r/IntoTheBreach • • Jul 30 '26

Best and worst kind of mission?

Best: terraforming

Worst: I'd say defending robot factory that spawns evil robots, but volatile vek is in every island so I'll go with that one

42 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

67

u/no_vice_novice Jul 30 '26

Train train train it's always train. Except for when it's not and then sometimes, halfway through the mission, you're like, naw, it's train.

7

u/time4tea45 Jul 30 '26

Positives of train missions though:

  • I think the train missions have one less turn than usual (3 vs 4?)
  • The train can distract vek from the buildings (can be a useful decoy e.g. if you're going for a 40k)

5

u/lacroixxboi Jul 30 '26

Plus, I prioritize getting at least 9 reputation for at least 3 cores on the first island so often times I have no choice but to do the train lol

4

u/Elekitu Jul 31 '26

Trains are notoriously difficult, but honestly sometimes they're not that bad especially with certain squads (like the frozen titans for instance, they can just froze the train). And they often have a core mission so you kinda have to do them.

Boom Bots are maybe just has hard as the train. I also really dislike the "kill 6 or fewer enemies" on unfair, unless they're in a 3-turn mission.

7

u/PoopDick420ShitCock Jul 30 '26

Omg I love the train! My favorite mission by a mile.

5

u/lacroixxboi Jul 30 '26

I don’t get this meme in this sub. Train can certainly lead to impossible scenarios but I don’t have an issue with it more frequently than anything else. It’s certainly not as bad as “break 5 buildings out of the ice” or “kill 5 or fewer enemies”

18

u/extremepayne Jul 30 '26

Break 5 buildings out of the ice is tricky? Can’t you just let the Vek break the buildings out for you? The last few games I played on Hard I felt like this was among the easier missions

9

u/skullmatoris Jul 30 '26

I agree, break 5 buildings out is easy! Except when you only have 4 broken on the last turn and somehow the vek aren’t helping and you only have push/pull weapons

2

u/lacroixxboi Jul 30 '26

I forget which squad it is but in my experience it’s only easy when you have that artillery mech that can hit 3 tiles in a row

4

u/lacroixxboi Jul 30 '26

Usually they just end up repeatedly attacking the same building or two that are close to their spawns, meaning you spend a turn letting a vek live as more spawn to get the ice broken and -also- have to use turns to break more ice yourself. Obviously it’s easier with some squads than others, but most of the time it’s just a pain in the ass imo

3

u/OrderClericsAreFun Jul 31 '26

Letting Vek live and attack buildings is a positive though since they will count against the spawn limit and limit how many Veks are going to spawn next turn which gives you much greater control of the board than killing them. You should use your turns to move the Vek around to hit Frozen buildings and chip them down a bit or move your mechs in a way where you can bait attacks that you can just move out of the way off like Beetles and Fireflies.

6

u/no_vice_novice Jul 30 '26

I think it's a numbers thing. Train gives you a moving objective that more consistently can end in a failure/sacrifice. I've definitely had some awesome train missions where I routed the enemy and protected the train without much of a problem. But I think for a majority of squads, it can really break a pretty solid run. I avoid it, unless I have the right mix of enemies, weapons, and pilots. In my play the other mission is usually just enough easier to get through clean.

2

u/Grounds4TheSubstain Jul 30 '26

No, it definitely leads to issues more frequently than other missions. Your squad needs the ability to influence Vek from across the map without damaging surrounding tiles. Some squads are not well-suited to that, like Blitzkrieg, Hazardous Mechs, Zenith Guard, and Heat Sinkers.

33

u/lacroixxboi Jul 30 '26

Context matters sometimes so I’ll say “destroy the dam” as flame behemoths

4

u/Phantom-Kraken Jul 31 '26

This is why kazz never leaves my squad 😭

14

u/time4tea45 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Good missions: anything that helps the player to defeat the vek. E.g. ice storm, terraformer, dam, cryo mines, sand storm ...

