#Earth Defense Force

1 messages · Page 3 of 1

torn saffron
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hitting the rusty pylons aggros all of the other ones around them, so you'll quickly find yourself swamped in awful vicious enemies if you're too reckless about it

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also told the non-air raider "Wait for the air strikes to land." through the reply system to tell them to be patient and let the leviathans destroy the anchors before they get a chance to spew hell at us

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it's an astoundingly in-depth system and because they're built-in replies with their own voicelines, they're automatically translated between members

grand crystal
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handy

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as clunky as that system is..... well.... as you have shown

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when information needs to be communicated

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people get CREATIVE

torn saffron
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me and my friends originally did this mission as 2 WD and me as the AR, but honestly way less clean than just doing it with leviathans

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i'm not sure why i opted to use bulge laser instead of just using tempests, honestly. the pylons are all small and only take 26k to kill

grand crystal
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we get trapped in our own ideas and methods

torn saffron
stuck sierra
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took me until my 5th attempt at playing fencer to give blood storms a try, cause they weren't great before. things are nasty in 6

grand crystal
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yeah

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6..... 6 has been very interesting balance wise

stuck sierra
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many things that were don't use this, what's wrong with you? are now at "why's this thing outperforming the ace weapons of the previous game?"

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just the pocket roombas alone

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so much more devastating than they should be.

grand crystal
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and its

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been..... trying on my patience.

stuck sierra
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rip ravens

grand crystal
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rip turrets man

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I just

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my babies

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look at what they did to my babies Vieral

stuck sierra
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on the other hand, welcome drones. tiny "we're good once we get home" bombing runs? yes please.

grand crystal
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drones have been amazing but

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my turrets

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I held of ARMIES by dropping down a guard post and 7 turrets

stuck sierra
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I was a turret raider too, gurm. it hurts so bad

grand crystal
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me and my babies vs existence

grand crystal
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there werent many of us.

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at least it didnt feel like there were.

stuck sierra
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alas, I only really played 5 with my close friends from college.

grand crystal
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alas, I only played 5 solo after terrible online experiences.

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no wait thats not true

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I played with para a few times

stuck sierra
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I learned manually about solo online in 5. still played turret raider.

grand crystal
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Turret Raider did WORK

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sure

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we lacked the flashiness of the bombs

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or the raw DPS of the miniguns

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but, we had turrets

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and we held the line

stuck sierra
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we also lacked the sheer nightmare that was G&Ms. things were horrifying with macro scripts.

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but yes, for every other soldier out there, we were safety.

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also the party bus, but someone had to go pick up the melee fencer who mistimed a dodge.

grand crystal
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look the health bus lives on 99% of my AR loadouts

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it just, its so good

stuck sierra
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not to mention it's sheer speed. thing's a beast under the hood.

torn saffron
stuck sierra
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amusingly, it was the first model.

torn saffron
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yeah the first one is surprisingly competent for its band

stuck sierra
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dissolves the time frogs.

torn saffron
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anomalously the higher level ones have half the submunitions and their accuracy isn't really enough to properly hit even big enemies

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at least they made fencer's arcanes fairly competent

torn saffron
nova plover
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i love the game to pieces, but some of the weapon tuning is whack

torn saffron
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it's always a little jarring swapping between online and offline scaling

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at minimum you're slogging through 2x enemy hp and damage so imo even the handling of classes like WD or Fenfer change

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fencer less so, but basically any explosive weapon dips dramatically in usefulness if it didn't already clear chaff HP by huge amounts

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androids in particular are an extreme example in how tanky they become

torn saffron
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...I really cannot help but judge the loadouts of certain fencer players

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the double missle loadouts in particular, but it's a general thing sometimes

grand crystal
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Ima need..... some more infoooooo????

torn saffron
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fencer's the Weird, Advanced Class, unsurprisingly. but he's one of the best two classes for frontlining and doing mobile stuff

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sorry, ingame at the moment

grand crystal
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nono take your time

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Im just not quite sure what your issue is beyond "new player picks the absurdly hard class"

torn saffron
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typically when another class picks an "unoptimal" build it's usually pretty innocuous, but i guess i find it particularly irritating when i know fencer's roles and how badly it can be screwed up

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especially with friendly fire from missiles

grand crystal
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fair enough

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yeah

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I get that

torn saffron
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with other classes it's usually hard to "screw up" a loadout, but since fencer's tech is pretty reliant on weapon choice and loadouts, the bad ones stick out really strongly

grand crystal
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yeah

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I mean

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I can very easily screw up ranger but thats only because I know exactly what is terrible and awful.

torn saffron
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a lot of rookie fencers seem to pidgeonhole themselves into glacial loadouts with boost jumps as their sole mobility, and a fencer sniping usually means the aggro is on other teammates that can't as easily manage that aggro

grand crystal
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just play melee fencer

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melee fencer is absolutely viable

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and not a joke

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mhym

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yup

torn saffron
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half of fencer's dps is in his melees

grand crystal
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.......

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but its so bad

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you die so fast

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what am I not supposed to play fencer with shields and miniguns face tanking the universe before gunning it down with excessive force?

torn saffron
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you really have not seen an ounce of fencer gameplay

grand crystal
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THATS LITERALLY HOW I PLAY FENCER

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IT WORKED

torn saffron
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his CC strikers are usually a joke, but like

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his piercers are universally good

grand crystal
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oh okay Piercers yeah

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sorry when I think of melee I think of the swords and axes and hammers

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not the piercers

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because the piercers feel more rangey

torn saffron
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the strikers are niche most of the time

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the piercers are basically the backbone of most fencer mobility and his mobility tech

grand crystal
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checks out

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delicous double piercer flight

torn saffron
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i mean

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dashbooster

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dashboosting is his Thing in 5 and 6

grand crystal
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I mean yeah you could use that

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that is an option

torn saffron
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dashboosting is like his largest mobility option in 5 and 6

grand crystal
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oooorrrr I could grab this flachette mortar and hold right click and then hold shift and.... wait this isn't 4.1

torn saffron
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yes. it isn't 4.1 anymore.

grand crystal
torn saffron
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fencer is perfectly fine spamming dash cells in 5 and 6, but him being able to dashboost is a fundamental part of being good at him

grand crystal
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I knowwww

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I just

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I miss the good ol days

torn saffron
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it's also part of how he stays alive, considering that dashboosting is capable of outrunning a majority of enemies

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outside of the force blades/axes and dynamo blades though, his strikers are pretty awful

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they got a middling rework that didn't really fix them in 6

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in contrast the spine driver got an inexplicable 1.5x damage buff despite already being good

grand crystal
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good times

torn saffron
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but i think generally my peeve with mildly inept fencers is that i always feel like they could be doing more

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if you're sitting back as fencer and you're not solo it means that someone else is taking aggro

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and i've had a couple bad experiences with fencers just incapable of defending themselves or spamming missiles without doing much else while i play a class like air raider

grand crystal
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fair enough

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I just like bein a dude with a gun.

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it takes a lot of the guesswork out of situations

torn saffron
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https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2291060/view/523080879756542071

EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 6 - [Important]Update Information - Steam News

・Fixed an issue with the Ranger vehicle “Free Bike,” where contact damage would occur with objects when not in the vehicle. ・Reduced load times by increasing read speeds. ・Fixed an issue with the Air Raider vehicle “Combat Wagon,” included in the Additional Mission Pack 2. The “Giga Launcher” can now be fired when using keyboard and mouse contro...

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seems they've finally sent out an update to fix the AMD crashes and a couple vehicle bugs.

grand crystal
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well thats nice

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so my bikes will no longer explode by touching a curb slightly wrong?

torn saffron
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no

grand crystal
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ah.

torn saffron
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they were never supposed to in 6.

grand crystal
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......

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like never explode?

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or never touch curbs

torn saffron
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never explode

grand crystal
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my experience with self detonation disagrees.

torn saffron
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the console versions apparently had no collision damage for them, but the PC version just had it again until now

grand crystal
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huh

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brilliant

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wonderful

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genius

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how is that an issue with porting from CONSOLE. TO PC.

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how does

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I

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bwuh

torn saffron
grand crystal
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it should have exploded.

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wha.

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I.

