Haven Management questions

[WarChicken]

So I was wondering about a few things concerning the Haven management and advisors...

1st - Is there any way to see that a Haven is infested with faceless other than the "unknown cause" losses in the monthly report?

2nd - If a Soldier is stationed as advisor and a Spy Mission was triggered and done, are all Faceless eliminated or is there a chance that not all have been found?

3rd - I've found out be reading here on the boards, engineers as advisors give a boost on supplies a haven gives. What does a Scientist do? Does he give an Intel boost?

4th - Once a haven grows considerably large, there often are resistance members whose job I can't change. Is there a limit on amployable people, or have I just found out how to spot faceless?

5th - Is there a stategy that you'd suggest in Haven Management (other then have 'em all on Intel until liberated, then switch all to supply). My Idea is - After liberation have a high ranking soldier stationed until the first Faceless are swept out (therefor question 2) and then put an engineer in instead. Can I go wrong with that? Does it make sense to put a Scientist there prior to liberation?

Cheers,
The WarChicken

[Psieye]

3: Yes, though it's recommended to not put a scientist on haven duty until you've hit Coilguns. Having said that, if you're UFO hunting and you're not afraid of Intel mini-retals...

4: Max 13 rebels can be working.

5: To really min/max, your havens should be Recruiting while all spawnable missions have been detected. That's hard to determine later on, but in the earlygame below Str 3 you just find 2 GOps and maybe the Lib to be certain you've got everything. The recruit work is not lost if you switch back to Intel before finding anyone. If Str has hit 6, go full supply to bait out the Supply mini-retal.

6: On a FULL retal, faceless will reveal themselves when you try to rescue a fake rebel.

[Steve-O]

1st - Is there any way to see that a Haven is infested with faceless other than the "unknown cause" losses in the monthly report?

2nd - If a Soldier is stationed as advisor and a Spy Mission was triggered and done, are all Faceless eliminated or is there a chance that not all have been found?

1: No.

2: There's a chance that there are still more. In 1.4 the most Haven-Faceless I've seen on a Rendezvous mission so far is 2 (If you see a Faceless patrolling with ADVENT who begins in alien form - ie: you don't get to see/hear him shapeshift from human to alien - that's NOT one from your haven, it's just one that came with ADVENT to the meeting.)

I think there's something in the notes from 1.5 about upping the max number of Haven-Faceless you might encounter to 3. Also, unless I'm mistaken, it's perfectly possible for one of the rebels who comes with you to kill the Faceless to be a Faceless spy themselves. They won't turn on you mid-mission or anything, but you can't say someone is safe just because you saw their name on your side during the rendezvous mission. Likewise, the number of rebels who come with you on a rendezvous is random, within a certain range, so you can't say with any certainty that So-and-so is a Faceless spy just because he was the only rebel who chose to stay behind when you know you've seen more rebels join in past rendezvous missions.

5th - Is there a stategy that you'd suggest in Haven Management (other then have 'em all on Intel until liberated, then switch all to supply). My Idea is - After liberation have a high ranking soldier stationed until the first Faceless are swept out (therefor question 2) and then put an engineer in instead. Can I go wrong with that? Does it make sense to put a Scientist there prior to liberation?

My strategy, which has been working remarkably well for me in this campaign, is to put two or three rebels on Recruit after making contact with a region. The rest on Intel, and a soldier as adviser. I always use a soldier as adviser prior to liberation, partly so that I'm searching for Faceless while actively recruiting, and partly because that way I have at least one "real" solider (with gear I can control) on any surprise rebel missions that pop up (mostly rendezvous, but he can also appear on some retaliations.) As new rebels join the haven, they get put on Intel, but keeping 2 or 3 on Recruit.

After liberation, I switch everyone over to supply and trade out the soldier adviser for an engineer. I generally don't liberate more than one region per month, so if I see supplies being lost to "unknown causes" on the next report, I know there are still Faceless in that region and can go hunting for them. The recruiting effort from above helps to maximize number of rebels per haven, so that there are plenty to generate supplies after I liberate.

I've only put a scientist on as adviser once or twice, and only in regions where I felt the need to maximize intel. For example, when Advent Strength began exploding in West Asia (as I've discussed in other threads) I feared imminent retaliation on my neighbouring Liberated regions, so I put everyone there on Intel and put a scientist in control to help find the incoming dangerous missions as soon as possible and give me as much infiltration time as I could get. (I was also scanning with the Avenger in West Asia, too.)

[Zork]

Gee I get a lot of Faceless full patrols (3) so I have ton of Faceless in my Havens? Are you sure this point is still valid?

[WarChicken]

Thanks a lot to all of you for the answers. This helps a lot.

2: There's a chance that there are still more. In 1.4 the most Haven-Faceless I've seen on a Rendezvous mission so far is 2 (If you see a Faceless patrolling with ADVENT who begins in alien form - ie: you don't get to see/hear him shapeshift from human to alien - that's NOT one from your haven, it's just one that came with ADVENT to the meeting.)

