Upgrades from story missions DO carry over, meaning the main ones you get from completing a story mission (like the ability to have 1 bodyguard). Speed for the entire run counts, from start to finish. If you're in your run even 1 second with it set to a lower difficulty, it will count as the lowest difficulty selected. As others have said, there's 5 outposts to do before then.
So once I completed the story missions on easy and am about to start the fortress conquest mission, that's when I can change the difficulty? And it's also when speed/difficulty matters for the gold rating? Do you have any other tips besides what the OP said? If the augmentations from the story missions don't carry over then there no point in farming them to make your character stronger right? It really just boils down to being quick and maybe a bit of luck if the captains/warchiefs aren't always the same?Ĭhange difficulty before even starting, NOT when about to start fortress conquest.