Huh, maybe that’s what I did.
What’s your main strategy to detect the suspects?
As of now, I just follow a random subject to a meeting and from there I mark them as prime suspects (regardless of physical looks) if they fit the kind of meeting of the target or as non suspect if the meeting isn’t the kind needed.
Eases a lot to quickly discard the rest of the suspects and to quickly find your target. Wish I had tought of doing this sooner rather just looking for physical appearance. Also makes me wish we had a way to mark or unmark in the map, but guess that would make things too easy.
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find a suspect in a secluded area, and kill him while being undetected. if they are the target, the job is finished. if not, take their phone and arrange a meeting in a secluded area.
you can filter out a lot of suspects this way. if you triggered the target’s meeting type, you can just kill each suspect and their assassin one by one as they head to the secluded area with no witnesses. one of them is BOUND to be the target eventually.
if you triggered a different meeting type, then you can use your camera to mark each suspect as “not suspect” as they approach the meeting area.
I gotta add, I use this strategy for Hardcore mode since in the vanilla Freelancer it’s easier given the non-restrictive approach you can have, since the Prestige objectives aren’t mandatory.
My strat is mainly for all those targets that need for you to kill them with the meeting related or the cue objectives.
I avoid interacting with the restof suspects because them or a lookout can totally ruin everything.
Select Mendoza for the showdown.
Bring any Sieger sniper (aside from the Ghost) and go to the platform overlooking the vineyard.
Bodyshot everyone until Diana tells me that the leader is escaping.
Shoot that last person a second time.
Exit through the car.
Works like a charm unless the leader happens to be in an annoying location, like in the villa or behind the tasting room wall (in which case I just go to the path under the platform, shoot the leader as they run away, bonk the two guards nearby to get a disguise and leave through the vineyard). Whether the level’s alerted or not won’t matter, since you can just run to the platform without having to interact with the lookouts and assassins.
Obviously it won’t be foolproof in HC unless you’re lucky with the prestige objective.
Yeah, this could work with the timed objectives or the ones that need an Epic sniper or just anything non-intrusive with the killing method.
As a whole, I play very slow paced because assassins are extremely lethal in HC and when in the open. I think they can also one-shot snipe you from far away.
I also try to space the location of the showdowns so isn’t too repetitive. Still avoiding places like Colorado or Ambrose Island for them like the plague.
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Yeah but… isn’t this… boring?…
Once in a while, I get, but the fact this has become many folks’ de facto showdown strat leaves me disillusioned…
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Depends on how you look at it. When you still have many showdown-related challenges to complete, showdowns are pretty fun, but when you’re just aiming to clear campaigns to accumulate prestige and +1s to Top Dog, they’re just in the way and it’s best to expedite them as fast and reliably as possible.
I still do some showdowns “normally” now and then though. And for the final showdowns, the Mendoza strat is kinda unreliable (too many chances for the target to be in some annoying place) so I just select Miami or Paris and take my time.
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I start with a general sweep to quickly unmark any suspects with unmatching looks, unless they are deep in a fortress and I don’t feel like sneaking there. Afterwards I mostly follow one of the remaining suspects for tells.
If a meeting takes place, I take it into account since targets of the same agendas seemingly have routes near each other which narrows things down.
Usually I found killing a suspect before confirming matching agenda to work out just fine. Cannot recall an instance of it not working at the moment.
Though I’ve been mostly sticking to non-Hardcore at the moment since I’ve been grinding the remaining High In Fiber kills on every possible showdown without worrying about potential prestige objectives and also switched to Freelancer Variations recently and still don’t know well some of the new variants. (Plus as much as I like taking SA POs, risking a whole campaign with that is a bit too hardcore for my tastes).
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I never pick SA objectives. Not even for the difficulty alone but because the game has problem registering these objectives and there’s a huge chance that even if you get the objective marked as completed, you’ll fail the mission and the campaing because for whatever reason the game didn’t count that you completed the objective.
I could have sworn I’ve seen it in the kitchen on the ground floor? 
In the normal mission yes, one of the two propane tanks in Dartmoor is there. But in Freelancer they were both removed 
I was playing Freelancer today and working on the last two challenges I have left (Top Dog and Employee of the Year). As of right now I have 94/100 campaigns completed for the Top Dog challenge which, if I played every campaign perfectly, would mean I should have 376 Syndicate leaders killed but I didn’t play perfectly. With the specific combination of failures I’ve managed to suffer through, at the point where I finish Top Dog, and assuming I don’t screw up any other campaigns, I’ll have exactly 47 syndicate leaders left to kill to get Employee of the Year!
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Hmmm very strange that isn’t it? I wonder why IOI removed them for Freelancer?
Bangkok. WAY too many enforcers per-disguise, the security room is really annoying to get to, and a lot of the map just feels like wasted potential, even in Freelancer. I’d sooner say Hokkaido is worse to traverse with S/A in mind due to the narrow hallways, weird starting points, and the whole door gimmick thing not working too well with Freelancer’s objectives. Colorado is one the better maps for Freelancer, even when considering S/A manoeuvring, as there are not nearly as many enforcers in any disguise, which is surprising, given the context.
Also, isn’t Colorado quite famous for its sniping problems due to the water tower?
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I’d put Mumbai on par with Bangkok in that department, just due to the sheer number of potential witnesses that can spoil and SA run.
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Colorado is pretty easy SASO if you take your time. KO both guards in the shed (point man and the other), stash them in the toilet there. Leave some guns out on the path and ko everyone bringing them into the shed, stashing them in the toilet as well. Every time Graves walks by and sees a gun she calls a guard. That way the map is almost empty in about 30-40 mins if you’re patient enough. Of course you can speed things up a bit by ko other people while waiting. Next go to the main house and use the tv there as a distraction. It’s so powerful it attracts everyone on the map… Sooner or later you’ll get your targets.
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Just because the water tower is a terrible sniping spot doesn’t mean Colorado is a bad map for sniping. You can just snipe from the house or the tall grass and you’ll be long gone before anyone understands what happened.
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And from the second floor of the barn.
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