Safehouse

The Safehouse screen displays your squad's headquarters, and acts as your gateway to the strategy and management layers of the game. This page focuses on those elements; for building & managing rooms, see Base Building.

In-universe, your safehouse is a hidden underground facility you and your Face secured before you underwent your surgery to become a Cyber Knight. It's rundown and barebones to start, but it's safe and provides space for your crew to live, plan heists, communicate with your network of contacts, and prepare for missions.

At the top of the Safehouse screen is your Timeline and Information Bar. Directly below are your three essential rooms:

• Barracks - for managing your roster of characters, their skills and talents, and their equipment.
• Command HQ - for planning available Missions, applying Leverage, and deploying squad members.
• Cold Storage - for selling and manipulating digital loot collected from your heists.

As you earn credits, you can upgrade these rooms and renovate the eight Trashed Rooms below through Base Building.

Timeline

The Timeline shows upcoming events such as offers from Contacts, Mission deadlines, and medical recovery. Events appear on the Timeline with summary boxes. Clicking an event will open the Dialog for the event, if any. For many types of events, the Dialog will conclude with a player decision and end the event, perhaps generating a new event. Sometimes the Dialog will include an option to delay the decision. For events without Dialog, clicking may open a button to take some action or simply give a description of the event.

The Timeline can be advanced with the buttons on the screen or the Submit action (default SPACE). As events roll off the left side of the Timeline, events with Dialog will open the Dialog automatically. Some events will simply disappear off the Timeline. The Timeline will usually stop advancing when an event reaches the end of the Timeline; exceptions are noted in the description below of specific types of events. The Timeline will also stop advancing when a Base Building task finishes, when a merc experiences a Hype Limit Break or Stress Limit Break, or when a Contact experiences an Influence Limit Break or an Exposure Limit Break.

Note that while the Timeline gives the illusion of a continuous flow of time, the smallest game "turn" is actually a 6-hour block. Thus, when an event is less than 6 hours away it will immediately fall off of the left of the Timeline or begin a Dialog or last warning.

The types of events which appear on the Timeline include:

Contact Offers

An offer is a Dialog event in which a Contact makes an offer to the squad. These offers are placed randomly on the Timeline by the Casting Director. The most common offer is a Mission or Legwork, but the offer could be a special service or item for sale. In some cases it will be a demand for action. Sometimes the Dialog permits a delay in concluding the Dialog and any related decisions.

If the offer is a Mission, the Dialog usually ends with the Mission automatically appearing on the Timeline, with no need to accept the Mission within the Dialog. Storyline events often do require a decision which may determine which branch of the Storyline is opened. It may be advantageous to open Mission offers early or to wait until the last minute, depending on when mercs are available and when other events will open.

If the offer is a Legwork, a decision is required immediately and a merc must be assigned to the task. If no available merc meets the requirements for the job, the Legwork must be declined. Be careful opening an event early if it may require Legwork involving members of the squad who are unavailable. Waiting may let the mercs return to duty before the event must be opened. Assigning a merc to Legwork will add a new Legwork completion event to the Timeline.

If the offer is a service or item for sale, clicking on the Dialog early will always provide an option to delay decision. Do not delay too long; once the event rolls off the Timeline, there may be a final Dialog expressing disappointment (or worse).

Mission Deadlines

When a Mission is offered, a new event will appear on the Timeline marking the deadline for starting the Mission. Clicking on the Mission event will a button to Plan Mission. Clicking the button opens the Command HQ where the Mission can be prepared and initiated.. A Mission may be started at any time before the deadline expires but there is no penalty for waiting until just before the deadline. Missions do not have to be executed in the order that they appear in the Timeline. When a Mission deadline event reaches the left end of the Timeline,

Legwork Completion

When a merc is assigned to Legwork, an event is added to the Timeline marking the completion of the Legwork. Clicking on the event opens a button to Wait for Completion. Clicking this button will start advancing the Timeline.

Treatment

Mercs may require medical recovery due to Injuries or Wounds. Mercs in the Simstream Trainer or Simstream Detox benches are considered to be undergoing treatment. Surgery for Implants also requires treatment. When any merc is undergoing treatment or recovering, an event is added to the Timeline to mark the end of treatment. In addition, the number of mercs in any form of treatment is displayed in a green tag in the Barracks on the Safehouse screen. Clicking on the event opens a Waite for Recovery button. Clicking this button will start advancing the Timeline.

