What you should know before you start playing Alpha Protocol

Ini file fixes, skill selections, general tips and tricks - all you need to know to make the game more fun / less frustrating.

Rate up and stuff if you found this to be useful.

Major tips:

- Go here:
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/55163-pc-known-issues-and-fixes
and here:
http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Alpha_Protocol
make the INI fixes listed there to improve both performance and graphics.

- The game rewards multiple playthroughs, and you’ll want to play the Veteran class during those. You unlock Veteran by completing a playthrough with the Recruit class first. If you choose all the “Recruit” replies during the intro section, you’ll get some bonus skill points.

- If you have a controller, use it to play the minigames at least, as they are not really designed for m+kb.

- TAB leads you to the map/intel/character screen, "I" leads you to inventory, "P" to your character screen. None of the above is mentioned / configurable in the controls menu.

- The game will reward pretty much any approach you choose in conversations, and there’s no real “golden path”, so don’t start reloading the moment someone dislikes a thing you said – that just means you’ll get a different outcome than the one you would have gotten had they liked you. With that said though, the rewards for your handler (Mina for 90% of the game) loving or hating you are much better than the rewards for merely liking / disliking you, so feel free to push that relationship to extremes.

- If you die / fail, use the “Load game” feature instead of “Reload Checkpoint”, as the later has some bugs associated with it.

Secondary tips:

- Get Stealth to level 5, even if you don’t plan to be that stealthy. Being able to see where enemies are is extremely useful, no matter what you’re doing.

- One point in sabotage so that you can bypass hacking, lockpicking and keypads with EMP grenades is useful even if you don't plan to upgrade sabotage any further.

- You get two chances to to respec; once at character creation and once when you finish Saudi Arabia.

- It's impossible to ghost the game, but it is possible to ghost some levels. Stealth is generally the harder way to play because you need to be good at both sneaking and combat, so you might want to save that for a Veteran replay.

- There's no reward for a pacifist / no alarms run (and in fact, both are impossible due to scripted events). Don't frustrate yourself except as a self-imposed challenge.

- Some doors with the lock-picking minigame have a "break door" button above the "abort" button - use that if you don't mind raising an alarm.

- If you put medkits in different gadget slots, you can chug them down one after the other without waiting for a cooldown.

- If a guy is blocking all your melee attacks, you may want to stop for a second, give him a chance to start an attack, then quickly punch him. Doesn't work that well on Hard mode though.

- Theoretically, if you shoot alarm panels, guys without radios can't raise an alarm. In practice, it's a bit more wonky.

- Your best sources of money are blackmail for Halbech intel and allowing bad guys to live in exchange for bribes and/or selling trophy weapons. Still, exploring every corner of every level and hacking every computer will get you more than enough to get by.

- Save your money for gadgets and armor. Even the best weapons aren't GREATLY superior to starting weapons, while the best armor is far better than the starter set. You might want to play through a few missions with stealth in street clothes, just to learn how to avoid situations where you need to rely on your armor, but it's still highly useful.

- Each of the three training courses in the intro has a bonus mission if you ace it. To ace Parker's course, you want to avoid changing out of the hospital clothes (the quietest clothes in the game)(also useful for his follow-up mission), shut down any alarms you sound, and take down both guards. For Mina's weapons training, you want to make every shot you fire a critical for major bonuses, and miss as little as possible. All you need to do with Darcy's course is deal with all the guards.

- Occasionally you'll get a mission with the alpha protocol logo on it. These missions generally conclude the current portion of the storyline - complete any optional missions remaining before you undertake these.

- I'd generally recommend you explore the areas in the order of Moscow-Tapei-Rome (Rome is unquestionably the culmination of the storyline and where ♥♥♥♥ gets real) but the Moscow boss might be a bit difficult if you don't have contacts in Taipei. Remember that you can skip between areas to level up and get useful stuff.

- -Having trouble with the final portion of the Moscow embassy mission? You can use the exit to the roof for a better vantage point (though watch out for bad guys spawning behind you) and/or be a ♥♥♥♥ to Grigori (when you first meet him), which will lead to increased embassy security.

Weapon skills:

- Pump one weapon skill (not Martial Arts, or at least not just that) fairly high, because there are quite a few places where you’ll have to use guns. It’s better leveling one skill all the way up than leveling two skills half-way. Your backup weapon should be just that - backup. The assault rifle makes for a good backup weapon, because it doesn’t require a lot of skill points to be effective. Conversely, it doesn’t become that much better if you pour a lot of skill points into it.

- Focus on Pistols at first. You can try other weapons when you replay, but pistols are definitely the most overpowered weapon. A touch hard to master – you can’t just point and spray, as that will be ineffective. Instead, keep nailing headshots from cover. Just center your screen on a nearby enemy, and you'll get the targeting reticule after a while (if you're close enough).

