EDF 6 DLC 2-26 - videos details and advice

General information

There are 6 phases in the mission with various waves on them:

- 1st phase, various waves of different ants, followed by a pause (the pause between the same phases varies on each run and that can be crappy as hell)

- 2nd phase, various waves of different spiders, followed by a pause

- 3rd phase, various waves of pillbugs, with a giant blue Pillbug (these are the joke enemies of the mission they can't hit anything, but are fun to watch), followed by a pause

- 4th phase, continuous waves of different ants, with a Queen Ant in the end, and a very small pause or none

- 5th phase, continuous waves of different spiders

- 6th phase, 3 pylons dropping 

- 7th phase, 2 King Spiders and another extremely dangerous on this mission giant blue Pillbug

Ranger video

The main differences using Goliath and Grant are the following:

- during the first phase Grant will not one-shot gold ants (3rd ants drop) and blue ants  (4th ants drop)

- during the second phase neither Grant nor Goliath can one-shot silver spiders (2nd and 5th drop) and Grant can't do that either to blue Spiders too (4th drop)

During the 4th and 5th phases, it's obvious that Grant is better. Although it will one-shot less enemies, Golitah rebuild time will make it worse as you can't use it as many times as Grant.

Buster Shot is the fastest high damage weapon Ranger has and it's REALLY needed here. If it's already good for the Queen Ant, it's absolutely essential for the pylons. If you don't waste the pylon dropping in front of you before its spawn happens, the appearing silver spiders will instantly kill you; a pylon will likely require 5 Buster shots to be destroyed, so 2 reloads of 8 shots will be enough to waste all pylons (but yes the other 2 will have spawns). ZE Blaster may hit pylons and they will require fewer Buster Shot hits to blow up.

It will also be useful to kill stray gold ants and spiders at the end. Do expect to die a lot at this time.

And wasting both King Spiders at the very end.

On ZE Blaster is tricky to be sure, but I think it works better if you rebuild it halfway, that if you have reasonable star count of the rebuild time on yours.

The first problem is deploying them, because many times the cave bottom is filled with corpses or they're in the worst possible positions.

The phases that need ZE Blaster turrets are the 2nd and the 5th / 6th. Installing turret (s) for the 2nd phase is manageable, but for the 5th it's tricky because you may not have time to do it quietly before the 5th, or worse in the case you rebuilt them they may not be ready.

If you opt not to rebuild them, install one between the 1st and 2nd phases, and the other 2 either before the 5th phase, or if necessary before the 4th (although you'll waste ZE Blaster up time dealing with the ants and Queen Ant).

ZE Blasters should be installed at the bottom of the cave, as 90%+ of the nastiest and more armored enemies (silvers) will likely fall there.

If opting for rebuild during mission install all turrets you have between 1st and 2nd phases and force rebuild when the last silver of the 2nd phase is alive. Stall during 4th phase as Pillbugs are the least troublesome enemy in the mission. Totally ignore the giant blue Pillbug, the longer it takes to die, the better.

Depending on ZE Blaster rebuild time you may have time to install them more quietly before the Queen Ant shows up, but it's seldom this will be possible. So it's better to install them while the Queen Ant is alive. If not possible do it when you can, and just hope the bottom isn't filled with corpses.

Mission flow is simple.

Walk back and hit the middle of the upper path when enemies are near it (Grant and Goliath have different speeds...).

Going up the path is more dangerous, it's more difficult to have a good aim to the upper path.

Going to the bottom is suicide, everything that is bad and takes a long time to die will get there easily and you're toast. It's a really dumb idea, but feel free to try (I did waste some time around this theory...).

You should hit the upper path on the middle to try to avoid damage to NPCs. During silver spiders drops, you can also shoot at the second path from the top (see the last video).

Since goldies don't die with Grant and are blown upwards you can shoot at the upper walls to kill some  (see the last video).

Shooting rockets down the cave bottom is a really bad and dumb idea I did a few times on the first videos. Be smarter than me, don't do it.

Thanks Sandlot for the 3 Caliban Armored Rescue Vehicles. They're really useful, particularly on single-player...

And on multiplayer surely as well, really fast and awesome way to recover health, as there will be no crates around...

Oh boy...

Conclusion

This is a fabulous idea. Pity it wasn't a successful one. Hopefully, Sandlot will make a much better mission from this base idea. That would be awesome.

 

EDF 6 DLC 1-18 - videos details and advice

Wing Diver run 

I already detailed in the Air Raider video description the bottlenecks and most troublesome phases of this mission and its timing issues. WD is not that different. She has more movement, but some of the things she must deal with immediately are the same. You can't destroy Pillbugs unless they're moving, otherwise the shots will fail.