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EVERYTHING I KNOW IS A LIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

torn saffron
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i find it funny how free bikes are technically 'buffed' on apocalypse maps like these because they aren't underground but still call in instantly

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it's 'buffed' because the awful landscape means that you probably aren't going to be riding your bike at full-speed for longer than maybe 3 seconds

torn saffron
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awesome

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played some dlc1 hardest with a friend, hopped onto hardest singleplayer offline to do some random stuff while bored

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i can technically fix this by forcing my audio to emulate a surround sound system, but this makes the rest of my audio sound tinny and i would really rather it just start working like it did for the last 350 hours of gameplay

grand crystal
torn saffron
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fixed it. wasn't drivers or anything and instead some vague audio enhancement option that looks innocuous, but isn't

image.png
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system -> sound -> output device -> properties in windows settings

torn saffron
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been doing the dlcs on Hardest with a friend, primarily as air raider

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clearing it significantly easier than when we tried on Hard

grand crystal
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...... thats kinda funny

torn saffron
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it's probably mostly because we know what we're doing

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M7 Hive Breaker went a lot smoother with a tempest, sitting in the alcove of a building, and using an electroncopter

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originally we did use tempest, but i elected to go with the much less reliable spritefall route

grand crystal
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fair

torn saffron
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dishonorable mention to online inferno androids

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really the stuff of mild misery when i played last night with a team of squishy players and i was air raider

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same base HP as a red ant with a fraction of the size and way harder to hit, impossible to effectively fight as AR without just using an electroncopter to consign a 50m radius to death

torn saffron
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fencers who don't know what they're doing seem to be drawn towards the convertible jump boosters like moths to a flame

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i basically never see them online unless it's someone who doesn't really look like they know what they're doing—like the guy who kept using arm hounds against red androids online

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they literally had 25k hp and all the guy was doing was arm hound spamming them and ocassionally ragdolling me while i fought them

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in general fencer's explosives (excluding heavy mortar and arm hound in specific scenarios) are way less useful online because they only just barely clear breakpoints offline

torn saffron
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i seem to do a lot of complaining about fencers online

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that's why i have a super WIP guide on fencers up on steam but i can't help every double-HAIL fencer when they want to aggro the entire map

stuck sierra
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Yeah... solo splosion man can sometimes work, but you really should be built for bullet hose or captain stabby.

torn saffron
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between 5 and 6 i've become a lot more favorable towards hybrid builds rather than pure melee or double-gun

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most times i use gallics or handcannons they're paired with a dash weapon, as the clunkiness of double-heavies makes swapping between sets rather miserable

stuck sierra
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I normally have a gallic and a ut-minigun, then the vibroblade and a spear if I'm building bullet hose

torn saffron
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gallic/ut on one set and vibro/spear on the other?

grand crystal
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I like using spear and shield.

torn saffron
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i don't typically think about it, but mixing two different bullet based weapons is basically something i've never done since 4.1

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particularly gatlings with any other gun weapon as you'll be dealing with differences in bullet speed, range, and animation conflicts while still being stuck with boosts-only on one hand

grand crystal
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Ive tried it but.... it uhh..... is messy

torn saffron
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online Hardest with three randoms

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it's a pretty major difficulty spike both because of the new additions in Hardest and the fact that random teams are generally bad at picking off enemies without pissing them all off at once

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which my teammates did indeed do, so i ended up kiting enemies with a dash/shield build until all the pink haze were dead and i could slowly chunk the cosmos to death and revive my teammates

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it's incredibly funny that by their very nature, weapons like blasthole or spine driver ignore kruul/kraken shields for the most part

grand crystal
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its great

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stabby stabby

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honestly I kinda wish we had two hander weapons

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like just titanically oversized even for fencers that it takes up two slots.

torn saffron
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iunno, him having two hand slots is kind of what makes him special

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though the DLC weapons are pretty close to "oversized, rediculous superweapons"

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featuring things like "spine driver, but more", "flashing spear, but more", "leviathan, but for solo play", and "what if we made the gallics fire a 3/6 burst of shells?"

stuck sierra
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I still miss the "blood storm, but it fires 20ish missiles" but my computer certainly doesn't.

torn saffron
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really glad there's a couple unobtrusive mods to make DLC1 drops not completely terrible

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i've been using a rebalance mod that makes the drops of the various enemies at least reasonable and supposedly capable of giving you the full suite of dlc1 weapons without forcing you to farm cosmonauts forever

torn saffron
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oh hey apparently air raider's bomber drones can pass through shield bearers

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literally nobody has mentioned this in anything i've seen, so i guess nobody's tried until now

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in the case of his stupid strong strafer drones it can actually kill the bearers from the outside

grand crystal
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Oh damn.

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That’s

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Hooooh

torn saffron
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the indicators for the strafer drones are still restricted to the outside of the shield, but strafers with long enough flight paths (and against shield bearers with small enough shields) are capable of hitting and killing them

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his electron copter can still hit them through the shields though so it's not like AR was lacking in weapons to hit enemies inside shields

torn saffron
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it's an inferno-grade weapon on a hardest shield bearer, but it gets the point across

grand crystal
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oh. oh damn. spicy.

stuck sierra
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Dadgum

winged canyon
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Praise me

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for I bring gifts

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!edf

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STUPID BOT

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well

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there from NB

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you can EDF again

tropic epoch
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@topaz nacelle

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!edf

winged canyon
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!edf

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lol

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!commands

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nope he stopid

tropic epoch
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thought maybe since it wasnt in the forum it might not see

winged canyon
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!edf

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nope

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!edf

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nope

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Well he too stoopid

tropic epoch
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@topaz nacelle !edf

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🤷

winged canyon
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try outside

grand crystal
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Curses! This must be a new trick from checks notes the ravagers? Yeah sure that sounds about right.

blissful fern
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I dare ask, does anyone still play 5 here?

stuck sierra
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I mean I have it installed, but I haven't opened it in about a month

blissful fern
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I am usually looking to play the game, current moment included. Just let me know if you wish to

stuck sierra
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alas, I've got a thing currently. what difficulty, btw?

blissful fern
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Didn't beat the game yet so can't go above Hard

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I do have both mission packs though

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I don't quite enjoy playing the later missions alone, so never really got to the end

stuck sierra
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ahh, I understand

blissful fern
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I also have 4.1, never bothered to get 6

stuck sierra
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it has some nice changes here and there, but there's also a lot of nerfs for fan favourite weapons

blissful fern
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I just simply didn't see enough of a difference to warrant the price

stuck sierra
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only real big difference is in air raider's gameplay loop. now its "waggle thumbs until drone returns from getting milk" instead of "shoot sticky bombs at ants until you've paid off your ammo loans"

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effectively if you miss with the drone weapons, they take several minutes to get to your target beacon, do their thing, and then slowly hover back.

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but if you hit their reload time is "I didn't hear no bell"

blissful fern
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I'll stick to my beacons

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I actually enjoy the beacons, flares, and aircraft

stuck sierra
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that's part of the problem. using aircraft, beacons, and space lasers? illegal on multiple levels, that just show up every once in a while. in groups of 4-7.

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your "aircraft" are the drones, but the other two don't really... exist.

blissful fern
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Ew

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They really did mess with my son

torn saffron
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as someone who's played AR fairly extensively in 5 and 6 + trawling through DLC2 Hardest with a friend (level equivalent to inferno), i feel like you're playing it up a bit much

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his old strikes (excluding bulge laser and missiles) got nerfed across the board with reload cost/time nerfs, yes

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  • for the airstrikes it doesn't really matter—you can't just call them willy nilly for the smallest things
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  • the gunships were impacted by the doubled reload times, and some of his weaker gunships are even worse, however none of their other stats were touched
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his phoboses, km6 strikes, 120mms, miniguns all still hit as hard as they ever did, just with more finnicky uptimes

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you don't need to bring drones all the time, only when you need the reliable self-defense of a gunship-drone or if you need a specialty that a drone does better.
obviously this is different when you can't use air support, but his machinegun strafers and electron copters are extremely powerful

stuck sierra
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I feel there's a mid-late game enemy ||flamethrower fish drones|| that is very "ha ha, you picked air raider, good luck hurting me" though. they're only vulnerable to damage while shooting at you.

torn saffron
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yeah, that's one of my other complaints about drones outside of their low range and dubiously-useful types

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air raider just doesn't really have a good answer for them because of his lack of good direct-fire weapons, particularly explosives

stuck sierra
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I do love how air raider basically gets an air tortoise, tho.

torn saffron
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air raider is still my favorite, next to fencer

torn saffron
stuck sierra
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I admit once I realised how lasers are meant to be used, wing diver became my #2 spot in an instant.

torn saffron
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wd benefitted a lot from the partial reloads, yes

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the mag blasters are an instant good all-rounder because of it

stuck sierra
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I also hadn't known at the time that reloading stops firing entirely

torn saffron
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this is also important to know

stuck sierra
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there's several weapons where you think "ah, I've done my damage, now for 1 minute of wasted time, possibly hurting my allies" if you don't know of reload cancelling.

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alas, fencer is still my #1 precious boy, because blood storm

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range? yes. damage? yes volume? yes

torn saffron
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fencer is my favorite for every reason excluding his missiles, though these complaints manifest primarily in online lobbies

stuck sierra
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for everything else, there's spear/anime sword

torn saffron
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how far have you gone into edf6?

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mission/difficulty wise

stuck sierra
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me? let's see... just playing normal at the moment, not looking forward to the high level weapon nerfs, but... 75-80? somewhere in there.

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da ||feesh men||, they're so annoying

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after all, a "you die if you stay here 2 seconds" field that can throw itself at you, animation canceling said field and giving no tells that just won't die? evil.

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also the field lasts about 40 seconds.

torn saffron
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i wouldn't say that long, but

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||scylla|| are abnormally tanky for their size (and vertical cross-section for KM6), they demand the absolute extremes of all the classes

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wd has probably the easiest time, then fencer, ranger, and AR shortly behind

stuck sierra
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da biggest boom, the fastest "run awaaaay" and the longest healthbars.

