Plot cost-benefit ranking (light spoilers)

[sedygrizly]

Hello. First of all, this topic should contain some minor spoilers - mainly list of plots with very brief description. But I see no reason to go into any depth - my idea is only to give players guide how to treat plot options (and avoid deadly ones).

After losing my first game mainly thanks to opening some crazy Syndicate subplot, I decided to go more investigation before starting new run. I think that I chased too many things way too early, but issue is that it is really hard for newbie to say what plot priorities are (without extensive wiki study).

My goal is to list all main plots here - I will add new plots and info from discussion. I will also try to keep it ordered, 1 being top priority. I know that priorities might change during progression (e.g. some plot might be very unworthy to chase early, but very worthy to chase after Prom3 or something like that - thanks to cost reduction). Also some plots might have multiple subplots with different priority - I will do my best and maybe change ranking system later when I have more info.

Cost = any expenses caused by plot, most commonly dead/injured agents, extra research. (I hope that no plot requires extra building or expensive gear)

Benefit = tech, loot. Ofc fun and variety is good too, but thats not point of this list.

Thanks all for the help.

Plots

1. Defend Earth

Obviously main one - progress as quickly as needed to be able to fight aliens. Rushing Promotions is top priority always.

2. Deep ones
Great benefit. Can be started immediately. No nasty surprises.

3. Osiron
Good benefit. Can be started immediately. Requires some undercover mission.


4. Syndicate

Good in general, but needs proper timing (see bellow).

Syndicate phases

a) Beginning

Good benefit. Can be started immediately.

b) Data seizure

Huge benefit, but devastating cost when started too early. Should be started only with available fighter craft (better than helicopters) and quick transport craft.

c) HQs

Good benefit, but challenging.

5. Hybrids

Great benefit. Can be started immediatelly.

6. MiB

Good benefit, potential cost. Should be delayed to Promo III.

7. Ghosts
Good benefit. Cost and timing to be clarified.

8. Cult of Apocalypse
OK benefit. Should be delayed to Promo III.

9. Cyberweb
Little early benefit for some cost. Delay until ready (finish with lasers).

10. UAC
Little to no benefit.

11. Shogg
Little to no benefit.

12. Zombies
No benefit, big cost.

As said at start, I will update this based on discussion. I will try to keep it spoiler friendly as much as possible. In discussion itself, there might be greater spoilers, be aware.

EDIT: I got idea that listing one time events here might be good too, e.g. to not stress too much player about getting his ass kicked or missing out mission (E.g. lobsters are one of these?)

[psavola]

Contains some spoilers, but nothing really significant:

1. Defend earth. Wrt. basic cults Black Lotus is IMHO by far the easiest cult to deal with first (if you know how to deal with the assassins, i.e. with dogs and rats). Exalt mansion is a maze, but otherwise it's OK. Dagon and Red Dawn can be deadly for various reasons and I usually go there only after I have obtained Promo III and TAC + gas grenades.

2. MIBs and Hybrids are two completely different plotlines.

a) MIBs can be tough but if you know to deal with them, they give very good loot. You may want to defer researching MIB agent for a while, because if you do and also get info on David Vincent, you may get a one-time mission that can be a bit tough if you are not well prepared (at least Promo III).

b) Hybrid plotline isi unlocked usually either through Red Dawn HQ or Exalt HQ missions. Essentially you are already Promo III when this occurs. Dealing with controller mission is crucial in order to be able recruit alien hybrids for powerful psionics. Once you have done that, and trained the psionics, everything becomes very easy.

3. a) The first branch of syndicate plotline can be unlocked early. There is some OK loot and access to easy research. Advisable.
    b) The second branch of syndicate plotline (data seizure) may need to be deferred a bit until you have craft(s) capable of shooting down their retaliation and a fast enough craft to get into the three second stage missions with 8-16 hour times (e.g. SKYMARSHALL). The second stage is extremely useful. It unlocks KITSUNE, an ultimate fast craft for going to missions.
    c) The third stage of syndicate plotline is the syndicate regional HQ, where you can get Helix Knight transformation, which helps. The final part (Syndicate HQ) gives you the best transformation of the game and is very useful. The mission can be challenging without strong psionics. So progressing hybrid path (or good luck with RNG with hybrid defectors having strong PST) is advisable.

4. Zombie arc is essentially useless, and some zombie catacomb, vampire castle, etc. missions can cause losses and be tedious. The final prize of the zombie arc is IMHO not worth all this trouble. Just go forward with it until you get bored. You will want Zombie Trooper, though, but it's not really even part of the zombie arc. And zombies corpses can be utilized in the early game for manufacturing healing gel which is much more handy than regular healing kits at this point.

5. Underwater arc provides excellent loot: materials for plastic aqua-armors (very good overground as well), deep one corpses which will unlock biology and alien containment and thus allow later capturing and interrogating aliens, juggernaut suits from gillman heroes, huge amounts of cash, etc. Very advisable to go forward with it. Especially early abyssal artifact delivery missions can be helpful to obtain an alien corpse and get started with alien containment.