Raijin α is to be used in the following circumstances:

- the 2 blue Pillbugs from the first spawn (front)

- the blue Pillbug from the second (left)

- the 4 blue Pillbugs from the third spawn, 2 from right, 2 from the back; in the ones coming from the right one of them usually starts moving first, but can be either; with the back ones, WD can with some luck and effort destroy these 2 at the same time, but it's not a slam dunk and you can die doing that anyway (a single blue ant.. 😐😐😐😟😟😟😥😥😥.)

- the red Pillbug on the 4th wave (right), you MUST have Raijin ready and also have full energy, it takes 2 shots to die, and the longer it's alive the more of the nasty shots it sends; preparing for this wave is unreliable it depends where the last surviving ant is, and it's not unusual for her to be exactly where you don't want it; you also can't deal with the last ant, you need to have Raijin and the core full for the next wave

- the blue bees transport in the 5th wave (right to the middle of the map), which Nyxes may destroy but they take a long time and are being trashed by ants during that; stupidly and dumbly 😒😑😥😂😪 I missed the shot on this run but incredibly still finished the mission

- the blue spiders transport in the 6th wave (front to the middle back of the map), a tricky one; hide after this between a Nyx legs and take down the one dropping ants in front of them

- the red Pillbug on the 7th wave (front), crucial or mission is over

- the blue bees transport in the 7th wave (front), crucial or mission is over and not easy and not much time from last kill

Mission flow is mostly paying attention to what matters, and use Mirage on the rest. Keep Gleipnir for the 3rd 6th and 7th waves, but it will be on the limit to be ready for the 7th.

There are 3 NPC squads. If you don't capture the ones moving in front of you at the start they'll be massacred in the third wave (if this is a good idea or not it's discussible, sometimes it works better doing that sometimes it doesn't). Capture the left ones once the ants from the 2nd wave are gone. Use them as bait for the ants of the 6th wave back, or dealing with the spiders ship will be hell (unless you're tremendously lucky and all ants in the back die).

When the next wave spawns you should get ready to handle it immediately (blue Pillbugs). Exceptions are 4th and 7th in which you must have Raijin and full charge for the red Pillbugs.

The end is hard to tell what to do. Ideally, you should go to the top of the ants transport, kill everything alive, go for the spiders transport, and then finish the game. NPCs will be long gone. However, reaching the transport is really on the limit of the Loading Core G reach (see at 12:35) so this can easily go wrong. You can use the falling bees transport for help but it's still on the limit, and remember the transport explodes quickly Flying while falling consumes more energy than taking off the ground.

Staying down isn't hard but depends on a few NPCs being alive and some luck with the 3 blue Pillbugs ( I thought they were 4 instead of 3 and dumbly wasted a Raijin shot ).

Be careful when taking down transports it's better to be safe than sorry. Don't take risks, mistakes can be costly.

You can't take ANY risks with the blue bees transport in the 7th wave. If it doesn't come down instantly or almost, the blue bees will spread all over the map and they do massive damage. Even if all Nyxes are ok, it's unlikely they'll kill the bees due to the large number of enemies around them. It will also prevent any chance of going up to a transport.

Timings are nasty on this mission and sadly important. Wrong timings on the transitions from the 3rd wave onwards can easily mean a failed run.

It's questionable if it's a good idea to capture the first NPCs squad passing by. They will hold back somewhat the 3rd wave of ants, but will be massacred.

Baiting some squads to the back during the end of 3rd / beginning of 4th wave I do think it's a good idea. Otherwise, the ants from the 6th and remains of the 4th wave will crush you while you try to take down the blue spiders ship from the 6th wave.

Blue ants may be nasty, but blue spiders can deliver a LOT more damage, so making their transport disappear is a smashing idea. The one from the 6th wave of course, the 7th one is almost impossible to destroy near its opening time (other more crucial matters to handle 😋😋😋).

Survival of the NPCs is crucial. The higher the number and the longer they survive, the better. When they're gone you're usually in serious trouble.

Air Raider run

Mission flow isn't easy and lucky prone due to luck being involved. KM6 Z4 and Phobos Z 4 are chance weapons and you can't be sure of their success, or what they'll hit. This will be a big issue in the success on this mission.

There are 4 major bottlenecks and problems in this mission:

- in the 4th wave getting rid of the red giant Pillbug ASAP

- still in the 4th wave destroying the transport that will drop blue bees immediately, although usually NPC Nyxes and squads will help on this

- destroying the blue spiders back transport in the 5th wave which is not easy due to likely presence of many blue ants

- and the most troublesome event in the mission which is to get rid of the red giant Pillbug ASAP of the 6th wave AND the blue bees front left transport which will arrive and open shortly after the red giant Pillbug gets moving, which will be particularly nasty because it's almost sure that a transport will be coming down before this happens and this will hinder how you can use the bomber attacks

You'll need to know where the waves will be coming in the 6 waves, otherwise you'll be wasting the bomber attacks. Also, remember that bomber attacks have different timings and you need to take that into account.