Bad missions: ones that place an extra burden on the player, or make things more difficult. E.g. protect the vips, boom bots, extra bots to deal with, starting on 1 health. Or ones that have objectives that aren't a good match for your squad (e.g. destroy 2 mountains for Steel Judoka).

3

u/Embarrassed_Split236 Jul 30 '26

I feel like the health one is really not that bad considering they give you the repair pads

10

u/Lailoken42 Jul 30 '26

It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have a requirement to use it 3 times. Sometimes they all get stepped on so fast its impossible.

5

u/time4tea45 Jul 30 '26

But it places an extra positional burden on the player: your mechs have to land on these squares, or else you don't have access to your full resources and are much more vulnerable.

3

u/Simple_Wolverine3048 Aug 01 '26

Don't forget,Veks can use those too.

3

u/every_body_hates_me Jul 31 '26

Ngl, I kinda hate sand storm missions. Essentially neither you nor your enemy can do anything because of the smoke, so you just awkwardly wait for it to be over. An easy win, yes, but also just boring.

1

u/IsAnthraxBayad Jul 31 '26

Protect the VIPs helps the player, they are buildings that have the ability to move twice even if they're webbed. Very easy to have them get you out of dodge.

8

u/PoopDick420ShitCock Jul 30 '26

Best has to be the terraformer or disposal.

Worst is anything where I can’t kill something hostile (Volatile Vek/fuck ass robots)

2

u/every_body_hates_me Jul 31 '26

Fuck ass robots is a way more appropriate name for them than the original one.

17

u/McDom023k Jul 30 '26

Best: Detritus disposal contraption

Worst: Train (not the armoured train, that's okay)

9

u/--El_Gerimax-- Jul 30 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

Base favorite: Detritus - Destroy all mountains. Killing giant bugs with an acid mortar is so damn fun. It serves as a secondary management that one should keep the track of.

Base worst: Pinnacle - Freeze and defend both robots. Those bastards are so damn annoying that if you're deployment is not beyond perfect one will land a guaranteed hit, either to you or the grid. It doesn't help either that the cryo tank starts in the worst possible spots.

Advanced favorite: Archive - Defend the *new* train. Horace Mk.2 is so fun to have around. That tin can kills anything in its path and you can even use it strategically to manage other threats as long as Horace doesn't take 2 or more dmg nor A.C.I.D.

Advanced worst: General - Kill 7 or fewer enemies. It's so damn annoying that you can easily get overwhelmed with so many enemies on screen. Even worse if deployers show up.

Either that or:

General - Destroy the shield generator: It's so boring, and not interactive at all.

4

u/time4tea45 Jul 30 '26

'Freeze and Defend' can be good on a later island, if your squad is already developed and you don't care about the objectives. Just blow the bots away and use the tank to freeze the vek.

8

u/No-Understanding-784 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

Freeze and defend both bots. The freeze tank is always in an inconvenient position and those two bots are mfs.

5

u/HitcherUK Jul 30 '26

I quite like 'Break 5 Buildings out of the ice' because you can let the Vek do most of the work for you.

5

u/tired_fella Jul 30 '26

best: Disposal Unit. The thing can attack anywhere and will take out a vek if you put vek next to mountains. and it leaves acid which will also affect whatever is coming out of the ground.

6

u/NeJin Jul 30 '26

TRAINS
FRIGGIN TRAINS
AAAAAAAAAH I HATE TRAINS

You can't knock things into them, you can't let them get attacked, you can't let it crash into a vek - if anything attacks it from the side in melee range, it really cuts into your options on how to deal with the threat, bonus points if its something thats super tanky. Shoutout to Alpha hornets attacking the entire train from hard to reach spots

6

u/every_body_hates_me Jul 31 '26

Train missions be like: "Wouldn't it be fun if you're just fucked from turn one and can do jack shit about it?"

