What is the difference between Enemy Activity and Enemy Readiness?

[marceror]

As far as I can tell they both add enemies to missions. Enemy activity is straightforward enough -- greater activity = more enemies on missions -- but in what way than is readiness different? If my observations are correct it seems like readiness is more likely to include turrets as part of its added enemy force (i.e. Advent crews had time to get better "dug in"), but otherwise it seems like these are two fairly redundant concepts. I would be grateful if someone could better explain the differences between the two.

Extra credit if someone can also explain how Advent strength in a region further modifies the above. Again, this seems to be yet another mechanic that add additional enemies to missions -- though this one seems a little more intuitive. If Advent has a high strength rating in a region, than the chances of seeing extremely light or very light activity are going to be greatly reduced. Is that the correct interpretation?

[trihero]

Enemy activity is all you need to know if you want an estimate of the number of enemies on the map. Readiness does not help you determine the number of enemies on the map. Readiness affects enemy activity, but alone doesn't tell you anything. You can have readiness vulnerable with enemy activity swarming, and you can also have readiness impregnable with enemy activity swarming. The point of the example is readiness is not your go-to number if you want an estimate of the number of enemies on the map.

A detailed answer is that there are a ton of levels of possible enemy activity (light, extremely light, and there are more deltas you can't see that they added recently), and readiness bumps you up or down levels. Normal readiness means the baseline enemy activity, if readiness is guarded then enemy activity will be increased (more pods/enemies), if readiness is vulnerable then enemy activity will be decreased (less pods/enemies).

The current enemy activity you see on the mission screen (as opposed to the original estimate which is an estimate for 100% baseline infiltration = normal readiness) already adjusts for current readiness, so at the end of the day, readiness is fairly useless except if you wanted to know if your infiltration happened to downgrade or upgrade their forces.

No, readiness has nothing to do directly with turrets. (just indirectly in the sense that they can get more mobs if readiness is guarded/impregnable).

No, they are not redundant concepts. Readiness is redundant with enemy activity, but enemy activity is not redundant with readiness. Enemy activity tells you far more than readiness does.

Advent strength, haven't a clue there sorry. I know it in very general terms it increases the number of enemies, and that you see bigger pod sizes. One day I'll have to go code diving.

[marceror]

Thank you for the detailed response. So based on what you're saying, there is no difference in terms of enemy numbers between Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Vulnerable and Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Normal, since the only indicator that is directly relevant is the Enemy Activity, i.e. Extremely Light, in this example. Is that the correct interpretation?

In other words, Readiness is simply something that modifies the Activity level up or down? If the enemy is already at extremely light, than that's the lowest number of enemies you can expect to see, regardless of what enemy readiness is at?

[marceror]

Adding to this, the other thing readiness affects is evac time, so in my above example I suppose that you might want to get from normal to vulnerable for less evac time, but I guess that would be the only benefit.

[trihero]

Adding to this, the other thing readiness affects is evac time, so in my above example I suppose that you might want to get from normal to vulnerable for less evac time, but I guess that would be the only benefit.

Evac time is listed explicitly on the screen anyways, so why would you need to know readiness for that purpose?

And reading readiness itself still doesn't help with evac, since vulnerable starts roughly around 125% or something but to get the best evac time you need to hit 200% infiltration, which also says vulnerable.

Thank you for the detailed response. So based on what you're saying, there is no difference in terms of enemy numbers between Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Vulnerable and Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Normal, since the only indicator that is directly relevant is the Enemy Activity, i.e. Extremely Light, in this example. Is that the correct interpretation?

Correct, just remember that designations like extremely light itself has some variation to it, I've seen between 8 to 10 or 11 enemies. Readiness tells you garbage about the number of enemies.

[marceror]

Adding to this, the other thing readiness affects is evac time, so in my above example I suppose that you might want to get from normal to vulnerable for less evac time, but I guess that would be the only benefit.

Evac time is listed explicitly on the screen anyways, so why would you need to know readiness for that purpose?

And reading readiness itself still doesn't help with evac, since vulnerable starts roughly around 125% or something but to get the best evac time you need to hit 200% infiltration, which also says vulnerable.

Thank you for setting me straight that this is a factor of infiltration percent rather than readiness. This is learnin' me good.

Thank you for the detailed response. So based on what you're saying, there is no difference in terms of enemy numbers between Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Vulnerable and Resistance Extremely Light / Readiness Normal, since the only indicator that is directly relevant is the Enemy Activity, i.e. Extremely Light, in this example. Is that the correct interpretation?

Correct, just remember that designations like extremely light itself has some variation to it, I've seen between 8 to 10 or 11 enemies. Readiness tells you garbage about the number of enemies.

I've noticed that sometimes you can get 2 pods of 4. Or perhaps 3 pods of 3. Many times a solo drone gets thrown in for good measure. So yeah, I've noticed that it varies. Does the number of enemies increase with difficulty level?

[trihero]

I've noticed that sometimes you can get 2 pods of 4. Or perhaps 3 pods of 3. Many times a solo drone gets thrown in for good measure. So yeah, I've noticed that it varies. Does the number of enemies increase with difficulty level?

Difficulty level doesn't directly affect number of enemies (extremely light still means extremely light regardless of rookie or legend) - it does however, indirectly do so in many ways.

For one thing, global advent strength is maybe 20 on rookie but starts at like 40+ on legendary. Force level (which determines type of alien that shows up) goes up much faster on legendary. UFO reinforcements (adds advent strength to regions) come more frequently. So the end result is that the enemy fields more advanced aliens and has on average higher advent strength at any given point in time, which translates to you're probably going to see more aliens because you're fighting strength level 6 on legend in month 3 on legend whereas in rookie that would be unheard of, maybe you see level 3 at the most.

[marceror]

That's a pretty elegant approach to scaling up difficulty, versus just adding a few additional enemies on mission per difficulty level increase.