Red giant pillbugs will always move sideways first, but can be to either side, left or right. A well-placed KM6 Z4 attack will likely one-shot it but it's not easy to achieve this all the time. Red giant Pillbugs shoot conical white spikes that will do MASSIVE damage to your NPC squads and vehicles, and you too. They will be shot randomly, so you can have bad luck and they will all land near you and the NPCs and the mission likely will be over, or they can land in innocuous places. Yes, RNG will dictate this. They will also damage your vehicle with 50 or 60k damage per hit if they roll over you. If getting rid of the first is usually feasible, the second is no easy slouch.

At the end of the 3rd wave, which has 4 blue giant Pillbugs and lots of blue ants you should be ready to aim Z4 at the right side of the map, where the red giant Pillbug will spawn. The timing for this is difficult. If hopefully you get that done without issues, you should then go near the underground exit where the transport with blue bees will open the hatch, and destroy it ASAP, likely with the help of NPCs.

Your next major problem will be the arrival of 2 transports along with a ton of blue ants. NPC Nyxes will handle ants and the transport coming from the front, but not the one in the back that will drop blue spiders. So you should destroy this one ASAP, which likely won't be easy as many blue ants will be around to annoy you. However, this will make the last transport to go down the blue ants one, that has stopped in the front. This WILL SURELY make a mess for your aim of the Z4 on the last spawning red giant Pillbug which will appear on the front near the map border, behind exactly the likely falling destroyed transport.

Either way, on this run I tried to destroy the blue ants transport first, so that it would not mess up my attempt to destroy the red giant Pillbug, I destroyed the blue spiders transport later and then stupidly failed to be alert to use Z4 on the spawning red giant Pillbug. At least I crushed the last blue bees transport ASAP. But handling the mission at this point with these issues is a big lucky gamble. It did work, but it may not which is usually what will happen. Giant Pillbugs, ants and spiders will crush your NPCs and you're next.

EDF - Air Raider's Self Defense troubles 😂🤣

One of the really dumbest / laughable / saddest things I keep reading all the time on the Air Raider is the "problem" of his self-defense.

It's ridiculous, because Air Raider has no problem in self-defense. The problem is that most players have no clue how to play it or want to play it Ranger style and he sucks playing like that. And yes, any class could have self defense issues anyway, all that is required is that you don't know how to play them either.

Up to hard, the game is mostly a training mode once you get fairly reasonable at playing it. Up to that difficulty, the vast majority of the weapons will work, since the majority of enemies are slow and will miss most of their attacks. But if you don't learn how to play with the Air Raider efficiently you'll be creamed in Inferno in a snap.

This is not the only dumb thing said about Air Raider either. Being the most difficult class to learn due to how many different options and different roles he has, there's a plethora of other dumb stuff that is said about him. Namely:

- Air Raider sucks in solo.

No, he doesn't. Quite the opposite. And on the most messy and complex missions, he's usually the star anyway. That does not mean that he doesn't suck on a few missions, but go wonder that happens to all classes doesn't it... He can even solo online several nasty missions, without needing a ton of armor, so another proof that he sucks solo...

- Air Raider needs to do everything from afar

Nonsense. Air Raider can and is the most aggressive class by far, of course thanks to its vehicles. Solid proof? Air Raider can do M108 Scorched Earth on 5 and 147 the boss fight on 6 by standing ground on the spawn point and crushing all waves without running away. Which other class can do it with similar levels of armor? Er..... None? What a surprise...

- Air Raider's useful weapons are limited and most are trash

Really smart. Air Raider has by far the biggest variety of viable weapons. But some are specialty ones, and won't always work, and most players don't even bother to learn them. And yes, even with his stupid weapons, there will be missions you can solve with them. I'll return to this anyway

If you insist on these misconceptions you're just shooting yourself in the foot. But if you're happy... Fantastic!

By the way, there's a huge difference between asking and trying to learn, and asserting and claim what you don't know. Learning is always good on EDF games, no one is born with all knowledge and it doesn't fall from the sky, and yes you'll be learning on EDF for a really long time. That's the spirit anyway to get good in these game.

So let's return to the main laughing matter.

The main objective of AR is even more on 5 and 6 than 4.1, to unleash very powerful attacks, usually within a large area and / or on a long range. But since most of his kit is chance based you can't assure that everything will die, so yes, some stray elements will come and you'll have to deal with them. Or many at once...

That does not mean he can't or doesn't have solutions for closer and more personalized attacks. He does.

However, if you're constantly having to deal with close range mobs you have to ask yourself if:

- you're using the right tools for the mission so that you wouldn't need to deal with regular stragglers so many times, so stop using fun and silly weapons and use effective ones

- if you know the mission flow and details, so that you can play it in a way to solve it faster, more efficiently and in an easier way; most people just want to dumbly shoot around with no plan, this will seldom work on harder difficulties and more juicy missions

- don't use anything that takes too much time with aiming and needs a lot of attention, those are Ranger tools and AR is ineffective and ultimately a crap when he uses them (that's why even something like Tempest is only useful on specific occasions and missions)

On the vast majority of EDF missions that could be troublesome, you have deal either with finite aggroed mobs or infinite mobs coming from spawners that are usually not aggroed after a while (examples would be Dense on 4.1 and DLC 2-6 on 5). These take different approaches, but again AR will have as many self defense troubles as the others, and in most of them, he can even have a LOT less self defense troubles than the others.

