Evidence

Evidence, often referred to as Hard or Solid Evidence on this wiki, is a specific type of information about the identity and activities of an enemy agent. Evidence is the most important kind of information you can collect during your investigation.
All Evidence found is recorded automatically into the correct agent's Suspect File, and can be viewed on that Suspect File until the end of the mission.
==Description==
During the various methods of information collection, such as Wiretapping and Photography, Max will occasionally discover information describing details about a specific agent. This is called Evidence, Solid Evidence or Hard Evidence (all terms refer to the same thing).
Each named agent has a minimum amount of Evidence that can be discovered about him or her:
*The agent's unique name.
*The agent's Facial Photograph.
*The agent's location in the world.
*The agent's affiliation.
*The agent's Rank within his organization.
*The agent's Role in the Criminal Plot (or lack thereof).
*The city where this agent was recruited.
*(Possible): The name of the person who recruited this agent.
In addition, Participants in the current Plot have several more pieces of unique evidence to discover, as explained below.
Each of these pieces of data is considered a separate piece of Evidence, and is often collected separately from the others (though you may occasionally find several pieces of Evidence regarding the same agent lumped together, especially on lower Difficulty settings).
As soon as the first piece of Evidence regarding an agent has been found, the game automatically creates a Suspect File for that agent, which will henceforth contain that evidence as well as any additional evidence discovered in the future.
Evidence about an agent can normally be collected at Hideouts belonging to the Organization he is affiliated with, or Hideouts in the same City where he is located. The best place to gather Evidence about a specific agent, of course, is at his own personal Hideout.
The agent's Hideout is also the only place where you would normally be able to acquire the agent's Role, which is easily the most important piece of Evidence available: once acquired, you may successfully Arrest this agent. Without the agent's Role recorded in his Suspect File, any attempted arrest will end in the agent's premature release.
Methods of collecting Evidence are varied. It can be acquired during Wiretap installation, Photography and Hacking during a Break-In, after successfully Decoding a message, and through several other means as well. Nonetheless, Evidence is usually much harder to obtain than Mentions and Clue pieces, especially on higher Difficulty settings.
==Types of Evidence==
While all Evidence is essentially the same - data collected into the Suspect Files of various agents - each piece of Evidence reveals different information about a suspect. One piece may reveal the suspect's name, another his location in the world, and yet another may reveal past actions this suspect has performed.
A distinction is also made between two major types of evidence called "Basic" and "Plot". All named enemy agents, even Red Herrings, have the same array of Basic Evidence that can be discovered about them. However, only Participants will have Plot Evidence to find.
===Basic Evidence===
As mentioned above, each named agent in the game, be it a Participant in the current Criminal Plot or simply a Red Herring, has a minimum set of Evidence pieces to be uncovered. This is referred to as Basic Evidence. It is generally used to determine the location of the agent's Hideout, as well as determine what their involvement in the Criminal Plot is, if any.
====Name====
:This is the agent's unique name. It can be used to identify the agent whenever he is referred to in other documents.
:It is also possible to perform a Name Query during Hacking attempts to try and get information about this specific agent. This is the most useful kind of Hacking, and can potentially reveal an agent's Location and Affiliation (see below), assuming the Hacked Terminal contains information about this agent at all.
:If any piece of Evidence has been discovered about an agent before discovering his name, he will be temporarily referred to as "Agent #", where # is replaced with a randomly-selected letter of the alphabet. This will appear instead of the agent's name whenever a document or Bulletin refers to that name. Once the actual name of the agent has been discovered, the "Agent #" title will no longer be used.
====Facial Photograph====
:Each agent has a unique appearance, which becomes known once his Facial Photograph has been acquired. This piece of evidence primarily allows you to connect an agent to a piece of Clue without acquiring his name first.
:More importantly however, this allows you to identify an agent during Observation of a Hideout in the same city where he resides. During Observation, you will get glimpses of various agents leaving the Hideout, and one will likely be the agent you're looking for (assuming you are in the right city!). By knowing what the agent looks like, you can identify him and either Trace his Car or Follow his Car to his own hideout.
