OK guys, noob here not quite ready to dump this game despite not loving buying ammo. How would you suggest grinding/upgrading from zero? Guns, packs, armor, etc? I can see that cash is pretty plentiful, so grinding isn't the end of the world, but am I grinding the first level until I earn 750,000? That seems like quite a grind... TIA DBC
Grinding Don't play the level 150 times. Play the other levels and rank up, don't let ammo ruin the game for you. When you rank up Get armor and assault rifles, do not get shotguns, they suck. For when you are a medium rank get the thunder/atom sets(as long as your hp is above 20,000 play the mantis and poison pit with team or not) and Either the nova27 or M-27B1. From there no guide will help you, you have to get the hang of the game(to me, even though right now I need help) Get money by multipleyer survival mode and bosses. PvP gets you not very mush money usually.
I don't like the railgun for that, too slow, when you shoot you hit(if you are lucky) 4-5 aliens vs the nova being able to do that but faster. Is crab good for bosses(I am actually kind of fond of the M-2781 for just the giant boss not the wave before it.)? In PvP what do you reccommend?
Well, I'm dying every time I attempt the 4th level, so yeah. Armor and rifles? Any in particular? Medium rank? You mean like small, medium, large? That's convenient on the PvP because PvP bores the H##l out of me in general... DBC
Drummerboycroy, the rank system in the game basically refers to how much EXP you've attained so far. At the start screen, there should be a flashing icon in the top right-hand corner. Tell us what it looks like for you (it's probably a yellow circle with a number of stripes, that will tell you what sort of equipment you can buy right now). The Thunder/Atom armours that Darthguy mentioned are about rank 5 or 6, so it might be a little while off before you can buy those. In the meantime, I think these are the two most commonly recommended pieces of advice for your situation: Buy the FL334AR assault rifle if you can afford it. It's considerably more damage-efficient than the starting assault rifle you have. If you're concerned about running out of ammo mid-match, you can also buy the cutter (a sword which doesn't use ammo at all), but you'll outgrow that weapon fairly quickly once you can keep yourself alive with the other guns. Buy chest armour if you don't want to buy a full suit. Chest armour generally contains the most HP out of all the armour pieces. Some pieces of leg armour increase your movement speed, which helps a lot with dodging enemy attacks, but none of those are available until you can buy the Strike armour. Darthguy, the Crab is quite good for bosses: you average about 2300 damage per second (without power multipliers), and you've definitely got enough speed to easily evade all the attacks. Relatively speaking, it kills faster than the Nova (just under 2000 damage per second). However, the Crab's also less ammo-efficient in general (7.7 damage per energy unit, against the Nova's rate of 10.8 and the M-27B1's 17.5), and your shots lag a little (though relatively negligible). Overall, though, it's very much a good boss killer, and your teammates won't object because it kills bosses faster than the Nova does. ------- Also, the railgun is something I only pull out on the enemies in Double Rages and Serpent. It's a bit like a wild Western quick-draw between you and your teammates trying to kill the enemies first, and I found that the Nova needs several hits to kill enemies on those levels. A fully upgraded railgun kills just about everything except the plasma slugs in one hit, hence my annoying running-sniper tendencies... >.>
@ undead.exe You my friend, rock. That's exactly what I needed. I couldn't figure out what "medium" was, but I think I'm rank 4, so I've got a couple more slogs before I can bump up a bit. If I could, how high do the ranks go? Regarding my weapon choices, your suggestion is quite attainable, so I'll pick that up next. Are the Thunder/Atom armors two different types? If so, is one more useful? As to the armor, great info on the chest vs. legs. Thanks for it! TBH, what I want more than anything is a way to pick up more Gold for now (ammo reserves), but it doesn't look like there's an easy solution for a complete noob... DBC
Levels and armour http://www34.atwiki.jp/starwarfareapp/pages/16.html A site I found with EXTENSIVE information on the price of all equipment, as well as their unlock ranks and effects. Gonna ask someone to incorporate that into the Star Warfare wiki to give newbies some direction with regards to financial decisions. --------------------- The ranks currently go as high as level 12, but you'll be able to buy everything once you hit rank 8 or 9 (I can't confirm what the Perseus' unlock rank is because I've been sitting at rank 11 or 12 for a while now). The Thunder and Atom armours are two different sets, both unlocked at level 6. The Atom set is known for boosting the power of beam-class weapons by 30% (so the laser guns, the laser cannon and the railguns -- NOT the plasma launchers or the Morpheus). The Thunder set has less HP than the Atom set, but you can activate a special ability where your power is boosted by 50% (on top of whatever you already have) and your speed increases by 2 points. The bonus lasts for 10 seconds, and then has to cool down for 30 seconds before you can use it again. (Also note that the special traits I just mentioned above only occur when you have the FULL set of armour on, you won't have either of them if you've got a mix of different armour sets equipped) The Atom suit is only useful once you have at least one beam class weapon. Pretty sure everyone will agree on which one you should get first: the NOVA-27. It's got decent power and fire rate on its own, and beam-class weapons will actually pierce through multiple opponents, meaning you can shoot several enemies at once with a single shot. The Thunder suit will generally work well with any equipment: you should use its special ability to get yourself out of tight spots by mowing down multiple enemies with your increase in power and retreat to a more favourable position where you're not getting swarmed. It's also an ability you'll want to use quite liberally on the bosses when you're fighting them. In particular, I think the two most common companions to the Thunder suit are the M-27B1 chain gun (probably a bit expensive for you right now) or any of the swords, as they'll allow you to slash and dash past alien hordes like a ninja. It'll definitely work with the FL334AR assault rifle too though, additional power is always welcome for any weapon.
