Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sherlockkat]

So, I had this run where I landed on -4 with a couple of good hacking utilities (Exp and Adv hacking suites) and an alert level which was hovering somewhere around 2. Luckily, I found this level 1 terminal around the entrance and executed alert(purge) about 6 times and got the message "no threat on record" and thought "Great!!". I also managed to hack the exit location.

Except, I walked out and faced resistance which I usually associate with higher alert levels. The programmer dispatch messages started showing up almost as soon as I explored 4~5 rooms. Though, that could be because I was on treads and the clock was ticking faster than I was moving. I ran into waves and waves of reddish grunts and sentries. The assault carriers followed pretty soon and I got whittled down. It was almost as if I didn't purge threats.

So, question about enemy spawns:

i) When a level is generated, does the alert level play a significant factor in the amount of enemies that are spawned in that level or does it only control the rate at which they show up afterwards?

ii) When I purge threat, do enemies actually exit the level in order to reflect the new alert level?

It could be that I was just facing the nominal resistance hanging out in -4 and being a baby about it . But, I am curious about how the alert level mechanic ties to enemy spawns. I was pretty salty losing that run after I hacked the exit location and purged a loooot of threat.

[Kyzrati]

Very nice hacking utilities!

No threat means no threat, yep, and based on what I'm reading here you were just facing normal resistance, it just happened to be that you entered an area where more of them were passing through a smaller space. (Sensors and/or hacking can obviously help avoid situations like this, if you're not up for taking out a lot of hostiles!)

Note that meeting an ARC does not mean that's an assault! All assaults are announced in your message log (I still need to add a warning sfx for that)--there are also patrols moving around in ARCs rather than individually as well. Sometimes those will enter and leave the floor, yes (unrelated to security level).

The answer to both your questions is essentially no.

Any threat response in the form of Programmers and assault ARCs will target you directly, so you won't be able to escape them until after losing them again once they track you down. Although know that you can hack terminals to make them leave the floor .

Really it takes time for the hostile presence to increase with security level, so it's not something that even matters much until you've been on a given floor for a little while.

[Sherlockkat]

Very nice hacking utilities!

Yah!! Those hacking utilities were rad. Those weren't even direct hacks that I did. It was those indirect ones with their innate penalty and everything and it still worked!! 6 times!! Of course, I then tried to seal a garrison access with a 65 percent success chance and failed 4 times :p.

Any threat response in the form of Programmers and assault ARCs will target you directly, so you won't be able to escape them until after losing them again once they track you down. Although know that you can hack terminals to make them leave the floor .

I see. So, if I understand correctly, the most dominant response to rising alert levels are the squads that they send after you and not increased "ambient" hostile presence in form of patrols and such. Is that right?

[Kyzrati]

Right, it's only the Programmers and assaults. Don't forget that things like being traced, reported by Operators, fighting near garrisons, shooting at Haulers that call reinforcements, etc. will also call more backup squads into the floor, some of which may leave after a while without contact, some of which won't.