:Finally, once an agent's Facial Photograph has been acquired, CIA Airport Surveillance will be able to identify this agent if ever he goes to Meet another agent elsewhere in the world. This allows you to track movements, identifying that a Meeting has occured, and possibly locate the other participant in the meeting.
====Location====
:Each agent resides in a specific Hideout in a specific City. Unless you can find out which city the agent lives in, you're unlikely to just stumble upon his Hideout by mistake. Therefore, location as well as affiliation (see below) are some of the most important pieces of Evidence. Fortunately they are not usually difficult to discover.
:Note that it is generally easier to locate Evidence, as well as Clue pieces regarding the agent, at other Hideouts in the same city where he resides. This is useful if you know the city where an agent lives, but not which Organization he belongs to. You can visit the city, and attempt to locate data about the agent there.
====Affiliation====
:Each agent belongs to one of the 15 Organization available in the current Theatre of Operations. This is called the agent's "Affiliation". The agent resides in a Hideout belonging to his Organization.
:Therefore, it is crucial to discover the agent's Location (see above) and Affiliation to be able to find his Hideout, making these two pieces of evidence extremely important. Fortunately, it is usually easier to discover these than other Evidence data.
:Once an agent's Affiliation is discovered, you can break into Hideouts belonging to the same Organization, anywhere in the world, for a good chance to acquire more information about the agent - preferably his location so that you can travel there and investigate his own Hideout.
:Additionally, Hacking terminals at a Hideout belonging to the same organization always allows you to query the agent's Name successfully (assuming you already know his name). This will reveal the agent's location, and may also hint to whether this agent is a Participant in the plot or a Red Herring.
====Rank====
:Each agent holds a specific Rank inside his Organization. This is a separate piece of Evidence.
:Knowing an agent's Rank is not particularly important, though it does have some potentially significant implications. For one, higher-ranked operatives are worth more points to your Score if Arrested or Turned. Additionally, a Mastermind's Rank is always "Mastermind". Also, an agent with the rank of "Recruit" is always a Red Herring.
====Role====
:This is by far the most important piece of Evidence you can get about any agent, though it is proportionally also the most difficult to find. An agent's Role basically tells you what part they play in the current Criminal Plot, if any.
:Roles range from a simple "Courier" to an "Assassin" to the "Mastermind" of a plot. Each plot has a different set of Roles distributed to the various Participants, with each participant performing a different set of tasks during the process of the plot as defined by his specific role.
:Acquisition of Role-type Evidence is difficult to say the least. For the most part, it can only be acquired by investigating the agent's Hideout itself. On higher difficulty levels it is so unlikely to pop-up during Photography or Wiretapping, that the only truly efficient methods of acquisition are through Hacking and querying the agent's name at his own hideout, finding it inside a Floor Safe at the Hideout, or Decoding a message sent/received by the agent.
:The importance of knowing an agent's Role is paramount: Without it you cannot successfully Arrest the agent, as he will immediately be released before Interrogation or incarceration can take place.
:Additionally, knowing an agent's Role can give you a good idea on the best timing to arrest this agent without causing the plot to break up (which in turn causes other agents to go Into Hiding, an undesirable outcome). It also allows you to anticipate the actions this agent is going to attempt, if he has not already performed them.
:Role-type Evidence for an agent who is not a Participant (I.E. a Red Herring) will mark his Suspect File with the words "NOT INVOLVED" or "Red Herring", signifying that there is no need to investigate this agent any further.
:Finally, acquiring an agent's Role is a prerequisite to being able to find Incriminating Evidence regarding that agent in a Floor Safe within his own hideout. Without the Role, Incriminating Evidence about the agent will not appear no matter how many Floor Safes are inspected.
====Recruiting Info====
:All agents also have something called "Recruiting Info", which is collected like any other piece of evidence.
:Recruiting info comes in two distinct parts: "Recruiting Location" and "Recruiter's Name". Every agent in the game, including Red Herring Agents will have the first part (the location) available for discovery. Some agents, as explained below, also have the second part, which can only be found if the first part has already been acquired.
