Weirdly Low Income

[Ithuriel]

So for reasons I don't understand, my Haven in New Australia- which has 13 resistance members on supplies- has an income of $141. I don't get why this is- all of my Havens have advisers assigned to them, so I wouldn't expect there to be that many Faceless. I know that as you gather more supplies in a region your income will decrease over time; that said, I'm in late July, and this isn't my first or second Haven, so I wouldn't expect that. Can anybody give me a hand here? (EDIT: the month just ended and the listed income spiked up to 294... is this an indication of tons of Faceless or what? Like half the bloody Haven would have to be Faceless 0.0).

Separately- is there any easy way to decide whether to leave an adviser on Havens that have already been liberated? If there are no Faceless then you shouldn't have any reason to really need one, but I just don't know.

EDIT: ....also my monthly income just came in. Out of 1121 supplies, I lost 355 to "Unknown Sources." That's almost a third of my income... my supply drop last month, after penalties, was ~1050. What on earth is happening? I have advisers in every Haven- two corporals, three sergeants, and one tech sergeant (the latter is in New Australia since I'm trying to figure out what on earth is going on there), and they've been there for months; I had thought I'd removed all the Faceless from my big Havens, honestly. I can't really put higher level soldiers in the Havens without crippling my combat forces in some way, either. I've had 45 resistance members total on Supplies for this entire month, of which 26 are working in the two Liberated regions I have- get 766 supplies out of it (there haven't been any Dark Events affecting supplies). What gives?

[Starwatcher162536]

Are you late-game? Regions have finite resources so over time you get less and less supplies from them holding how many you have on the supply job constant.

[Ithuriel]

Are you late-game? Regions have finite resources so over time you get less and less supplies from them holding how many you have on the supply job constant.

As I mentioned- this is late July, specifically July 26th, which as far as I'm aware isn't lategame...

[trihero]

(EDIT: the month just ended and the listed income spiked up to 294... is this an indication of tons of Faceless or what

The number in parantheses shows you much maximum money you can make this month - depending on how many days are left and how many current rebels you have set to supplies.

For a learning example, let's say in this pay period for the first 20 days you had everyone (13) on intel. Your supplies should say 0. Then on the last day of the month, you set 13 rebels to supplies, it should read something like 13 dollars (a level 1 rebel makes 1 dollar a day without factoring in fatigue), a forecast of one day of money making for this pay period. It seems like your income is low, but that is because the number in parantheses dynamically adjusts to how much you would make for the rest of the pay period.

Then when the pay period starts over, now you should see a bigger number (your income spike), because now it forecasts those rebels working for 21 days.

Your second question

Separately- is there any easy way to decide whether to leave an adviser on Havens that have already been liberated? If there are no Faceless then you shouldn't have any reason to really need one, but I just don't know.

No easy way, just as a dirty rule of thumb after one month at max pop (13), I will put an engineer in a liberated region. I give the haven adviser one month just a chance to clean up faceless, hopefully by then he has done a good enough job that engineer is a better return in supplies.

Your third question about losing money to mysterious sources is that you simply have a lot of faceless in your havens. Your advisers are not guaranteed to detect them, and it can take quite a while with low level ranks such as the ones you listed. Faceless eat a percentage of supplies coming out of the region they are in, which is why it can hurt a lot. (maybe you have a haven infiltrator dark event? which means more faceless than usual. it lasts quite a long time)

[aedn]

Your projected income varies depending on how often you change jobs. If you switch out rebels to a different job it will adjust for that.

You also have faceless in all of your havens generating supply most likely. Swap out your low ranked guys and put them in combat teams to level them up. You do not need high rank soldiers filling every slot on a combat mission for the most part. Very few missions require this over the course of a game.

Put higher ranked soldiers in your havens, preferably officers or psi-ops during downtime to locate the faceless. You can always pull them out when you need to send them on a mission.

Your losses are basically 20% of gross income per region, plus maintenance costs for buildings I believe, so the number is not to far off. However, I am not sure if multiple faceless boost losses impact a region, so that could be a factor as well

[Tuhalu]

Have they changed the amount of cash a Haven can produce?