12 is the highest rank, thunder and atom are two different suits, the effectiveness of them depends on the weapon you have(thunder is good with M-2781 while atom is good with nova27). But any combination of them that have hp greater than 20,000 you can play wrath of mantis.(boss level) Now you should play level 3 a few times and levels like that and buy the suggested assault rifle.(by undead.exe) Then you should be able to beat level 4. What rank are you, just tell me which color and how many stripes. And after you beat level 4 you might want to play the survival mode with a team, after about 200 kills you get 45,000 money(-ish). But afterwards the money amount increases and if you have 10,000 health (which you should try to get) it is hard to get 200 kills, maybe ten minutes and not much ammo if you get the assault rifle.(you won't need to shoot as much, the energy cost for it is still high compared with other assault rifles.)
Gold farming for newbies: Mantis (w/ a friend) Going to split my next bit of info into a few posts, or I'll get flagged for moderation checking again (had a long post before get quarantined until it got approved by a mod, I still haven't seen it in this thread et) If you can play online, find a friend who has the M-27B1 at levels 6-8. Chances are that your armour isn't strong enough to survive more than one or two hits from the first boss (Mantis), but a friend with a chain gun at that level is...let's just say overkill. Start a match against Mantis with your friend, and try to stay alive and out of the way of the enemy hordes (if you see a large, bulbous, glowing green bug thing walk towards you, SHOOT IT. It's got very low HP, but it will cleave off huge chunks of your HP if it gets close enough to you to explode). There's a safe spot on Mantis' level where you won't be surprised by enemies from behind: if you explore the bridges, you'll find that the bridge/balcony has a dead-end corner near the central "auditorium" area. You can hide there while your higher level friend stands in front of you and kills everything coming towards you (note that this strategy will require cooperation of said friend trying to keep you alive >.>). If you survive until the boss fight, your friend then has to start spraying the Mantis with his chain gun (preferably using hyper clips to speed up the process). Unless your friend's aim is horrifically bad, the Mantis will keep flinching from all the damage its taking, and will literally die without even being able to move from its starting position. That will give you about 133,332 gold the first time you defeat the Mantis in a day if you only entered the match with two players (if you started with 3 players in the match, you'll get 166,665 gold). (Numbers sourced from the wiki page: http://starwarfare.wikia.com/wiki/Wrath_of_Mantis) Now, there are also helmets which increase your gold drop (Fortune at 5%, Hydra and Titan at 10%), as well as a backpack (ECO-03-VI, 10%). Note that these pieces of equipment are quite expensive, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend buying anything other than the ECO pack, assuming you'll be using it for a while to come.