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think I have to go back and farm mission 70 for more armor

torn saffron
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i wouldn't ever tank a scylla, fencer and WD have the mobility to kite around the clouds

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typically backpedalling or strafing to the left is enough to get out of the way of a lunge

stuck sierra
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oh no, the health isn't for tanking, it's for surviving getting out of the field.

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cause those lunges? oof-da

torn saffron
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well the giant gouts of purple should be evidence enough :p

stuck sierra
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but it doesn't make them if it starts making purple then jumps.

torn saffron
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but yes they're an annoying problem and astoundingly hard to deal with as air raider, who doesn't actually have many "i want to absolutely nuke this enemy for over 100k damage" options, especially online

stuck sierra
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uhh, the one self-destruct rocket drone does several k damage

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and you get, like 4

torn saffron
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gigantocopter is an instakill for fodder enemies, but it has a slow speed, dangerous to use, and a slow reload—the scale at which ||scyllas|| demand damage online is enough where the Cannon artillery strike is an unironic option

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traditional big enemy killing options like KM6, autocannon/minigun/vulcan, 120mm, and new strafer drones are unironically insufficient for the amount they throw at you—these are enemies that easily surpass ant queens or king spiders in sheer hp

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offline it's way better but online is the literal logical limit of "i really need damage".

stuck sierra
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ew.

torn saffron
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this is primarily from someone who's played a lot of Online Hardest/some Inferno around that exact mission range, so i've kinda lost sight of what it's like offline at more normal difficulties

torn saffron
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in contrast, something like the AR's level 22 portable attack aircraft does >100 damage per bullet—a lot compared to a similar level assault rifle—has the potential to do 41k damage if all of its bullets hit. they won't but you'll be doing a significant percentage of that total damage to any big enemy you make it pass over

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-# sorry for the infodumps, i've played this game too much

stuck sierra
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le bullet spray, my beloved. there's just a joyous feeling to hosing down big spooky beasts with a raven/minigun

torn saffron
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potentially actually the magnum/killer copters (at least before inferno-grade limpets)

stuck sierra
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things are stupid fast when they want to be, too, so clumping them up is almost always a maybe.

torn saffron
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well, they basically always clump up when they first spawn. it's absolutely imperative that you kill as many as you can on their first attack before they fall out of sync and start surrounding you

torn saffron
stuck sierra
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battle roombas. the secret best bad weapon in the game.

torn saffron
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well, in 5 they were pretty good on those colonist/cosmonaut fog missions when you absolutely didn't want to bother fighting through the fog

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but in 6 they forcefully spread out and must lock onto separate targets or else they defuse

blissful fern
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I am once again requesting other boots to stomp upon bugs.

stuck sierra
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I suppose I could put on my stompin' boots.

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@blissful fern still need backup?

blissful fern
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Just got my tea, so sure could be fun

stuck sierra
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excellent. I've got about an hour and a half to kill, though I'll have to be mic-less

blissful fern
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Shouldn't be an issue

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I got 4.1 and 5 ready to boot whenever

stuck sierra
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I've got 5 open, would need to reinstall 4.1

blissful fern
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5 it is then

stuck sierra
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alright, just host up and toss the room name

blissful fern
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Right, moment

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Lobby name "Krabric" password "crabric"

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I have up to mission 89, and... I have a handful I never actually finished

stuck sierra
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I arrive

blissful fern
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Right, this is one I never managed to beat even with 4 people

stuck sierra
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ahh, the trick is to leave out the back of the car park and wipe the cosmos out that way first, then pick isolated pairs off.

blissful fern
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I'll just try what I can do

blissful fern
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Okay, so that worked

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Now the sky is full

stuck sierra
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time for me to infiltrate some shields

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I may have forgotten the robots were on that mission.

blissful fern
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Eh, autocannon grounds them well enough

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Now I don't see any question marks on my list

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Still nothing new after 89 though

stuck sierra
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welp. time to blast away, then

blissful fern
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How much time do you have left?

stuck sierra
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I should be good for one more.

blissful fern
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Righto

stuck sierra
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btw, I'm not gonna be able to fly

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battery's too fat

blissful fern
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That makes this even funnier

stuck sierra
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heh. that's one of 4 missions you can ghost chaser with the big battery safely. just gotta bring a very cheap other weapon

blissful fern
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I picked it randomly

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Anyway, it has been nice

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Have a nice day

stuck sierra
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you too.

torn saffron
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i've been doing DLC2 Hardest as AR with a friend online, and as fencer in public lobbies

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the difference between what i can do and what i struggle at is night and day

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did Snow March, one of the later missions that features a lot of robotic/android enemies that AR is either only okay at or actively struggles with

  • AR with a WD friend: extremely reliant on electron copter to do its job, relied on red nix as a lifeline and my WD friend to pick up the slack in places
  • F, two ARs/Rs, basically the star of the show in thinning out android and excavator clumps
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what fencer primarily lacks is a lot of "playmaking" weapons like WD's plasma great cannon, raijin; R's C90 bombs; or AR's big airstrikes

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...and also good anti-air

blissful fern
#

I dare ask once more, whom if any wishes to partake in a crumb of EDF 5 in an hour or so?

lofty imp
blissful fern
#

I'll likely be asleep by then, tomorrow is questionable for me

lofty imp
#

Dang. Well my hours are pretty much the same all week. Ping me if you have time.

blissful fern
#

Saturdays are pretty much the only days I have anything going on

blissful fern
#

Then again, some days I just cannot really sleep

nova plover
#

auto-collect weapons&armore and multiplying drops has done wonders for enjoying edf for me, makes the inferno grind a little less "accidentally killed the last enemy so 45 mins of barely surviving were not worth anything"

torn saffron
#

so apparently (later level) hammer copters for air raider are capable of hitting through kruul shields

#

i found this out a couple weeks ago when playing DLC2 with a friend, though this is someone else's recording with the inferno-grade hammer copter

#

it's the same weird mechanic that the dynamo blade experiences, where the projectile hitbox is so huge (and doesn't instantly expire on-hit) that it's capable of clipping through the shield and hitting the hand behind it

#

though in the dynamo's case this only really applies to kraken

torn saffron
#

we're a little over 3/4 of the way done and the missions have sort of entered the "take up an entire play session to try and beat" territory

torn saffron
#

yeah. we got to DLC2 m31, fast ship

#

wonderful mission that drops every kind of fodder android at you in high-up transport ships that move, as the name says in the mission, incredibly fast

torn saffron
#

we ended up doing m31 just with grape caravan strats; take down the leftmost ship (that drops machinegun androids) and then run around the perimeter of the map shooting down androids

#

my friend was doing most of that so i actually ended up just using a beacon gun to mark which transports dropped actually threatening androids

torn saffron
#

we're currently on m39, last mission of the dlc will be m40.

#

neither are particularly pleasant for an AR/WD combo

#

though i wager playing fencer would make it significantly easier in a couple ways.

potent anchor
#

Oh heck, I didn't notice this was here. Probably should shove all my EDF questions here in the future.

#

Granted it seems rather quiet in here..

stuck sierra
#

It tends to be, after a fashion. I still check here every day or two

potent anchor
#

Sooo should I just keep using nerdtalk then or..?

stuck sierra
#

Not too fussed either way, myself

#

May as well put the questions here, though. Whatcha wanna know?

potent anchor
#

So I was air raiding some today, cause I really like calling in big booms, and I've noticed that some of my runs hit the dropships and some don't? Or maybe I've just not noticed some? So was wondering what that was about. I think my new strafing run that sends 3 machine gun runs also drops explosives? Not too sure, but it did some big damage to a ship once apparently.

stuck sierra
#

Huh... the strafing runs as in edf6 drone strafing runs?

potent anchor
#

My general go on Air Raider so far is aerial enemies kinda suck unless ya got homing missiles, in which I only have 2 kinds

#

No, edf5.

stuck sierra
#

Hmm, edf5 air raider needs the ZE guns for flyibg enemies.

potent anchor
#

You mean the turrets?

#

Cause honestly, unless I'm underground, I don't really use them.

#

I feel much happier having either another run to request or a laser for the resident Lancer to launch missiles at.

stuck sierra
#

As for dropships, certain autocannon family strikes punch through them

#

The turrets are great, just have to put em all out as a "it's safe here" setup.

potent anchor
#

Sure, I could be safe.

#

But I could also have two slots to annihilate groups of enemies

stuck sierra
#

Group clearing is nicer when you're not blowing yourself up

potent anchor
#

Partly joking

stuck sierra
#

Also the turrets dissolve bees

potent anchor
stuck sierra
#

Yeah, the one that's basically a machine gun burst, so long as it's centered on the portal circle, will damage through the teleporter ships.

potent anchor
#

I've mostly been using the Rocket Cannon B or the shotgun calldown as my primaries lately, then swapping my secondary to some sort of strafing/bomb run depending on what new stuff I get or what I'm feeling like. Haven't quite chosen my favorite there yet. Then for third, mostly just depends what I feel or if my allies wants some support, I get the beacons or buffs. Vehicles also kinda swap around depending on the mission.

stuck sierra
#

Real easy grinding, btw, the ||first species gamma|| level. Just draw aggro and spend the rest of the level in the parking garage with a shotgun.

potent anchor
#

Species what?

stuck sierra
#

The ||pillbugs||

potent anchor
#

Haven't met those yet

stuck sierra
#

Ah, what difficulty are you going on?