In my latest campaign, started with 1.2, the projected income for a liberated region with radio tower is only half of what it was in 1.1. Going from ~600 projected in 1.1 to ~300 projected in 1.2 is a pretty major difference. It's not like I haven't been knocking off faceless either. I've won 4 or 5 faceless missions across my first 4 regions. I'm now sitting on 3 regions liberated with 13 guys producing supply and just barely projecting over 1000 supply for the month.

[trihero]

I haven't noticed anything different, make sure you look at

-how experienced your rebels are, this makes a big difference and I would bet this accounts for the variation you see
-engineer or not assigned as adviser
-continent bonuses
-faceless on the supply job make a big impact
-make sure you match on how many days the projection is doing, it doesn't make sense to compare 15 days to 21 days for instance

[Ithuriel]

(EDIT: the month just ended and the listed income spiked up to 294... is this an indication of tons of Faceless or what

The number in parantheses shows you much maximum money you can make this month - depending on how many days are left and how many current rebels you have set to supplies.

For a learning example, let's say in this pay period for the first 20 days you had everyone (13) on intel. Your supplies should say 0. Then on the last day of the month, you set 13 rebels to supplies, it should read something like 13 dollars (a level 1 rebel makes 1 dollar a day without factoring in fatigue), a forecast of one day of money making for this pay period. It seems like your income is low, but that is because the number in parantheses dynamically adjusts to how much you would make for the rest of the pay period.

Then when the pay period starts over, now you should see a bigger number (your income spike), because now it forecasts those rebels working for 21 days.

I guess this is possible? But I'm nigh-certain that the entire Haven was on supplies all month.

Your second question

Separately- is there any easy way to decide whether to leave an adviser on Havens that have already been liberated? If there are no Faceless then you shouldn't have any reason to really need one, but I just don't know.

No easy way, just as a dirty rule of thumb after one month at max pop (13), I will put an engineer in a liberated region. I give the haven adviser one month just a chance to clean up faceless, hopefully by then he has done a good enough job that engineer is a better return in supplies.

Your third question about losing money to mysterious sources is that you simply have a lot of faceless in your havens. Your advisers are not guaranteed to detect them, and it can take quite a while with low level ranks such as the ones you listed. Faceless eat a percentage of supplies coming out of the region they are in, which is why it can hurt a lot. (maybe you have a haven infiltrator dark event? which means more faceless than usual. it lasts quite a long time)

Two notes. Firstly, how do you remember if a Haven has been at max pop with a soldier for that long? Just it takes a bloody long time to get through a month in-game with a lot of active missions... tbh I've started keeping a notes document about my campaign XD Mostly to track what AWC perks I want and build plans+ideas.

Secondly- I guess that's the case... but I don't have that dark event, and I've had an adviser in every haven pretty much since the start of the game. I'd estimate on average ~20% of the time a given Haven didn't have an adviser :\ I really thought that would be enough to purge Faceless... I'm a bit confused that you refer to having Sergeants as low-level ranks also. Tbh I can't really throw anybody higher-ranked in without gutting my primary two squads. How high of a rank would you suggest, then? I have two Gunnery Sergeants, neither of which can be spared at any cost; ~6 tech sergeants, and maybe 8 staff sergeants? The latter numbers may be a bit higher- but honestly if I throw more high-rank soldiers into Havens, I'm not sure I can really get lower ranks to survive most missions, making training difficult.

One final note- I read recently that apparently officers and Psi Operatives have significant bonuses to Faceless discovery. Do you have any idea how powerful those are?

[trihero]

I guess this is possible? But I'm nigh-certain that the entire Haven was on supplies all month.

Go back and redo it. I'm nigh-certain the spike you experienced has to do with the new month calculation of your projected supplies. There is no other hidden factor involved like suddenly faceless appeared or disappeared in quantities that could disrupt your income by that much.

Firstly, how do you remember if a Haven has been at max pop with a soldier for that long?

I just change it at the next supply drop actually, I don't want to keep detailed notes.