:The recruiting location is largely meaningless. It is the name of one of the cities in the game, though this indicates nothing - it's basically chosen at random.
:The recruiter's name is more important, though not all agents in the game will have it at all. The only agents who possess this second part are those belonging to one of the Organizations whose members are participating in the current plot. When this part is acquired, it shows the name of one of those Participants, usually the highest-ranking participant from that specific Organization. This name can be queried during Terminal Hacking at a Hideout belonging to this Organization, in order to acquire the location of the recruiter.
::For example, let's say we've acquired Recruiting Info for Yousfa Hammid, a member of the PIFA organization. The info says Yousfa was recruited in Geneva by a man called "Ismail Daoud". The reference to the city of Geneva is meaninless, and can safely be ignored. However, the name Ismail Daoud must by definition belong to one of the Participants in the plot, who is also a member of PIFA. We can break into a PIFA Hideout immediately, Hack a terminal, and query the name "Ismail Daoud". This will reveal Mr. Daoud's location.
:Note that both Participants and Red Herrings will have this second part of the recruiting info, assuming they belong to an Organization which is fielding a Participant. Also note that the Participant who went around recruiting all these people will not, himself, have such data in his Suspect File.
===Plot Evidence===
Agents who are Participating in the current Criminal Plot have additional information you can discover. This type of Evidence reveals plot-related activities performed by the agent.
Each type of activity generates different Plot Evidence. For example, evidence related to Message Traffic between two Participants comes in four different pieces. Evidence regarding acquisition of an Item comes in one piece.
In any case, Plot Evidence can only be acquired after an event has taken place. It can help piece together the progress of the plot so far, or at least the activities of a single participant.
Naturally, since Red Herrings never perform any plot-related actions (or in fact any action at all), Plot Evidence about them does not exist and hence cannot be found during an investigation.
====Message Traffic Evidence====
:Once a Message has been sent from one Participant to another, Evidence of this message can be found while investigating either of them.
:There are eight separate pieces of Evidence that can be found about any message. Four of them go into the sender's Suspect File, while the other four go into the Recipient's file.
:Example: Agent A has sent a Message to Agent B. While investigating Agent A, we can discover 4 pieces of evidence, regarding details about Agent B as well as the date on which the message was sent. Then, while investigating Agent B, we can also find 4 other pieces of evidence, pointing towards Agent A and again the date of the message. This totals into 8 separate pieces of Evidence to locate, though in truth only 4 are actually necessary.
:Here's a break-down of all 8 pieces of evidence that can be found in total regarding a single Message:
:*Recorded on the Sender's Suspect File:
:**The name of the recipient of the message.
:**The location of the recipient.
:**The affiliation of the recipient.
:**The date the message was sent on.
:*Recorded on the Recipient's Suspect File:
:**The name of the sender of the message.
:**The location of the sender.
:**The affiliation of the sender.
:**The date the message was sent on.
:Note that there is no established order in which these are found. You can find the date first, then the affiliation, then the name, and lastly the city - or any other order for that matter.
:Once at least one piece of evidence regarding a message has been found, you can visit the Crypto Branch at any CIA Office to try and decode that message. If successful, it will immediately reveal all other Message Evidence pieces listed above, and input all these details into both Participants' Suspect Files - along with additional info (especially the Role of both participants, which is extremely valuable).
====Meeting Evidence====
:Once a Meeting has occured between two Participants, Evidence of this meeting can be found while investigating either of them.
:There are eight separate pieces of Evidence that can be found about any meeting. Four of them go into the sender's Suspect File, while the other four go into the Recipient's file.
:Example: Agent A has met Agent B. While investigating Agent A, we can discover 4 pieces of evidence, regarding details about Agent B as well as the date on which the meeting took place. Then, while investigating Agent B, we can also find 4 other pieces of evidence, pointing towards Agent A and again the date of the meeting. This totals into 8 separate pieces of Evidence to locate, though in truth only 4 are actually necessary.
