"Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

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deaconivory
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"Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

Post by deaconivory »

From the in-game text: (note this is me copying and pasting from a text doc, so take it with a grain of salt)

"The Resistance, with sufficient help from XCOM, may now liberate regions entirely from ADVENT control. They must detect and undertake a series of increasingly difficult missions to do this, culminating with strikes on ADVENT's power centers in the region. The aliens will undertake almost no activities in liberated regions unless they attempt to retake it. The Resistance will generate bonus supplies, recruits and intel for XCOM in liberated regions. Any active infiltration in a region that is liberated will receive a significant bonus to infiltration percentage, and then the Commander will have to decide whether to go on that mission immediately or abort before ADVENT retreats its forces to neighboring regions."

"Send troops to investigate any leads discovered by the Resistance. One of the missions may provide us crucial information about defeating the ADVENT administration in this region. Having more Resistance Fighters assigned to the "Intel" task increases the chance to discover the first Liberation mission among the day-to-day Guerilla Ops. 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. All the more reason to attempt as many Guerilla Ops as possible in your starting region. Find A Lead missions (Recover or Hack) begin the Liberation process."

"Placing Rebels on the "Intel" job in a Haven allows them to contribute to detecting missions in the region. A level-two Rebel is worth 1.5 level-one Rebels. A level-three is worth 2 level-one Rebels. Scanning with the Avenger at the Haven contributes an amount equivalent to four level-one Rebels. Staffing a Scientist as the Haven Advisor multiplies efficiency of mission detection by 1.5.Missions spawn based on hidden alien strategy, with Days +/- Rng/2 days remaining until they expire.Every six hours all Intel created toward detecting missions is applied to all missions in that region. First enough Intel must be created to fill the "Initial" pool, before which there is no chance to find the mission. Once the "Initial" pool is filled, future Intel generation is added to the "100%" pool. Every six hours, undetected missions with Intel in their "100%" pool can be detected by the player with a (100% value)/(intel so far) chance of success. Failing to detect a mission results in the same consequences as failing to beat a mission you have detected."

My Notes

- One of these missions will lead to another mission, or trigger a Point Of Interest (POI) pop up.

- This can include the two-mission UFO activities.

- Any Find A Lead (FAL) mission with "Intel Package" as a reward is either a POI or a Facility lead (you need these to discover the Alien Research Facilities and Blacksite).

- In general these are the most important missions to attempt as they are the stepping stones for XCOM to advance it's campaign against the Avatar Project, and fight back against ADVENT forces in it's contacted regions. You will have a lot of them and will not be able to fight them all, do your best.

- If you miss a critical FAL mission, it will set you back as you will have to search for the lead again.

- In my first region I prioritize every FAL mission until I get a mission labeled "Liberation"
admo
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by admo »

deaconivory wrote:- If you miss a critical FAL mission, it will set you back as you will have to search for the lead again.
Is this still true? There were statements from one of the testers that this did not carry through to release and you now find new missions at the same step.

Secondary question, why do I find so many FAL missions? Does it always go FAL->Liberation:step 1->FAL->Liberation:step 2? I had started dodging FAL missions after I completed the first thinking that I didn't need them once I completed one.
mattprice516
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by mattprice516 »

Once you complete the FAL that is Lib 1, you don't need to do another one - you just need to have enough rebels on Intel to detect Lib 2, which will be labeled "Liberation" in the objectives.