The self defense troubles of Air Raider are pretty obvious on EDF 5 anyway, poor guy manages to achieve no shooting runs on some nasty missions, including 94. 😜🤣😋😋😂😜 

Let's start with solo.

Your options to deal with incoming near you enemies is:

On 4.1:

- NPCs

- turrets

- wire guns

- vehicles

On 5:

- NPCs

- turrets

- single use gunship attacks / Bulge

- vehicles

- Vestas

On 6:

- NPCs

- backpack items

- single use gunship attacks / Bulge

- drones (don't get too excited😂🤣)

- vehicles

- Vestas

NPCs

It's laughable that I seldom read anywhere about NPCs. They're one of the most amazing aspects of Sandlot's EDF games, and they invested a lot of time and resources to improve them from 4.1 to 5, and from 5 to 6. So they're there for some reason, aren't they?
Many groups will be able to handle quite well incoming hordes of enemies. Their size and toughness will depend on the NPCs you have available and how you're using them. Yes, some NPC groups will be downright underpowered and incompetent to deal with most of the enemies in the mission. But most are quite good, and some even excellent.

So learn to rely on them. Yes, they will solve MANY problems. And then you'll have time to deal with what matters. If you insist on stupidly handling every incoming ant, spider, bee and tadpole yourself, you'll always suck with AR. That's dumb Ranger mentality.

On 4.1 stupidly, only Ranger could recover the health of NPCs by picking crates (or using recovery guns). Air Raider could use recovery guns or posts, or ones to lower the damage they incur, but this would use a weapon slot, and with only 2 possible, it was sometimes hard to take them.

On 5 and 6 all classes will recover captured NPCs armor when you pick health crates. Sometimes it's even essential to pick them, not to recover your health, but to keep them alive or in top-notch condition.

Like with all classes it's still essential to know when to use them as defense or bait, when to keep a few and sacrifice others. This is part of the game and what can make some missions much easier than they seem.

Turrets

Turrets are the bread and butter of the Air Raider Arsenal to deal with incoming mobs, either air or ground ones. You can solve many of the more troublesome missions in 4.1 with pairs of ZEXRs (and a vehicle of course). You can solve pretty hefty missions on 5 just using turrets.

They were greatly improved in 5, and you got flames and laser ones too. And they were rebuilt in the background which was a huge plus. They made him amazing on cave missions, where he was king except on open cave missions where he could not bottleneck enemies.

Sadly and stupidly, Sandlot gave them to Ranger on 6 to save his ass.

Use these sparingly or massively, depending on the strength and numbers of the incoming mobs.

ZEXR is the most flexible turret since it works well with ground and aerial enemies. Flaming turrets work better with ground enemies. Laser turrets work well with aerial and ground enemies, especially on open places, but badly on tunnel missions due to their terribly slow movements.

Launcher turrets are extremely dangerous to use and generally a terrible idea except in specific problems (they work very well if you can bottleneck enemies in a cave with a single incoming enemies path). ZE-GUN10 is a stupid weapon, it does little damage and it will be seldom that you can waste time laying 10 crappy turrets.

They enable tactital and strategical placement and can be activated when needed. Something Ranger did not got on 6, poisoned gift...

Wire Guns

These were quite interesting weapons on 4.1. Similar to spiders web shots, they were particularly effective against flyers. But on ground enemies the result were not that good. Their main issues were that they trashed easily your vehicles too, and that you generally would need shields to use them comfortably and so your 2 weapon slots were full. Still much more interesting than the dumb Limpets or the deplorable Suppress Guns.

Vehicles

Yes, vehicles are not only for movement. Surprising isn't it?

You should choose vehicles that will work if you need to kill anything close, but there are other important factors to weight in first, like the need to take down transports or far away powerful enemies.

On 4.1 the best vehicles were the Epsilons, Naeglings, BM03 Vegalta Firelord and BM03 Vegalta AX and occasionally Grapes. Depth Crawlers sucked on 4.1, but no other choice was available on caves. Since vehicles were flimsy as hell on 4.1 coupling them with guard posts or guns was sometimes a good idea. Power guns or posts too.

On 5 the Epsilons were stolen by Ranger, but the exoskeletons were vastly improved. Nyx ZC, Red Guard and Nyx Assault are the stars of the show. Naeglings, and occasionally Blackers and Grapes were still good and are able to defend you. Depth Crawlers were improved and still your only cave choice. Coupling the with guard posts or guns can turn the exoskeletons in particular into fearsome weapons, and you can do amazing things with them. Attack is many times the best defesne isn't it? Power guns or posts can still be useful.

