Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

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Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Icarus »

How viable is it to continue running intel after vigilance exceeds 16? Most of the good missions are out of the pool by then.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

So I obviously have a position on this :p

Regions that are just barely over the threshold should probably just wait for the vigilance to go back down so you can get back to whacking troop columns right away. Higher vig regions will continue to run Intel until I've finished Lib3. You really want those towers. After that, I run recruit if I'm not already at 13 rebels, and I will sometimes over-recruit as a hedge against the inevitable spies. Beyond that, you have some choices:

1) Liberate. If vigilance isn't super-duper high, this can be a good move. But don't liberate more than 3 regions, and consider stopping at 2. You don't need a lot of liberated regions.

2) Run supply. Reliable, but only viable if you have no spies. You'll also miss rare opportunities.

3) Intel. You're fishing for rare events. You only need a few to make this worth it versus running supplies. This is my preferred option.

Let's consider a 13 rebel haven with 5 rebel promotions (reasonable, maybe even conservative), a tower, and a Scientist advisor. That's 15.5*5*1.2*1.2 = 111.6 intel a day. If you don't use a scientist, either because you're trying to root out spies with a soldier, or because you just don't want to divert science resources, you still get 93 a day.

So what are these rare events we're hoping for?

Counterinsurgency
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=60.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=31
Duration: 6-8 days

ReinforceActivity
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=75.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=3.5
Duration: 6-12 days

COINResearch
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=95.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=7
Duration: special (It's handled by a script, not by the inis, and it's a very, very long time. I've seen 14 day durations before)

COINOps
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=65.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=11
Duration= special

EmergencyOffWorldReinforcements
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=100.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=30
Duration: 5-9 days

SuperEmergencyOffWorldReinforcements
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=80.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=34
Duration: 5-9 days

ProtectResearch
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=120.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=17
Duration: 9-12 days

I'm leaving out things like facility construction, force UFOs, and invasions, because they won't spawn in your high vigilance regions to begin with.

You get to roll for discovery every 6 hours, which is a lot. You will 100% find every UFO by day 4, and you are exceedingly likely to find it two or three days earlier. I'd say that the only event that has a reasonable chance of slipping through is the ReinforceActivity (supply raids), and even that is around 60% detectable by the end of day 4 (loose guess, but erring hard on the conservative side).

Someone should do a spreadsheet thing on this.

Anyways, if any of those events happen, you're probably going to find them, especially if you're supporting the region with a scientist. It's hard to quantify the value of this versus supply, but I know for certain that I came out ahead in my AAR. You won't always get that many UFOs, but you get some, and I consider even one to more than pay for a month's supply (keep in mind that much of the benefit is restricting ADVENT strength, which is something that you can't buy).
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Icarus »

Yeah, this question was motivated by your report, among other things.

I have a region strength 3, vigilance 17 in my current playthrough. The region has only liberated neighbors, so no troop movements. I ran full intel on this one, specifically to create an UFO trap. Worked once, but then 40+ days of nothing. So my question was also aiming on what I would do with this region, and if it is at all prudent to create such a region (with locked strength) in the first place.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Psieye »

Antifringe wrote: Let's consider a 13 rebel haven with 5 rebel promotions (reasonable, maybe even conservative), a tower, and a Scientist advisor. That's 15.5*5*1.2*1.2 = 111.6 intel a day. If you don't use a scientist, either because you're trying to root out spies with a soldier, or because you just don't want to divert science resources, you still get 93 a day.

EmergencyOffWorldReinforcements
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=100.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=30
Duration: 5-9 days

Someone should do a spreadsheet thing on this.
Actually I think a step-by-step breakdown is more helpful than a graph at the end of the day. But that's the scientist in me speaking. Check if I understand the steps correctly?

For simplicity's sake say we have a haven generating exactly 100 intel a day.

Time elapsed:
0d 06h - 25 intel pooled -> below threshold
0d 12h - 50 intel pooled -> below threshold
0d 18h - 75 intel pooled -> below threshold
1d 00h - 100 intel pooled -> 30% chance to detect (on this hour)
1d 06h - 125 intel pooled -> 37.5% chance to detect
1d 12h - 150 intel pooled -> 45% chance to detect
1d 18h - 175 intel pooled -> 52.5% chance to detect
2d 00h - 200 intel pooled -> 60% chance to detect
2d 06h - 200+ intel pooled -> 60% chance to detect
2d 12h - 200+ intel pooled -> 60% chance to detect
2d 18h - 200+ intel pooled -> 60% chance to detect
3d 00h - 200+ intel pooled -> 60% chance to detect
etc
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

I'm not so much interested in the chance per roll, which is easy to calculate in your head, but in the cumulative chance, which is not easy to calculate, hence the spreadsheet. Like you say, detection chance per roll is roughly just the base percent times the number of days spent searching, assuming a strong intel haven.

I noticed that you capped the per-roll detection odds after 200 Intel. Is that a real mechanic? I've never heard of that before. That's very punishing if that's how it works.
Last edited by Antifringe on Thu Jul 06, 2017 7:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

Icarus wrote:Yeah, this question was motivated by your report, among other things.