That said, you have no way of knowing if you actually completed Lib 1 until you detect Lib 2 so it's not a good idea to just assume until you've seen Lib 2 pop up.
profDEADPOOL
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by profDEADPOOL »

How bad is it to let a Liberation mission expire? I only detected it with a day left :(
Amineri

Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Amineri »

profDEADPOOL wrote:How bad is it to let a Liberation mission expire? I only detected it with a day left :(
When it expires, a new activity will be created, but it will be hidden, so your Rebels on Intel job (with possibly Avenger scanning help) will have to try and detect it again.
andanteinblue
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by andanteinblue »

deaconivory wrote:First enough Intel must be created to fill the "Initial" pool, before which there is no chance to find the mission. Once the "Initial" pool is filled, future Intel generation is added to the "100%" pool. Every six hours, undetected missions with Intel in their "100%" pool can be detected by the player with a (100% value)/(intel so far) chance of success.
Interesting. So Intel is a "go big or go home" kind of job? One or two rebels gathering Intel would mean only ever finding missions that are nearing expiration, if at all, which seems to be a waste of resources. But you stack Intel, then you're likely to find all missions with a minimal number of ticks to the expiration clock.
Amineri

Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Amineri »

andanteinblue wrote:
deaconivory wrote:First enough Intel must be created to fill the "Initial" pool, before which there is no chance to find the mission. Once the "Initial" pool is filled, future Intel generation is added to the "100%" pool. Every six hours, undetected missions with Intel in their "100%" pool can be detected by the player with a (100% value)/(intel so far) chance of success.
Interesting. So Intel is a "go big or go home" kind of job? One or two rebels gathering Intel would mean only ever finding missions that are nearing expiration, if at all, which seems to be a waste of resources. But you stack Intel, then you're likely to find all missions with a minimal number of ticks to the expiration clock.
Different missions have different requirements. Some require no pool to be filled at all. Also, the way detection works is that it strings together a lot of low-chance rolls, so it's always possible to get lucky even with just a couple of guys on Intel.

Mechanically, it rolls for detection for each activity each in-game 6 hours, so 4 times a day. Detection chance is a float, and might be on the order of 1% to 5%. More rebels increases this % slowly as they gather more intel.
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Arcalane
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Arcalane »

deaconivory wrote:- Any Find A Lead (FAL) mission with "Intel Package" as a reward is either a POI or a Facility lead (you need these to discover the Alien Research Facilities and Blacksite).
Given Intel is a resource earned and spent through missions, I feel like "Intel Package" could have a better name - as it is, it makes me think of the alloy/intel/etc. loot you can get from hacking things in-mission. That would def. explain why I haven't seen many POIs lately though (although I've been keeping a bit of a low profile in some regions as ADVENT is stepping up its operations).

Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
mattprice516
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by mattprice516 »

Amineri wrote:
andanteinblue wrote:
deaconivory wrote:First enough Intel must be created to fill the "Initial" pool, before which there is no chance to find the mission. Once the "Initial" pool is filled, future Intel generation is added to the "100%" pool. Every six hours, undetected missions with Intel in their "100%" pool can be detected by the player with a (100% value)/(intel so far) chance of success.
Interesting. So Intel is a "go big or go home" kind of job? One or two rebels gathering Intel would mean only ever finding missions that are nearing expiration, if at all, which seems to be a waste of resources. But you stack Intel, then you're likely to find all missions with a minimal number of ticks to the expiration clock.
Different missions have different requirements. Some require no pool to be filled at all. Also, the way detection works is that it strings together a lot of low-chance rolls, so it's always possible to get lucky even with just a couple of guys on Intel.

Mechanically, it rolls for detection for each activity each in-game 6 hours, so 4 times a day. Detection chance is a float, and might be on the order of 1% to 5%. More rebels increases this % slowly as they gather more intel.
Or to put it another way.... any time you detect a mission you've missed a 95% shot (to not detect it). ;)
Zyxpsilon
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Zyxpsilon »

Arcalane wrote:Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
I'd personnally go for something like .. "Debunked Secrets" or "Hints by Evidence". :geek:

Yet.. it all takes extreme luck or proper timing of any available (strong enough) Squads. Such activities tend to come in tight groups. I once had *6* consecutive missions to do in a matter of hours -- not days. Had to take a rapid set of guesses -- but failed to hit the jackpot. Low Infiltration timing included in those decisions.
gimrah
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by gimrah »

Is there anything in-game that tells you which bits you've done and what you need to do next?

