Recognizing facility lead missions

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DjAci
Posts: 63
Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2016 12:07 am

Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by DjAci »

Hi community:)

I have a question for all the gurus out there to share with the rest of the folks.

How can you recognize facility missions (or narrow down the choices)

So far my knowledge is as follows:

A facility lead mission comes in two types.
1. Extract VIP (Scientist + Intel package reward always)
2. Hack recover item (Intel + Intel package reward)

The first one is straight forward and you can always get a facility lead.

The hack is a bit tricky, as it can be just a random hack. Is there a way to know if it is facility lead. I think someone said faiclity lead hacks can only be recover item types, so can any1 confirm this and shed some extra light?
Psieye
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by Psieye »

The easier way to narrow it down is by how little time you have to infiltrate. It's also why a lot of players never find facility leads: because they shy away from these low-timer missions. They start showing around June and we're talking "4 days to infiltrate is optimistic" for a large (but not maximised) intel haven. Well, the detection chances go up if the mission happens to spawn in a region with an unrevealed facility.
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faket15
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Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:41 pm

Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by faket15 »

Psieye wrote:The easier way to narrow it down is by how little time you have to infiltrate. It's also why a lot of players never find facility leads: because they shy away from these low-timer missions. They start showing around June and we're talking "4 days to infiltrate is optimistic" for a large (but not maximised) intel haven. Well, the detection chances go up if the mission happens to spawn in a region with an unrevealed facility.
Detecting the mission isn't actually as hard as you think. A haven that generates 50 Intel per day (equivalent to 10 basic rebels) detects it with at least 4 days remaining 53% of the time (67% if the haven has a Facility). The same haven has 41% chance to detect Liberation 2 with at least 4 days remaining, 15% for Liberation 3, 13% for a Supply Raid and 17% for a UFO precursor mission. The difference between Protect Research and the other activities in this list is the Vigilance limit. The mission can only spawn in regions with 10 or less Vigilance and this means that, if you want to detect them, you need to generate lots of Intel in regions with low Vigilance.
DjAci wrote:A facility lead mission comes in two types.
1. Extract VIP (Scientist + Intel package reward always)
2. Hack recover item (Intel + Intel package reward)

The first one is straight forward and you can always get a facility lead.

The hack is a bit tricky, as it can be just a random hack. Is there a way to know if it is facility lead. I think someone said faiclity lead hacks can only be recover item types, so can any1 confirm this and shed some extra light?
They can be Hack, Recover, Rescue VIP or Extract VIP. All the four types can also appear as a Protect Data with the same listed reward making your first case not as straightforward as you thought.

There is no easy way to know a mission you detected is a Protect Research. You can assume the mission is a Protect Data and see if this assumption leads to something that should be impossible. In some cases this is enough for you to know the mission is one, but in other cases you can end up with two or three missions that can be a Protect Research but you don't know which one. Some situations when you can be certain are:

1. You have a mission that could be a Protect Research and, in the same haven, a Destroy Relay mission with the "Find a Lead" description and Intel + Intel Package rewards or a Rescue/Extract VIP mission with the "Find a Lead" description and Engineer/Soldier + Intel Package rewards.
2. You have a mission that could be a Protect Research and, in the same haven, two other missions that you are certain are General Ops. Troop Columns, Smash and Grabs and Jailbreaks are always General Ops. Rescue/Extract VIPs with the "Free an Important Prisoner" description are always General Ops.
LordYanaek
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by LordYanaek »

DjAci wrote:How can you recognize facility missions (or narrow down the choices)
See here, i don't want to retype it all.
Psieye wrote:we're talking "4 days to infiltrate is optimistic"
faket15 wrote:Detecting the mission isn't actually as hard as you think. A haven that generates 50 Intel per day (equivalent to 10 basic rebels) detects it with at least 4 days remaining 53% of the time
I get slightly worse results (might be because i considered a duration of 10 days rather than 10d12h which would be the average duration) but i still consider tossing a coin to detect a mission with 4 days left "optimistic" so i agree with Psieye here. I prefer to look at 80% (or better yet, 95%) detection chance than 50%.
faket15
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by faket15 »

LordYanaek wrote:I get slightly worse results (might be because i considered a duration of 10 days rather than 10d12h which would be the average duration) but i still consider tossing a coin to detect a mission with 4 days left "optimistic" so i agree with Psieye here. I prefer to look at 80% (or better yet, 95%) detection chance than 50%.
I considered all possible durations, not only the average. I agree that a winning a coin toss is optimistic. My problem is that the way people in this forum talk about Facility Lead detection chance make it seem like one of the hardest missions to detect when this is not true at all. To get at least 80% chance to detect the mission with at least 4 days remaining in a haven that doesn't have a Facility you need around 80 Intel per day, the same as Liberation 2, while reaching the same chance for Liberation 3 is only possible with 110 Intel per day and for UFO detection or Supply Raids it isn't possible at all. For 95% you need 120 Intel per day or 90 in a region with a Facility, much less than the 150 you need for Liberation 3.
LordYanaek
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by LordYanaek »

faket15 wrote: I considered all possible durations, not only the average.
Much better of course. I guess i should try to change my spreadsheet to run multiple simulations and consider the average value :geek:
My problem is that the way people in this forum talk about Facility Lead detection chance make it seem like one of the hardest missions to detect when this is not true at all.
Well, after liberation and UFOs, it's one of the hardest (not the hardest, one of...), but the main point is you can easily tell them apart from Liberation and UFOs as Lib2/3 clearly tell you what they are and UFOs don't have Intel Package while Facility Leads look exactly identical to common PoI GOps (Protect Data) so the only way to tell them apart is because usually Facility Leads will appear like "bad" GOps due to lower infiltration timer.