#

Cause ZE guns get muuuch better once you unlock the ZER gun

potent anchor
#

Normal so far

stuck sierra
#

The R means rapidfire, btw

potent anchor
#

Did a few of the beginning levels on Hard.

stuck sierra
#

An okay-ish level for real early grind for hard mode is "encounters on return"

#

Loads of enemies, so many drops

torn saffron
#

i always seem to be late for these, hold on

potent anchor
#

All I can remember of today is fighting a bunch of bugs and ships in some wet fields, surviving a beach ambush (giant golden platform included), and destroying said giant golden platform.

torn saffron
#

as such, the machinegun strafing runs (KM6) will clip through and hit from the inside-out of the red weakpoint

potent anchor
#

Wasn't the walking outpost I did weird hits with. Twas normal dropships.

torn saffron
#

i'm not sure then, because i haven't ever really heard of it—either way, not really a reliable option

#

many of air raider's strikes can penetrate through dropships to hit enemies below, but won't damage the dropship itself. the only strikes that don't do this are the 120mm Neutralize and the aforementioned rocket cannons

stuck sierra
#

The neutralize is the orbital shotgun, then.

torn saffron
#

the 120mm is an incredibly flexible gunship strike due to its high damage potential to big enemies and ease with handling fliers or enemy fodder

stuck sierra
#

wasps. Foul creatures, won't let us air raid in peace

torn saffron
#

the km6 has large enough gaps that calling it directly above yourself (and standing between the lines) will leave you unscathed; it's incredibly cheap but boasts high killing power against enemy groups and boss monsters

potent anchor
#

Ain't had much trouble with wasps. My homing missile wagon does not care how quick you are. It will find you.

torn saffron
#

the naegling?

potent anchor
#

Oh yeah, I think the KM6 is the new one I got. Upgraded (?) version that calls in 3 fighters instead.

potent anchor
#

One of my favorite vehicles honestly.

potent anchor
stuck sierra
#

The vehicles are so much tissue paper once the fliers can fight back, though.

potent anchor
#

I have a bad tendency to call my Nix's far away from the frontlines

torn saffron
#

they get faster over time; the red nixes are the ones to look out for in terms of general combat

potent anchor
#

I only have the basic Nix, the grenade Nix, and upgraded basic Nix right now. And the Depth Crawler. Can't forget the Depth Crawler.

stuck sierra
#

Red ones go fasta

#

Depth crawler, my beloved

torn saffron
#

admittedly early-level AR isn't a super remarkable experience

potent anchor
#

I dunno why my brain keeps forgetting names today

stuck sierra
#

Crab tank goes brrrrr and all the problems are gone

torn saffron
#

typically he picks up around the 30s, particularly when he gets a wider km6 and the Phobos 3

stuck sierra
#

Lionics.

potent anchor
#

You mean those levels as in the missions?

torn saffron
#

weapon levels

stuck sierra
#

Item levels

potent anchor
#

Ah.

#

I don't fully understand that stuff, sorry

torn saffron
#

what difficulty are you playing on?

potent anchor
#

I've heard that certain missions have higher chances of dropping certain items and that higher difficulties drop higher stuff, but that's it

#

Normal.

stuck sierra
#

Yeh. Also star rating on items is almost entirely random

torn saffron
#

oh, normal; i believe the max weapon level by the end of the campaign is only somewhere around the 20-25s

potent anchor
#

Oh

stuck sierra
#

Every mission has a weapon level range for drops. It's different if there's more players. Also normal weapon max dropped on solo is 23

potent anchor
#

Well, I've mostly been playing with 2 other people lately.

stuck sierra
#

Hard goes to 60ish eventually, tho

torn saffron
#

each mission has a 'drop range' of weapon levels, so a mission on Hard will drop weapons ranging from level 30-36
weapon upgrades are biased towards the class you're playing and towards weapons in the middle of that weapon band, so a level 33 weapon has a chance to get higher stats

stuck sierra
#

There's... a lot of missions, btw

torn saffron
#

there's plenty, yes. main appeal of the game is that replayability

#

anyway, you're still in the early ranges of weapons and still figuring things out, so i wouldn't really worry that much about things

potent anchor
#

I was told by one of said buddies a mission we did was pretty good for grinding weapons and such. I wanna say it was the rainy field mission with a lot of monsters and aliens and dropships. Though maybe it was another mission close to it.

torn saffron
#

any mission that can be reliably/quickly/easily completed and gives good crate amounts can be farmable

stuck sierra
#

Ehh, way too much walking. Takes too long to get everything.

potent anchor
#

Noted.

stuck sierra
#

The crate chance is what kills most potential farming missions

potent anchor
#

Oh yeah, I tried the Caliban today.. I kinda just summoned it all over the place so we had spots to retreat for healing (the Fencer lacked range against the walking outpost and the Wing Diver died on top of it, so half the mission was just surviving and waiting for Wing Diver to fall off. And before ya asked why didn't I help, the only option I had to reach that didn't get me focused was missiles. And yes, I know just summoning stuff when it's off cooldown is probably not the smartest, but it's the simplest sort of loop for me to follow, and it always feels wasteful if I'm not spending time charging up the next run or whatever I have.

#

The Caliban is the big, healing ambulance

stuck sierra
#

Oh no, caliban is like a food truck. Dump em everywhere

potent anchor
#

Not exactly an exciting choice, I know, but I didn't think any of my vehicles would've helped out much.

stuck sierra
#

Also there are some wacky fencer weapons later that'll need your help to fire.

potent anchor
#

Oh yeah, I've been helping my Lancer buddy with his Blood Storms and Leviathans.

stuck sierra
#

Yeah, that lockon gun? Works for everyone's lock ons.

potent anchor
#

I've theorized that doing so may be a good idea against dropships, but not really sure. Haven't had the luck cause the missiles keep hitting the not-red spot or they close up when we start locking on.

#

I've wanted to use the High-Speed Laser Guide, but jesus christ it has such short range it honestly feels kinda useless, but maybe I just need to get it upgraded a bit more.

stuck sierra
#

It can get better, like any other gun. That range is probably not set in stone unless it's star is filled in.

potent anchor
#

I don't think it's star is filled in.

#

But dang, like it's range is way shorter than the normal Laser Guide I have

stuck sierra
#

Anyways, I'm getting drowsy so I'm gonna head to bed now

potent anchor
#

Fair, thanks for the information.

#

May poke this server to see if anyone is down for some EDF sometime

stuck sierra
#

No worries, this game series was a hyperfixation for me for a couple years

potent anchor
#

Long as no one minds me horribly misaiming my bombing runs

#

I've still gotta get used to some of the times cause the one I'm used to using comes in real fast, but the others have felt slower in comparison and I'm not good at reading the enemy

stuck sierra
#

Takes some gettibg used to, aiming those

grand crystal
blissful fern
#

It is not the Air Raider that is incorrect but the bomber crew

#

Of course

torn saffron
potent anchor
#

Is there a stat that shows how fast a strike will come in? Cause I swear some come in faster than others. (As in how quickly it's performed to determine how much ya need to place in advance for something.)

torn saffron
#

kamuy has the fastest, but it's not instantaneous and its small radius makes it questionably worth it

blissful fern
#

I have had a lot of success with Kamuy but in the end it comes down to getting a feel for each

#

Use what you like or what works for the mission

potent anchor
#

Awww but Kamuy is my favorite cause it doesn't waste a second bombing in :C

#

I'm good when I don't need to plan for enemy movement. Or if no one disturbs the enemies so I can get in a run before someone pokes and gets the whole swarm running at them

potent anchor
#

Anyone down for some EDF?

#

EDF 5 I should probably specify

potent anchor
#

Well, darn

lofty imp
stuck sierra
#

Sorry, sundays are usually my arpg days. That or I spend time with local friends

potent anchor
#

Fair enough

potent anchor
#

I'd also have to consider the fact that all of you may have progressed further in the game than me and I may not have access to certain missions.

lofty imp
#

That just means we let you run the lobby

grand crystal
#

Yup

potent anchor
#

If that's not an issue to anyone then

grand crystal
#

Given that the game clamps down on armour and gun levels, ittle all be fine.

potent anchor
#

I find that a lil dumb honestly but it's probably for some balance thing

grand crystal
#

Ish?

#

Balance isn’t real and armour is never enough. Caps or no.

#

That’s just the truth of EDF

potent anchor
#

Huh.

