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I'm considering attempting a run. It seems like an interesting optimization problem. And by interesting I mean really hard.

Is anyone currently working on this game? Does anyone have a copy of the run that was rejected?
Thread title:  
Waiting hurts my soul...
I have a copy, haven't taken a look at it or played my own copy of the game. How should I get it to you?
Thanks. How big is it and how good is your upload speed? I generally think uploading to a filehost is the easiest if you can find one that'll take it. But if you can set up a torrent, that would work too.
Edit history:
ZenicReverie: 2011-08-06 09:07:11 pm
Waiting hurts my soul...
it's 820 MB zipped up at 790 MB. My upload is okay, torrent is fine, but I don't know what tracker to use. Do you have a suggestion?
Give me money or I shoot you in face
I remember I did the run for this which got rejected. Albeit it was quite botched and I made a lot of faults, but I can help you with a lot of things now that I have learnt a great deal more about this game. If there's anything you need you can ask me as well. I did make a lot of faults like I said, but I have a good understanding and I was obsessed with this game on Xbox 360 for quite a while. I assume the differences between PC and Xbox 360/PS3 are not very great?
I watched your run (thanks Zenic). It could use some improvement, but I'm impressed that you went and did a single-segment run by yourself. I'd probably do a segmented run if I decide to try it. That would allow for riskier strategies, so some things I'll suggest might not be practical in SS. I'm currently doing a hard/recruit playthrough trying to use different skill than my first. After that I'll try easy/veteran.

I haven't noticed any major differences between console and PC, except for the controls. The hacking game is awkward on PC since one code is controlled with the mouse, which doesn't work very well. And the sensitivity in the lockpicking game is very low, which makes it hard to move the pins quickly. But it's easy to line them up, which I've heard it isn't on XBox. The PC version has a menu from which you can access the inventory, character, and intel screens. Does the console version? I never saw you use it. You can start missions (and thus access the clearinghouse) from the intel screen, which would be faster than running to the safehouse exit sometimes. Also, I just discovered that there are shortcut keys for those screens which don't appear in the key configuration menu: I for inventory, P for service record/skills, and M for missions/intel/map. If the versions are considered comparable, the console version would be timed like a PC game, factoring out all the load times.

I'm curious whether you did any testing of which dialog options affect cutscenes later in the game, or consulted the Alpha Protocol wiki. (Maybe it didn't exist when you did your run?) It seemed like you made some odd choices, like sparing Omen Deng and getting the message from him in the final mission. There are way too many choices to test all the possibilities, but there are a few major things that should be checked. For instance, does it matter who your handler is for the final mission? Does joining Halbech make the rest of the mission faster?

Mission order is also complicated. Obviously you need to meet certain people before you can do missions where you need them as handlers. But there are lots of effects based on what you've done and your reputation with various characters. Also, it's probably best to do the easy missions from each city before doing any with tough combat or boss fights, in order to be higher level for those missions.

As for skills, Toughness is clearly the best. Stealth also lets you get past enemies without a fight or get fast kills, but doesn't combine well with sprinting along the shortest route to your objective. So I think the points might be better used elsewhere. I'm not sure you really get your points' worth with Shotguns either. They're useful for killing weaker enemies without slowing down and knocking people down with Room Sweep, but I think other weapons have better DPS. Assault Rifles are awkward to use at short range, but still very effective if you aim for the head and activate the scope. This strategy becomes effective at medium range if you stack accuracy enough. A wiki contributor claims you can defeat any boss with Chain Shot, Brilliance, Chain Shot again. I haven't tested it against most of them, but it seems plausible. That would require investing a lot of points in a weapon that's only useful every 45 seconds for most of the game, though. But when you do use it, it pretty much wrecks everyone in your line of sight. Breyko would probably trigger his cutscene before you killed him though, so it might be worth paying Heck to spike his coke.