On 6 the exoskeletons got a new surprise. Nyx ZC, Red Guard and Nyx Assault are still there, but the new Eiren IV is fantastic, but the points required to summon them got dreadfully higher. Blackers become more useful, occasionally Naeglings and Grapes will be necessary or viable. Depth Crawlers are mostly equal to 5 and still your only cave choice, and the dumb future missions where you can't get air support too; on some surprising occasions outside caves DCs will work fine, I leave that for you to discover.

But there are vehicles that suck!

Caravan is a dumb ass vehicle. Usually the same people that complain about self defense choose this one. Duh! What's the point of a dumb vehicle that its only virtue is to delay your death? Choose something that still moves, and has SOME chance of defending you if necessary. And attacking, missions are won by killing all enemies, not by running away and surviving longer.

Barga is another usually dumb option. If there are lots of small enemies, forget it. Barga will get your NPCs killed and you can't feed them as it does not pick crates. It will work well on specific occasions, generally when ONLY big stuff is present.

Work in progress...😋

EDF 6 DLC 2-39 Inferno

Air Raider

Onto the mission flow.

At the start summon the tank and install shields. Be CAREFUL, installing shields on vehicles in EDF 6 does not work very well.

Head front left, follow the video, as it's the ONLY way to get to the outside without aggroing everything.

Try to destroy lamp posts and trees while traveling outside, you'll regret it later if you don't do it.

When you reach a missile pods Deroy, aim for a further one left with Z4 and try to destroy as much as possible the one near you.

Run away and focus on destroying Deroys mostly using tank. You SHOULD destroy all Deroys before the 2nd phase, because destroying them will be harder.

2nd phase will spawns when a certain number of enemies from the 1st one is gone, same deal with the 3rd one.

Be REALLY CAREFUL exiting the tank because the large androids are deadly accurate and you can't rely on the shields protecting you always. Once the Deroys are gone try to focus on large androids.

Before triggering the 2nd wave you should change to a new tank, and install shields on it. DON'T try to install all shields at once you'll regret it. Install 2, then the rest, check video.

Hopefully you had Z4 on hand when the 2nd wave shows up. Use it wisely when most Type 0 drones are near you. Destroy blue Type 3 drones with tank, and the huge drone too. Only go for androids once these are gone.

Again get a new tank and rebuild and install shields on it.

I did try to destroy all large androids at this point but it's very hard with these weapons.

Ignore for now the center purple tail anchor it can't hit you.

Once you trigger the 3rd phase, 3 shielded pylons will drop. The most important one to go is the front one, that spawns 2 giant blue pillbugs and gold ants. The second that should be destroyed is the back left one that spawns two small krakens and blue ants. The back right one is the hardest to destroy since it's further away from the map border. This one spawns 2 Elder Krulls and gold ants.

There isn't much interest in destroying enemies at this time as they will spawn again. However blue Pillbugs CAN destroy your tank in one attack. So try to make these go away with tank shots, or destroy them with Z4 or Phobos.

Be REALLY careful when you exit the tank if the tank turret is not aligned with the tank front, as you exit looking a weird position and it's easy to get lost. Lost the mission a few times because of this (see video at 23:00).

Use Electroncopter M6 to destroy shielded pylons, aim at the side where the orange part is inside.

Once the pylon that spawns Pillbugs is gone destroy them ASAP.

Don't risk it, if enemies are too near, don't exit the tank to destroy pylons, make another map lap and wait for a safer time.

Things will get a lot easier once there's only the last shielded pylon remaining (except the pink one). The 4th phase will trigger once there's only one pylon remaining, which should be the pink one. The last phase enemies are red Cyclops and more blue large androids, but they are easier to handle.

Destroy the last shielded pylon that spawns enemies, then destroy the remaining enemies. Elder Krulls are not easy to kill with this setup, tank shots do help though. Tank shots also help with small Krakens but they're difficult to hit.

Once a few enemies remain, approach the map center and destroy the purple pylon.

Pick crates but be careful not to get the tank stuck, it's mighty easy to achieve that crappy goal.

Most things will one-shot you even at 2k armor. Only Deroy blast (not lasers), and small androids from far away will not.

E11 shots can damage you and at 12.8k per shot, it can be nasty. Eliminating the trees and lamp posts from the outside roads (inner ones even more important than the outside ones) is crucial, I lost the mission a few times by blowing myself in a tree or lamp post, or the stupid M6 killing myself because it stopped at one of those too, instead of where I aimed it.

Suggested loadouts and basic strategies for EDF 5 Despair and Under Siege on multiplayer

Despair and Under Siege are online-only missions of EDF 5. Both are nasty, although not impossible. The main problem is that there needs to be some coordination on both. If everyone is just shooting around you'll never solve it.