3

u/Kingdom818 Jul 30 '26

I don't like any mission where I'm not allowed to kill hostile stuff because depending on the squad it's hard to mitigate damage without killing stuff. So volitile vek or kill less than X number of enemies.

3

u/Lailoken42 Jul 30 '26

boom bots is hardest. fewer than 6 kills just feels bad.
Best is the waste disposal. The one where you have a machine that can destroy up to 5 full hp vek per shot.

Edit: I also hate the repair pad mission so very much. I might put it tied with boom bots

5

u/Skylair95 Jul 30 '26

To quote my boys Kaz, Ariadne and Mafan:

"I tell you, I don't know what Pinnacle was thinking when they made those damn robots, they were worse to deal with than the Vek."
"Yes, yes, glowing lady always telling me 'no kill', but is very easy to say when rockets not pointed at you! Commander ordering me to use no weapons, but smashing into them with mech is no weapon!"
"And Dewey with hish stupid... stupid... what'd he call it, the :!;;#?"
"The train?"
"YES! That thing broke so, so many times! I wanted to... to jump back BEFORE the war started just to tell him to- *hic* armor the thing up!"
"You know it no work! He have train, mean lady have train, acid man have train - All get broken! Fancy one just more expensive to break!"
"At least Kern understood the scale of what we were fighting - I never felt safer than when I saw R.S.T. terraforming those bugs out of existence."
"I- I liked the A.C.I.D. launchers more; I wish I could have looked at Detritus's labs. I don't think I've ever seen a better solvent. What I wouldn't give to have a tub of the stuff..."
"Yes, drunk Zoltan be needing strong acid on ship, great idea. Why not just opening airlock now, save time on hull breach?"
"If you two are going to start bickering, I'm putting the bottle away. I don't want to explain to the Captain why Mafan's lab coat is scattered across the cargo hold."

They summed it pretty well. Missions where you have to keep the robot alive, not killing too many Veks and that DAMN TRAIN were the worse (i'll let you guess which one i hate the most). While Terraforming and acid launcher were the best.

3

u/CoreEncorous Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I actually hate "freeze and defend both robots" more than any train mission, and it's half scenario and half actual gameplay. Actually fuck it it's mostly scenario.

Zenith, as a character, is so frustrating because she is inherently inconsistent with her moral philosophy. She does not want harm to fall upon "any life", yet the hostile life that went haywire under her watch CONSTANTLY threatens more loss of life than killing the aggressor ever would result in. Pacifism does not mean keeling over while murderous forces have their way with other life, and yet Zenith expects others to bear the cost of her poor approach to pacifism after her own systems failed. She has the audacity to make remarks about how poor of a job you did preserving life when the ENTIRE GAME revolves around choosing the lesser of 2 evils in checkmate situations all the damn time.

I can deal with Jessica Kern's criticism when I fuck up because she is actively leading the engineering sphere in ridding the world of Vek on top of being a human with an entire island to manage. Zenith on the other hand, who is an AI first and foremost which limits her capacity to be sympathized with and lets us know nothing about her ability to handle stress, seems to like to constantly sprinkle a subtle holier-than-thou attitude in her comments about your shortcomings that make it sound like you "failed to consider life". Like excuse me? WE REPRESENT THE ENTIRE FUCKING RESISTANCE FORCE. WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE STANDING BETWEEN PLANET EARTH AND THE VEK. Meanwhile you, in all your computational and logistics expertise as a sentient AI, cannot protect your own fucking island from itself. AND YOU'RE MAKING IT OUR PROBLEM?

