Frustration with Syndicate retaliation

[hairybert]

It's Jan 1998 and I'm on promotion II (problem for promotion III is that no cult forward base has shown up yet, and I missed to capture the VIP at the Durathread factory).

Now I'm getting lots of hostile "Syndicate retaliation" Dragonflys. So far, I didn't succeed in a single shoot-down, no matter what I try. The only vehicles with weapon slots available to me are the Humvee and the Little Bird. Stat-wise, Little Bird should be the better option. But it is always the same: I chase that Syndicate Dragonfly and eventually the air-battle window pops up. But it closes again immediately, before I could do anything. I guess the moment I enter the air-battle, the Dragonfly accelerates and my Little Bird cannot keep pace.

Is there anything I can do? Or will it inevitably end in a base defense mission (which I really would like to avoid)?

Also, what are the Little Birds actually good for? I guess Dragonflys are at the lower end of the spectrum of enemy crafts.

[Stone Lake]

No idea how did you get syndicate retals that early.

Imo, there's nothing you can do, except accept the base defense. It probably won't repeat in a while.

Little birds can be used for shooting cars/convoys or other helis. Can be useful for farming pilot exp, but definitely niche case.

[psavola]

There's probably a typo at the date or something fishy going on. But nonetheless:

You get syndicate retaliation only after you have completed the Syndicate Data Seizure mission. After that mission you will also get a number of important "phase two" missions with 8-16 hour timers. Even if you try to get the first phase syndicate missions as early as you can (which makes sense, because they offer good research and loot and can be completed with HELICOPTER or OSPREY grade crafts), you should not even try to complete the data seizure mission before you have obtained KITSUNE. You will need a fast craft to get to those phase two syndicate missions, and you'll need ways to shoot down the retaliations. Usually I have started dealing with the syndicate by the end of 1997, but usually end up delaying the Data seizure mission (or not researching the syndicate network) for at least 4-6 months.

[hairybert]

No typo. I see the first retaliation Dragonfly on 1998-01-02. Data seizure mission was on 1997-12-21. It looked like yet another undercover mission to me. I did not have an idea that this single mission has such a huge impact on the game progression, otherwise I would have skipped it.

[psavola]

The first time(s) you play you get these, it cannot be avoided. Some deem this part of the fun.

If you want to try to avoid some of these, you'll need to look at the tech tree viewer / rulesets / trigramreactor data very carefully; the research and missions in particular. It is especially useful to check the triggers. Of course there are also other pitfalls you may stumble upon that lead to nasty surprises.

[hairybert]

Hi psavola, thank you for all the explanations. That makes sense.

Unfortunately, I don't have a savegame from before the data seizure mission (also, I really would like to keep my messy but successful run of Morozova's hideout, which happened only a few days later).

But I still have a savegame from end of December, and I flirt with the idea of going back to that, removing 'STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED' from the discovered techs in the savegame. Then no retaliation and phase 2 missions will happen, since the mission generation scripts are executed only at the beginning of each month. I then continue the game, pretending that I did not do the data seizure mission before. I will do that mission again when I'm ready (in the sense that I have interceptors and Kitsune), which hopefully will set STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED again, triggering all that nasty stuff in the subsequent month.

[psavola]

You get STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED either by successfully completing the data seizure mission or at the latest when researching the syndicate floppy disc you get from the mission. The mission won't spawn again if you have researched it (and thus obtained Syndicate Operations). If you don't want to do the mission again and haven't researched the floppy disc yet, I suppose it would be the easiest to remove STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED, and just research the floppy disc when you're ready.

[hairybert]

Ah, interesting. So both the successful mission and researching the floppy disc give STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED. Probably to cover the the case that someone steals the floppy and aborts the mission.

In fact I started to research the floppy disc, but it is not finished. So I will assign the researchers to something else (there are plenty of options...). Otherwise, I remove STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED from my savegame and the progression then should be close to what it would have been if I skipped the mission.

For balancing the game, I wonder if it might be a good idea to modify Little Bird/Syndicate Dragonfly a little bit such that Little Bird has some winning chances.

[termidor]

Well just go for Promo III asap and Mig 31's, there is no much else to do. Getting an officier even if it costs some lifes is worth it imo, and knockout grenades make some captures rather easy. You have an option with the Cf 105 arrow but you'll need an exalt master for that which means hopefully next month HQ assault. The fastest way to get promo III for me has been Dagon due to deep one communities, but considering so early syndicate I can't really say 

[hairybert]

Thanks for the pointer to the CF-105. So if you are lucky, there *is* a fighter plane available before Promotion III (although only shortly before, as pointed out).

In fact, I just got my first forward base, which happened to be EXALT. The master was standing pretty close to my Skyranger, no problem to capture him. I will interrogate the hell out of him...

