What is a good setting for the resistance at the start of the campaign?

[jztemple]

I've read a lot of suggestions on how and why to adjust the jobs of the resistance members during the campaign, but I'm a little baffled for what to do at the very beginning when I have just one haven and I'm just starting out. I know the logic of setting all of them to Intel to gain the best infiltration time, but so early in the game is it a good thing to put some on supplies and some on recruiting?

And who is the best advisor at the start? A scientist gets me Intel, but I start with no scientists and unless I want to wait to rescue one I have to spend supplies to buy one. And the same goes for engineers getting me supplies but costs me too. And I can't send a rookie as advisor either. Should I just leave the slot empty for the time being?

[NephilimNexus]

My take on it:

Since your starting base upkeep is going to only be around $10 a month, and you can make that by selling off a single weapon mod or body, combined with the faceless infiltrator at start that sucks away 90% of your income... screw it, nobody on supply. No point to it yet. Put everyone on intel at first to get bearable times for your missions.

Once you've got some solider experience spread around, send someone at least E3 to be an advisor until you root out the faceless spy. Once that's done you can switch to a scientist or engineer advisor... at least until you get more haven recruits. Then you'll need to repeat the process if they start losing supply again.

When you've got a few rooms built and three regional havens unlocked then by all means switch of them over to all supply. While it is tempting to have intel gatherers everywhere, this leads to missions popping up everywhere and it's too easy to get overwhelmed by (no joke) 12+ missions per month. So if you leave no one on intel then you'll get no mission there. Just supply and recruit now that you're actually needing supply for things, then pick one region at a time for you pure intel focus until it's liberated.

[jztemple]

Thanks, the info is a big help!

[dodger]

I'm starting with most on intel and a few recruiting in the home zone.

Once I have more zones, I'm halving those two in each so I don't get overwhelmed with missions and I spread out the advent strength gains that happen in reaction to doing missions.

[trihero]

adviser: officer technical (safest choice for low level faceless fishing)
haven setup: 1 recruit, rest intel

Supplies is bad, because you have massive negative income from both faceless and building upkeep early on. Only go supply when you have liberated the region. The above setup makes it so your haven grows at a reasonable pace while you focus on getting quality missions through intel, it's quite logical.

[mattprice516]

faceless infiltrator at start that sucks away 90% of your income...

Note: That's now a flat 20% of that Haven's income per Faceless (instead of a flat amount like it was in 1.0).

[Devon_v]

Even still, Intel gets you easy missions which are worth more than anything at the start.

[The Boz]

Half intel, half recruit, don't bother with supply unitl month 2/haven 2. Prioritize full recruiting and Avenger scanning in new regions. (Avenger scan counts as 4 rebels on Intel duty)

[Tuhalu]

With 1.1, your Haven has a pretty reasonable default setting. 4 Intel, 1 Supply, 1 Recruit. Together with the 4 Intel you get from Avenger Scanning, it seems fairly easy to find missions. The 1 Supply keeps your money from going negative and you might just find a Recruit to keep your numbers ticking up too.

[PropheticShadeZ]

adviser: officer technical (safest choice for low level faceless fishing)
haven setup: 1 recruit, rest intel

Supplies is bad, because you have massive negative income from both faceless and building upkeep early on. Only go supply when you have liberated the region. The above setup makes it so your haven grows at a reasonable pace while you focus on getting quality missions through intel, it's quite logical.

I just leave my best soldiers in the havens, i have 6 at the moment, and the constant spy fishing has kept their level up, while allowing me to keep supply rolling in. might not be the best strat though, will have to wait and see

[trihero]

I just leave my best soldiers in the havens, i have 6 at the moment, and the constant spy fishing has kept their level up

Wot? My haven advisers certainly cannot keep up with experience; I stuck them in as lancer corporals, and none of them have gone above corporal yet from all the faceless fishing. In the mean time my main troops are achieving tech+ sergeant. I guess if you put your best soldiers in there it will look like they're keeping up for a while. Not necessarily a bad strategy if you want to even out your experience as much as possible.

[cryptc]

How much supplies produced in a month is worth the time needed to fetch it though? if I get like 20 supplies after Faceless has taken their cut, I wonder if it's worth it spending a day scanning to get those supplies.

That also is why I don't do supplies at all until I get rid of atleast one Faceless and can crank up the supplies a bit.

[Tuhalu]

Unless they changed it from vanilla, you can simply leave the supplies piling up until you want them. They didn't go away like other POIs.

[cryptc]

Oh, I didn't know that, makes it a bit more interesting to have small amounts trickling in I suppose, but then again still probably better to focus on other things if you don't plan to fetch that small amount before next month

[Flapdrol]

After some experimenting I now use the following:

1) Grab 1 extra area at start
2) Set both areas at 1 recruiting, the rest intel
3) Once most of your soldiers are infiltrating, set all intel guys to supplies instead
4) Once most of your soldiers are back in the ship, go to 2)

This gives me all the missions I can handle with plenty of infiltration time, and a good bit of supply. The faceless siphon some of it off, but that is life.

BTW: It is amazing how the resistance functions when 20% of its crew are alien spies.

[Devon_v]

BTW: It is amazing how the resistance functions when 20% of its crew are alien spies.

It's more 20% of its officers are alien spies. This is why the cell structure exists. The very thing that makes it difficult for you to accumulate rebel groups makes it very hard for the faceless to take down more than a few of them.

For what it's worth, ADVENT doesn't actually have to defeat you. You're irrelevant once AVATAR is completed, so they really only have to keep you running around.