The best way to tackle missions online is by each player using a different class. This way you're optimizing for a positive outcome, as each class has different capabilities, and most missions will be easier to handle if you explore them. These 2 are missions that if players insist on avoiding or concentrating on specific classes you're aiming for a huge difficulty spike and likely failure.

EDF 6 DLC 1-17 Weapons Farming Inferno

The explanation is big it did not fit in the video description.

EDF 4.1 Inferno Weapons Farming guide, and avoiding nightmares in obtaining 100% weapons

In EDF 4.1 (and its lower sibling, 2025), achieving 100% weapons is the most troublesome, time consuming, difficult and unreliable task by far, far, far (either if you're going for a trophy, just want to have all the weapons or if you're unlucky and the last one is the one you really want). It's very common that to get the last weapon, or even the last few, a farming nightmare is necessary.

So this farming guide is made in a way to optimize that objective, get all weapons. You can still go for the same missions to farm weapons, but be aware that once the guidelines to avoid problems are broken, there's nothing you can do except have a lot of luck.

Important information for EDF 6 that is difficult to find

I do try to teach a few things in the descriptions of my videos but I doubt that most people, except for a few, bother to read them. 

I'll add here some information that is not that easy or clear to find out.

EDF 5 / 6 Fencer weapons that have Side Thrusters or Jump Boosters

List of Fencer weapons with side thruster or jump booster.

EDF Weapons Farming Basics

Since I get a few times the same questions I hope this will answer them.

EDF 5 - Mission 108 Despair - Online Only mission - Air Raider - Inferno

I tried a few times to do this online-only mission, but was never successful and was getting annoyed with it. Doing online solo missions is mostly a PITA as not only finding what weapons work, but finding a strategy that works is VERY time-consuming. To make it better I don't have PS Plus right now, so at least I did manage to do this in a online play free weekend.

EDF 6 - Air Raider - When drones SUCK what is at least usable

The biggest change in EDF 6 was the moving towards total brain deadness of the Air Raider. If the new drones are interesting to joke around and have fun with while playing up to hard, beyond that they simply don't work. Using drones is time-consuming and stupid and you don't have enough time to do that on harder difficulties. And you need a ton of armor too. The overall result was that the AR turned into a stupid version of the Ranger, without its speed-walking enhancements. Whatever it was Sandlot's idea it's mostly a flop. How they did not figure out this I can't grasp, or they did only when it was too late (hopefully). On Inferno, Haze, High Mobility Androids, Red Androids and Krulls will shred you to pieces long before you can even aim drones at them. And it's even worse against most new DLC enemies.

It's perfectly impossible that Sandlot did not see that most drones are not usable on Inferno in missions with aggroed enemies, and even beyond that on hectic ones, because you simply die just while trying to aim them. 

The alternative is too inconceivable to be true, is that they're too incompetent as players and testers to have reached that conclusion.

EDF 5 - DLC 2 - 12 - The Last Stand 1 - Air Raider's Special runs

One of the more interesting aspects of Sandlot's EDF games is thinking of a different strategy to solve an interesting mission. It's so unique that the game is developed in a way that enables this.

There are several constraints and things you need to know and take into consideration before tackling this mission in any special way.

EDF 5 / Earth Defense Force 5 Weapons Farming Guide - Inferno

In EDF 5, unless you cheat, you'll need to play all or almost missions in the campaign up to the last one, mission 110, in hard to unlock Hardest and Inferno.

Inferno is the most fun and interesting difficulty to play and that's where you can earn and improve weapons over level 76, which almost overwhelmingly is where the juicy and interesting stuff is. To be crystal clear, yes there are many weapons under level 76 that are awesome and very viable in inferno.

EDF 6 Breakdown of mission difficulties by classes (SOLO OFFLINE)

This is a list of my opinion of the difficulty of each mission in Inferno that I think it's relevant. If it's not on the list, it's a trivial mission to solve, probably with all 4.

EDF 6 / Earth Defense Force 6 Weapons Farming Guide - Inferno

Last updated on:

In EDF 6, unless you cheat, you'll need to play all or almost all missions in the campaign up to the last one, mission 147, in hard to unlock Hardest and Inferno.

Inferno is the most fun and interesting difficulty to play and that's where you can earn and improve weapons over level 76, the last weapons level you can get on the main campaign missions on hardest, which almost overwhelmingly is where the juicy and interesting stuff is. To be crystal clear, yes, many under level 75 weapons are awesome and very viable in inferno.

And in reality, you can farm weapons up to level 95 on hardest if you have the DLCs.

EDF 5 DLC 2 M 12 Wing Diver Inferno The Last Stand 1 ( Earth Defense Force 5 )

Here are the details of this mission.

EDF 6 / Earth Defense Force 6 - Things that are good or stellar

 I do have a post about things in EDF 6 that suck, so it's only logical and correct that I have one with the opposite. Yes, there are many stellar things in 6. Pity they didn't end with these.