Gold farming in general: miscellaneous When faced with a choice of fighting between a single match, or multiple matches, fighting a single, long match is more profitable than fighting multiple small matches in the same period of time. The reason is that the gold you receive under "bonus" at the end of the match seems to increase the longer your match goes (I'm not too sure whether it's driven by the amount of ammo you use, or the number of enemies you kill; probably the latter). Additionally, you will see a HUGE increase in the bonus gold you receive depending on the longest combo streak you can achieve before the match ends. So the general idea is, you want to time your enemy kills to extend the combo streak for as long as you can. Once the streak is broken, it's still worth it to stick around and kill more enemies, because that still causes your bonus to go up by quite a bit. Once you think you're experienced enough...another method of farming gold, courtesy of Asasnator.(Yes, I've read quite a few of your posts on here Asasnator, excellent work and thanks for the pointers ) http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2172642&postcount=459 These days, it might actually be worthwhile to stick around for the boss fight, but the gold given by the enemies from boss fights seems to be quite high. On the other hand, doing infinite enemies waves on the 4th single player map ("Lair", the same one where you'll fight Siegfried) is an easy way to rack up gold if you're patient enough. Just stand at the top of one of the two hills found on the map, and spray away at enemies trying to crawl up at you (just look to your side every now and then, because the flying bugs sometimes gather there and blindside you with projectiles).
Really depends on how good you are at dodging attacks, since they've got the same base level of speed. If you're an invincible speed demon, Thunder Armour hands down for ammo efficiency and killing power (-15% ammo consumption, and 5% more power than the Perseus in its non-powerup state). On the other hand, the full Perseus set gives out 5% more gold than the Thunder Armour. There's also the fact that the Perseus has more than TRIPLE the Thunder set's base HP, and that's not factoring in the melee resistance. Basically, I think the Perseus is a much more balanced armour set (definitely better for gold farming, given that you'll win much more gold than what you spend in ammo consumption), while the Thunder set is designed for specialised playstyles (i.e. hit hard and fast, and move so precisely that even MC hammer can't touch that).
@ Darthguy & undead.exe Seriously, you guys are awesome, and thanks for the help. I'm not used to being this new at a game (I'm currently level 50/top level in Bullet Time HD with a pretty high GC ranking). I guess I've been paying it forward by trying to help new players in BT-HD, and you guys are my reward! Darthguy - When you said "medium" I was thinking about my other games and I was like, "Please don't tell me I've got to be level 25-30 before this game starts to open up for me... Question for both of you. Having played more than my share of truly bad Co-op MP games due to being matched with players who weren't all that cooperative, how do I know when I'm ready to not burden other players? How do I pick players/challenges that I can handle with people who are not going to audibly groan when they see my level/gear set? What should I be doing to be most helpful? What should I plan on loading out to be most helpful? Sorry for so many questions, but the last thing I want to be is a selfish, unprepared, overmatched "teammate," and I want to get into MP sooner rather than later, as it will probably sell me on continuing. Thanks again! DBC
In PvP don't worry about being unprepared, if you are overmatched you will get bored easily and quit. (There can be a rank limitation.) In PvE if you can get in the game don't worry, usually there is rank limitation on games and if you can get in your skill is enough(you can view the limitation by looking at the bottom part of the game. There will be a picture of all the ranks and if your rank is colorful you can join)
Unfortunately, I think the general trend is for players to take care of themselves rather than cover each other's blindspots. I'll take out enemies coming from behind a teammate rather than let them cop the damage, but my priorities are to kill enemies and maintain my own HP rather than actively making sure my teammates are safe. So, to address your questions: What to load out: Teammates will generally prefer it if you're using the NOVA-27, the Crab, or the M-27B1 across most bosses (they'd also prefer them upgraded to level 8, but there's no visual way of telling). Weapons NOT to use on bosses are rockets, shotguns, grenade launchers, railguns (although they seem borderline acceptable for Mantis) or SWORDS. If you have a player using any of the three preferred weapons I listed above in Mantis or Poison Pit, they probably won't care if you can't kill enemies -- in fact, they'd probably like it if you left more enemies to them, because that's more gold for them. In that same sense, players with those weapons won't really care too much what weapon you're using on Mantis, because they're going to kill it quite quickly anyway. What to do: STAY ALIVE ON YOUR OWN. It's not really until the last two bosses that you'll find players actively covering your blindspots, so you need to figure out how to survive on your own. I'd recommend completing all the difficulties of the single player maps from Frontline through to Lair (or at the very least, Space Station) before you try to tackle Mantis without relying on other players. A surefire sign that you're ready for online MP play is when you can at least do Mantis on