#

Is it rude if I ask you guys help me find good missions for cool Air Raider weapons? Or is that not how drops work? I'm.. still struggling to understand that.

grand crystal
# potent anchor *Is it rude if I ask you guys help me find good missions for cool Air Raider wea...

okay so each mission has a level range of drops it can give you, within that range its TOTAL RNG. THERE IS NO DUPLICATE PROTECTION. GOD IS DEAD AND RNGESUS IS YOUR NEW LORD!

so basically find a mission around the level that you are with lotsa pinyata enemies. the giant aliens are that kinda enemy, so are some of the special drones. when you kill em instead of it being a chance for some crates its essentially garentees you get more than 1. thats why I call em pinyatas. of course theres probably some specific levels the community would reccomend for specific level ranges but essentially, if you can clear a level well, and its got a lotta pinyatas, have at it.

#

oh no wait I do think weapon pickups do have a slight weight towards the class you are actively playing?

#

yeah that sounds right in my head.

#

oh and dont get me STARTED ON THE STAR SYSTEM

#

AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

#

but yeah fight some frogs, kill em good, and pick up the shinies.

potent anchor
#

Really?

#

I felt the frogs didn't drop much.

#

And are very annoying to fight

#

Though maybe I'm just not using the right tools for frog hunting

grand crystal
#

aim for the head

#

arms and legs are worthless

#

they just grow back. I mean eventually sure you might kill it. but I think they've got DR or something on their limbs

#

the head though

#

if that gets popped they go all boomy

grand crystal
potent anchor
#

Bit hard to 'aim' with air strikes.

grand crystal
#

..... you do have a limpet gun right?

#

like

#

the basic limpet gun

potent anchor
#

I do, but not very fond of it honestly.

grand crystal
#

that has near instant projectile speed, pinpoint accuracy, and enough damage to punch up til level 20?

grand crystal
#

cause those CAN be aimed

potent anchor
#

Ya mean like the cannons, right?

grand crystal
#

yea

#

you shoot a thingy, and then some of them fire a lotta lil things, those are the ones you want

#

cause they recharge super fast

#

and deal big damage

#

Im really bad with names I just remember what the thingies do

potent anchor
#

IF ya mean the spraying ones

grand crystal
#

also just to be clear you do know that without the limpet gun underground missions are going to be cancer.

potent anchor
#

I only have the one

grand crystal
#

I mean you could theoretically do turret strats, but, like, they killed that off in EDF 6 so getting used to them in 5 is kinda training yourself for failure later on.

potent anchor
#

And by turrets, ya mean the ones Air Raider deploys, right?

grand crystal
#

yea

#

you yeet em down

#

and they go pew pew

potent anchor
#

I tend to do a fun strategy of slapping those on my Depth Crawler then running forward in tunnels

grand crystal
#

devastatingly powerful at area denial

#

tahts.... huh.

#

I typically shoot down a guard post (the infinite type not those stupid consumables) and drop 5-12 turrets on top of me and watch the enemies kill themselves

#

god I miss that

#

EDF6 what did we do to deserve the slaughter?

potent anchor
#

Never really used the posts

#

I have used the guns that do the same thing though

grand crystal
#

not the post, theres a gun that shoots the defense post

#

the posts are terrible

potent anchor
#

Yeah, that

grand crystal
#

the guns are great

potent anchor
grand crystal
#

cause instead of THAT

#

I just slowly marched forward with turrets and post shots ever expanding my controlled area

#

which took

#

FOREVER

potent anchor
#

I mean I'm sure it's annoying for the turrets to have to re-aim but

grand crystal
#

oh it was fine it just tripled my mission clear time compared to using the rifleman

#

whatever they're called

potent anchor
#

Ranger

grand crystal
#

look as it turns out, firing off an RPG into a bunch of overgrown bugs and then sniping off the stragglers works great.

potent anchor
#

Who I've admittedly have some fun with. Even if I have far too much interest in using missile launchers

grand crystal
#

Ranger is great.

#

mained him in EDF6

#

because they killed off my turrets

#

I do not forgive.

potent anchor
#

I just like calling in a bunch of destruction admittedly

grand crystal
#

oh totally

#

EDF has tons of explorabel playstyles and its awesome

potent anchor
#

I'll just have to pre-emptively apologize as my mind tends to try and aim runs straight at enemies, paying no attention to other soldiers

#

I try not to aim towards other players at least. NPCs will have to fend for themselves.

#

I've also been questioning between whether the Rocket Cannon or the Neutralizer Cannon is better for taking out drones or frogs.

grand crystal
#

bah. they can all fend for themselves. fire all of the missiles.

grand crystal
#

i dunno Im bad with names

potent anchor
#

I think so too if mostly cause of how much it covers.

#

And drones when moving can dodge rockets so easily

#

But also I'm pretty sure rockets reload faster than the neutralizer

#

Oh yeah, I'll be down for EDF shortly. Though I hope no one minds if I bring another buddy from elsewhere.

torn saffron
#

they're sluggish to track/respond to a lot of targets, do relatively low amounts of total damage, and are significantly more dangerous to use up-close

#

so the quick reload ends up as a consolation prize for a generally middling gunship

#

neutralize is absolutely better for drones and flying enemies in general—it misses less and has an extremely low chance of hurting you or your teammates

#

it's not bad against frogs due to their size and neutralize's total damage per second, but there are other strikes like autocannon, 150mm, or 105mm that are more precise

potent anchor
#

Yeah, I like those ones, just been bouncing between rockets and neutralize.

#

In hindsight, I should probably use #looking-for-group when I want to play stuff with other people.

grand crystal
#

Gonna be honest Red…. You can try? But I’ve not seen much luck from it. Servers too broad for it to be effective

potent anchor
#

Well, not really sure what else to do. Unless I'm just picking really busy times to try and do a game

lofty imp
#

Ping me when you want to play. I'm usually game

potent anchor
#

So either I'm not using missile launchers on the right things or I just need to level them up as using some against drones has proven dissapointing. Granted all I've used are the Fork and the earlier ones that can lock onto multiple targets.

stuck sierra
#

oh no, missile launchers are what I'd like to call "a bad choice" for ranger. they're almost all meme worthy levels of bad

#

amusingly on easy difficulty the mlra just buzzsaws bugs, though

#

oneshots the bees, but not on higher difficulties

potent anchor
#

Probably shouldn't have been trying it on frogs.

stuck sierra
#

if you use the multiple lockon secondary item, the mlra does stupid things to big targets, though

potent anchor
#

Meanwhile on Air Raider, I'm so used to the distance I have on Autocannon that it feels really weird using shorter-ranged call-ins

#

Oh yeah, I should probably try that sometime. I've just been using the Probe so I pick stuff up from further.

stuck sierra
#

it's nice, but I find the "let me keep sprinting when taking damage" armor works pretty good on crowded missions

#

my usual go to for ranger is either a Stork or a Raven assault rifle, then something weird and wacky from the other weapon lists as my second gun.

#

there's a hilarious sniper rifle you get later that just splats big things

#

as for Air Raider, the Magnum drone is disturbingly good at popping frogs and reloads fast. not fast enough for droid swarm, but it's droid swarm for a reason

potent anchor
#

Haven't seen any drones yet.

#

Also either I'm unlucky or I've unlocked all the stuff I can for the levels I'm on cause I have't gotten anything new from the last couple of farming attempts. I would think an Autocannon B wouldn't be that high-leveled at least, since that's kinda what I really want

nova plover
#

sometimes there's a 10-20 lvl gap inbetween variants

#

i personally recommend grabbing a mod or anything else which increases your drops by at least 2x, since edfs loot system is like that

#

i also think the magnum drones are exclusive to edf6

torn saffron
stuck sierra
#

is the weapon you're thinking of over level 24?

torn saffron
#

the low level ones are absolutely lousy, yeah

stuck sierra
#

my point.

torn saffron
#

well, you said 'almost all', and i'd say 24-80 is a pretty big exclusion range

stuck sierra
#

most players do the game on normal difficulty, finish the campaign, and then stop

#

but, I see what you mean.

#

all the fun weapons in EDF are unlocked by playing hardest or inferno. Exhibit "my barga isn't level locked"

torn saffron
#

i think it's fine to say that a lot of the early-level weapons (across all classes) feel really crummy—especially for such a long time investment—but even as early as midgame hard you should have more actually competent weapons

stuck sierra
#

I mean, in edf6 the Fencer doesn't even get a second normal hand cannon until the normal difficulty campaign is almost over

torn saffron
#

yeah, it's kind of unfortunate

grand crystal
stuck sierra
#

a horrifyingly high percentage, yes. about 60% or so

torn saffron
#

missiles are great at managing larger groups of fodder enemies later on, but drones are typically more easily dealt with using burst damage options

#

snipers are the most obvious, but if the cloud of drones gets really dense a shotgun will do

stuck sierra
#

the fencer gets a "cloud of death" cannon. it's not fast enough to do more than thin the drones out a little, but does a ton of damage if you can position right and hit with all of them

blissful fern
#

I can't even do the harder difficulties despite the fact that I do not have a mission on my list that is not done

#

Though I still haven't gotten around to ||GOD||

grand crystal
blissful fern
#

So something must be missing

stuck sierra
#

sometimes the secret to beating the higher difficulties is to find a level with a high enemy count, but they're very weak, then farm the crap out of it

grand crystal
#

thats it

torn saffron
#

well, it's mostly just armor

blissful fern
#

No I mean they are not available

stuck sierra
#

the grind is eternal

grand crystal
#

...... what? what do you mean not available?

torn saffron
#

you need to beat the final level

#

like, again or something

blissful fern
#

Eh, I don't have the game installed right now

grand crystal
#

if you've done every mission you should have Hardest and INFERNO unlocked

blissful fern
#

Otherwise I'd ask for someone to take a look

grand crystal
#

fair enough

stuck sierra
#

ohhh you had a bug that made it so you can't play those missions? that's rough because I think you have to go into the game's save file and reactivate those missions manually

#

there's also probably a mod that just unlocks the harder difficulties for you, but manual save changes would guarantee them

blissful fern
#

It very well could be that I just missed a mission

#

But can't check it right now

grand crystal
#

quite possibly. but yeah you'd have to reinstall to see.

stuck sierra
#

ehh, game's good, but I wouldn't say it's "reinstall to check if I'd done that one level" good

potent anchor
grand crystal
#

Ah

#

Yeah the EDF6 bobble heads, the drones, the ships

#

Many names

potent anchor
#

Not as bad as getting caught between a ton of frogs though

grand crystal
#

....... I mean

#

red or green?

potent anchor
#

So far in my experience, yes. Though probably red

grand crystal
#

ahhhh.