EDF 4.1 Breakdown of mission difficulties by classes (SOLO OFFLINE)

This is a list of my opinion of the difficulty of each Inferno mission that I think is relevant. If it's not on the list, it's a trivial mission to solve, probably with all 3.

I absolutely suck with Fencer so can't provide any hindsight or help with him. I do think he's the worst and least fun class in 4.1 anyway (again my opinion).

EDF 6 - Missions Data - Info, tips and details

Interesting or important details for some missions.

Mission 31

Queen Ant acid attacks will destroy eggs and aggro other Queens. A single Queen Ant can even aggro all others.

Also beware that all remaining eggs will hatch once all Queen Ants are dead. Gold eggs remaining at this time it's a really bad idea...

Mission 106

SA2, P1 and P2 - pylons and shield anchor inside the near most shield bearer

SA3 and P3 - pylon and shield anchor inside the right shield bearer, where the Golden Queen Ant is parading

SA5 and P4 - pylon and shield anchor inside the left shield bearer, where the Silver King is parading

Spawners data (thanks for jp wiki for info):

anchor	Normal time			When the third spawner is destroyed		When the 6th spawner is destroyed
	enemies	number	interval	enemies	number	enemies	number
SA1	black ants	Five	about 35 seconds	(none)		(none)
SA2	android	6	about 40 seconds	(none)		(none)
	Naker	8
SA3	high mobility android	2	about 85 seconds	Large android (machine gun)	2	android	40
SA4	grenadier	3	about 85 seconds	big grenadier	2	big grenadier	5
SA5	Naker	2	about 90 seconds	Large android (launcher)	2	android	40
P1	spider	3	about 85 seconds	gold ant	12	gold ant	16
P2	spider	3	about 85 seconds	silver spider	6	silver spider	8
P3	type 3 drone	2	about 110 seconds	(none)		Cyclops	1
	grenadier	2				super android	2
P4	type 3 drone	2	about 115 seconds	(none)		Cyclops	1
	Naker	3				super android	2

It's obvious the least problematic spawners are the 2 first Shielded Anchors as they don't spawn special enemies at any time. Sadly Nakers are terrible, so SA2 should be destroyed when possible.

However the 3 most important spawners to destroy first are SA3, SA5 and P1, as you avoid the crappy Large Androids and Gold Ants which are always very problematic.

Ideally, the next 3 spawners to destroy should be P3, P4 and SA4, which will avoid spawning of Cyclops, Super Androids and Big Grenadiers. You already avoided 80 Androids and Gold Ants from the destruction of the first 3 spawners.

Nakers are spawned by SA2, SA5 and P4. Nasty crappy bastards. 😋😂

Golden Queen Ant has approximately 241.5k armor.

Silver King has approximately 197k armor.

Wing Diver's level 95 Phalanx ZT has at full stars a theoretical 196.5k damage per clip under ideal distance conditions, remember it has damage falloff. But level 86 Rapier Nova has at full stars a theoretical staggering 781.5k damage per clip, with a very short range but no damage falloff, with a slightly higher energy consumption but near instant recharge.

Mission 123

This is a tricky cave mission with a really unusual aspect.

At some points, in particular achieving the last major destruction of the hive you can't progress if there are too many enemies still alive on the map. So once the Nakers spawn, you'll have to destroy most of them, before being able to destroy the hive again.

Probably the idea was to block you from destroying the hive in a snap and then deal with the enemies hidden in one of the tunnels (surviving in the top one obviously is a lot easier, but remember that androids will spawn earlier on this tunnel).

Remember all you have to control NPCs is the Ooohhh! command. And they're sitting ducks at that period.

On the 2 special spawns:

- the Androids of the first special spawn will come up inside a tunnel on your right (from the start position) and they will be spread along it. They will drop to the cave bottom if you're there.

- the Nakers that will be the second and last special spawn will come up at the top of the path on the front up cave, following the other tunnel path that has 2 ends. These will all drop quickly to the cave floor and stay there, just coming up a little on the path available, but seldom. There are 2 nasty red Nakers in this group. They can easily get stuck on the hive, and show up at nasty times...

Mission 128

The rightmost and farthest pylon, up in the hills, only spawns enemies with the destruction of another spawner. If it's the last to be destroyed, it will never spawn any enemies once the others are gone. This way you can walk around in peace picking crates.

Mission 131

On Inferno, the NPC Nyxes have an whopping 14.4k armor. The Railguns have an astonishing 19.2k. No wonder the mission is dreadful, with this kind of help... Oh boy...