your own -- afterwards, it's a matter of improving your equipment and polishing your ability to kill stuff without getting hit. How to pick players: Sadly, I think there's a general preference for teammates ranked from about 9 and upwards, particularly for Double Rages and Serpent. Players ranked from level 7 are borderline acceptable, but most people set their rank limitation to be higher than that to screen out players with weaker equipment and less experience. Generally speaking, people will make a judgement about you based on the equipment they can see you using in the enemy rush phase, and how much damage you take. Against Mantis and Poison Pit, I generally assume players probably can't take care of themselves unless they've got armour from the Strike or Titan sets (Tank is too slow, and Hydra has very little HP). Weaponry, I think you should be good, Drummerboycroy, if you've already got the FL334AR. --------------- So yeah...team matches as they are right now is more about being able to keep yourself alive, while being able to do decent damage against the boss. Just try to keep yourself alive, don't be stingy with ammo and use decent weapons against the bosses, and that's really all there is to it. If you want to prepare yourself for online play quicker, do the first four single-player maps so you know what sorts of enemies to expect, and then jump online and try it out. Wishing you luck
Well, I'd have to say that you know your not being a burden on players when you have full thunder suit or better, and have Nova27 or M-27B1 or Crab. Though you don't have too really worry too much on the earlier bosses, Mantis and Poison Pit, about your load out as long as you can kill aliens and stay alive in the boss fight you should be alright. I could care less what my teammates use on those two bosses, I can solo them easily regardless of how many players I have to carry. As for siegfried and double rages and serpent, I like to see my teammates have the armor of thunder suit or better or else I'll just leave immediately. If they are using the thunder suit or atom suit particularly and if I see them taking a lot of damage early on and they probably won't make to the boss stage, I just leave. As for finding players...that is difficult cause its all just luck of who will join your game. I always set my rank limitation to rank 9 or higher, because 90% of the players at rank 9 have hacked the game and "bought" the package to get rank 9 immediately and hacked the best gear and hopefully good weapons. and anyone above rank 9 has played the game a lot and hopefully can handle themselves for the most part. To be most helpful, get full thunder suit or better and start leveling up the weapons Nova27, M-27B1, or Crab. best load out? well you should always plan on using the weapons of Nova27, M-27B1, or Crab..but depending on what your wanting to do depends on the armor that you choose. If I feel like helping noob players on mantis or poison pit or even siegfriend, I use the full thunder suit, STK pack, and M-27B1 weapon and kill the boss for them amazingly fast. But what I generally do is equip a bunch of gear that increase my gold drop so that I can earn a lot of gold...not that I really need anymore since I'm sitting at 126mil..but never know when they will release a awesome new weapon or two that will cost a lot. As for PvP, I don't bother playing that. Its so unbalanced its not even fun, if you want to PvP I recommend picking up a new game..cause even if you buy the best gear, no one will match you..and it won't be fun for long when you go around 2 shotting people while they can't put a dent in you.
Good to hear, Darthguy, welcome to the machinegun club Enjoo, I'd personally say that weapons are not suitable for bosses if their projectiles move any slower than the shots from the Crab or the Plasma Neo. Based on that and the weapon's potential damage output, these are the mithril weapons that I think are good for bosses: Laser Cannon (320 Mithril, adjusted avg. 3281.25 dmg per sec) Base damage at lvl 8: 1050 Firing rate: 0.20 seconds Maximum damage per second: 5250 Start-up lag: 1 second Maximum continuous fire duration: 10 seconds Cooldown: 5 seconds Because of the Laser Cannon's start-up lag and its cooldown period, the weapon's maximum average damage per second throughout the entire boss fight differs from the absolute maximum damage it can do in one second (shown above). To maximise the average damage done, you need to fire the weapon continuously until it overheats, and then begin firing again as soon as it cools down, which results in the following calculation: [(1050 dmg / 0.2 sec) * 10 sec firing duration] / (1 sec start-up + 5 sec cooldown + 10 sec firing duration) = 3281.25 damage per second LIT07 (95 Mithril, avg. 2375 dmg per sec) Base damage at lvl 8: 665 Firing rate: 0.28 seconds Maximum damage per second: 2375 Average damage per second: 2375
Thought you guys might enjoy a laugh at my expense... So I finally decided to have a go at MP. I figured, I suck, I know I suck, I'm going to continue sucking until I figure this out, so yeah. I selected Co-op because PvP bores me to tears. Looked at all the possibilities (wow, is that ever confusing for a noob), and finally chose "Quick Start." You know where this is going, right? I enter a match, and the first thing I notice is there is a lot of shooting and stabbing, but no baddies? Next thing I know, a guy runs by me, and I'm spawning in T-Minus Whatever... I respawn, and again, someone runs past me and I appear to be dead again? It finally dawns on me at this moment. OMG. That guy just killed me! Everything after that is kind of a blur. The kicker? My team won! No thanks to me, although I did get a couple shots off in between dying a lot. I'm officially a vet. DBC