[sedygrizly]

One of many deadly traps for inexperienced players. This mod has actually more traps than solid ground 

I got floppy disk at middle 98, while being prom 2 only. Syndicate retaliated (straight yolo for base, unstopable by Little bird). Lost many good people - prom 2 gives you nothing to fight syndicate captains/super soldiers  properly in this scenario. That would be fine, issue is that retailiation continued...first Syndicate Dragonflies searched frequently, easy to chase off by Little bird. But then straight yolo happened again, and I had no chance to defend again, base was still crippled from first attack. I had to use Debug to not have to start whole game again.. (btw this is first time ever in my gaming life I use limited savescumming regularly and I do not feel bad about it... this mod pitfalls are just too deadly for new players - even when wiki is used frequently)

I picked wrong difficulty by accident (Veteran instead of planned Experienced), so it might be better for new players with proper difficulty. But still forcing player to fight for life against elite syndicate at PRom 2 seems wrong to me. Single retaliation should be fair enough. But I am casual, it might seem fine to nerds knowing best grenades combo, soldieros compo, mines, weakness of every enemy, etc . E.g. I do not even use grenades, that mechanic seems just to broken to me... unfortunately enemies do not care .

You get STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED either by successfully completing the data seizure mission or at the latest when researching the syndicate floppy disc you get from the mission. The mission won't spawn again if you have researched it (and thus obtained Syndicate Operations). If you don't want to do the mission again and haven't researched the floppy disc yet, I suppose it would be the easiest to remove STR_SYNDICATE_PISSED, and just research the floppy disc when you're ready.

Thanks for the tip, removed it from save. Will put it back at Prom 3.

Btw I plan to change difficulty midgame to desired one .... I hope it does not cripple game, right? Ofc I have too many cult manors at map right now, but that should be only issue I hope.

[Solarius Scorch]

One of many deadly traps for inexperienced players. This mod has actually more traps than solid ground 

But this one was 100% intended to be a trap. Moreso than any other element of the mod, I think.

I picked wrong difficulty by accident (Veteran instead of planned Experienced)

You can change it in the save; just edit "difficulty: 2" to difficulty: 1".
XCF doesn't have any advanced features which depend on difficulty, so it should be fine.

so it might be better for new players with proper difficulty. But still forcing player to fight for life against elite syndicate at PRom 2 seems wrong to me. Single retaliation should be fair enough. But I am casual, it might seem fine to nerds knowing best grenades combo, soldieros compo, mines, weakness of every enemy, etc . E.g. I do not even use grenades, that mechanis seems just to broken to me... unfortunately enemies does nto care .

I'm rather casual myself, and I feel you. But this isn't an obligatory arc, you can just bail. And learning to bail is essential.

[sedygrizly]

I'm rather casual myself, and I feel you. But this isn't an obligatory arc, you can just bail. And learning to bail is essential.

But that is the main issue imo - how am I supposed to know that I can bail this out, without blocking progress to nice necessary technology (unless intensive wiki study)

I got mission with -1k points respawn penalty iirc. So I went there, and did what I ussually do when meeting new stuff in this mod- failed first attempt misserably, so reloaded to try it with some knowledge. Tried usual approach when you face superior enemy - defend spawn point for your life or flee. Thanks to very good snipers, I was able to win mission actualy, since snipers is only Prom2 weapon style which can kick elites Syndicates ass.

Ofc now I know, and I will simply skip it next time - 1k pts is not that much. But when players does not know, he falls into GAME OVER path with very little chance to avoid it. That is not good design imo.
It would be nice to give players some warning in mission description at least - "This secret military knowledge is very valauble to Syndicate - they will pursue it at all cost".

You can change it in the save; just edit "difficulty: 2" to difficulty: 1".
XCF doesn't have any advanced features which depend on difficulty, so it should be fine.

Good, did that, thanks.

[Solarius Scorch]

But that is the main issue imo - how am I supposed to know that I can bail this out, without blocking progress to nice necessary technology (unless intensive wiki study)

There is no blocking, there may only be a delay. If a mission is too challenging, come back to it later.

There are one time missions, but they're all specifically marked as such, and also none of them is obligatory.

XCF is overall a difficult mod to get into, I get that. Most players will fail once or a few times before they beat the mod. But I think that's fair; the alternative would be to make the game too handholdy, and that clashes with the idea of "enemy unknown".

[Stone Lake]

prom 2 gives you nothing to fight syndicate captains/super soldiers  properly in this scenario

E.g. I do not even use grenades, that mechanic seems just to broken to me... unfortunately enemies do not care

he falls into GAME OVER path

> boom boom makes enemy die
> can't use, to hard. better lose
> calls us nerds

There's several promo 2 shooty-shoot grenade launchers for those who can't figure the whole "hit 0 on timer and press next turn to boom" thing on grenades.

Newsflash - promo 3 mainly gets you better explosives. So once you get there, pick up tactical GL and shoot a gas grenade into a bunch of syndicate soldiers or other humans. You'll hopefully get what you're missing on.