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Shadowrun: Dragonfall is often lauded as the stand-out when it comes to the three campaigns in the Shadowrun Trilogy. It's praised for its worldbuilding, satisfying combat, and compelling cast of characters who grow on you rather easily.
It can be a tricky game to take on, however, due to the challenges that the world throws at you. Whether they're tricky social situations or chaotic gunfights, there's always something to be thinking about in Dragonfall. Here are some tips so you don't go in without a plan.
The Importance Of Decking
If you're coming to Dragonfall right after playing Dead Man's Switch, you should already be aware of the prevalence of Decking in the world of Shadowrun and how useful it can be. You can use it to bypass locks, flex your tech-savviness, and even enter the Matrix.
In Dragonfall, you are provided with a Decker teammate, Blitz. He'll turn up very early in the game during the search for Green Winters. Since you have Blitz, you won't need to invest any points in Intelligence and Decking to be able to enter the Matrix. However, it's vital to note that Blitz cannot help you with all of your skill checks, despite his Decking skill - and there are also some missions where Blitz is not available. If you want to pass the myriad Decking skill checks, you'll need to invest in the skill yourself.
Complete Trial Run As Soon As Possible
Quite early on in the game, you'll be prompted to gather 50,000 nuyen to pay someone who is gathering information for you. You'll now have access to a variety of missions that you'll have to complete to earn the money. Some of these are optional, and some of them are mandatory.
Trial Run is an optional mission that you'll gain access to as soon as you're prompted about the ¥50,000. To start it, you'll need to access the Mission Computer in the hideout and read a message from Luca Duerr, prompting you to come to meet him.
Speak to Luca, who can be found in Cafe Cezve, and accept his mission. Upon completion, you'll have the option to join the Lodge, which will provide you with optional objectives during some of the other missions you can take on. Completing the missions while fulfilling the optional objectives will grant you extra rewards, so you want to make sure you complete Trial Run and join the Lodge as soon as possible.
The Lodge will provide you with optional objectives during the following missions:
- False Flag
- MKVI
- Bloodline
Donate To Samuel
Samuel Beckenbauer is a character you'll meet quite early on. He's located near the entrance to the hideout, and he's your main contact for the mandatory False Flag mission.
Samuel runs a shelter that looks after down-and-out metahumans and is in need of financial aid - this is something you can provide! Donating enough money will net you some benefits later on in the game.
Overall, you'll need to donate ¥1,500 overall to get the best outcome, and you can do this by talking to Samuel. It's a drop in the ocean in the long run.
Armor Is Important
Armor is a very important part of combat in Dragonfall, both for you and your enemies. Armor provides a blanket reduction in damage and is very common amongst foes, which makes armor-piercing skills and weapons incredibly useful.
Having a Mage around is a good counter to all this armor, as there are a lot of spells that reduce or flat-out pierce armor, and there are also handy spells that boost armor for allies.
Learn Some Etiquette
Learning the lingo is an important part of navigating the world of Shadowrun, and the Charisma stat offers the perfect way to do just that. For every two points of Karma you invest into Charisma, you'll be granted a new Etiquette. These conversation-related skills unlock new options during dialogues that may lead to greater rewards or easier methods to bypass obstacles.
In Dragonfall, some Etiquettes are far more useful than others, whether they provide better bonuses or there are simply more of them.
- Taking Academic will let you learn a lot more about the world of Shadowrun, but be aware that it won't lead to many tangible rewards.
- Taking Corporate and Security will lead to higher rewards from missions. They're also sometimes useful for bypassing some social situations easily.
Check In With Your Teammates
Every teammate you have has an extensive background and a personal quest to complete. They are well-written and interesting to learn about, so it's well worth taking the effort to get to know them and complete their quests, especially as the quests make your teammates stronger.
To unlock these quests, you'll need to learn a significant amount about your teammates, and they will only reveal this information gradually. Check in with them and exhaust their dialogue between every mission you complete to make sure you unlock them.
Make sure you complete these missions before you do the mission where you meet Alice. Meeting Alice with the ¥50,000 will cancel all other side missions.
How To Sell Your Paydata
To put it simply, paydata is any sort of data or information that you acquire that can be sold to an interested party for profit. In the first campaign, there would always be a suitable NPC in the hub area to sell this paydata to, but this is not the case in Dragonfall.
Once you've acquired some paydata, you'll need to head to the Mission Computer in your hideout. Here, you can upload the paydata to an auction site, which will sell the paydata for you. You can pick up the payment using the Mission Computer after completing another mission - just check the same menu again.
Flush Foes Out Of Cover
The enemy AI in Shadowrun is quite intelligent, and this is very obvious when you notice how efficiently they get into cover whenever possible. The problem here is that cover is very powerful - it is impossible to inflict a critical hit on an enemy in cover, and this is very bad. Critical hits will always be one of the greatest sources of damage you have available to you.
There are ways to flush an enemy out of cover. You'll know that you've done this when the enemy stands up instead of crouching.
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Hit them with a melee attack.
- This makes Glory an excellent front-line fighter with her Hand Razors.
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Hit them with a throwing weapon.
- Deitrich's Throwing Knives are a good candidate for this but have less accuracy than melee attacks.
- Grenades will not work for this purpose.
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Hit them with a Rifle's Full Auto attack or an SMG's Flush Target attack.
- These skills are learned with three levels in Rifle and five levels in SMG respectively.
- Full Auto has to actually hit to force a target out of cover, but Flush Target will do so even if it misses.
Low On Strength? Take Glory Or Eiger With You
Due to the nature of the game, there are undoubtedly going to be some skill checks that you simply cannot pass. There are just too many skills to invest Karma in.
Luckily, some of the important Strength checks in the game can be delegated to Glory or Eiger, your resident strongwomen. This is a feature that would later be expanded upon in Hong Kong, where all of your allies could fill in for you for skill checks, but in Dragonfall, it's limited to a few Strength checks.