#

yeah fair enough

#

green honestly aint that bad

#

red though

#

ohhohoooh red.

potent anchor
#

Pondering if I should swap out my missile call-in for 180 or one of the other cannon call-ins.

torn saffron
#

gunships in general will be easier to use for fire-and-forget actions

#

lionic and cruise demand a lot of your attention for the duration of their use and aren't as flexible

potent anchor
#

But lot of missiles and booms means to me more destruction.. and they seem pretty good against frogs?

#

And well, not like I tend to use a lot of things that demand my attention outside of vehicles or if I'm helping guide a Lancer's Leviathans

grand crystal
potent anchor
#

Fair point.

#

And I imagine enough missiles anyway from a cruise set would probably take at least one out no matter where they hit

grand crystal
#

it depends

#

sometimes the frogs still live

#

the frogs are just, built different

#

Ive literally had ones where Ive shot them, for like a good 30 seconds, and I think they're dead, and then halfway through the mission they regenerate and snipe me with an explosive that kills me.

#

you always gotta wait for the blood splosion

potent anchor
#

Hard to see the blood splosion if a ton of other explosions are covering it.

grand crystal
#

yup

torn saffron
grand crystal
#

also yeah what Boring said, if its working, dont switch it up

#

if it aint broke dont fix it

#

thats how I had the Dunkle for 90% of my EDF6 playthrough just ripping through everything.

torn saffron
#

just that generally 105mm/autocannon on a pure frog mission will let you target up to three different targets (or groups) at once

grand crystal
#

autocannons my beloved

potent anchor
#

I've thought of mainly using the multi-fire 105, but.. not much range and also the reload.

torn saffron
#

the gunship beacons are unfortunately very volatile in their range and beacon speed upgrades

potent anchor
#

I think my furthest so far is the basic Autocannon.

grand crystal
#

once you get one with a few upgrades in it they become IMMENSELY powerful

#

the issue is

#

ya know

#

finding the upgrades

potent anchor
#

There's gotta be an Autocannon B at least, right?

#

I would think I'd have picked one up by now. I've gotten every cannon other than Autocannon as a B.

torn saffron
#

you're getting a very small slice of the total weapon pool

#

it might not be until fairly late

#

the autocannon line is pretty weird anyway, since it changes names like every two variants

potent anchor
#

That'd explain why all I've gotten are replicas on my repeats then. Darn.

torn saffron
#

normal is only 0 to ~20 for the entire campaign, hard is 0 to ~55

stuck sierra
#

Big problem with 6's autocannons is their recharge times are significantly longer than in 5

grand crystal
#

Yeah but in 6 we’ve got the drones so it evens out

torn saffron
#

in reality, EDF5's gunships just did a goofy amount of sustained damage, and the reload speed on the autocannons was just extremely fast

stuck sierra
#

turns out 12 seconds instead of 6 is still more dps than the lysander

torn saffron
#

...so all the nerf did was make the mediocre or bad gunships worse, while the neutralize and autocannons stayed more powerful relatively

#

the lysander is unique purely because you can wait out the firerate delay by shooting your other gun

#

otherwise it trades raw dps for bullet performance

stuck sierra
#

and that's a hell of a performance. cosmonauts? still dead, Heavy armor cosmonauts? no helmet

#

Lysander was my go-to sniper in edf5

torn saffron
#

more relevant in edf6, really, since cosmonauts were more of a DPS check on their armor, while the new EDF6 enemies actually interact with the bullet speed

stuck sierra
#

uuugh, some of the edf6 enemies are not fun though. Kruul, for example

nova plover
#

i like to implement 32mm cannon dismemberment for kruul to take their shield off and then hit them in the head or my local air raider obliterates them from orbit

#

i do agree that they are some of the more annoying enemies, though i'd rate 'anything with a laser' higher, since that glues my fencer to the ground (red basic drones for example)

#

also reinforcing my point: always cheat higher drop rates, statisticly you miss about half a drop table on a campaign playthrough (taking only stuff on that level into account)

#

helps with the whole "this weapon is only good with upgrades"-thing

grand crystal
# stuck sierra uuugh, some of the edf6 enemies are *not fun* though. Kruul, for example

.... no see base Kruul are fine.

the issue is when its the Kruul variants, and hteres 12 of them, and theres 170 milipedes, and they've got kaiju support, and theres a spawner, and-

I think you get the point.

the issue is not the Kruul. its that EDF6 introduced a lot of BRUTAL enemies on their own, and then stacked them all together into mission enviornments that care not for you.

and while sure you could argue thats the EDF formulae, I think we can all agree that 6 took it too far at times.

#

also we've been over this, Kruul are easily defeated by hucking a grenade, laughing as they leap to block it, and you shoot all fo their arms off.

torn saffron
#

i've kind of heard the opposite—EDF5 missions are generally more difficult than EDF6's, since most of the time they'll give you a lot of extra NPC support

nova plover
#

in my experience npcs do help in missions, mostly as a point to aim your aoe weapons at, which in edf5 was my job as fencer and now is only 30% instead of 60% of my job
but i do agree that edf6 stacks multiple annoying/hard enemy types in some missions

potent anchor
#

So when would one recommend doing Hard?

#

Or getting into higher difficulties?

#

Cause on one hand, more toys. On the other, possibly excrutiating difficulty jump.

torn saffron
#

hard on EDF5 isn't that bad; you can do a first playthrough on hard with basically no major problems if you can play decently well

#

so long as your armor isn't extremely low (at least, online) you'll do fine if you just play normally and collect boxes

#

though i wouldn't recommend swapping classes often for this reason, since splitting up the drops between classes will make you weaker than if you just stuck to one for a playthrough

potent anchor
#

What would you consider 'playing decently' out of curiosity?

potent anchor
#

All I can assume is dodge roll away/through danger, fire when able. Least tis usually my strategy

torn saffron
#

typically positioning for AR

#

though honestly it's hard to quantify

#

knowing just what exactly to bring is like half the battle

nova plover
#

those are pretty nice farming missions, since there's nothing in the way, you could even just take an air raider with the apc vehicle (forgot it's name just now) and do collection with that as well

#

*grape i think

potent anchor
#

Well, I've mained Air Raider so far, so consider me the Obliterator

#

Haven't used the Grape much, mostly out of preference for the Naegling, but if it's quick..

grand crystal
grand crystal
#

its fine?

#

theres technically faster options but nothing as all round as it is

potent anchor
#

I have Grape, some fancy tank with 3 passenger seats, Depth Trawler (Or is it Crawler? I keep forgetting), Caliban aka healing food truck, and the Naegling.

grand crystal
#

depth crawler

#

oh yeah the Caliban is your best friend

#

or at least it was mine

#

drove fast, healed me good, worked as a nice meat shield

#

well "fast"

slower than a grape faster than a tank.

potent anchor
#

I dunno, my Caliban feel slow.

grand crystal
#

I mean yeah. it can be.

#

I liked it cause it had good health and healed me

#

so I deployed it in a panick corner and hid in it when things got tough

potent anchor
#

And the only time I brought it was against the giant walking saucer with too many cannons to count.

#

Mostly cause I couldn't think of any vehicles that would help in breaking said walking saucer

grand crystal
#

answer: none of them.

#

ever.

#

thats a limpet gun mission through and through.

potent anchor
#

Well, none of my weapons were good either cause they all asked me to walk under the platform for the right range and.. yeah.

#

And we had to wait half the mission for the Wing Diver that died on it to fall off cause the Lancer brought short-ranged weaponry.

grand crystal
#

EDF likes you attacking things from the bottom

#

its one of its special features.

grand crystal
potent anchor
grand crystal
#

1000 meters or more, never less.

if its less I dont want it.

unless its like, a shotgun.

grand crystal
#

but the game is gonna force you to play in a less cool way sometimes

grand crystal
potent anchor
#

I'll do it when the game tells me to go cave-diving. Otherwise, it is not taking away my friends in the sky.

grand crystal
#

fair enough

potent anchor
#

Man, I wish I could've stayed a civilian forever. I loved the unique dialogue there.

