Discover faceless with military haven advisor

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Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Hi guys,

been lurking for some days, absorbing the collective Knowledge like a spongebob.

Now I wonder, how Long does it take for a Military advisor to root out a faceless? I got one from the beginning since I lose supplies and I have had one in each haven for quite some time now, swapping them out as others promote as suggested.

I actually got Military advisers just for that reason, as I'd rather have scientists boost Intel. It's annoying me that I install Military advisers for the sole purpose of rooting out the faceless and they are not doing their Job. THEY HAVE ONE JOB.
Dwarfling
Posts: 524
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:16 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Dwarfling »

Rendezvous are kinda like your regular GOps mission in that they spawn in the region and you need points to reveal it, but instead of the mission needing intel points from your rebels, it uses points generated by the soldier advisor. The higher the ranks of your advisor, the more points they generate, be it soldier rank and officer rank, and psi get and additional bonus.

Once you got enough points, you'll start rolling dice to reveal it. So in the end it's up to chance. You get better chances if you generate the points faster tho. But you'll never know if you missed a mission and you're now gathering points for the next mission, etc.
faket15
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by faket15 »

Some important things about Rendezvous:

1) They only spawn if you have a Soldier Advisor. If you put one in the region and the Rendezvous activity is not on cooldown a new Rendezvous will spawn within one day.

2) They expire after 21-28 days and have 28-29 days of cooldown counting from the moment the activity spawns. This means you have 0-8 days between one expires and the next spawns, but you never know exactly how much time you have.

3) Normal activities are detected with Mission Intel generated by your rebels and can be detected even if you change the job of your rebels using the Mission Intel they generated earlier. A Rendezvous uses Mission Intel generated by Soldier Advisors that only counts for this activity type. If you remove the Advisor you keep the Intel, but you can't roll for detection until you put a new Advisor.

4) Mission Intel generated by Soldier Advisors goes up with Soldier Rank and Officer Rank and is higher for Psi Operatives. Soldier Ranks up to Sergeant scale much better than the ranks above that. A Squaddie has 26.3% chance to detect a Rendezvous, a Sergeant has 70.2% and a Master Sergeant has 80.4%. This means that in the late game you probably want to use Sergeant Advisors.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Psieye »

How bad is it to keep swapping out the soldier advisor? I know the swap means you've wasted a day of accruing more "rendezvous mission intel", but do your already-amassed points still work for you?
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Psieye wrote:How bad is it to keep swapping out the soldier advisor? I know the swap means you've wasted a day of accruing more "rendezvous mission intel", but do your already-amassed points still work for you?
Read above, you don't lose Points, but you can't roll for detection without an active Military advisor.

Thanks for the replies guys, this helps already!
Now I wonder, do you Keep soldier advisors to catch faceless or do you prefer to use engineers/scientists for more supply/Intel?
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Psieye »

Phaseless wrote:
Psieye wrote:How bad is it to keep swapping out the soldier advisor? I know the swap means you've wasted a day of accruing more "rendezvous mission intel", but do your already-amassed points still work for you?
Read above, you don't lose Points, but you can't roll for detection without an active Military advisor.
You've missed my point. If you change your soldier advisor every day, you accumulate zero points because the new job doesn't do anything until the day changes over.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Icarus »

Faceless
- hinder your rebel's jobs.
- take up a slot for an otherwise contributing rebel.
- make retaliations more likely (IIRC).

A rendezvous mission, on the other hand, gives corpses and weapon mods.

So for me: always root out faceless first.
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Psieye wrote:
Phaseless wrote:
Psieye wrote:How bad is it to keep swapping out the soldier advisor? I know the swap means you've wasted a day of accruing more "rendezvous mission intel", but do your already-amassed points still work for you?
Read above, you don't lose Points, but you can't roll for detection without an active Military advisor.
You've missed my point. If you change your soldier advisor every day, you accumulate zero points because the new job doesn't do anything until the day changes over.
No, I've understood you. You asked, if the already accumulated Points are lost. And they are not.
If that's not the answer you're looking for, then I misunderstood your question.
faket15
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by faket15 »

Psieye wrote:
Phaseless wrote:
Psieye wrote:How bad is it to keep swapping out the soldier advisor? I know the swap means you've wasted a day of accruing more "rendezvous mission intel", but do your already-amassed points still work for you?
Read above, you don't lose Points, but you can't roll for detection without an active Military advisor.
You've missed my point. If you change your soldier advisor every day, you accumulate zero points because the new job doesn't do anything until the day changes over.
Advisors don't have the same delay as Rebels. You can change the Advisor whenever you want and still accumulate the points for the day.
lumber-chick
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:03 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by lumber-chick »

