Consequences of losing/skipping missions

[LouisdeFuines]

Hi, there,

what are the consequences of losing/skipping missions? Will Advent progress by this?

[Dwarfling]

Only missions that carry consequences when you lose or skip them are:

- Mini and full Retaliations.
- Dark Event missions.
- Avenger defense.

[LouisdeFuines]

So there is no pressure in skipping the others?

[Dlareh]

There are no negatives, only a lack of potential positives.

[Antifringe]

It should be noted that Rendezvous missions clear faceless from your haven if you accept them and still lose, but don't clear faceless if you just skip them. If you just care about the strategic benefits and don't care about the loot, you can accept a Rendezvous and then immediately evac.

EDIT: Also, a lot of missions represent the ADVENT "player" making moves on the strategic layer, and these missions are giving you a chance to block that move.

Supply Raid: These are created every time ADVENT tries to move a legion from one region to another. Doing the mission kills the legion, skipping it allows it to move normally.

UFO: These can be lots of things. UFO missions are how ADVENT creates new legions. Doing these missions blocks legion creation. There is also a UFO mission that updates the alien tech level, but it is very, very rare that it spawns in an X-Com controlled region.

[chrisb]

There are no direct negatives, but there are some indirect ones. When you complete missions you slow down the avatar progress. This is done by a hidden stat called Vigilance. Most missions add 1, Get Advent Attention add 4. This vigilance decays by 1 every 7 days.

You can get some idea of what Vigilance is at the global level in the Resistance Management. From the beginning you'll notice a Threat Level. The highest here is Severe and is currently where you want it as much as possible. Later on there will be some text saying "Avatar Progress Slowed By: xx%".

So skipping missions too much will lead to fast avatar progress and probably the loss of your campaign. But your also not meant to tackle every single mission that is detected, way more spawn than are necessary.

[LouisdeFuines]

So skipping missions too much will lead to fast avatar progress and probably the loss of your campaign. But your also not meant to tackle every single mission that is detected, way more spawn than are necessary.

Does this concern any kind of mission or special ones?

[chrisb]

So skipping missions too much will lead to fast avatar progress and probably the loss of your campaign. But your also not meant to tackle every single mission that is detected, way more spawn than are necessary.

Does this concern any kind of mission or special ones?

Basically any mission. They all give you vigilance. The more vigilance you have relative to the strength on the map, the slower the avatar project progresses. Basically you don't want to skip a mission if your capable of doing it. Over time you'll learn what missions are more valuable than others and prioritize your time better, but as a general rule, if you can do it, do it.

[LouisdeFuines]

Ok, I understand, that succeeding in missions gives vigilance.

And skipping missions makes the aliens progress faster or just doesn`t slow them down? (the last part is important to me)

[darkerevent]

Ok, I understand, that succeeding in missions gives vigilance.

And skipping missions makes the aliens progress faster or just doesn`t slow them down? (the last part is important to me)

It's complicated.

If the overall vigilance in the world is higher than the amount of ADVENT legions that exist in the world at any given time, then the aliens' progress on their main objective will be slowed by a percentage. The percentage increases the bigger the difference is. So, it's useful to do enough missions to slow the aliens' progress.

However, when there is a large discrepancy between vigilance and ADVENT legion count, ADVENT will more aggressively summon offworld reinforcements via UFOs to boost their numbers. These reinforcements can technically be countered by detecting and undertaking UFO assault missions, but it's easy to miss detecting them because the only way to find out about them is by happening to complete a certain guerilla operation in the region where the UFO will be landing.

Ultimately, it's important to work on advancing your own objectives when you can. Slowing down ADVENT is good too, but it will tend to happen naturally as long as you're undertaking a good number of missions that help your efforts.

[LouisdeFuines]

And if my vigilance is smaller then the legions?

Are the aliens then quicker in succeeding on the Avatar Project or is their progress just unincreased and und anslowed?