There is terminology on here like 'point of interest' that has passed me by completely.

So all I know is the mission rewards that say something cryptic are related to liberation (probably) but I don't know what to do with that other than be prepared to take slightly more risk to take on that mission. Can you see your current progress towards a liberation opportunity for example?
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Arcalane
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Arcalane »

Zyxpsilon wrote:
Arcalane wrote:Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
I'd personnally go for something like .. "Debunked Secrets" or "Hints by Evidence". :geek:
Yeah no those are swinging back in the direction of 'annoyingly vague'. The second one sounds like a tautology too, like "water is wet".

~~~~
gimrah wrote:There is terminology on here like 'point of interest' that has passed me by completely.
Point of Interest, in XCOM2 terms, is any mission or scannable object. This can be anything from a basic Rescue mission to a Blacksite. It also covers those miscellaneous scannables that give immediate item rewards like supplies or personnel.
Goumindong
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by Goumindong »

Arcalane wrote:
deaconivory wrote:- Any Find A Lead (FAL) mission with "Intel Package" as a reward is either a POI or a Facility lead (you need these to discover the Alien Research Facilities and Blacksite).
Given Intel is a resource earned and spent through missions, I feel like "Intel Package" could have a better name - as it is, it makes me think of the alloy/intel/etc. loot you can get from hacking things in-mission. That would def. explain why I haven't seen many POIs lately though (although I've been keeping a bit of a low profile in some regions as ADVENT is stepping up its operations).

Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
Maybe something like "Potential Lead"
GavinRuneblade
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

Post by GavinRuneblade »

Potential lead is still confusing. I think a bit of precision might help. "Unlock raid mission" or something that explicitly states that what you get is a second mission not a loot item.
Jadiel
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

Post by Jadiel »

You don't always get a mission. Sometimes, "Find a lead" missions unlock Point of Interests (PoIs). You don't know which "Find a Lead" mission will lead to the start of the Liberation chain.
themefund
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by themefund »

Arcalane wrote:Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
Easy fix: go to "(Your Local Drive)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\844674609\Localization\XComGame.int" and change lines 1846, 1849, & 1861 (DisplayName="__________") to whatever you think is best fit for that situation.
GavinRuneblade
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explaination

Post by GavinRuneblade »

themefund wrote:
Arcalane wrote:Perhaps "Encoded Coordinates" would work better if you don't want to explicitly state whether the package contains a one-shot POI or a Facility Lead?
Easy fix: go to "(Your Local Drive)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\844674609\Localization\XComGame.int" and change lines 1846, 1849, & 1861 (DisplayName="__________") to whatever you think is best fit for that situation.
Hope this doesn't come off as confrontational, it is not intended to be so. But I think This is completely missing the point being discussed. Anyone who knows enough to edit their ini file for this doesn't need to do it.

The point under discussion is helping players who are learning understand what the mission reward is offering them. The change, necessarily must be at PI's end so the right people can benefit from it.
Nibelung44
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

Post by Nibelung44 »

Just discovered today, by reading this thread what 'Intel Package' was. I thought it was either extra intel point or a data pad to crack (for extra intel points!).

So adding my voice here, 'encrypted coordinates' would be much more useful for new players; Not for me anymore, I finally know what 'Intel package' is !
Zyxpsilon
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Re: "Find A Lead" Mission Explanation

Post by Zyxpsilon »

I've already (more than three weeks ago) fixed both issues of pseudo (encoded as Dummy) IntelPackages by editing the guilty lines like this...

[Reward_Dummy_POI X2RewardTemplate]
DisplayName="Liberation Chain" ;="Intel Package"

[Reward_FacilityLead X2RewardTemplate]
DisplayName="Facility Lead" ;="Intel Package"

Of course the "real" POI string (of Line #1846) could also be replaced.
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