6. Shogg does not provide any real benefit. "The caves part" is one path to get promo III but there are others. Out of underground missions Chtonite Minibase Assaults are one way to get aliens and tech.

7. Osiron provides very good loot and access to syndicate plot arc. Very advisable to get started with it as early as you can (no real downsides), except you will have to know how to deal with the surf time mission with your naked agents (hint: dogs and camping in the left side of the starting building).

8. Early cyberweb arc provides one path for Promo III (but I have never been able to utilize that). Little early benefit, and you have to be careful. Ultimately will provide with a good transformation for your weak-PST soldiers, but it takes a while to get it. You will probably want laser weapons before dealing with the last 1-2 missions.

9. Cereal cult is just a random mission, not worth mentioning here.

10. Cult of apocalypse is reasonably straightforward arc that gives you rather easy access to a good transformation. You can usually start with this around Promo III or so, depending on RNG. This is probably the easiest way to get an ultimate transformation.

[Vakrug]

No mentions about Ghost and UAC arcs? Strange.

Main benefit from Ghost arc are psy weapons which are underwater and ignores armor. Allows to deal with armored MiBs and makes much easier to deal with Aquatoids in their sub. Also ghosts are almost perfect punch bags to train melee. That lost relevancy with introduction of possibility to buy trained agents.

UAC arc (do nor confuse with Apocalypse arc) does not provide significant benefits, UAC weapons are garbage. Even their plasma weapons are unimpressive, because appears very late in a game.

[psavola]

OP probably had not seen these arcs yet.

For what it's worth, I completely agree with both assessments. I'll add that with ghost arc it may make sense to start cautiously after the asylum, and start with haunted farms (not houses). Unless you have decent gear (lasers or sonic blastas or some such), big hordes of ghosts can be brutal especially if you spawn in the middle of the map or the ghosts are close by. There are ways to deal with poltergeists with armoring, but getting stunned is more difficult issue to deal with.

[SBBurzmali]

UAC also gives access to warp weapons for what it's worth. Pulse aren't bad if you haven't unlocked plasma or gauss weapons, though, yeah, kinetic is pretty weak late game. PSI weapons aren't too great either, lots of enemies are just better dealt with with plasma weapons and those don't require psi powers to get the biggest bang. I'm a fan of the AoE psi weapon, it is just too pricey to use for anything more that a smash and grab, unless to are mainline Nobles.

The zombie chain has a reward at the end, maybe not the best reward, but not nothing.

[sedygrizly]

Thanks for replies guys, I rewrote entire list.

No mentions about Ghost and UAC arcs? Strange.

I have faint memory of Asylum from some play years ago... maybe it was one time mission expanded into arc later?

Can you please elaborate on Ghosts? Can it be started immediately, and is there some unusal risk (cost)?

You may want to defer researching MIB agent for a while, because if you do and also get info on David Vincent, you may get a one-time mission that can be a bit tough if you are not well prepared (at least Promo III).

This is Important...does it mean that if you miss that mission, you can never progress arc? Are there are missions like that in any plot? I will definitely add such info to the list.

a) The first branch of syndicate plotline can be unlocked early. There is some OK loot and access to easy research. Advisable.
    b) The second branch of syndicate plotline (data seizure) may need to be deferred a bit until you have craft(s) capable of shooting down their retaliation and a fast enough craft to get into the three second stage missions with 8-16 hour times (e.g. SKYMARSHALL). The second stage is extremely useful. It unlocks KITSUNE, an ultimate fast craft for going to missions.
    c) The third stage of syndicate plotline is the syndicate regional HQ, where you can get Helix Knight transformation, which helps. The final part (Syndicate HQ) gives you the best transformation of the game and is very useful. The mission can be challenging without strong psionics. So progressing hybrid path (or good luck with RNG with hybrid defectors having strong PST) is advisable.

Can you please clarify relationship between branches/stages? Can you finish A without doing B (in case there is some finish), but mainly can you reach C without doing B...etc?

Dagon and Red Dawn can be deadly for various reasons and I usually go there only after I have obtained Promo III and TAC + gas grenades.

Mhm strange. Dagon was a laughing stock to me at Veteran difficulty, used them to get Promo III. I guess it depends how their role fits your playstyle, or I just got lucky. Anyway I removed cult ranking from the list - game is very transparent about cult differences and it is subjective.

[psavola]

I have faint memory of Asylum from some play years ago... maybe it was one time mission expanded into arc later?

Can you please elaborate on Ghosts? Can it be started immediately, and is there some unusal risk (cost)?

Yes, the arc was expanded some years back, and it starts from the asylum mission.

Ghost arc can be started after you get cover: scientists and parapsychology i.e. Promo II timeframe. There is some randomness to when the first mission appears. It is advisable to start the first mission early. The asylum mission can be accomplished already with helicopter, but for training purposes it's better to wait for getting the whole squad there with osprey.

There is no unusual risk with the ghost arc, as long as you are careful with which missions you get to. Some of them can be rather dangerous if you are not adequately prepared and don't know what they are. As I said, it's best to start with "haunted farms" and work up from there.