Finally, you may not have realized that you can carry EMP charges in more than one inventory slot. So if there are enough available for purchase, that would let you skip almost all the minigames.
Give me money or I shoot you in face
ah yeah I didnt see you could equip multiple EMP charges, so that's definitely a fail on my part. As for weapon choices, I do think investing loads of a handgun is a little pointless as you can't really pistol run everything, but as you rightly pointed out it's really good for bosses. I hid behind the wall and clip the bosses usually. With a high skill I could just up critical after critical really easily. Master chain shot would need a little too much work, but maybe the second tier of chain shot would be very useful.

I failed with the shotgun because I neglected to raise martial arts, which not I think about it probably lost me the most time. My idea was to hit them as full as possible with the shotgun, and finish them off with one blow or two if necessary, i.e if they were blocking my path. This worked for APHQ and Afghanistan, but after that enemies get tougher and needed more than two, losing me a LOT of time per kill when needed. It's one to describe. The SMGs do not yield much power at all unless you are using bullet storm to unleash all the ammo, but it seems to take me a whole clip to drop them so the only logical options would be a modified shotgun if you can find a foolproof attachment combo, or an assault rifle, which is what I chose in the run, shotgun + assault rifle. Pistol would have probably been a better choice.

As for cutscenes, I find either professional choices to be good, or aggressive responsives in some situations. Sauve always makes thorton make silly jokes and take his time responding, although fast forwarded can just make things longer if you add up the time.

Who you partner up with doesnt matter too much, but Albatross or Heck is prefered, because SIE comes into the medbay (how you get savage love achievement) and theres a long cutscene there, however Albatross and Heck just get on with it and unlock your restraints and let you kick ass.

In order to join Halbech you need to kill Conrad Marburg in Rome, by getting him to -10 respect, and then constantly insulting him after choosing the bombs over madison. You HAVE to choose the bombs otherwise it doesnt work. Then kill Marburg and you get his handgun which is quite powerful. If you then get respect from Leland in interview he lets you join Halbech. Also, it might be an idea allying with Parker. This means you won't have to waste time shooting him in the storming of his room, you kill the guards and move straight on. Forget Scarlett.

Most of the ideas for speeding things up is to execute everyone. I know I spared Omen Deng which was actually a bad idea, but the game was in it's early stages at this point and I admit openly I didn't quite do my homework properly before having a go.

in order to open your inventory etc on console you use the D-Pad but it's really laggy etc so changing your gadget or weapon takes a long time this way, so you need to know what you're doing. I remember up was ammo change I think, left was gadgets and right was weapons but don't hold me to that it's been a while since I played.

I never actually realised Heck could spike Brayko's coke. I never knew that really. That's pretty useful. I was always taking him out the hard way. But I find it really easy to load Fletchette rounds into my shotgun, wait till he crouches after chasing you and blow 90% of his health away in one go. Classic. Just don't question Surkov properly and don't ask Brayko about his connection otherwise you have to go and intercept Surkov at his office, that's why I executed him. Obviously you can skip some missions, like taking out the Jizan weapons, and one of the St Petersburg missions.

Try and kill Brayko, Shaheed's bodyguard, and any other big boss to get their gold weapon, which can sell for craploads, and if you get the useful intels, sell them to Halbech for extra cash at the computer. It will sacrifice about 40 seconds or so, but to have enough to skip the minigames can save potentially a lot more.
I think the leveling route is pretty obvious. First, get toughness and technical aptitude for survivability (and sabotage 1 for hacking), and do all of the bossless levels by running to the end (all of taipei and rome except the final levels + grigori mission should be enough), then start getting pistols for the boss fights. There aren't many areas where you need to kill enemies. Off the top of my head, there's the boss fights, the end of the embassy, brayko's game room and marburg's hand-to-hand goons. So, if the toughness holds out, you should be able to just run to the end of evey level prior to tagging pistols for boss fights. Pistols, in my opinion, are a must. They are easily the fastest way to take down any boss, and they're pretty good at killing regular bad guys if you need to.

Partnering up with SIE is definitely a bad idea, since you shouldn't meet her at all during your run. You should have albatross mad at you, so he would take too long to get as a handler. Heck seems fastest for greybox.