Recruit Applications

The Casting Director can randomly place a recruitment event on the Timeline. Clicking on this event opens a Dialog in which a merc in the squad recommends someone as a potential Recruit for the squad. For details, see Recruits.

Information Bar

The Information Bar is an element across the top of the Safehouse screen. Parts of the Information Bar element are used across all menus accessed from the Safehouse.

Power Level

Power Level is an abstracted value of your infamy, reputation and assumed street power. The squad's Power Level increases as they run Missions and Storylines, Legwork, etc.

As Power Level goes up, Mission difficulty also goes up. It translates most directly to Mission and Matrix power level increases. Everything in the enemy stack becomes available (new, stronger) or is phased out (weaker) as Power Level increases. Security AI actions, monster types, monster talents, monster toughness, gear, matrix IC, loot in Lockboxes, Files stolen in the Matrix.

The squad needs to keep up with or ahead of that Power Level. The squad can effectively stay ahead by getting the most out of every mission that they run: the most loot, the most XP, the best advantage with contacts, spending money wisely, making smart skill decisions, building an effective squad with good synergy. These are the ways that a squad can get ahead of the curve. The world of a covert high stakes underworld operator is not particularly nice or forgiving; it is a one-way street and the gutter is always eagerly awaiting more corpses on either side.

Some Missions and Storylines are not available until you reach a minimum Power Level.

Heat

The flame icon marks how much Heat the squad has accumulated. Heat is a measure of how much attention you have attracted from enemies and the forces of law. Each day that passes decreases Heat by 1 point -- eventually another threat will emerge to any group, and their attention will shift to deal with what they perceive as more immediate threats. Higher levels of Heat can increase the stress of your mercenaries on Missions and will increase the size of the opposition. Sometimes it's best to lay low for a bit.

Gaining Heat

• All Missions increase heat by a minimum of 2 points, even at Security Level 0. This includes hacking-only missions.
• Missions otherwise increase heat by 2 points per Security Level active upon victory, up to a maximum of 14 points at Security Level 7 or above.
• Pure combat Missions and Missions that otherwise include a storyline-defined "pitched battle" will always increase heat by exactly 8 points.

Effects of Elevated Heat

• Missions become more dangerous
• Some Contacts will not interact with you (nor let you use their services) if heat is too high
• Increased chance of Complications (Leverage used against the Cyberknight)
• If Head Hunters are after the team, every 4 points of Heat increases the Head Hunter arrival chance by 1%.
• Every 5 points of Heat decreases all mercenaries' Stress Resistance by 1%.

Famous Head Hunters

A skull icon on the Information Bar represents Famous Head Hunters. Next to the icon are two numbers representing how many Head Hunters are after the squad, and the percentage chance that one of the Head Hunters will show up at your next Mission.

Nano-Scrubber

The fan icon indicates Nano-Scrubbers. Next to the icon are numbers representing the current nano-pollution produced by the constructed rooms and how many Nano-Scrubbers are available in the Nano-Scrubber rooms of the Safehouse. Upgrading Nano-Scrubber rooms will increase the number of Nano-Scrubbers and thus the amount of nano-pollution the Safehouse can produce without becoming toxic.

NBS Cubes

Icons for blue, red, and gold cubes mark the number of Nano-Bearing Substrate Cubes accumulated by the squad.

United Digitals

United Digitals. Digis. Credits. U-Dahs. U-Dubs. Dollars. Bucks. Creds. Lettuce. The dollar sign marks the amount of Money collected by the squad, in thousands (K) or millions (M).

Money can be earned directly in fees and bonuses for Missions or credsticks collected from Lockboxes, or indirectly by selling digital Loot or surplus physical goods.

Service Buttons

The top right of the Information Bar has several buttons:

Market

The Market button opens the Market menu where goods can be purchased.

Inventory

The Inventory button opens the Inventory menu where goods can be sold.

Contacts

The Contacts button opens the list of Contacts for the squad.

Journal

The Journal button opens the Journal, a collection of knowledge and lore about the game and the game setting.

Help

The Help button puts the screen into Help mode. This will open a large tooltip over the first interactive element on the current screen. Clicking the Advance button (by default: SPACE) will successively move the large tooltip to every interactive element on the current screen. Clicking ESC will close the Help mode.