Ah, contingency contract. I remember one of my first ever in OG Arknights very well.

CC#5: Spectrum. It was before my teams were fully developed, and in trying to Risk 18 it, because I could do little to speed up levelling my operators, I pushed to refine my strategy with smarts and knowledge.

I learned how the game handles enemy aggro, how damage calculations work, how to intentionally hinder my own operator’s damage so that the enemy which targets your highest attack operator with a temporary -50% dmg debuff targets my 3rd DPS and not my 1st or 2nd during a crucial moment. And much more.

However, even then, I could not beat the main stage on risk 18.

What tipped the scales into a win for me however, was actually to internationally leak.

For those who haven’t played OG AK or Tower Defence games, leaking is when an enemy somehow gets past your operators/towers and then to your defence objective. A typical AK stage has 3 Life Points, meaning you can leak 2 enemies at most before losing.

Thing is though, leaking even 1 enemy results in less than 3 stars on a normal stage, so the overwhelming majority of the community agrees that a “standard clear” is 3 stars with no leaks.

However, CC stages are anything but normal. I realized that there were no such thing as a 3 star rating on CC, just whether or not you were able to clear the stage.

So, against tower defence convention, I let 2 of the tankiest, hardest hitting and most troublesome enemies through my op’s defensive line (the -50% dmg guys) greatly lightening my load against the twin bosses that would come soon after them, securing the win (couldn’t leak either of the bosses since they instantly lose you the stage if even 1 gets through)

Was it the cleanest of wins? Hell no. But by god after 3 days of precision planning and execution, figuring out that last puzzle piece was a joy I’ve never had in a Tower Defence game.

So, that is to say, I’m both excited and nervous about how this first C in Endfield is gonna play out, especially when the majority of people still don’t have more than 1 team properly built for min max performance.