This is weird, because in one of my "bust the Spy Meeting"-Missions on my last Game (was 1.4 already) I had 5 (yes, five) Faceless. I do remember it so well because the soldier I had as advisor was a technical and they queued up in front of him in such a nice fashion, that he was able to burn them to ashes all at once.
I am not sure however how many were pre-revealed, so that might still very well be true.

[Dwarfling]

Yes, it's not uncommon that one of the pods contain a faceless, and I've also encountered a pod consistent of all faceless and had to fight 5 at a time. I think it becomes rather common mid-late game. Having the Greater Faceless DE makes finding roaming (mk2) faceless more likely.

[Steve-O]

Thanks a lot to all of you for the answers. This helps a lot.

2: There's a chance that there are still more. In 1.4 the most Haven-Faceless I've seen on a Rendezvous mission so far is 2 (If you see a Faceless patrolling with ADVENT who begins in alien form - ie: you don't get to see/hear him shapeshift from human to alien - that's NOT one from your haven, it's just one that came with ADVENT to the meeting.)

This is weird, because in one of my "bust the Spy Meeting"-Missions on my last Game (was 1.4 already) I had 5 (yes, five) Faceless. I do remember it so well because the soldier I had as advisor was a technical and they queued up in front of him in such a nice fashion, that he was able to burn them to ashes all at once.
I am not sure however how many were pre-revealed, so that might still very well be true.

Yes, to be clear, I've seen upwards of five Faceless in one mission as well. However, I've only ever seen two that shapeshift on screen. The rest were already in alien form and patrolling around before I activated their pod.

[Zork]

And I confirm I had multiple times patrols of 3 faceless, the team never been out of conceal. I doubt the rules that all visible faceless at start are all faceless in Haven and removed.

Moreover I didn't change that often Haven leaders setup because the choices wasn't based on Faceless hunting but on more static elements.

[Icarus]

If you're fine with that, there's a mod for showing faceless in havens:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =912497882

I use this because I consider manual tracking tedious.

[nmkaplan]

These are two most relevant changes being made in 1.5:

- Faceless on the rendezvous mission are removed from the haven even if the mission expires. This allows them to be skipped quickly if desired, but no XP, loot, or corpses are granted.
- Additional faceless from the haven up to the local force limit of the region can now be present on a single rendezvous, allowing them to be more quickly rooted out in a single (more dangerous) mission. Add number of faceless to pre-mission briefing for rendezvous (so player can assess difficulty).

[LordYanaek]

1st - Is there any way to see that a Haven is infested with faceless other than the "unknown cause" losses in the monthly report?

As others have said, no. That's why it can be useful to turn a haven (and only one) to full supply one day before the drop. You're not generating supplies (you'll get 8 or 12), you're just testing your guys. If you see some supplies lost you can be sure you have faceless. Then you can try to station a good spy-buster soldier there (Psi troopers are the best).

2nd - If a Soldier is stationed as advisor and a Spy Mission was triggered and done, are all Faceless eliminated or is there a chance that not all have been found?

Not in 1.4 (it will change). Currently if you have 1 spy in the haven, you'll encounter 1 shapeshifter in the mission and if you have more than 1 spy, you'll get exactly 2 shapeshifters.

And I confirm I had multiple times patrols of 3 faceless, the team never been out of conceal. I doubt the rules that all visible faceless at start are all faceless in Haven and removed.

As Steve-O said, Faceless that start the mission in faceless form are indeed different, they are part of the normal mission pods (and counted in the number of aliens on the map - visible if you have the Tactical UI Kill Counter Mod and built the Shadow Chamber), they are not spies from your haven (i like to think about them as spies from other havens who already came to the rendezvous with ADVENT).

Also, unless I'm mistaken, it's perfectly possible for one of the rebels who comes with you to kill the Faceless to be a Faceless spy themselves.

That's right. The same is true for any mini-retaliation. It's only on full retaliations that faceless will always reveal themselves.

3rd - I've found out be reading here on the boards, engineers as advisors give a boost on supplies a haven gives. What does a Scientist do? Does he give an Intel boost?

Every advisor boosts one of the jobs. A soldier boosts recruit (in addition to hunting faceless) and as was already said and Engineer boosts Supply and a Scientist boosts Intel.
Also, it's not exactly the question but related : a working Radio Relay (you get one for free by completing the Network Tower part of the liberation chain) will boost every activity.

5th - Is there a stategy that you'd suggest in Haven Management (other then have 'em all on Intel until liberated, then switch all to supply). My Idea is - After liberation have a high ranking soldier stationed until the first Faceless are swept out (therefor question 2) and then put an engineer in instead. Can I go wrong with that? Does it make sense to put a Scientist there prior to liberation?

