Pavonis Interactive Forums

So I'm really starting to get the hang of Long War 2 mechanics after my 5th restart of campaigns, but I have a question regarding unrevealed faceless and intel gathering. Usually at the start of a campaign, there's at least 1 faceless within the resistance haven of 6 starting members. Initially, I tried to weed him out by throwing in one of my highest rank soldiers after i've completed the first wave of missions. However, unless I populate a resistance rescue mission early on... that reduces my intel gathering by 17% and 10% if the skyranger is scanning the region, but more importantly... from my understanding, you need a certain amount of resistance members to trigger certain missions. My question is, does the faceless still contribute to intel gathering while they've still hidden in the haven or do they work in the same aspect as supply gathering, where they reduce supply drops? If they do contribute, I assume it's better to keep a low ranked haven adviser from the beginning and only try and weed him out after I've picked up a few more resistance members.

From the XcomLWOutposts.ini, it appears they reduce any job they are assigned, even applying a penalty if hiding.

[Resupply LWRebelJobTemplate]
IncomePerRebel=1.0f
IncomePenaltyPerFaceless=1.5f

[Recruit LWRebelJobTemplate]
IncomePerRebel=3
IncomePenaltyPerFaceless=5

[Intel LWRebelJobTemplate]
IncomePerRebel=5f
IncomePenaltyPerFaceless=2.5f
ResourceIncomeAmount=1

[LW_Overhaul.LWRebelJobIncomeModifier_LocalFaceless]
PCT_PENALTY_PER_FACELESS[0]=0.03
PCT_PENALTY_PER_FACELESS[1]=0.05
PCT_PENALTY_PER_FACELESS[2]=0.06
PCT_PENALTY_PER_FACELESS[3]=0.07

Yeah, Recruit and Intel Faceless actually do negative work, and are worse than just not having anybody at all. Supply faceless do normal work, but each faceless in a haven hits you with a 20% penalty to ALL supply from that haven, no matter what job they are doing. It's done this way because otherwise you could immediately identify faceless by toggling rebels on and off from supply and watching your income indicator.

Ahhh damn. This is good to know. Thanks for the response!

The natural conclusion is : try to use "trusted" rebels (those you had before the latest Rendezvous) on Intel and Recruit and keep new guys on supply or hiding.

There is no absolute guarantee those rebels are "clear" as there is always a possibility a faceless will act as a rebel even in missions to kill other faceless, but it does reduce the risk a lot.

I think you can trust rebels rescued from a retaliation as faceless will (AFAIK) always reveal themselves in those missions.

I had a rather weird thing happen to me recently. A newish haven, with only 4 (I think) rebels and a haven adviser in it got the ambush faceless spy mission. Fine. But when the mission loaded, only my adviser was present! Does this mean that all 4 of the haven rebels were faceless?! I thought I would have a scout around to see if there were four faceless on the map but unfortunately triggered a standard Advent pod first and he got killed. I was playing Ironman so couldn't reload.

Was this just a bug, or can all your rebels be faceless at the same time? When I returned to the strategic map, the haven was empty, but I am not sure if that is because they were all faceless, or if they were perceived to have been killed in my failed mission.

The IncomePenaltyPerFaceless is actually deprecated, only the pct faceless is used (modifier for total number of faceless, not just those doing the relevant job)

This is so that a haven won't go negative production (need 15 faceless in a single outpost in legend difficulty to hit that)

LordYanaek wrote: There is no absolute guarantee those rebels are "clear" as there is always a possibility a faceless will act as a rebel even in missions to kill other faceless, but it does reduce the risk a lot.

How sure are you about that, and do you have a source?

Everything else I've read to this point, people have been saying Faceless NEVER "volunteer" to come on a Rendezvous mission as rebels under your control. This is only going off forum posts here, so I could well be mistaken, but the message has been fairly consistent up until now.

Steve-O wrote: How sure are you about that, and do you have a source?

My only sources are posts on this forum and UFOpedia as i can't be bothered to follow reddit and only occasionally watch LPs.

I've seen it stated by someone who sure made it look like it was a given fact but to be honest, i don't remember who and i don't really know who are the beta testers or "hidden" developers anyway (i know that apart from jonnylump, amineri and tracktwo, other people contributed at least for ideas if not actual coding, but who are they, i have no clue).
That post clearly explained that some faceless can act totally like real rebels on any missions featuring armed rebels and IIRC included Rendezvous in the list, adding that "they are really trying hard to maintain their cover" or something similar.

Take it for what it's worth : "internet truth"

EDIT : OK just found where i read it.

Jacke wrote: However, some of the rebels helping you in Rendezvous and other missions with armed rebels can later on turn out to be Faceless. They really rock staying in character undercover. In xwynns' LW2 campaign, one of the armed rebels in a Defend the Relay mission turned out to be a Faceless in a later Rendezvous mission.

The reference to xwynn's LP is why i took it for granted, it wasn't some guesswork, Jacke actually had a direct source even thought after re-reading it the direct source wasn't a Rendezvous so that part might be wrong.

Active xcom rebel soldiers in the faceless reveal missions can definitely be hiding faceless. It's mentioned in the 1.1 bug fix patch notes.

Napalm292 wrote:Active xcom rebel soldiers in the faceless reveal missions can definitely be hiding faceless. It's mentioned in the 1.1 bug fix patch notes.

Can we reveal who they are with battle scanners

Or for that matter why when we research battle scanners, can't we get all the members of a haven to get together in a group, and then you throw a battle scanner at the area.

If only it was that easy.

LordYanaek wrote: EDIT : OK just found where i read it.

Jacke wrote: However, some of the rebels helping you in Rendezvous and other missions with armed rebels can later on turn out to be Faceless. They really rock staying in character undercover. In xwynns' LW2 campaign, one of the armed rebels in a Defend the Relay mission turned out to be a Faceless in a later Rendezvous mission.

The reference to xwynn's LP is why i took it for granted, it wasn't some guesswork, Jacke actually had a direct source even thought after re-reading it the direct source wasn't a Rendezvous so that part might be wrong.

OK, cool. Thanks for explaining, it's good to know that some of the assumptions I was making about my havens' "cleanliness" may not be accurate