Secondly- I guess that's the case... but I don't have that dark event, and I've had an adviser in every haven pretty much since the start of the game. I'd estimate on average ~20% of the time a given Haven didn't have an adviser :\ I really thought that would be enough to purge Faceless... I'm a bit confused that you refer to having Sergeants as low-level ranks also. Tbh I can't really throw anybody higher-ranked in without gutting my primary two squads. How high of a rank would you suggest, then? I have two Gunnery Sergeants, neither of which can be spared at any cost; ~6 tech sergeants, and maybe 8 staff sergeants? The latter numbers may be a bit higher- but honestly if I throw more high-rank soldiers into Havens, I'm not sure I can really get lower ranks to survive most missions, making training difficult.

Let me repeat myself until it sinks in

Your third question about losing money to mysterious sources is that you simply have a lot of faceless in your havens. Your advisers are not guaranteed to detect them.

There's nothing secret about how the "mysterious losses" work. Maybe you had a bad run of luck, if so boohoo ok keep playing. I have no secrets I'm witholding, sometimes I have "bad" faceless months as well.

I would suggest using your highest ranking troops at all times as haven advisers, and when you need to go on a mission, you simply release your haven advisers. It's annoying, but effective.

[Ithuriel]

I guess this is possible? But I'm nigh-certain that the entire Haven was on supplies all month.

Go back and redo it. I'm nigh-certain the spike you experienced has to do with the new month calculation of your projected supplies. There is no other hidden factor involved like suddenly faceless appeared or disappeared in quantities that could disrupt your income by that much.

Firstly, how do you remember if a Haven has been at max pop with a soldier for that long?

I just change it at the next supply drop actually, I don't want to keep detailed notes.

...that's the thing, it's not uncommon for a week IRL to go by between supply drops in-game, plus sometimes I cycle advisers, so I can't remember that long.

Secondly- I guess that's the case... but I don't have that dark event, and I've had an adviser in every haven pretty much since the start of the game. I'd estimate on average ~20% of the time a given Haven didn't have an adviser :\ I really thought that would be enough to purge Faceless... I'm a bit confused that you refer to having Sergeants as low-level ranks also. Tbh I can't really throw anybody higher-ranked in without gutting my primary two squads. How high of a rank would you suggest, then? I have two Gunnery Sergeants, neither of which can be spared at any cost; ~6 tech sergeants, and maybe 8 staff sergeants? The latter numbers may be a bit higher- but honestly if I throw more high-rank soldiers into Havens, I'm not sure I can really get lower ranks to survive most missions, making training difficult.

Let me repeat myself until it sinks in

Your third question about losing money to mysterious sources is that you simply have a lot of faceless in your havens. Your advisers are not guaranteed to detect them.

There's nothing secret about how the "mysterious losses" work. Maybe you had a bad run of luck, if so boohoo ok keep playing. I have no secrets I'm witholding, sometimes I have "bad" faceless months as well.

I would suggest using your highest ranking troops at all times as haven advisers, and when you need to go on a mission, you simply release your haven advisers. It's annoying, but effective.

...there's no need to get snippy. I'm just expressing frustration- and I'm not raging at the game, but instead asking for advice, and trying to understand why what I've done hasn't been enough. Also, Haven advisers don't start accumulating points towards detecting spies until a day after you station them at the Haven, so you lose a day every time you swap advisers; with how often my high-level troops are deployed or training, I'd lose a very large portion of Haven adviser working time, if that makes sense.

[trihero]

I'm not being snippy, it's in your head.

Also, Haven advisers don't start accumulating points towards detecting spies until a day after you station them at the Haven, so you lose a day every time you swap advisers;

Untrue, haven advisers accumulate points immediately. You're thinking about rebels who start a new job one day after you change the jobs.

I already told you exactly what I do, it works fine for me, and I also explained what is causing your mysterious losses. I probably will not reply any further since I have absolutely zero to offer past this point. I already had zero to offer after the last post.

[Ithuriel]

I'm not being snippy, it's in your head.