To kill marburg, you don't need him at -10, but you might as well, since it's all free. You don't need to go after the bombs, either.

You don't need to go after surkov if you get the mission. You can just skip it and go somewhere else, and it'll go away. But, it's still faster to kill brayko outright, because you spend less time talking.
Edit history:
NMS: 2011-08-08 10:00:30 am
Yes, with your strategy you want at least a couple points in Martial Arts. Maybe I do too, because of the forced melee fight in Marburg's mansion. But generally I prefer to let them hit me if necessary then back up and keep shooting. They're much better at blocking melee attacks than bullets to the face.

The modified choke is a nice shotgun attachment: +4 accuracy, -2 recoil control. Makes your groupings much tighter, at least if you stop before firing. I'm not sure whether the size of your reticle while running depends on accuracy, or only stability.

You don't want to turn Parker. If you do, you have to protect him for a while against a stream of soldiers. Joining Leland doesn't help as far as I can tell from YouTube. The final cutscene might be shorter if Albatross is your handler, since you'll be alone on the boat. I'm not sure whether there are still unskippable parts in that case. Since you have the ability to fast-forward parts of that cutscene I think timing would end with clicking continue on the final results screen.

I just saw on YouTube you can instantly beat the al-Samad lieutenant by getting up onto the bridge without being seen. Unless he can be taken out with Chain Shot, that's probably the fastest way. And Leland surrenders if you run up the stairs and across the catwalk to his room. That seems faster than using the assault rifle. I'm not aware of any other bosses being vulnerable to stealth kills, but it might be worth checking at least. According to the wiki, using Shadow Operative at certain times can mess up Breyko's AI, which may be useful.

Edit: just saw your post, your_name_here. I think I agree with everything, though I might want to test a few things. What happens if you haven't met SIE and Albatross doesn't like you when you get to Breyko's mansion? Can you not do the mission?

No one seems sure exactly what the conditions for killing Marburg are, except that you need more suave than aggressive or professional answers over your career. I'm guessing the taunting cutscene and having to shoot him again make it slower, even though you'd skip a conversation during the final mission.
You can get away with fewer martial arts if you do rome first, as the difficulty scaling will greatly reduce how annoying those enemies are. In a speedrun, you might not even need any at all, as you'll probably be a couple levels lower than you would be usually. If your problem is enemies blocking your path/giving you too much damage, it might be better to run with a shotgun secondary with phosphorus rounds equipped. you don't need any points in it, just blast them with fire and they are incapacitated. No need to line up knockdown shots.

final cutscene doesn't matter for time, I don't think. The timer ought to stop when you kill the final boss. I'm not sure, though. It'd need a ruling.

If you haven't met SIE, then albatross is your handler for brayko's mansion.

Killing marburg seems faster. Skipping that entire scene is definitely worth quite a bit of time, and killing marburg only takes a couple seconds with chain shot. It might even be shorter than not killing him, because the cutscene after the fight if he runs away is longer than the cutscene if you kill him. Of course, you do have to spend extra time in dialogue taunting him, but it's not that much. definitely not as much as you'd spend in the greybox cutscene. The only thing I don't know is what it does to the leland debrief. That would have to be checked out.
Give me money or I shoot you in face
By the way, I forgot to mention in the last post that if you ally with Leland, or if you do another condition, you will have to take down Yancy Westridge as the final boss, instead of Leland. Westridge is armed with a 50cal machinegun instead of a rocket launcher, which is much the choice of Leland's prefered weapon. I remember fighting Westridge when I took the bad ending, killing everyone, pissing everyone off etc, so it's likely you may have to kill Westridge instead of Leland.
Quote from your_name_here:
You can get away with fewer martial arts if you do rome first, as the difficulty scaling will greatly reduce how annoying those enemies are. In a speedrun, you might not even need any at all, as you'll probably be a couple levels lower than you would be usually.

Hmm, I hadn't really been paying attention to whether there was difficulty scaling. It makes sense that there would be some. Do you know anything about how it works? If it significantly affects bosses' hit points, it might make it better to kill some of them early, rather than save them all for the end.


