I'm having a little bit of trouble with the Bio-Techs/Informants in Planet Strike. Are they considered by the game to be "Informants" until they fire a shot at you? The placement of Bio-Techs in a level appears to be static, but is the "Friend/Foe" designation random? Ex: I play through a little bit of the Bio Labs, get killed because an invisible Tech Warrior snuck up on me and shot me point-blank, and shoot the first Bio-Tech I see when respawning at the Level Entrance because that particular Bio-Tech was hostile my first time through. Only this time, the game chides me for shooting an "Informant", and to only shoot at Bio-Techs who shoot at me. It doesn't actually say "Wait for a Bio-Tech to shoot at you before you shoot at him".

I don't think that's the case. I recall accidentally blasting away a few Bio-Techs in Planet Strike while attempting to take down an obvious hostile and not taking any loss in the number of informants alive. In fact, I think they randomize the informants to a degree. I know some levels specifically designate N/A on the number of informants alive because there aren't any on that particular level, even though there are numerous Bio-Techs wandering around.

Of course, I always just walk up to the buggers and activate 'em. Usually, if they aren't a friendly, they'll give me a flippant comment and they won't immediately open fire, allowing me to gun them down without fear of reprisal.

Hey, if they wanted job security, they probably shouldn't have been working for Goldfire in the first place! ;)

So like I said, the number of Informants on each level are the same, and the placement of Bio-Techs are the same, but the "Informant" designation of each Bio-Tech is randomized each time you start the level, not just each time you start a new game?

Sorry, I misread your original post. I thought you were saying the Bio-Techs were permanently set as either friend/foe. It seems we're in agreement then in that they are randomized.

And so far as I know, from my completely non-scientific test of loading the same level twice, the number of Bio-Techs that are hostile are set to a specific number, but which Bio-Techs are the hostile ones and which are the friendly vary with each level load.

It's just that the game seems to want to penalize me for shooting Bio-Techs before they've fired the first shot (or before I've Interrogated them and they've given me a snarky comment, indicating themselves to be hostile). The message I get is "Don't shoot them unless they shoot you", paraphrased.

Eh, it's a little like Schrodinger's Cat. Until you find a way to prove it, by talking to them or shooting them, the Bio-Techs are going to be both friendly/hostile from your perspective.

There's no way to tell from simply looking at them so far as I know.

Of course, seeing as I don't believe there's any real reason (other than a perfect score) to let 'em live, you aren't really penalized for going Rambo on everyone you meet.

It's not like in Duke Nukem 3D, which penalizes you for shooting babes by spawning a few Octobrains.

the Bstone engine randomly assigns an bio-tech the status of informant randomly each level seems to have an set number of techs to set as informants based on your difficulty level. on the lowest you get more informants on the highest most of the techs will shoot you.

I'm not sure that killing babes in Duke Nukem 3D is actually penalized. The babes are being used to incubate aliens, and as we see in DNF, Duke cannot save them and chooses to put them out of their misery. So, I'd say that the intention is to kill the babes to get the Octobrains to spawn in order to get 100% kills. It's been too long since I played Duke3D though, so don't know if the spawned Octobrains make any difference to the kill percentage.

Shooting strippers isn't needed. Or that girl in the bar.

The one's that aren't directly impeding your progress don't need to be shot. There are 'impossible' situations, such as the area where you need to blow up the bank vault.

And an alien only counts as "to kill" if it's spawned on the map. If it's 'in waiting' (you haven't triggered it yet) then it doesn't count towards your final level percentage. It's not the Doom engine, so they're not being held off in some remote corner of the map waiting for you to trigger their teleport.

Dealing with techs is pretty easy.
If they zig-zag all over the room, they're hostile.
Speak to them. If they have unkind words, "I outta hit you with my notepad!", feel free to murder them on the spot. You can keep talking and they will go hostile.
As a test, fire a noisy shot (against a wall or something) in the same room as a tech. If they don't start running around, they're good guys. Otherwise, shoot them.

The game basically has flags for each of the difficulty levels. on the easy levels you have more informants on higher you have less the key is to talk to them first before shooting them. if you shoot an hostle and they start strafing and shooting kill them.