I have a region strength 3, vigilance 17 in my current playthrough. The region has only liberated neighbors, so no troop movements. I ran full intel on this one, specifically to create an UFO trap. Worked once, but then 40+ days of nothing. So my question was also aiming on what I would do with this region, and if it is at all prudent to create such a region (with locked strength) in the first place.
Huh, I've never had an island region before. That's interesting.

I would do one of two things in that situation:

1) Liberate. If you're going to run supply, you may as well go whole hog and liberate. Since this region is cut off, it's not going to ever be a good ADVENT holding pen, so you're not losing much. Instead, you gain the 1.2 multiplier and the increase in the retal bucket sizes.

2) Create a "nature preserve" for low level ADVENT missions. The region is basically stuck at 3. Sure, a UFO might occasionally land directly on the region and give it a legion or two, but those will quickly be knocked back out by the Troop Column mission. Hide until vigilance burns down to 12, and then run full intel and harvest easy missions, forever. You'll need to periodically hide to maintain the low vigilance, but just think of that as instituting a hunting season law. Use the deliberate failure trick to cycle out undesirable missions (probably Jailbreaks and soldier/Engineer resources) and quickly get to the good stuff without affecting vigilance. You will also get the odd rare event as a bonus.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

I just looked up the details on the detection calculations, and they work a little differently than I thought. RequiredRebelMissionIncome is actually subtracted from your total intel pool, and only the excess intel counts towards detection. So for a RequiredRebelMissionIncome=100 and DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=30 and an income of 100 per day, the odds of detection at the end of day one is flat zero, not 30%.

This changes less than you might think about the viability of full intel, but it matters if we decide to start making tables and such.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Psieye »

Antifringe wrote:I just looked up the details on the detection calculations, and they work a little differently than I thought. RequiredRebelMissionIncome is actually subtracted from your total intel pool, and only the excess intel counts towards detection. So for a RequiredRebelMissionIncome=100 and DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=30 and an income of 100 per day, the odds of detection at the end of day one is flat zero, not 30%.

This changes less than you might think about the viability of full intel, but it matters if we decide to start making tables and such.
I see, and there isn't a limit to how high the detection chance can get? I thought I read somewhere that it's capped to double that DiscoveryPct... value but if that's false information then I can put together a formula.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

I've never heard of that rule, but if it's true, it trivializes many of the bonuses that you can get. In particular, the difference between a high level officer and a low level soldier accumulating points for a Rendezvous becomes very, very marginal, since the base percent is only 2% to begin with.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Psieye »

Assuming that rule doesn't exist then, the formula in javascript looks like this:

EDIT: script has been corrected and updated here.

Code: Select all

function discoveryChance(intelPerDay, requiredRebelMissionIncome, discoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome, ticks) {
    var currentIntel = ticks * intelPerDay / 4;
    var surplusIntel = currentIntel - requiredRebelMissionIncome;
    
    if (surplusIntel <= 0) {
        return 0;
    }
    
    return discoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome* surplusIntel/100;
}

function printCumulativeSuccessChance(intelPerDay, requiredRebelMissionIncome, discoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome, ticks) {
    var cumulativeFailChance = 1;
    for (i = 1; i <= ticks; i++) {
        cumulativeFailChance *= (1 - discoveryChance(intelPerDay, requiredRebelMissionIncome, discoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome, i)/100);
        console.log(i+" ticks -> "+(1-cumulativeFailChance)*100+"%");
    }
}

printCumulativeSuccessChance(100, 100, 30, 6);
where 1 tick = 6 hours.

Paste that into Chrome console (hit F12) and you can generate tables of data. Write different printCumulativeSuccessChance() input parameters to suit whatever situation you want to chart out.

For the record, something is seriously wrong if you haven't found that UFO within 2.5~3 days from that '100 intel a day' haven.
Last edited by Psieye on Sat Aug 19, 2017 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Icarus »

Antifringe wrote:2) Create a "nature preserve" for low level ADVENT missions. The region is basically stuck at 3. Sure, a UFO might occasionally land directly on the region and give it a legion or two, but those will quickly be knocked back out by the Troop Column mission. [...]
I can get Troop Columns in isolated regions? I always assumed these require an adjacent, non-liberated region?
JulianSkies
Posts: 301
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:17 am

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by JulianSkies »

Icarus wrote:
Antifringe wrote:2) Create a "nature preserve" for low level ADVENT missions. The region is basically stuck at 3. Sure, a UFO might occasionally land directly on the region and give it a legion or two, but those will quickly be knocked back out by the Troop Column mission. [...]
I can get Troop Columns in isolated regions? I always assumed these require an adjacent, non-liberated region?
Those are ssupply raids, which intercept moving troops. Troop columns kill troops already stationed in the region
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Running intel on high-vigilance regions viable?

Post by Antifringe »

Psieye wrote: For the record, something is seriously wrong if you haven't found that UFO within 2.5~3 days from that '100 intel a day' haven.
Cool script. I made a spreadsheet for myself, but having a portable script that you can just plug into your browser is really nice.
And yeah, UFOs are easier to detect than I thought before I started looking at this quantitatively. They're designed so that low intel regions can't find them at all, but regions that have enough Intel to punch through the high prerequisites will find a soft underbelly underneath. I thought I was getting lucky with the UFO Parking Lot Scam, and maybe I was a little. But the "luck" was that they were choosing to land there at all, not that I was finding them when they did land. The odds of me finding them with a reasonable timer left verged on 100%.
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