Quote from your_name_here:
If your problem is enemies blocking your path/giving you too much damage, it might be better to run with a shotgun secondary with phosphorus rounds equipped. you don't need any points in it, just blast them with fire and they are incapacitated. No need to line up knockdown shots.

Good to keep in mind.


Quote from your_name_here:
final cutscene doesn't matter for time, I don't think. The timer ought to stop when you kill the final boss. I'm not sure, though. It'd need a ruling.

I don't think that would apply to this game. SDA generally goes by "loss of control". After you defeat the boss there's a conversation where you still have choices, then a cutscene that can mostly be fast forwarded, then a debriefing screen. So I don't feel like the game is over until you dismiss that screen and the credits start.

Quote from your_name_here:
If you haven't met SIE, then albatross is your handler for brayko's mansion.

In that case I guess you can choose whatever options get you out of conversations the fastest, probably including killing Sis.


Quote from your_name_here:
Killing marburg seems faster. Skipping that entire scene is definitely worth quite a bit of time, and killing marburg only takes a couple seconds with chain shot. It might even be shorter than not killing him, because the cutscene after the fight if he runs away is longer than the cutscene if you kill him. Of course, you do have to spend extra time in dialogue taunting him, but it's not that much. definitely not as much as you'd spend in the greybox cutscene. The only thing I don't know is what it does to the leland debrief. That would have to be checked out.

Interesting. I was thinking chain shot would be on cooldown, but if the taunting sccene is long enough and the fast forwarding speeds up cooldown recovery correctly, maybe it would be ready again. I guess that means you have to choose a lot of suave responses. Some people on the wiki think you also need the Suave perk.

I found a nice time saver that will help earn Marburg's antipathy: Go on a shooting spree at al-Barra's place. Fire a shot and you're not only able but required to take out anyone who hears it. Much faster than ID'ing them. Also I think answering the email gets you the mission to meet Marburg, so you don't have to do the CIA or NSA missions.

I determined that stability controls how much the reticle expands when you move, so accuracy and stability both affect it. You also want to put sights on pretty much any weapon because zooming in makes you much more accurate.
Difficulty scales based on the number of AP you have spent. So, if you have a level up, the diffculty doesn't go up until you actually spend the AP. You do bosses last so that you don't need to invest the points in pistols until late, keeping the difficulty low for mooks. The health of bosses probably goes up (mook health goes up), but master chain shot means that that doesn't make a difference.

Killing Sis is definitely faster. Meeting albatross at the park takes too much time (you have to do this if you don't kill her)

The triggers for taunting marburg aren't very well understood. Just try being a jerk to him, and ignore overall attitude. The professional perk might be the one you want to get if you have an option, so it's worth figuring out what's required.
Edit history:
NMS: 2014-11-09 10:00:06 am
NMS: 2012-12-25 12:30:06 am
NMS: 2011-08-09 05:57:03 pm
NMS: 2011-08-09 05:51:22 pm
Ah, that's actually a pretty clever system. And conveniently abuseable for us. I guess that means you should really downgrade everything you don't need after Saudi. And you don't really need much except Toughness until you face bosses. Maybe enough points in Shotgun for Room Sweep. A couple points of Sabotage because some minigames are required. Playing as Veteran might not even help all that much compared to Operative.

As far as I can tell from the wiki and my experience, here are the required missions:

- Graybox

Saudi Arabia:
- any 2 out of Find Nasri the Arms Dealer, Bug Al-Samad Airfield, Investigate Jizan Weapon Stockpile
TheLongshotLegend skipped the last one, but it should probably be tested to see if it could be faster than Nasri
- Intercept Shaheed and Recover Missiles

Moscow:
- any 2 out of Contact Grigori the Informant, Assault Lazo's Yacht and Retrieve Data, Investigate Weapon Shipments, Contact Albatross
Contact Albatross may or may not unlock after Lazo depending on your reputation with him, but it's not required either way. You could do it instead of Grigori, but I think it's longer. Investigate Weapon Shipments is long, so Grigori and Lazo seems to be best.
- Intercept Surkov at US Embassy
Apparently if you're unpleasant (probably aggressive) to Grigori and Surkov you skip Contact Surkov at Moscow Office
- Assault Brayko's Mansion