:Here's a break-down of all 8 pieces of evidence that can be found in total regarding a single Meeting:
:*Recorded on the Visitor's Suspect File:
:**The name of the host of the meeting.
:**The location of the host .
:**The affiliation of the host .
:**The date on which the meeting occurred.
:*Recorded on the Host's Suspect File:
:**The name of the visitor who attended the meeting.
:**The location of the visitor.
:**The affiliation of the visitor.
:**The date on which the meeting occurred.
:Note that there is no established order in which these are found. You can find the date first, then the affiliation, then the name, and lastly the city - or any other order for that matter.
:Once at least one piece of evidence regarding a meeting has been found, a partial transcript of the contents of that meeting will be displayed below this data on the Suspect's File. As more and more evidence regarding the same meeting is added, the message will "fill up" with more and more words, allowing you a better understanding of what transpired during this meeting.
====Item Acquisition Evidence====
:Once an agent has come into possession of a Plot-related Item, evidence can be found indicating the type of item this agent received and the date on which it was acquired. Both of these are considered a single piece of evidence, and thus will always be found together.
:This evidence can be very important when trying to locate an item. It indicates that the agent may still be in possession of this item, and so the item can be found at the agent's Hideout during a Break-In, and thus can be Confiscated.
:Unfortunately, there is no evidence regarding the point where an item is delivered to another agent - other than Evidence pointing to a meeting in which the item changed hands. In other words, you cannot find a piece of evidence that simply says "Agent X has given an item to someone else on such and such date", but you might find evidence of a meeting whose contents describes such a handoff.
:Note that since Items can be re-acquired by an agent after Max Confiscates one, it is possible for several entries to be found related to the same item being acquired on different dates. If you can cause an endless loop wherein the item is confiscated repeatedly and re-acquired repeatedly, it's possible to over-flood an agent's Suspect File with these entries. This is not recommended, as it will eventually crash the game if performed enough times. Of course, a few confiscations are usually enough to delay the case long enough to be solved.
==Acquisition of Evidence==
Like Mentions and Clue pieces, Evidence is acquired through various methods of investigation. However, it is rarer than these two other types of data, and specific types of evidence (specifically, an agent's Role) are virtually impossible to find without directly investigating an agent's Hideout.
===CIA Initial Investigation===
:Main article: Mission
At the start of each Mission, and entire day (24 hours) will pass immediately after the CIA Chief's briefing, with no chance for the player to do anything.
During this day, the CIA will attempt to collect as much information about the plot as possible, using various assets.
The bulk of this information will usually be given as pieces of Clues. However, on lower Difficulty levels it is possible for the CIA to provide some Evidence regarding one or more participants - usually regarding the Organizer and/or one of the people he contacted within those first 24 hours.
This should give you some idea on where to start your investigation, though it will rarely reveal anything more than the person's name, location or affiliation (or in some cases all of these).
===Wiretapping===
:Main article: Wiretap
During a Wiretap installation, there's a chance to find some Evidence pertaining to one or more subjects.
The highest likelyhood for this occurs when Wiretapping an agent's own Hideout. On lower Difficulty levels it might even be possible to get the agent's Role in this method.
Note that during Wiretaps, each disconnected Target Chip has a chance to yield data on its own - you do not necessarily have to disconnect all of them to achieve this. Evidence discovered in this manner is recorded directly to the agent's Suspect File, so even if the Alarm is triggered immediately afterwards the information is not lost.
===Decoding===
:Main article: Decoding
When a message is successfully decoded, it will reveal a slew of Evidence about both the sender and the recipient. Evidence collected this way includes:
*Both agents' names.
*Both agents' locations.
*Both agents' affiliations.
*Both agents' Ranks.
*Both agents' Roles.
Also, the full data regarding the message itself is written into both agents' Suspect Files as Plot Evidence.