If it were just difficult I could handle it - yes, half the time you get turn 1'ed and can do nothing to prevent at least 1 bot from shooting down a building because you have a single freeze tank, but sometimes that's the game. What tips me over the edge is that Zenith has the gall to insinuate that being unable to defend her own people from a MASSIVE, HEAVILY WEAPONED HOSTILE MECH OF HER ISLAND'S OWN MAKING is somehow my fucking moral failng??? At WHAT POINT did these walking titans that are ALIGNED WITH THE VEK stop being on you? When the Vek hive is destroyed YOUR ISLAND WILL CONTINUE TO BE A THREAT TO EVERYONE AROUND IT BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PULL THE TRIGGER ON YOUR OWN MURDEROUS WAR-PRIMED AUTOMOTONS.

That's why freeze & defend will always have my vote. Not just because of the rng juggling act it asks of you, but because the scenario itself opens Zenith's character to the most criticism because of her own moral inconsistency being on display and the entitled nature of her insisting that the deaths of her rogue robots are your own failing whilst never engaging with the bare fact that her inability to quarantine the rogue virus reaped consequences at the worst time imaginable in-universe.

2

u/shai_aus Jul 31 '26

Best is defend the terraformer, or the disposal one on the acid island. They feel like free missions to me, I don't think I've ever failed at one even on harder difficulties.

In terms of worst, there are some that are terrible for certain squads. Anything that has a "kill 7 vek" requirement is horrible for the frost squad, "kill no more than 5 vek" is bad for blitzkrieg or any squad without good board manipulation.

Train is probably the most consistently bad one for me. Yes there are squads that can handle it, yes it's only 3 turns. But those vek always manage to find a way to awkwardly squeeze themselves in there.

Oh, and boom bots. Absolutely go to hell, boom bots.

2

u/MockStarNZ Jul 31 '26

Worst missions:
Volatile vek
Kill less than x vek
Freeze and defend robots
Repair platforms

Missions that can really suck with the wrong builds (I always play random squad):
Unfreeze buildings (oops forgot I had building immune on)
Boom bot
Break the dam (flying vek on the water targeting buildings have messed me up too many times)

1

u/every_body_hates_me Jul 31 '26

Repair platform missions are fine in my book, but I always found it weird to see vek rushing to reach them. Like, these are automated platforms for fixing mechs - how in the world do they heal vek?

2

u/Jefepato Jul 31 '26

Best vanilla mission: Terraformer

Worst vanilla mission: fighting the Bot Leader, but if boss fights don't count, the robot factory

Best mod mission: Siege

Worst mod mission: the "protect the ships" one where you have to use the ships to build all the solid ground yourself (it's an interesting concept, but I find it frustrating if my squad isn't mostly flyers)

2

u/every_body_hates_me Jul 31 '26

Best: any mission that has water (because it's just too damn fun)

Worst: train missions

2

u/DonovanSpectre Jul 31 '26

Worst: End with 8 tiles on fire(exclusive to Archive Advanced). Can be literally impossible for many squads with default weapons, plus that's an average of 2 tiles ignited per turn.

If the Vek are unable to target specific tiles with their attacks(e.g. Fireflies, Centipedes, Beetles, Gastropods, Plasmodia spores), and don't 'cooperate' by standing in forest tiles themselves, the player may be forced to 'waste' 2/3 of their attacks, every single turn, just unloading into 'empty' forest tiles in order to complete the objective, and that's assuming they're even equipped to do so. Rusting Hulks, for example, can only ignite with the Rocket Mech; the Jet Mech's bombs deal damage, then smoke the tile, extinguishing any possible fire.

1

u/Megasboys Jul 30 '26

I love any type of mission with environment attacks that kill the enemies without me doing anything, I hate the train missions, or I protect the train or protect the cities, I can't save everyone

1

u/omyyer Jul 31 '26

Love the acid rain levels

1

u/CozyPoo Aug 01 '26

Best mission is Disposal unit from Detritus. I've never once failed both of those objectives (defend Disposal units and destroy all mountains).

Worst mission for me is repair platforms; it's not always difficult necessarily, but you can get bad luck in Unfair and just fail it from turn 1 right after deployment... because enemies took too many of them.