Rome:
- Intercept Jibril Al-Bara at Chateau
- Intercept NSA Intelligence
The wiki doesn't say this one's required but it seems to be. Maybe Bug CIA Listening Post can substitute but it can't be quite as fast.
- Contact Halbech Informant
- Contact Madison Saint James
- Investigate Marburg's Villa
- Investigate Ruins Transmission
- Investigate Delivery at Warehouse
- Intercept Marburg at the Museum of Art

Taipei:
- Contact Steven Heck
- Edit: Investigate Warehouse Data Trail or both Contact Hong Shi and Assault Triad Headquarters in Slums
- Retrieve NSB Data from Grand Hotel
- Intercept Assassination Plans
- Contact President Sung
- Stop Omen Deng at Memorial Rally

- Infiltrate Alpha Protocol

Moscow has an early boss fight, so it should probably all be done towards the end or even after completing the other two. Unless Sis can be taken down with a few planted explosives...

I checked the stealth kill against the al-Samad Lieutenant. With Stealth at the cap and all the abilities ready it can be done in about 25 seconds from the checkpoint. Maybe less if the enemies are less alert on easier difficulties or you have better stealth perks and armor mods than I did. So Chain Shot is probably the only thing that could compete, if it can do enough damage.

Also, would throwing EMP grenades ever be better than using Interference? Seems like it might if the control is on the wrong side and you can see the door from far enough away.
That list looks correct.

I'm curious about minigames. Do you know off hand which ones are required? I figured you'd have enough money/room for EMPs on every mission.

If mines persist between the cutscene, that would be a clever sis strategy, though not all that fast, as the place where she spawns is a little out of the way. It's still a good idea to have chain shot by that fight, as you'd make good use of it in the next mission for defending surkov.

I don't know about throwing EMP grenades. That should be something that you should try on a case by case basis.
Give me money or I shoot you in face
Yes actually, in St Petersburg, if you attack Grigori at the bar or make a horrible reputation of yourself, then Surkov draws a handgun on you outside the embassy, in which case, you disarm and kneecap him and then threaten him, and he will not invite you back to his office, he will give you his information in fear and let you go for Brayko. So if you do meet Grigori, make sure you attack him when you meet him, smash him with the vodka bottle and slam his head on the table, and he will warn Surkov that you are dangerous, therefore causing Surkov to draw a gun on you. Thats how you skip.

With Marburg, Marburg absolutely despises sauve responses, so using Suave is a surefire way to make him hate you in minutes. I don't think I did the CIA mission in rome, or I may have, but I run and gun everyone. I know you can skip a mission in rome, I think it's skipping the NSA intelligence where you trick the guy. Yeah, you can skip Intercept NSA intelligence, and do Intercept Gibril Al-Bara instead, which will cause him to contact you, and then you can meet Marburg straight off the bat. I don't know if this works for bug CIA listening post. If it's possible you can preserve your reputation with Mina if you don't kill all the CIA guys so that works. If you're trying to do things really quietly with EMP, you don't need to throw them. If you hold down the button and tag it to a wall and use the sound emitter you can lure enemies into it, or if you are being pursued up to a locked door, you can tag the walls to slow them down while you unlock the door and escape. It could work well especially on hard mode. Shadow operative is very useful for slipping past enemies that you would otherwise need to stand and fight. although you have to crouch for Shadow Operative to work, using it to slip past several guards, for example the 5-6 in Marburgs villa in Rome right outside the door after escaping from the Martial Arts fight.
Edit history:
NMS: 2014-11-09 10:01:55 am
NMS: 2011-08-17 10:54:44 am
NMS: 2011-08-17 07:41:03 am
Ok, I played through the game on Hard/Recruit. By the way, don't try that as a stealth focused character. It's hilarious to walk up to a bunch of enemies and punch them all in the face as they mill around unable to see you, but spending a lot of skill points without getting weapon skills makes the boss fights virtually impossible. So I started again with Toughness and SMGs. That was pretty effective. SMGs are actually significantly more accurate than the reticle makes them seem if you use short bursts.