Also, Haven advisers don't start accumulating points towards detecting spies until a day after you station them at the Haven, so you lose a day every time you swap advisers;

Untrue, haven advisers accumulate points immediately. You're thinking about rebels who start a new job one day after you change the jobs.

Interesting, this actually does change things heavily; where did you see this?

[trihero]

Someone in another thread in the past week looked into the code and found no evidence that haven advisers "lose a day." This is not a new question. I'm not going to look for the exact post, if you're that interested you can search for it.

Again my suggestion is keep your highest ranked soldiers in havens and then bring them out for missions. It works great for me. I would suggest trying this. If you're actually looking for advice then why don't you go and try it?

[Tuhalu]

I haven't noticed anything different, make sure you look at

-how experienced your rebels are, this makes a big difference and I would bet this accounts for the variation you see
-engineer or not assigned as adviser
-continent bonuses
-faceless on the supply job make a big impact
-make sure you match on how many days the projection is doing, it doesn't make sense to compare 15 days to 21 days for instance

Faceless have no impact on projected income. The code intentionally does not account for Faceless in that number so as to prevent you from easily telling when you've put a Faceless on Supplies.

I'm comparing projected income for entire months already.

Having another look at things, it does look like I'm missing All In compared to last campaign. I'm also still trying to root out Faceless as I lost 215 supplies out of about 430 predicted in a previous month (more on this later*). Finally, it turns out the modifiers are multiplicative, not additive.

I checked the source code and the formula is like this:

RebelLevels * IncomePerRebel * DaysInMonth * Modifier1 * Modifier2 etc = Final Value

With 16 Rebel Levels (3 of my 13 guys are level 2), the 1.2 modifier for Liberated, the 1.2 modifier for the Radio Tower and assuming 20 days in a supply month, we get 467 predicted income, which matches what I'm seeing in game. I had thought that a supply month was 21 days, so using 20 days is a little confusing.


* I probably don't have Faceless. The fact I lost half my income suggests that I actually have Rural Checkpoints DE in effect and forgot about it.... Unfortunately, I have a supply raid mission ready to go and it won't let me check my DEs right now.

[Antifringe]

One final note- I read recently that apparently officers and Psi Operatives have significant bonuses to Faceless discovery. Do you have any idea how powerful those are?

The table is in XomLW_Activities.ini

Spoiler: show

[LW_Overhaul.X2LWActivityDetectionCalc_Rendezvous]
; this is the amount of "Intel Income" toward detecting the Rendezvous activity a soldier generates
; regular rebels do not generate any income toward the Rendezvous activity
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[0]=0f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[1]=5f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[2]=10f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[3]=15f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[4]=20f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[5]=22.5f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[6]=25f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[7]=26f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK[8]=27f

+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[0]=0f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[1]=6f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[2]=12f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[3]=20f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[4]=25f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[5]=30f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[6]=35f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[7]=40f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_PER_RANK_PSI[8]=45f

+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[0]=0f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[1]=2.5f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[2]=5f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[3]=7.5f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[4]=10f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[5]=12f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[6]=14f
+LIAISON_MISSION_INCOME_BONUS_PER_RANK_OFFICER[7]=15f

Unfortunately, the required mission income to detect a Rendezvous isn't listed in the inis. I looked through the source files a bit, but still haven't found it. Still, you can at least see the relative strengths. The breakpoint for normal soldiers is Sergeant. Successive ranks after that offer much less (and cost way more xp). This isn't to say that the small gains are useless, though. Detection rolls are made every six hours. A Rendezvous site stays active for anywhere from 7 to 21 days, so that's a lot of rolls, and small accumulating differences make a very large difference in the total chance to detect.

Keep in mind also that Rendezvous missions have an irritatingly long cooldown (I think it's about 21 days, I can't check because I changed mine and don't remember the old numbers). This means that if you are actively recruiting, you can't keep vetting new recruits continously. I set my cooldown to 24 hours. I mean, the faceless get to start hurting you immediately, so I feel that you should be able to start detecting them right away too.

[Ithuriel]

One final note- I read recently that apparently officers and Psi Operatives have significant bonuses to Faceless discovery. Do you have any idea how powerful those are?