But you were right to remind that they are far from impossible to detect as it's a rather common misconception :)
DjAci
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by DjAci »

Thanks for the info guys:)
Jacke
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by Jacke »

I'm kind of gettin' tired of having to recognise faint clues to internal LW2 workings. Only so many of them I can keep track of and a lot of them I just can't remember.

Shouldn't this be represented in game as Intelligence XCOM would ferret out? I know it can be difficult for LW2 to change XCOM 2 to portray such info in a good way. But I would like some of this stuff to be more explicit, not Secret Squirrel Knowledge requiring a Decoder Ring.
LordYanaek
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by LordYanaek »

I would expect some of those things to change when/if LWOotC becomes a reality. It's a situation where modified covert ops could really shine.

Instead of gaining Facility Leads from random missions that you might identify or not, i could see it as being a chain of 2 covert op. The first one is required to learn the existence of a Facility in a region. It could be activated from anywhere by any faction. Once you learn there is a facility in region X, you have to contact that region (if not done already) and start a second covert ops with the faction in "control" of that region to learn the exact location of the facility, enabling the mission itself.
Both of those covert ops would cost intel to initiate as you have to gather information and both would lead to an actual mission for your covert guys. Covert ops missions would be the perfect opportunity to allow a stealthy play and different builds/tactics and they would be much easier to balance than stealthing through regular missions. I find it sad that the vanilla WotC covert ops only result in missions when you get ambushed - something you can usually easily avoid.

But this is a bit off topic in this strategy thread.
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

Find a lead is in every mission. Can we have better mission info ?
I did know half of stuff before, Now I m not sure that I know anything.

I have manual but it won't help. Please put tips somewhere in game.
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LordYanaek
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by LordYanaek »

SonnyWiFiHr wrote:Find a lead is in every mission. Can we have better mission info ?
There's 2 different intel related rewards that you can get from some missions.
  • Find a lead is a general reward for any mission that gives you intel (usually you get something between 20-30 Intel, at least on Commander). The missions that have Find a Lead can be of multiple types and this is intentional as you're not supposed to have perfect understanding of ADVENT activities. You know "something is brewing" but in order to find what exactly, you have to investigate (send a squad). Those missions typically require you to hack an objective (real hack where the objective is a computer or "hack" to disarm a self destruct on containers) in order to acquire the information you're after. Some missions might also involve rescuing some contact who knows the information in which case you get a VIP (Scientist or Engineer).
    Missions with Find a Lead include :
    • Liberation 1. That mission will always have Find a Lead but no additional reward. Don't get fooled by that apparent lack of reward as it's one of the most important mission, it will unlock the whole Liberation chain which you need to complete at least once in order to advance in the objectives ("Find a Lead" is your second objective after "Set resistance priorities")
    • PoI missions. Those are the missions that will spawn a Point of Interest (PoI, or scansite), the sites you can scan for additional rewards. They will have Intel Package as a reward in addition to the raw Intel.
    • Facility Lead missions as discussed above. They will have Intel Package as a reward in addition to the raw Intel.
    • UFO precursor missions. Those missions will allow you to intercept UFOs as they land to bring reinforcements. This is an extremely efficient way to reduce ADVENT strength by 2 points (you actually prevent Str from rising but the effect is the same) and you get some power for the Avenger in addition. That mission will also show only Intel as a reward (like Liberation 1) and is about as hard to detect as Facility Leads.
  • Intel Package is a general term that might have been better stated as "Encrypted coordinates" or something similar as they are always locations : either location of a PoI or location of a Facility. Thus, missions that list "Intel Package" as a reward are never Liberation 1 nor UFO missions.
Many missions don't have Find a Lead
  • Some VIP rescue where the VIP is the only reward (High Value Prisoner activity)
  • Jailbreaks where you get rebels/rookies (Political Prisoners activity)
  • Every materiel mission (Ambush, Supply line raid, Smash and Grab)
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SonnyWiFiHr
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by SonnyWiFiHr »

I found UFO. On suicide mission.
Every suicide mission is good to go ?
I don't know sometimes I just detect low mission time then I send suicide squad or person.

On Legendary they tend to perform mass suicide in those kind of missions. Not even Stealth overhaul can't help them.
Must say my UFO detection is done by two men squad and they managed to wipe out 9 Advents - but this is so risky (thanks to Musashi )
Shinobi alone on low rank is -you are lucky to get out.

Commander = probably full squad (i don't care for timers on commander).
For fun I will try Swarming +++++++++++++ Liberation (S1 F2 V-I don know) but I have lower chance on Legendary for one man mission.
One drone is enough.
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prokolyo
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Re: Recognizing facility lead missions

Post by prokolyo »

Just wanted to share that I just got my first facility lead, on December 26th. Late Xmas gift I guess :) It was a long wait and some dedicated reading so I can get it...
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