Icarus wrote:Faceless
- hinder your rebel's jobs.
- take up a slot for an otherwise contributing rebel.
- make retaliations more likely (IIRC).
.
What do you mean by "hinder your rebels jobs" exactly?
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

lumber-chick wrote:
Icarus wrote:Faceless
- hinder your rebel's jobs.
- take up a slot for an otherwise contributing rebel.
- make retaliations more likely (IIRC).
.
What do you mean by "hinder your rebels jobs" exactly?
Rebels doing Tasks (Intel, recruit, etc) are less effective. I believe by 20% per faceless, but not sure about that.
Maybe you have exact numbers, Icarus?
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Antifringe »

Phaseless wrote:Now I wonder, do you Keep soldier advisors to catch faceless or do you prefer to use engineers/scientists for more supply/Intel?
Soldier should be your default advisor. Scientist and engineer advisors are best used in maxed out havens, and even then, only when you have a specific plan.

Soldiers
1) Provide 5 points of recruit income per day
2) Give a 5% bonus to all recruit income earned in that haven, per rank of the advisor
3) Are very good to have when a miniretal hits.
4) Have zero opportunity cost
5) Also, they can find spies

I consider 5) to be the least compelling reason to use soldier advisors, in spite of all of the attention it receives. There is definitely a time when it becomes more important, but for a small haven, the extra recruit income and security is more important.

Faceless infiltrators
1) Still do work, just like a normal rebels (was not true in early versions of LW, was changed because it was crippling for small havens)
2) Give a 5% penalty to Intel and Recruit income (exact number varies by difficulty level)
3) Give a 20% penalty to Supply income
4) Slightly increase the odds of rebels being detected add adding to the retal buckets

Item 4) is probably the least serious issue, since vigilance also increases the odds, and very quickly pushes the detection chance to 100%, spies or not. Item 2) Is tolerable, mostly because of item 1). Killing a spy without having an extra rebel on hand to replace him usually makes your haven weaker. That being said, the long term benefits of getting rid of the spy, plus the short term benefits of getting the rendezvous mission, are probably worth it.

Item 3) is more serious. Never run supplies if you have spies in the haven.

Bear in mind that you will not be able to reliably find spies until you have very high ranked soldiers, preferably with some officer ranks. Psionic soldiers are good too, but I find that even with an early psi focus, they never come online in time to help. For most of the game, you just assign the highest ranked soldiers that you can (and swap them out as needed for missions, of course) and if you find some spies, that's just a nice bonus.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Psieye »

Phaseless wrote:
Psieye wrote:
Phaseless wrote:
Read above, you don't lose Points, but you can't roll for detection without an active Military advisor.
You've missed my point. If you change your soldier advisor every day, you accumulate zero points because the new job doesn't do anything until the day changes over.
No, I've understood you. You asked, if the already accumulated Points are lost. And they are not.
If that's not the answer you're looking for, then I misunderstood your question.
Wrong question. faket15 answered the right question.
Antifringe wrote: 1) Still do work, just like a normal rebels (was not true in early versions of LW, was changed because it was crippling for small havens)
That is very good to know.


faket15 mentioned above that Sgt is a good compromise between ease-to-train and detection chances. How much impact do officer ranks and psi ranks bring to the final Rendezvous detection chance?
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Icarus »

Phaseless wrote:
lumber-chick wrote:
Icarus wrote:Faceless
- hinder your rebel's jobs.
- take up a slot for an otherwise contributing rebel.
- make retaliations more likely (IIRC).
.
What do you mean by "hinder your rebels jobs" exactly?
Rebels doing Tasks (Intel, recruit, etc) are less effective. I believe by 20% per faceless, but not sure about that.
Maybe you have exact numbers, Icarus?
Can't find the exact threads where I read up on it, but I think Antifringe did a good writeup. And I didn't get the change that faceless contribute to their job.
That said, you can have a look at the numbers involved if you search your XComLW_Outposts.ini for the string "faceless". That shows you all relevant data. For quick reference:

Code: Select all

FACELESS_SUPPLY_DRAIN=20f       ; Percent of supplies drained from the monthly supply in this haven per faceless, factoring number of days active.
FACELESS_SUPPLY_DRAIN=20f       ; Percent of supplies drained from the monthly supply in this haven per faceless, factoring number of days active.
JOB_DETECTION_CHANCE_BONUS_PER_FACELESS[0]=5
JOB_DETECTION_CHANCE_BONUS_PER_FACELESS[1]=8
JOB_DETECTION_CHANCE_BONUS_PER_FACELESS[2]=10
JOB_DETECTION_CHANCE_BONUS_PER_FACELESS[3]=10
[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
Which is exactly what Antifringe wrote up.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Antifringe »

This old thread might help. I post the exact tables for faceless detection "income." Tuhalu's remarks at the end are especially interesting.
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Antifringe wrote:
Phaseless wrote:Now I wonder, do you Keep soldier advisors to catch faceless or do you prefer to use engineers/scientists for more supply/Intel?
Soldier should be your default advisor. Scientist and engineer advisors are best used in maxed out havens, and even then, only when you have a specific plan.