- Use the pistol whenever you stealth (get the level 3 silencer from the third floor of the CIA post in Rome when that mission pops up).

- On that note, a headshot on an enemy will make them fall even if they're not dead. You haven't blown your cover yet - keep your reticule trained on the guy and pop off another headshot once he stands up but before he starts firing for a stealth kill.

- Chainshot is great (just remember that you still need to focus your shot for a critical though). It can snipe people from far away. It can kill several guys at once - guys that would otherwise have inevitably raised the alarm. It's a great panic button when something unexpected pops up. And it's a total boss killer. Every hard mode boss will go down in one maxed chainshot-brilliance-chainshot.

- Get brilliance, even if you avoid the rest of the skill tree (see above about how useful limited abilities and being able to instantly re-use them is).

- Pressing E when you have Chain Shot lined up cancels the aiming without wasting it. Very handy when you accidentally trigger it at the wrong time.

Boss tactics:

- Moscow: When he gets ♥♥♥♥♥ up, he's invulnerable. Either run away until he gets tired, at which point you can unload on him, or use Shadow Operative to snap him right out of it (but you won't get the "tired" moment in that case). If you complete certain Tapei missions before Moscow, you’ll have the chance to make this fight much easier.

- Taipei: You don't have to follow him onto the balcony - you should stick around in the corridor outside it, which has better visibility, a health cabinet and into which his minions will be reluctant to follow.

- Rome: This is the one boss fight arena that you get to explore a bit before the fight starts, so use that time to plant traps all over the place. Also, his mooks will keep spawning in, so you may as well focus on the boss.

- Helicopter: Take out the mooks, rush between cover spots and grab the Missile Launchers. Try not to miss any shots - you can kill the heli with bullets, but it's a long and annoying process.

- First AP boss: see the tower opposite of the one the boss is in? There's a sniper gun at the top, and he can't hit you with grenades. Kill the mooks, EMP the door, climb up, free boss kill.

- Final boss: Your handler will suggest taking out the mooks and running straight for the boss - which you might as well do. The easiest way to deal with this fight is to clean out the minions, then run up the stairs all the way to a door which leads to boss room. EMP it, and the fight is practically over.

[no1schmo]

I definitely recommend globe-trotting before you start any combat missions; you can get access to vendors, a ton of intel, new objectives, some experience and perks, etc. And then put off the big final missions for late game. It doesn't make the most sense story-wise but it's far easier that way.

Also, there are several perks for going pacifist (or at least non-lethal) and no alarms, so it's not entirely true that there is no reward. But it IS true that several levels will force an alarm on you, and probably a firefight unless you know precisely how to avoid it and have the right skills. Remote Hack is an under-appreciated skill for stealth as well.

If you want to go non-lethal, then do the weapon's training extra mission in the intro, and farm the infinitely respawning tranq ammo provided. Because it's expensive to purchase.

[Flawless]

It's been sometime since I played the game but I finished it in multiple times and was hoping to give it a go again. Thanks for the guide.

One thing I would say though, while being stealthy doesn't matter in general, after first field mission you get different emails congratulating you depending on your stealth level. There is three mails in total, one for finishing the mission, one for if you never been spoted and last one is for if you never spotted + never killed or knock-out an enemy.

I feel like it might be a good idea to mention.

[Mr Buscemi]

I randomly decided to pick up this game for the 360 since I saw for $2 lol.

Definitely glad to have this guide to remind me what to do. Been so long since I last played it.

[TelevisionFoot]

you also dont need to charge critical shots in chain shot unless you are up against a boss and even then just aim all 3+ plus shots on the head

[TelevisionFoot]

i found that during the pistols bit of the shooting range, just go for critical hits, each one will vastly outweight the amount of time it takes to line up

[I'm Kurt Cobain's Endless Heart]

Also you can romance all the girls in the same playthrough but it might be tricky and limitate your options for alliances and endings.

[I'm Kurt Cobain's Endless Heart]

To get more money you can always put initial points in sabotage up to level 5 to maximize hacking and date steal money, you can even increase that further to 100% I think, that's a load of money come endgame.
You endup with and extra 150k anyways, or at least I did.

[Mr.RED]

Where you have "- You get a chance to respec once at character creation and once when you finish Saudi Arabia." ...I suggest adding a "You get 2 chances to respec." before that, just as a summary statement.

it's just I think it's important to lead with the important information and THEN get into specifics. if someone was skimming through, then they might see "a chance" and think you were just talking about the respec at the beginning of the game

[MANSATANIC]

theres no APEngine.ini file in my config folder

[EnjoyCoke]

Alternatively: Use another weapon to remove armour, then swap to pistol and chainshot using tranq darts.