The table is in XomLW_Activities.ini

Spoiler: show

[LW_Overhaul.X2LWActivityDetectionCalc_Rendezvous]

Unfortunately, the required mission income to detect a Rendezvous isn't listed in the inis. I looked through the source files a bit, but still haven't found it. Still, you can at least see the relative strengths. The breakpoint for normal soldiers is Sergeant. Successive ranks after that offer much less (and cost way more xp). This isn't to say that the small gains are useless, though. Detection rolls are made every six hours. A Rendezvous site stays active for anywhere from 7 to 21 days, so that's a lot of rolls, and small accumulating differences make a very large difference in the total chance to detect.

Keep in mind also that Rendezvous missions have an irritatingly long cooldown (I think it's about 21 days, I can't check because I changed mine and don't remember the old numbers). This means that if you are actively recruiting, you can't keep vetting new recruits continously. I set my cooldown to 24 hours. I mean, the faceless get to start hurting you immediately, so I feel that you should be able to start detecting them right away too.

Thanks a ton! This really helps. trihero earlier was commenting that the reason I wasn't finding Faceless is because my advisers were all really low levels- but according to you Sergeants are mostly good enough? (That's mostly what I'm running). Also, though I wouldn't expect you to know, do you have any idea if the Psi and normal rank bonuses stack?

Also- how did you set the cooldown to 24 hours? That sounds like a fine idea to me, but trawling through ini files I can't find it >.< Looked at XcomLW_outposts.ini and XcomMissions.ini but couldn't find it.

[trihero]

My main point was that rng is rng. You are not guaranteed to detect faceless.

If you want to improve your chances, you put your highest soldiers in there. Those tables are nice and ones that I dug up and displayed weeks ago, but the end advice is the same: put your highest soldiers in havens if you want to detect faceless with the greatest probability. The tables do not say that sergeants are "good enough." Every rank is better than the last, and that is exactly what the other guy said as well. An increase from rank 1 to rank 2 might not provide as much bonus as from rank 5 to 6, but you would still ideally use rank 6, wouldn't you? Like the other guy said, even a small increase in detection can add up over time. The advice is still the same regardless of the tables:

Put your highest ranking soldiers in havens, and pull them out when you need to do missions with them. I mean that answers the question period of how do you get rid of faceless as quickly as possible.

Yes, psi ranks do stack with officer ranks, not "regular" ranks.

[Tuhalu]

Thanks a ton! This really helps. trihero earlier was commenting that the reason I wasn't finding Faceless is because my advisers were all really low levels- but according to you Sergeants are mostly good enough? (That's mostly what I'm running). Also, though I wouldn't expect you to know, do you have any idea if the Psi and normal rank bonuses stack?

Also- how did you set the cooldown to 24 hours? That sounds like a fine idea to me, but trawling through ini files I can't find it >.< Looked at XcomLW_outposts.ini and XcomMissions.ini but couldn't find it.

Psi and normal rank don't stack, since you can only be one or the other. Both of them stack with Officer rank.

The chance of detecting faceless is very low in any given day. It's your job income /100 * 2. On a Seargent, that's 20/100*2 = 0.4% per day, cumulative (so 0.4% first day, 0.8% second day, up to 21 * 0.4% = 8.4% on the final day). After the mission expires and refreshes, the income refreshes putting you back at square one.

While the biggest gains are with the first 4 levels of the basic or PSI class, having a max rank with max officer makes a huge difference. A Colonel will have 42 points per day, giving you a 17.64% chance to detect on the final day. A Colonel Psi-Ops will have 60 points per day, giving you a 25.2% chance to detect on the final day.

Because the numbers get higher faster, the actual chance of detecting the Faceless within the timeframe goes up quite quickly. With a Seargent, the chance of detection is only 61.4% over 21 days. With a Colonel Psi-Ops, the chance of detection is 95.2%. It's easy to see which one you can trust to get the job done!

What generates Missions is actually Alien Activity, so you can find the cooldowns for Rendezvous in XComLW_Activities.ini on lines 633 and 634.