I'm testing strategies for Easy/Veteran now. I'm not sure I've actually ever needed to spend more points than I would have available as a regular character, though. If you spend few enough points, you can one-shot most enemies with the starting shotgun. You don't even have to aim if you run right at them and fire just before they melee you. The Veteran starts with a lot of equipment though, which lets you buy good armor, sell some stuff, and stock up on EMPs before doing any missions.

Unfortunately, the cutscene where you disarm and shoot Surkov has a big unskippable section, so I think it's actually better to just go to his office (assuming load times don't count).

Killing Marburg seems quite practical. More Suave than Agressive or Professional choices and a low enough reputation seem to be the only requirements. I didn't go out of my way to get any of his dossier. I also didn't have the Suave perk, but it might be the best choice anyway. With a bit more cooldown reduction from perks or items than I had, Chain Shot would have time to cool down during the taunting, which is nicely skippable. I defeated him the first time with one Chain Shot though, so Brilliance is an option if that isn't practical. But it might be better to avoid putting the points in for as long as possible.

I was also able to defeat the al-Samad Lieutenant with one basic-level Chain Shot, but only from within crit range. Still, that's faster than the stealth option. Advanced level works from farther away, but I don't think there's a quick way to reach level 4 before then. I'm not exactly sure how Chain Shot's damage works. It seems like it increases the headshot multiplier even when you're not getting crits.

There don't actually seem to be any required minigames after the tutorial ones.

Places where you have to defeat mooks (not just get past them) seem to be:
- end of Find Nasri or Investigate Jizan
- end of Intercept Surkov
- beginning of Marburg's Villa
- end of Ruins Transmission
Edit:
- the guys around your ally at Brayko's mansion

Incendiary bombs seem like they could be useful in most of these places. Speaking of which, planted explosives do persist through cutscenes, but not through save and load. You can only have 5 placed at a time. If you place more the oldest one will disappear.

Edit:
It also seems you have to do Investigate Warehouse Data Trail, or maybe Contact Hong Shi and Assault Triad Headquarters in Slums. Haven't tested to see if doing both lets you skip Contact Steven Heck and/or Retrieve NSB Data from Grand Hotel, but I doubt it.

Brayko seems to be almost invincible while he's high, so the second Chain Shot has to wait until he tires out, unless buying the tainted cocaine from Heck changes this.
Give me money or I shoot you in face
All I did for Brayko was let him run after me for ages and ages with his knife. The second he crouches down to teleport, pump him with advanced/expert room sweep and blow his brains out. Does incredible amounts of damage, and in one crouch action can take out 80/95% of his health in one go, making him easy pickings if you wanna snipe him out again. All you gotta do is wear it armour down when he's chasing you. Brayko runs faster than you if you're not sprinting, so you shouldnt have any problems timing the room sweep.
Finished my first test run.

Breyko stays vulnerable if you buy the tainted cocaine, allowing you to kill him almost instantly with Chain Shot/Brilliance. So you definitely want to contact Heck before then. But you want to do Breyko before Investigate Warehouse Data Trail because Albatross doesn't call you if he's dead. Assault Triad Headquarters is much longer, and the hotel can't be skipped.

I think the fastest way to deal with Surkov is to be aggressive to Grigori, but then calm Surkov down and agree to meet at his office. This seems to avoid the most unskippable dialog. But that makes talking your way into the embassy slow, so shooting the Marines would be much better.

