What is a lead? How does one get a lead?

[Goumindong]

OK. So on my previous game i got a "lead" pretty early. But got bogged down in "liberating a region" because i had started in Asia. (and decided to restart) But i don't actually know how this occurred. At my current game its July 17. I've run probably 30 missions and more or less keep 2.5 squads infiltrated all the time. I have captured one advent VIP, rescued many scientists and engineers, hit two enemy supply trains, defended my self from a handful of attacks(both retaliation and infiltration), killed a codex and am decoding its brain... but i don't have a lead. I've got 10+ people with a scientist working on a lead... but no lead.

And no actual clue what a lead is, how to acquire one, or what it means. Which missions might give me leads? I have done plenty of missions with "intel packages" as rewards and have succeeded those fully... But i have no lead(and indeed don't actually get anything from the intel package as far as i can tell, its not in inventory, not in research). I haven't seen a mission with a reward of "lead" either so i am quite confused as to what I am supposed to do. Or if i am just supposed to wait and hope the RNG doesn't screw me?

[Arcalane]

deacon already has a big handy post on exactly this topic; http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 20&t=23754

[trihero]

No magic to it, put a lot of rebels on intel, use avenger scan, focus in an area until you see "find a lead" in the mission description either under objectives or under rewards I forget which. If you have like 1-2 rebels on intel in each region you will have a hard time finding liberation rewards.

July sounds pretty late not to have found any leads, sounds possible you missed some "ead" missions earlier on but they will keep popping up until you do them.

Leads are not items or anything, it's just something you see in the mission description.

[Goumindong]

deacon already has a big handy post on exactly this topic; http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 20&t=23754

Oh my god its terrible

"This first mission will not have a label, so you will not know that it is the beginning of the Liberation Chain until you complete it"

why? Why god why?

[trihero]

Oh wow the first one in the chain doesn't have a title? I did not know that. I just stumble along because I do any missions that are reasonably easy, and those first ones in the chain are easier than hte later ones.

[Rebus]

Haha, I agree that "explanation" thread is not very useful as it lacks obvious specific information. What exactly is meant by a "lead" - an objective achieved or a physical item, the explanation given there could be taken to mean either. Is it something like the alien data thingie you can sometimes loot and have to research? Is it just something that triggers? Do you have to liberate the starting region too, or just new regions? Etc. There is a lot missing from that explanation, and the ufopedia is pretty basic. I got something in an early mission that I think was called a data or maybe even a lead, and sold it Black Market as I had no idea what it was and assumed there would be too much to research early on - researching them has some utility in vanilla, but not always. If that's what it was then maybe don't make them sellable(!)?

[Manifest]

On this subject I've unlocked the mission to assault an advent network tower (it doesn't mean expire) in a region but I still keep getting missions in this region with "find a lead" rewards. Aren't those rewards pointless now?

[trihero]

Haha, I agree that "explanation" thread is not very useful as it lacks obvious specific information. What exactly is meant by a "lead" - an objective achieved or a physical item, the explanation given there could be taken to mean either. Is it something like the alien data thingie you can sometimes loot and have to research? Is it just something that triggers? Do you have to liberate the starting region too, or just new regions? Etc. There is a lot missing from that explanation, and the ufopedia is pretty basic. I got something in an early mission that I think was called a data or maybe even a lead, and sold it Black Market as I had no idea what it was and assumed there would be too much to research early on - researching them has some utility in vanilla, but not always. If that's what it was then maybe don't make them sellable(!)?

The "lead" is not a physical item, it's just an invisible checkbox/objective in the chain of events. It is not an advent datapad, and it is not the alien facility lead item. The only time you see the "lead" is in the mission description in either objective or reward, I can't forget which. You get it automatically from winning the mission and it never tells you that you got it. In 1.1 they are making the haven management UI reflect that you got the lead by implementing a bullet point system that fills up depending on which liberation missions you've done. You're not required to liberate any particular region. The "lead" missions just show up as you're doing your normal scanning of missions and doing missions in an area. The only things you need to worry about to get them to show up are putting rebels on intel, and perhaps doing one or two missions in the area before they are allowed to show up (although in the late game, I've gotten situations where my first mission in a new region was a lead mission).

On this subject I've unlocked the mission to assault an advent network tower (it doesn't mean expire) in a region but I still keep getting missions in this region with "find a lead" rewards. Aren't those rewards pointless now?

I think it's a bug, and I've encountered it too, and yes there's no real point in terms of advancing liberation. They're still pretty easy missions to gain ranks and any other rewards the mission offers though.

[mattprice516]

On this subject I've unlocked the mission to assault an advent network tower (it doesn't mean expire) in a region but I still keep getting missions in this region with "find a lead" rewards. Aren't those rewards pointless now?

Liberation missions aren't the ONLY kinds of missions you can get leads for.

That's also why you can succeed at a mission with "Find a Lead" as the reward without knowing for sure it's the first Liberation mission. That lead may be a scannable POI, a facility lead, an unlock of the Lib 2 mission, or an unlock of another kind of mission.

[Rebus]

Ok, makes sense now. The pips on the management screen in 1.1 now help a lot. I think my problem was that from the start I had too many guys set at "int" and was generating too many missions per zone, so was doing quite a few "find a lead" missions in each zone or more than I needed anyway. I seem to have levelled lots of guys, but not advanced the story far at all - no liberations yet in any zone.

[Zyxpsilon]

Oooopppsss.. didn't check for similar threads before making a post about that mysterious gameplay cycle..

anyway -- refer to this http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 16&t=23966 if you want some cute visual hints about what's involved -- at first step.