#

Also, am I crazy or does the mission control general fella comment on things players do sometimes? Or did he just comment on the Caliban cause the mission actually had NPC Calibans or something and I just had oddly good theming/timing?

#

And before you ask what else I brought to the mission, it was Rocket Cannon A (didn't have B yet), Cruise Missiles en masse, and a Strafing Run. Dunno how well runs do to the Outpost, but the laser had far too short a range and had a chance to spawn in a way where they wouldn't be able to go under without some fancy laser-work, at least for me.

grand crystal
#

All the radio dialogue always plays. I think.

nova plover
#

afaik there's no dynamic voice lines

#

also i remember the caliban being somewhat slow and kinda unwieldy, the grape is my choice for collection, since it's fast and has a good collection radius

potent anchor
#

I think I've just found none of the tanks so far had decent weaponry? Though maybe it's also just me not quite used to the piercing cannon one of them had compared to the more explosive kind. Not sure, haven't used in a while.

nova plover
#

no the tank cannons are all kinda bad

#

they are good, when you don't have other direct-fire weapons

potent anchor
#

Guess I'll just stick with the Naegling then.

#

Is it probably not as useful outside of swarms? Probably.

nova plover
#

it is a pretty good all rounder imo

potent anchor
#

Or the Depth Crawler if it's a cave or a city. I've found it kinda fun to traverse the city with the Depth Crawler.

nova plover
#

for more single target stuff i like to bring the bigger "you get one a mission" types

potent anchor
#

And it's.. not too squishy, I feel? Not that tanky, but I imagine there are squishier vehicles.

#

Probably suffers on less open mission fields though.

potent anchor
#

My buddy Fencer though did get what looks like a very strong railcannon that can't be reloaded and seems pretty hecking good for taking out dropships.

nova plover
#

also nixes can be pretty nice in the role in which you might think a tank would be used

nova plover
potent anchor
#

I have a bad habit of tossing out vehicles the moment their bar fills up.. which means I tend to toss out a Nix way in the back if I'm not up-front.

#

And mech legs are.. kinda slow.

nova plover
#

yeah, if you bunny-hop they go a bit faster

stuck sierra
#

kinda nothing. until you get a red coat, they're the slowest

potent anchor
#

That said, I do sorta like the Grenadier. Not sure if I prefer it over the average Nix, especially if I want something that'll let me solo a Dropship, but that's to be seen. Plus my bombers seem oddly effective against those anyway.

stuck sierra
#

gotta really time that "next jump now" button, though

potent anchor
#

I have pressed Space so much and nothing has happened yet I've seen him do it once.

stuck sierra
#

Grenadier is your "that's dead now" nyx

nova plover
#

middle mouse button

potent anchor
#

...

#

That's a dumb button for jumping.

nova plover
#

is the jump key if i remember right

stuck sierra
#

mouse and keyboard for edf is pain

nova plover
stuck sierra
#

shift and space are your shoulder weapons for nyx

potent anchor
#

It's Spacebar for soldier movement..

nova plover
#

fencers dash and parry on shield is shift and space

potent anchor
stuck sierra
#

it's intentionally obtuse to "encourage" you to play with controller

nova plover
#

my pinky has been in pain so many times after a tough mission of reviving my local airraider and wingdiver

potent anchor
stuck sierra
#

one day you'll get the proteus, get all excited, and then become sad. like all the rest of us air raider mains.

potent anchor
#

That said the missiles they have make me very tempted to use Fencer.

stuck sierra
#

note: proteus is a late hard mode unlock

#

half the missiles for fencer require an air raider buddy

nova plover
#

the proteus is great as long as you have people who jump in it with you

stuck sierra
#

the cannons and miniguns get dumb if you remember to alternate firing them

nova plover
#

i love 30mm cannons and the arm hounds

stuck sierra
#

ehhh, arm hounds are nice enough I guess.
flashbacks in blowing self up on lamp posts

nova plover
#

arm hounds allow you to dash and fireing them does the dash cancelling for you

potent anchor
#

I wish I had vehicles for people to join me in, but I don't have those yet and I don't see why anyone would take that in exchange for no longer playing their class

#

The only ones I have are just passenger seats and I'm questioning why someone would need to get in one.

stuck sierra
#

ranger slower than that. also the medibus heals faster when you're in it

nova plover
#

passenger seats are for when you have enough vehicles and somebody needs some "extra armor" to tank a hit

potent anchor
#

Wait, what?

#

Medibus heals faster when I drive it?

stuck sierra
#

when you're in the passenger seat. a little, yeah.

potent anchor
#

Huh.

nova plover
#

i have never noticed that

stuck sierra
#

could just be placebo from having it's health go down when you're shot at, but I've noticed I heal much faster in it.

nova plover
#

well i have to go back to work o7
say hi to phobos from me

torn saffron
#

he can equip two different weapons, but there's plenty that don't work well with eachother due to his firing animations

potent anchor
#

Me, being boring and just carrying two sets of each missile batteries/launchers I want cause kaboom

#

My friend has dual-wielded Leviathans and Blood Storms.

stuck sierra
#

mmmm, blood storms. when your ears don't matter as much as victory does

torn saffron
#

fencer's primary strength imo is simply being a good fighter

stuck sierra
#

things wipe cosmonauts 3 or more at a time in 2 or 3 volleys

torn saffron
#

he doesn't really care as much about normal chaff enemies, and his shield loadouts let him chew up medium types

potent anchor
#

Question;how does Air Raider lock-on guides work for the Blood Storm given it's unique lil multi-missile payload?

stuck sierra
#

cosmos aren't chaff...

#

wait. am brain dum. I blame tiredness.

#

the blood storm can lock onto what the guide is pointing at with all it's primary missiles

#

same is true for MLRAs and any wing diver lockon weapons, like Ghost Chaser or whatever.

potent anchor
#

Forgive if dumb question, but how useful is that? If it is at all

#

Wing Diver looks like they have cool weapons, but.. energy management..

stuck sierra
#

note that Ghost Chaser and it's variants should be treated as if they were 16 levels higher than they are for power usage

#

imagine if you will, a strong enemy that tanks a lot of damage, but only one of your weapon's ten missiles can lock onto it every reload

potent anchor
#

So guiding Blood Storm would make sure all of the payload hits the target?

stuck sierra
#

also if you're playing edf 5, wing diver has 2 weapons. Rapiers and the mid-range laser beam. laser pointer of doom and the personal-space-inator

#

they dissolve everything

stuck sierra
potent anchor
#

I dunno how high leveled his blood storm is

stuck sierra
#

still much more dps than one at a time lock-and-fire on one target

potent anchor
#

Ah right, cause guides allow multi-lock-ons

stuck sierra
#

yup. it's a beautiful thing watching 3 rangers worth of mlra30s just unload on a kaiju

#

I adore how the EDF subreddit filters out "frogs" with Humans. so funny

#

O.o there's a chance the Gleipnir grenades for wing divers are affected by the guide beacon, focusing all their damage onto one target

nova plover
#

they do do that

#

though in my opinion (outside of meme loadouts and boss-killing) bringing the guidance stuff is not great, since in 95% of applications the slot is better used on a minigun gunship, spritefall or bombing run and the fencer is better off being the "least-mobile-class" (armored core assault boosting across the map) while setting off missiles and autocannons

torn saffron
#

typically you have a reliable backup/self defense weapon and then something for longer ranges or bigger enemies

potent anchor
#

Will enemies attack vehicles if their just lying around unused?

stuck sierra
#

if you've never gotten into them? they don't care. otherwise yes

potent anchor
#

I'm questioning if I should consider some strategy to using vehicles besides 'call one down, get in, use all it's ammo, get out and refill, repeat'.

torn saffron
#

sometimes they won't see you leave a vehicle and continue attacking it iirc

#

at best you should just call vehicles before you run out of ammo so you don't have to wait too long

stuck sierra
#

Nah, that's about how the tactics for vehicles work. Sometimes you get enough points to hop out, toss anothe vehicle grenade, and get back to blasting

potent anchor
#

I now have a Nix Red Coat.

#

Also no one told me Autocannons would be good at pummeling Drone MK2 (now featuring legs)

#

Oh yeah, also got Autocannon B

torn saffron
#

yeah, the sustained strikes are usually good for deroys because of the tracking and deroys' relatively large surface area

potent anchor
#

Deroys are what the leggy drones are called, I'm guessing?

#

And yeah, Autocannon and Rapid-fire (something MM) cannons seem to really melt deroys from my short experience.