I read that it's possible to defeat Omen Deng in the room with all the scaffolding. Obviously, this would save a lot of time, but it's not easy. I'll see if I can find a way to get it to work though.
Give me money or I shoot you in face
Yeah, I've never defeated Omen Deng in the scaffolding, but it might be an idea if you have the master critical hit perk, and lock onto him with master chain shot, hit him with all four crit rounds (or five), causing him to run away, then doing it all those times. Also, you might wanna load your gun I with I think steel core rounds as well. I think it's the Steel Core does more damage, or I could be thinking of something along the lines of Fletchette rounds or APDS. Correct me if I'm wrong but steel core would make quick work of Deng if you have master critical hit and master chain shot.
I don't think I was high enough level to get the last couple points of pistol skill, even though I did the mission last. But I'll try with steel core rounds, technical aptitude up to the damage bonus, and maybe a more damaging pistol. It's hard to get close to him, so I'm not sure it's possible to get crits there.

your_name_here, do you know any details of how the enemies scale up? E.g. how much spending points increases their health, whether there are break points, whether their stats are determined continuously or when they spawn or at the start of the level?
Give me money or I shoot you in face
You can get criticals from two/three ranges there I do believe, but steel core would work. Also, if you're using Marburgs Pistol I do believe this does slightly more damage than your average, and without the silencer too. Correct me if I am wrong on that one though. I'm assuming you did kill Marburg prior to that? Try that mission using his handgun or a variety of different ones if that one doesn't work
You can look these things up at alphaprotocol.wikia.com. Marburg's pistol does 1 less damage than the one you start with. If I upgrade it would probably be to the UC Cossack, which does 3 more and is reasonably priced. Also, tranquilizer rounds may actually do the most damage. They're much more effective against the al-Samad Lieutenant than regular ammo anyway.
I'm pretty sure that enemies already loaded still scale. Not sure about any of the other questions concerning scaling.
Gday there,

I was thinking of starting a run of my own for this game - but instead of make a new thread - might as well resurrect this one from the grave. I'm going to be doing easy/ng. I consider veteran to be ng+ so I'm just staying away from it. I'm using soldier as a base - but fiddling with the skills.

I actually routed this out before reading this - however to my shock the route seems to be similar. The primary difference is that in my practice routing - I pumped points into martial arts and pistols - with some side points going to sabotage 1 and toughness - then just toughness once the originals were maxed. I carried a pistol and AR with me - and it seemed to do well.

I'm planning to do this as Single Segment so I'm thinking of doing some of the following just for a bit more consistency.

- Extort Nasri in Saudi for the $20k from Westridge.
- Extort Brayko for his $75k - but not for his information.
    - This should give enough for a Tier 3 pistol - and along with some of the other odds and sods cash along the way - also enough for some armor. I'm going to experiment with killing Marburg for his pistol though - so i might just buy armour - or a crap ton of EMPs.


In regards to countries - Moscow > Rome > Taipai. This allows me to get Albatross on my side (You can spare Sis on the boat and just not go meet him - he actually doesn't care - but you still get his support!) This allows you to get G22 in the Embassy - the Memorial in Taipai and the Graybox. This allows you to run past more guys as they just shoot the G22 dudes. It's a little lengthier but prevents dying by gunfire. (Which would wreck a run outright) The only thing is that this disallows the "spiked coke" in the Brayko fight. This is a drawback - but not large enough to prevent me from going this way. I'm going to experiment with getting to the Brayko mission - then going to Taipai - finishing Taipai and then going back to Brayko with the spiked coke. The only thing is that I don't get his dosh for a Tier 3 pistol - which helps in huge ways. (Primarily run n' gun accuracy - at least as far as I saw. I shot quite a few dudes - probably too many - but I can iron all that out!)

Bosses were very simple. Those who didn't get one shot by chain shot got downed the second time. I'm going to be getting brilliance for those bastards though - so that should make life easy. (I didn't even think of brilliance when routing - I got that from this thread! So yeah - thanks!)

In regards to survivability - I just kept Mina happy and soaked off her bonus Endurance. The only time I died was once when I stopped concentrating and had a conversation with my dad ( Tongue ) and a million times against the Graybox helicopter-  but that's because my strat was stupid - then a found a good strat and did it in one!

Tonight I'll be doing a live run of this and I'll highlight that and post it here. It'll probably be clunky as hell but eh - we'll manage!

Cheers,

Softman25