (unless, again, you tell them to search for clues, when you already have all five).

By "desk work" I mean investigations that have already been started. They don't require officers to travel, so they are safe for being assigned there even when drunk.

Yeah. Apparently every officer drives their own car. Thankfully curing them from alcoholism later gives you the option to set a driver, so... at least there they thought of it.

"Don't work everyday" is linked to their loyalty. Unloyal cops will only work every two days. So at least that problem can be solved by gaining their loyalty (random events or giving them a break at the spa).

You're welcome!

[8 Bit Rick]

Originally posted by Padelboot:

If you made sure that you used an officer with maxed out intelligence, made them look for frames for a specific suspect (not picking "Look for clues" on the start of the day), and they don't get any frames despite not having all six for the suspect then it could be a bug. Because officers with maxed out intelligence ALWAYS find at least a few frames for a suspect (unless, again, you tell them to search for clues, when you already have all five).

By "desk work" I mean investigations that have already been started. They don't require officers to travel, so they are safe for being assigned there even when drunk.

Yeah. Apparently every officer drives their own car. Thankfully curing them from alcoholism later gives you the option to set a driver, so... at least there they thought of it.

"Don't work everyday" is linked to their loyalty. Unloyal cops will only work every two days. So at least that problem can be solved by gaining their loyalty (random events or giving them a break at the spa).

You're welcome!

I gave the game a break, going to come back to it. I will have to make sure I have an officer with maxed intelligence and see what they do.

Oh okay so having them work on investigations is "desk work"? lol I was thinking I missed something.

yeah kinda silly when you send them all out at the same time, let's say 2-3, and you only see one vehicle go to the crime spot, so you ASSUME they are in the same car. lol

Yeah I know about the loyalty. I will have to work on it. Hard to when you owe 20k a week to that guy to not call the feds on you.

[dwarfpcfan]

there are a few very easy events to get full loyalty of all your officers. Solve the theft of the vcr in the beginning, it gets you toilets in the department (yes toilets) and wins the loyalty of most officers without costing a cent. The rest can be won over by solving another case which will get you an event where one of the locals will offer to clean the station, you'll lose one of your cops because he'll retire and get married. But the rest should fall in line,

[8 Bit Rick]

Originally posted by dwarfpcfan:

there are a few very easy events to get full loyalty of all your officers. Solve the theft of the vcr in the beginning, it gets you toilets in the department (yes toilets) and wins the loyalty of most officers without costing a cent. The rest can be won over by solving another case which will get you an event where one of the locals will offer to clean the station, you'll lose one of your cops because he'll retire and get married. But the rest should fall in line,

Thanks a lot for the tips!