What are the repercussions if I publicly confront Bill Taggart?

Question

While looking for Sandoval I was sent to the Detroit Convention Center to ascertain his whereabouts, having being told that Bill Taggart should know where to find him.

On the way in, Pritchard hinted that I should try to be discreet and that I might be able to find what I need backstage. So I'd intended to find a way to sneak backstage and locate the info that way - no need to give the game away to the opposition, right?

Unfortunately, I opened the wrong door and accidentally found myself having a conversational confrontation with Taggart. While I managed to "win" this and get the information I needed, I wonder if "attacking" him face-to-face in front of a crowd (and on TV? I saw cameras) will have repercussions later on, such as maybe Sandoval knowing I'm coming?

Answer 1

I just replayed through the game again and I now know the exact facts:

If you publicly confront Taggart (or you don't, but you make it all the way to Sandoval without raising anyone to "alarmed"), then when you reach Sandoval, Taggart will be calling him a terrorist on the TV and you will have a social battle in an attempt to talk him out of suicide.

If you don't confront Taggart, and you choose the option to frame Taggart/Sandoval (can't remember which one, because the tape is about Sandoval but Sarif talks to you as if you'd be framing Taggart), then when you reach Sandoval and have been detected along the way (as long as someone goes into alarmed mode, you can still get ghost, but it'll count you as being detected in terms of gameplay events) a cutscene will play and at the end Sandoval will be hostile to you and holding a revolver in your face. Here you can either kill him or subdue him. If you subdue him, the rest of the game (like newspapers etc) is EXACTLY the same as if you'd had the social battle with him.

Not sure what the differences are if you kill him as I was playing a pacifist character and I'm also not sure what would happen if you choose not to frame Taggart/Sandoval, I'll let you guys know on my next playthrough.

Answer 2

I rolled back to an old save to experiment, and successfully made it to his computer undetected (quite easy as long as you don't open the wrong door).

Once there I get the location of Sandoval from a simple level 1 hack and am then given the opportunity to attempt to frame Taggart by placing the incriminating audio recording on his computer.

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I have yet to see what happens if I do frame him, as I'm currently alt-tabbed out with the Accept/Decline option presented - will report back later, when I have more information.

Answer 3

If you frame Taggart you get to talk to Sandoval.

If you don't frame Taggart Sandoval will attack you after the cutscene.

I did not talk to Taggart at any point.

Answer 4

It boils down to if your actions will either lead to a scene where you will try to dissuade Sandoval from committing suicide, or get into a fire fight with him. This can bug out easily, in which case you get the fire fight (and so can't get the Last Straw achievement). As this happened to me, some pointers on how to do it, and what to do if you, too, encounter the bug.

• You should get the suicide scene if Taggart goes public to safe his own butt. As mentioned in another answer, either (a) getting silver tongue when confronting Taggart, or (b) being completely stealthy (no suspicious, alarmed, hostile) in the process of getting to hack Taggart's computer, and placing the wrong info (if you decline to, fire fight as Taggart won't denounce Sandoval on TV)

• The fire fight scene starts with Sandoval remarking "I heard gunshots!" So you need to be as stealthy as possible inside his apartment complex. It is not completely known what, if any, amount of 'alarmed' messages in Sandoval's apartment complex is acceptable. The one popping when opening the door behind which Zeke is (to then take him down non-lethally) is fine (I don't see how it could be avoided). Note that when going through the door of the apartment complex you should be crouching already, or you will see 'alarmed' which may or may not endanger seeing the suicide scene

• If you follow the above, and get a shoot-out cut scene, you're bugged. You probably explored Detroit instead of going straight to the conference center, and from there straight to Sandoval's house. Where and how it exactly bugs out is unknown. To still get the Last Straw achievement (aka, see the suicide scene), you need to reload a save file from before Detroit 2 and follow the above steps while not talking to vendors, exploring, doing the side quest, or hacking terminals that were already accessible in Detroit 1. I kept repeating this with a save file from outside the convention center, which is no good. Sandoval is an omega, so choose those dialogue options

This is more addressing the question of how to get the "Last Straw" achievement (which I had originally posted a question about because I was dealing with the bug, as it turns out). To understand the above cost me several hours. Maybe it will help someone else not to waste as much time.