===Interrogation===
:Main article: Interrogation
When a suspect is successfully Arrested, he will be interrogated on any Message or Meeting in which he had a hand. If all Plot Evidence regarding such a message/meeting has already been collected prior to the arrest, the agent will "confess" regarding the event and disclose all details about it, including:
*The other agent's name.
*The other agent's location.
*The other agent's affiliation.
*The other agent's Rank.
*The other agent's Role.
*The full content of said message or meeting.
This data is written directly into the other agent's Suspect File.
Also note that if the agent is Turned during the arrest, he will reveal all data regarding every message and/or meeting that has already transpired in which he had a hand, regardless of how much evidence Max has regarding the existence of these events. In addition, the turned agent will also automatically reveal the corresponding evidence of each message or meeting that occurs after his arrest, as they happen!
===Photography===
:Main article: Photography
During a Break-In, assuming Max has chosen to carry a Camera and has sufficient film remaining, she can photograph the contents of any Container. This has a chance of yielding a Mention, a piece of Clue, a piece of Evidence, or nothing.
When Evidence is acquired from a container, it will usually pertain to any agent that answers the following criteria:
*The agent that lives in the building you broke into.
*An agent living in the same city as the building you broke into.
*An agent belonging to the same organization as the building you broke into.
You are most likely to get evidence about an agent living in the same building, then about agents from the same organization, and finally about agents living in the same city.
Note that Evidence collected by photography may regard a Red Herring Agent rather than a Participant. This depends on whether or not there are any Red Herrings existing, and whether they answer any of the criteria above.
Once all evidence has been collected regarding agents who answer the above criteria, you will no longer be able to collect any more Evidence from any container in this building, unless any of those agents performs an Event that could generate extra Plot Evidence.
====Photographing Floor Safes====
:Floor Safes contain different information than other Containers. In fact, they can even yield Gear instead of information, but even when they do yield information it's usually very different.
:For one, Floor Safes will never yield any Evidence other than a suspect's Role, and then only the Role of the agent living in the same building as the Floor Safe, if there is one here at all. Of course, the Role is by far the most important type of Basic Evidence you can acquire anyway.
:In addition, Floor Safes may provide the most lucrative type of evidence in the game: Incriminating Evidence. Once collected, this allows you to Turn the agent living in this building into a Double Agent. For this to work, you must arrest the agent before leaving the building, or the Incriminating Evidence is lost (though it can potentially be re-acquired by breaking in again and photographing Floor Safes). Note that unlike other types of Evidence, Incriminating Evidence is not written into the suspect's file.
===Hacking===
:Main article: Hacking
It is possible to acquire Evidence about a suspect by Hacking into a Terminal and typing in the agent's name. If the Terminal contains any information about this agent, it will immediately reveal the following details:
*The agent's location.
*The agent's affiliation.
*If the agent is a Red Herring, it will reveal this as well. If this was not revealed as result of a successful query (or was revealed to be anything other than "NOT INVOLVED"), you can safely assume that the agent is a Participant.
The only terminals that contain this information are ones found inside any Hideout belonging to the same Organization as the agent you're querying about. Terminals in other Hideouts will simply reply with the words "NO DATA", and instead give you a second (or third) attempt to query something else.
If a Terminal is in the same Hideout as the agent being queried, it will additionally reveal the agent's Rank and Role. This is extremely important, as it's the most sure-fire way to acquire the Role Evidence: go to an agent's Hideout, hack a terminal, and look for the agent's name.
===Mastermind Info from the CIA Chief===
:Main article: CIA Chief, Mission Set
Whenever a Mission Set is successfully completed without Arresting the Mastermind behind it, the CIA Chief will help you by revealing one piece of Basic Evidence about the Mastermind, right after the initial briefing for the new mission.
This is usually either the Mastermind's location or affiliation, depending on which of these you do not yet have. It may also be the Mastermind's Role, if both location and affiliation have already been discovered.
This is intended to help you capture the Mastermind during the new mission. Remember that the same Mastermind will feature in each mission again and again until captured. Once successfully arrested, a new Mastermind will head the next Mission Set, and information about him must be collected from scratch.
Category:Evidence