#

I've also run into more humanoids.

torn saffron
#

autocanon and 105mm are good for basically any enemy medium and above

potent anchor
#

Does that include the humanoids?

torn saffron
#

yes

potent anchor
#

Noted. I've usually thought the 180mm may be quite useful for smashing them down.

torn saffron
#

they're the prime target, really, since it

  • automatically tracks
  • reloads quick enough to handle the relatively lesser amounts of them
  • does a lot of damage
potent anchor
#

Though I've pondered wielding the Autocannon and Neutralizer as well at times

torn saffron
#

180mm is fine, it's just sluggish and not as flexible as autocannon

#

neutralize is great in general

potent anchor
#

So bigger hit, but easily juked.

torn saffron
#

it should track fine, it's just really slow and the autocannons end up doing more total damage anyway

potent anchor
#

I've also received my first Helicopter today.. I HATE IT!

torn saffron
#

earlygame helicopters are particularly awful

potent anchor
#

It's so..

#

Like maybe I'm not understanding how to fly but

#

It either seems too low or too high from how I piloted it

torn saffron
#

all of them require a lot of practice to use well, but earlygame ones are especially bad when combined with the janky controls on M&Kb

potent anchor
#

And aiming was practically impossible.

torn saffron
#

helicopters can only be revved to fly higher, you need to wait for the rotors to slow down to fly down—holding down the space bar more basically "preloads" the revving and makes you do it for longer even if you let go
turning the helicopter basically only reads the raw movement of your mouse, with the actual position being completely in the air until it slows down

potent anchor
#

That.. sounds very tricky.

torn saffron
#

they're incredibly niche; flying is a great trick to have but you need to have a lot of practice to actually do good things with higher level ones

potent anchor
#

I think I'll stick with my mechs and tanks till then.

#

Speaking of, I also finally got a tank with a pair of turrets for others, and the Cave Crawler Flamer.

torn saffron
#

titans and another depth crawler, yea

potent anchor
#

And of course I decided 'I could totally toast these deroys with a Flame Crawler'

torn saffron
#

their huge surface area makes them catch a lot of the extremely damaging bullets from the KM6 strikes, dealing huge amounts of damage for cheap

potent anchor
#

Remind me what the KM6 is?

#

err which strike it is?

torn saffron
#

blue machinegun strafing runs

potent anchor
#

Ah, I've been using those lately, I think.

torn saffron
#

cheap, come in relatively quick, typically in long straight lines

potent anchor
#

Got one that calls in 3 of those, I believe.

torn saffron
#

they're better the larger the enemy is; relatively tall and 'dense' enemies like frogs or cosmonauts aren't the best targets

potent anchor
#

Been my recent favorite call-in. Even oddly useful against dropships sometime? Lil confused by when they do, but they.. sometimes just bring one down if I aim them right

torn saffron
#

but king spiders, ant queens, etc. will get mulched by them

potent anchor
torn saffron
#

yea

#

it's just a matter of surface area

#

the bullets do a pretty big amount of damage, but for the small footprint of a cosmonaut it's going to only catch a couple across multiple different armor pieces

potent anchor
#

What would you suggest against cosmonauts?

torn saffron
#

concentrated heavy strikes, autocannon, 150mm

potent anchor
#

Or even deroys? Granted it seems their decent against deroys assuming they don't move out of the way with their surprisingly swift movement

torn saffron
#

150mm should work just fine, but the autocannon has the added benefit of having the beacon reload if the armor it attached to breaks

potent anchor
#

I've been trying the rapid-fire/multi-fire (the one that's kinda like the autocannon fire but less shells but bigger? I forgot the name, been assuming rapid-fire, but I think I'm mixing it with another kind of cannon) and it's.. oddly effect against aircraft? Though it may also help the new drones are also bigger than the older ones, I feel.

torn saffron
#

nixes also work relatively well in direct combat once their HP scales more, as cosmonauts do relatively low amounts of damage (in trade for being ranged and hard to avoid)

potent anchor
#

Not as circular, but still

torn saffron
#

type 1's are the small circular ones, type 2's are the big wide ones

potent anchor
#

In the square.

#

And yeah, type 2s.

#

Encountered those today.

torn saffron
#

105mm is the one that shoots a bunch of larger shots like the autocannon

potent anchor
#

Ooooh wait I remember why I brought the Flame Crawler. I brought it to a mission cause I thought it'd have Cosmonauts.. but it had the Deroys.

potent anchor
#

Autocannon B, Rapid-Fire 105mm B, and the strafing run I told ya about.

#

I've pondered bringing the bombers or napalm runs for the Cosmonauts as well theoretically.

torn saffron
#

eeh, normal gunships are still your best bet for the most part

#

bombing runs excel at damage over wide areas, but cosmonauts are pretty strict in requiring focus on their armor to break it

potent anchor
#

Would double flamethrowers be a poor idea then?

torn saffron
#

in a relatively fragile depth crawler, yes

potent anchor
#

Darn.

torn saffron
#

fencer is the only one who would reasonably bring a 'flamethrower' (flame revolvers) close up to a cosmonaut; otherwise most other flamethrower type weapons are meant for chaff

potent anchor
#

Noted.

torn saffron
potent anchor
#

Me being weird and liking crawling through cities with the Depth Crawler

torn saffron
#

if an explosion hits armor it seems to be absorbed first by the armor and leaves anything exposed alone, so big explosions aren't great against armor

potent anchor
#

Also noted.

#

In that case, since the Red Coat Nix has a flamethrower, would that mean one of the lower Nix would be theoretically better? (Aka normal or grenadier)

#

Or do the extra armaments on the Red Coat prove effective enough?

torn saffron
#

actually kind of different purely because the red coat nix is a nix and because the shoulder shotguns are incredibly strong

#

damage isn't the biggest still but you have deep ammo reserves and longer range compared to the depth crawler, it's free damage while you lay into a cosmonaut with the shoulder guns

potent anchor
#

I did get to test the Red Coat Nix a bit against the big rolly kaiju fella who decided to intrude on an oddly quiet dropship destruction mission. Granted only for the latter half, most of the damage there was from a limpet gun and an autocannon

torn saffron
#

archelus, yeah

potent anchor
#

And before you ask, I wasn't expecting Archelus

#

Mostly just had the limpet gun since it was a reliable form of damage against the dropships.. granted my buddy had those handled for the most part soooo

torn saffron
#

medium-long range nixes are pretty good against archelus, they put out a lot of damage and let you evade/tank its attacks for the most part

potent anchor
#

Makes sense

#

Ah right, someone here said the turrets are pretty dang good as well.. I got a weird variant of the turrets called something R. Mentioned something about having less, but.. some sort of upside.

#

Pondering bringing two sets of turrets on my next cave mission.

#

Maybe I'll also see how well they help against drones.

#

Thank you for all the info. I'm still rather new to the game. Feel like my couple of buds are really helping me out through the game honestly.

torn saffron
#

it's my pleasure, EDF is just a pretty expansive game

potent anchor
#

Out of curiosity.. what would the napalm runs be good against?

#

Asking case I ever feel like swapping out some more consistent damage for having two kinds of bombing runs. Though I just know it'll also mostly depend on what I feel like using since I really want to like artillery and the beams. (Just got Bulge Laser C and Howitzer)

torn saffron
#

the napalms are intended to wall off an area against a bug horde, but unfortunately they aren't that great in EDF5

#

in EDF6 they got some pretty major buffs, but in 5 they don't do a whole lot of damage—they list the total damage they do if an enemy sits in them for the entire duration, so considering how long it takes for them to expire, it ends up being so little it's not that worth it most of the time

potent anchor
#

Oh..

torn saffron
potent anchor
#

Oh yeah, I met the huge pylons today, I totally didn't forget about those

torn saffron
#

artillery is unfortunately the neglected child in EDF, since for three games straight (4.1 to 6) they've mostly gotten the short end of the stick in terms of ease of use and effectiveness

potent anchor
#

Aw darn

torn saffron
#

mortars are just too tiny and inconsistent, especially compared to a reliable gunship or the power of a large phobos bombing run

potent anchor
#

Grenades do require some guessing to where the red arc leads the further ya go

torn saffron
#

howitzers do have a use from time to time, but mostly on huge, unaggroed groups of bugs

potent anchor
#

Which.. I mean I'm always down for dropping something on myself, then rolling the heck out.

torn saffron
#

cannons do the highest amount of damage bar none, but getting the grenade in the right place (or getting an enemy into the right place) is way too difficult most of the time

potent anchor
torn saffron
#

yeah, that's the big draw especially in edf5

#

bombing runs can be done from super far away and arrive a lot quicker than artillery

potent anchor
#

And from what I've seen, even these blue machine gun runs are pretty good for bug crowds.

torn saffron
#

cannon is sort of proof that even if you make something do 22k damage per shell and give it a lot of shells, it still doesn't justify the limitations from the rest of the weapon

potent anchor
#

It's very sad cause having seen a howitzer barrage, it looks very impressive.

torn saffron
#

it will absolutely kill things, but the parabolic arc makes it unideal for pylons and the delay makes it hard to nail a big enemy

#

the typical big-ticket huge burst damage option is instead the tempest, which is the only credit-reload missile in its category

potent anchor
potent anchor
torn saffron
#

in EDF5 they don't seem to do a lot of DPS, especially for online

#

in EDF6 they rebalanced it to have a longer reload time but significantly more damage

#

they come into their own on EDF6, while the opposite is sort of true for spritefall between the two games

#

spritefall is pretty powerful in EDF5, but trails off a lot in usefulness by EDF6