Soldiers
1) Provide 5 points of recruit income per day
2) Give a 5% bonus to all recruit income earned in that haven, per rank of the advisor
3) Are very good to have when a miniretal hits.
4) Have zero opportunity cost
5) Also, they can find spies

I consider 5) to be the least compelling reason to use soldier advisors, in spite of all of the attention it receives. There is definitely a time when it becomes more important, but for a small haven, the extra recruit income and security is more important.

Faceless infiltrators
1) Still do work, just like a normal rebels (was not true in early versions of LW, was changed because it was crippling for small havens)
2) Give a 5% penalty to Intel and Recruit income (exact number varies by difficulty level)
3) Give a 20% penalty to Supply income
4) Slightly increase the odds of rebels being detected add adding to the retal buckets

Item 4) is probably the least serious issue, since vigilance also increases the odds, and very quickly pushes the detection chance to 100%, spies or not. Item 2) Is tolerable, mostly because of item 1). Killing a spy without having an extra rebel on hand to replace him usually makes your haven weaker. That being said, the long term benefits of getting rid of the spy, plus the short term benefits of getting the rendezvous mission, are probably worth it.

Item 3) is more serious. Never run supplies if you have spies in the haven.

Bear in mind that you will not be able to reliably find spies until you have very high ranked soldiers, preferably with some officer ranks. Psionic soldiers are good too, but I find that even with an early psi focus, they never come online in time to help. For most of the game, you just assign the highest ranked soldiers that you can (and swap them out as needed for missions, of course) and if you find some spies, that's just a nice bonus.
How do you know which haven is infested? AFAIK I only get the info on the monthly Report that funds go missing, but no info where.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Antifringe »

I only run two kinds of supply havens: ones that I know are clean of faceless, and ones that I'm testing. A haven is clean if it recently survived a full retaliation, or if you got a clean bill of health from the monthly review screen while it was active. If I'm considering moving a haven into supply, I'll do a test run to see what happens at the end of the month. If you only test one haven at a time, this works fine. You only end up needing 3-4 supply havens to totally break the supply game, so this process isn't as onerous as it might sound. If you're one of those people that likes to run mixed jobs in all of your havens, then this won't work, but my advice is to not do that :D
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Antifringe wrote:I only run two kinds of supply havens: ones that I know are clean of faceless, and ones that I'm testing. A haven is clean if it recently survived a full retaliation, or if you got a clean bill of health from the monthly review screen while it was active. If I'm considering moving a haven into supply, I'll do a test run to see what happens at the end of the month. If you only test one haven at a time, this works fine. You only end up needing 3-4 supply havens to totally break the supply game, so this process isn't as onerous as it might sound. If you're one of those people that likes to run mixed jobs in all of your havens, then this won't work, but my advice is to not do that :D
I tried to mix it up in every haven since I read the retals are more likely when a haven does a specific Job. But thanks for the tip, I will try that.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Antifringe »

That's not really how it works. There are four retal "buckets" that are filled and emptied separately:

1) The full retal bucket, which is filled by any rebel activity (hiding doesn't count)
2) The recruit retal bucket, which is filled by recruit jobs
3) The intel retal bucket
4) The Supply retal bucket

These buckets are global, so any job being worked at any haven contributes to the same buckets. So, if you have lots of recruiters, your recruit bucket will fill up faster. The distribution doesn't matter.

For the most part, I prefer having all rebels in a haven doing the same job. It makes the advisor bonuses more efficient. Moreover, the all or nothing nature of the intel job means that you generally want to go as hard as possible on intel, or not bother at all. Splitting up your haven between intel and other jobs usually means that find very few missions with actionable timers.
Phaseless
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:06 am

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Phaseless »

Antifringe wrote:That's not really how it works. There are four retal "buckets" that are filled and emptied separately:

1) The full retal bucket, which is filled by any rebel activity (hiding doesn't count)
2) The recruit retal bucket, which is filled by recruit jobs
3) The intel retal bucket
4) The Supply retal bucket

These buckets are global, so any job being worked at any haven contributes to the same buckets. So, if you have lots of recruiters, your recruit bucket will fill up faster. The distribution doesn't matter.

For the most part, I prefer having all rebels in a haven doing the same job. It makes the advisor bonuses more efficient. Moreover, the all or nothing nature of the intel job means that you generally want to go as hard as possible on intel, or not bother at all. Splitting up your haven between intel and other jobs usually means that find very few missions with actionable timers.
Aaah, ok! Then I'll go fully mental on Intel :D
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Discover faceless with military haven advisor

Post by Icarus »

There's a mod, too, that displays the faceless in each haven. I consider this okay as it saves me a lot of bookkeeping, while offering only a modest advantage.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... w+faceless
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