I think Psieye has the best approach.
If you keep some rebels on recruit and the rest on Intel you'll probably not detect missions with a good timer in new havens. I wouldn't put less than 6 rebels on Intel as it's the minimum (with Avenger scan) to get good infiltration semi-reliably.
However if you keep everyone on Intel all the time, your haven won't really grow (outside of Jailbreaks but you can't really count on that) as the adviser alone will recruit very slowly (it used to be a valid approach when spies sabotaged only the job they were assigned to but that changed so now the spies will sabotage your recruitment even if they are not on the recruit job). The trick is thus to switch between Intel and Recruit when (a) you hit the maximal number of missions in a region, (b) you have deployed everyone and won't be able to attempt the newly detected missions anyway. It's much more efficient than keeping a mix of both jobs (but requires more attention as you don't want to leave the haven on recruit too long)

[Zork]

Thanks Lord for the clarification about my miss reading of Steeve post. So most often I quote two before they morph, but 3 never yet, and 1 was pretty rare.

[Zork]

That's bizarre right after previous post I mentioned not have seen 3 morphing anonymous, I had a mission with 3. First a pod of 2 advents and a drone, then followed a pod with an anonymous (non morphed) and an Advent. I think it's then that I had the special cinematic showing 2 morphing not in my view range.

But unlike usually they didn't follow the second group. After the second group was killed, few wait and still nothing, then scout and found them that stay where they morphed and as a pod already discovered so no movements, after I attack them then the 3rd civil morphed as anonymous.

I had a save few before, and I checked number of rebels in the Haven, after this mission I had lost 2 rebels in the Haven, not 3. But I didn't check any single name to be sure there wasn't a recruit between the two saves (only few scanning and management).

[WarChicken]

Okay, thanks for the info guys, there was a lot of new stuff in it for me.
Especially the fact that helping rebels can be facelkess themself is just super weird. I think it would be... intriguing if there was a chance of them morphing mid-mission to turn on you.

Also wait... you get a free radio tower for the liberation tower mission? And I thought I had a bug! I wondered where all the relays come from that I never built But hey, IT DOES make sense.

If you're fine with that, there's a mod for showing faceless in havens:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =912497882

I use this because I consider manual tracking tedious.

You, sir, are a genius. Thanks a LOT!


Can anybody quicky elaborate what a "mini retal" is? I think I know full retals - Haven retaliations seem to be the full retals. But whats a mini retal?

[aedn]

Okay, thanks for the info guys, there was a lot of new stuff in it for me.
Especially the fact that helping rebels can be facelkess themself is just super weird. I think it would be... intriguing if there was a chance of them morphing mid-mission to turn on you.

Also wait... you get a free radio tower for the liberation tower mission? And I thought I had a bug! I wondered where all the relays come from that I never built But hey, IT DOES make sense.

If you're fine with that, there's a mod for showing faceless in havens:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =912497882

I use this because I consider manual tracking tedious.

You, sir, are a genius. Thanks a LOT!


Can anybody quicky elaborate what a "mini retal" is? I think I know full retals - Haven retaliations seem to be the full retals. But whats a mini retal?

Mini-retaliations are the 3 missions where advent creates a mission in your haven based on a specific job. Basically datatap, recruiting, and supply are the 3 mini-retaliations. if you fail those missions or let the datatap/rebels die, you get a one month lockout on being able to perfrom those specific jobs in the haven where the retaliation occured.

Datatap are the hardest, mostly due to RNG where at high strength levels advent can destroy the datatap prior to you being able to reach it, especially if you get a turn one or two activation on advent away from your 8 man squad. Recruiting can be problematic, but typically happen in lower strength regions so are not to bad. Supply raids are still the easiest, even though they are currently bugged, because everything spawns at one general area, so all you need to do is rush a bunch of OW classes /builds, and the rebels to the advent spawn point and kill them as soon as they drop in.

[WarChicken]

Mini-retaliations are the 3 missions where advent creates a mission in your haven based on a specific job. Basically datatap, recruiting, and supply are the 3 mini-retaliations. if you fail those missions or let the datatap/rebels die, you get a one month lockout on being able to perfrom those specific jobs in the haven where the retaliation occured.

Datatap are the hardest, mostly due to RNG where at high strength levels advent can destroy the datatap prior to you being able to reach it, especially if you get a turn one or two activation on advent away from your 8 man squad. Recruiting can be problematic, but typically happen in lower strength regions so are not to bad. Supply raids are still the easiest, even though they are currently bugged, because everything spawns at one general area, so all you need to do is rush a bunch of OW classes /builds, and the rebels to the advent spawn point and kill them as soon as they drop in.

Ah, got it. Seems like I've been rather lucky with my datatap missions until now, since I've never lost one. I had one where I lost all but one rebel, but I was still able to get it done. Supply Raids are straightforward, and I never had a recruit mini-retal. maybe I'll put all rebels on recruiting job on one area, just to have a look at it.