This is Important...does it mean that if you miss that mission, you can never progress arc? Are there are missions like that in any plot? I will definitely add such info to the list.

Regarding David Vincent mission. This is one-time entirely optional mission. It does give two chances of easy research into advanced alien tech, in addition to MIB loot.

There are many one-time optional missions in XCF in many plots. None of them are critical, but most of them provide at least something useful. Usually a chance at get some useful research by interrogation and a weapon.

The other ones are the following. I've listed them in the rough order of the most important to least important:

- Ambushing alien abductors w/ Gertrud Ellison (the most useful mission, allows you to capture live sectoid navigator, engineer and leader, which gives you access to early alien tech and psionics; you will need to know how to deal with this to get them alive; this can really boost your game if you get you know how to deal with this and get this in late Promo II or Promo III timeframe)
- Dr. Alpha's hideout (extremely useful and IMHO the second most important one-time mission: interrogating Dr. Alpha can you early access to psionics, which can be really useful if you missed capturing sectoid leader in Gertrud Ellison mission or haven't gotten the mission yet)
- Lo Wo's refuge (Black Lotus; you get ancient katana, which is excellent weapon, especially when used in Dreamscape missions)
- Meridian hunting (some research, capture or repurposing seeker drones may be also worth something)
- Natasha Morozova's hideout (Red Dawn; you get special VSS weapon which is great, and the best undercover weapon)
- Hell cruise with Dr. Hadriex (you get hadriex gun, which is now effectively superseded by better ghost arc weapons)
- Agent Wilheard's voyage (nothing too fancy at the point this appears)
- Horrors of antarctica (doesn't really give you anything)
- Project Samael (Cult of Apocalypse arc endgame option, doesn't really give anything useful)

As should be obvious from above the first one (and maybe also the next two) are very important missions. Whether or not you get them and deal with them properly will significantly affect your pacing and game experience.

I may have omitted a few that in practice occur only once but are not strictly defined so with "maxRuns: 1". There are also a number of more or less rare optional missions that can occur multiple times.

Regarding syndicate stages:

Can you please clarify relationship between branches/stages? Can you finish A without doing B (in case there is some finish), but mainly can you reach C without doing B...etc?

It's advisable to get Osiron as early as possible (no real downside) and unlock syndicate as early as possible.

The first branch of syndicate missions (syndicate warehouse, syndicate lab, syndicate monster lab) are rather easy and somewhat rewarding. You can also use this to terminate the monster arc (after abandoned syndicate lab), but usually you don't want to, at least immediately, because monster missions provide good training opportunities for you.

You just have to be careful with syndicate data seizure mission. Just skip it or at least don't successfully complete it until you're ready. If you do, this will trigger syndicate retaliation and three special missions with 8-16 hour timers (you'll need a fast craft to get into those). The retaliation will continue every month as long as you've completed all three.

After you've repulsed the syndicate, you will additionally get syndicate regional headquarters mission. By capturing the CEO, you gain Helix Knight improvement and unlock syndicate HQ mission (monthly chance to go there).

Depending on the stage of progress you may need to defer syndicate HQ mission for a bit, because it can be really difficult if a) you get bad spawn in the middle of map and b) you don't have good psionics. As said, Syndicate HQ mission gives you eventually by far the best transformation in the game (spartanism), so it's really advisable to complete the arc.

Mhm strange. Dagon was a laughing stock to me at Veteran difficulty, used them to get Promo III. I guess it depends how their role fits your playstyle, or I just got lucky. Anyway I removed cult ranking from the list - game is very transparent about cult differences and it is subjective.

The biggest challenge in Dagon HQ mission are gillman terrorists, which will fry your agents if any enemy unit spots your troops. Obviously savescumming may help there, but I'm speaking from ironman-type experience. If you want to reduce the likelihood of losses, you may want to have plastic-aqua armor before you go there, which gives some decent protection against ELECTRIC (usually you survive at least one gillman hit) and makes you immune to CHOKE (so you can spam gas grenades).

[SBBurzmali]

I'm not even sure I'd seen aqua plastic, never mind enough to make a meaningful number of suits before Dagon was long since eliminated. There attack is an arc, so you can reduce it by taking cover near overhangs, AI cheating aside.

[psavola]

I'm not even sure I'd seen aqua plastic, never mind enough to make a meaningful number of suits before Dagon was long since eliminated. There attack is an arc, so you can reduce it by taking cover near overhangs, AI cheating aside.

It helps to have RNG to get abyssal artifact delivery to gain a couple of aqua plastics and a Deep one corpse, and thus get started on researching things that lead to alien containment. When you have that and have squeezed eldritch language out of Dagon chosen or sorcerer, you can interrogate the next live deep one you see and capture. Then you can start raiding their villages, which gives you roughly 50 aqua plastics each. And you have then also completed one of the Promo III prerequisites. Depending on RNG this has typically occurred for me around the end of 1997 or the first half of 1998.