In the third and last phase when the 4 shielded anchors are on the ground, you'll get special spawns once you destroy one of them. Destroying the first will yield 3 special enemies, the second 2 and the third one. Destroying anchors before they reach the ground will not add them, so if you destroy 3 before they fall there will be no special spawns (nasty, precision job). Which enemies are spawned depends on which shielded anchor is destroyed. Considering viewing from the start position you'll have:

- leftmost anchor: Imperial Drone Type 2

- second from the left: High-grade Drone Type 3

- second from right: High-grade red naker

- rightmost anchor: Red Drone Type 1

It will depend on your perspective, but red Nakers are always troublesome, so the last shielded anchor to destroy should be the second from right to avoid that they spawn.

Imperial Drones are usually the easiest to avoid and destroy, Red Type 1s are a PITA to kill with most loadouts. The new laser Type 3 Drones can do massive damage if they hit you or NPCs.

Inferno information. The 3 waves of the mission are dreadful (I'm considering androids and bees one). The first focuses on ground enemies, with some airborne ones, the second on ground and immediately airborne ones, and the third on possibly unlimited airborne mobs and some ground ones. And always giant enemies present on each wave, which your NPCs always have trouble dealing with.

There's a lot of luck involved in this mission, and all will depend on how long the NPC vehicles and squads survive.

On the first wave, you're in trouble if:

- the queens advance directly to the vehicles and trash them

- how long the Blue Kraken survives and what it will damage

Yes, all other things are nasty but these are your biggest problems and they can be out of your reach with Ranger and Air Raider.

On the second wave, you're in trouble if:

- the nearest androids land too much on top of the vehicles as they will trash them in a snap, and no they don't always land in the same area, it may be over them or more to the right or back; the other 2 groups can still trash you vehicles in a snap

- if you're near the vehicles when the bees arrive, they will trash the vehicles

- the queen bee is 99% of the time your problem, neither the NPC squads nor vehicles will do much about it, unless the 4 Nyxes still alive, and even then...

On the third wave, the best you can do is try to eliminate one of the pylons as it drops or once it's dropped. It's possible to destroy more than 1, but it's EXTREMELY hard and lucky-prone, as there's almost 0 margin for error. Haze will be your biggest problem.

There may be a failure in the synchronization of the spawn of Haze from the remaining pylons in the last. If this happens it's hell, because it will be very hard to achieve a point where the NPCs will respawn since it will be difficult not to have aggroed enemies on the map. When this happens you're in even more trouble than you were already in.

Surviving once all NPCs are gone is VERY hard.

There are 3 NPC squads, of the WDs and Fencers only the captains have respawn trait. The whole Ranger squad has respawn ability. Of course, this if you had captured any of them.

Mission 135

On Inferno, the NPC Titan has 129.7.k  armor, the small Varia tank 49.2k, and the 2 awesomely helpful pink blasts Proteus a reasonable 421.4k armor. Thank you Sandlot.

Mission 144

On Inferno, the Blue Barga has an awesomely mind boggling 3.3 million armor. No wonder this mission is nirvana for lengthy weapons farming. Just compare these numbers with other missions NPC vehicles.

Air Raider's DLC 2 level 110 Armamento Barga stops at 1.3 million armor.

Mission 145

On Inferno, the 2 Armamento Bargas have an eye watering 556.7k armor... Still lower than the Air Raider level 87 WarBarga which has 625k. No wonder the Amazing Bargas are creamed in a snap...

Thank you Sandlot, sometimes you really nail it to make the game so fun...

Mission 147

On this mission, no class can hit the boss all the time. That was clearly intentional. Obviously, since the boss is at the same heights on all difficulties, this is harder on lower difficulties because long-range weapons of lower levels usually have a lot less range.

DLC 1, Mission 17

I'm pretty sure the King Spider numbers on the JP wiki is wrong. If you don't destroy any small hives, on the last wave when you're destroying the huge hive, besides a large number of blue spiders, 12 kings will spawn, 2 for each remaining small hive (100% sure, I've tested it slowly with WD on hardest). I do think the first biggest possible wave of kings is 8, 1 from each small hive and 2 from the huge hive (99.99% sure on this).

It is not unusual that one of the Brown Kings spawns inside a building, and it's hell to finish him.

Between the 2nd and the 3rd major spawn, an intermediary attack from the smaller hives can happen, with the brown spiders and blue spiders that are around them aggroing at you. Air Raider can sometimes make this skip if you're Bulge Z on the main hive, Wing Diver will surely do it if using Heaven's Gate D10 pretty low after the 2nd spawn is finished, because Heaven's Gate can do more damage and for longer than Bulge to the hive.

Interestingly, at least to me, if you force spawns 1 and 2 and don't kill blue and kings from them, you can't make spawn 3 happen until you significantly drop down blues and kings numbers.

Buildings are your friends here, so except for Wing Diver and her farming run, you should avoid destroying most inner buildings while there are Kings and Blue spiders to spawn.

So Ranger, which needs buildings cleared for efficient use of turrets, and Air Raider, which can take down several blocks with Phobos attacks, should try to focus these attacks and leveling on the outside rim of the map, which is always 2 buildings on city maps. Beyond the 2 building lines, the remaining ones are indestructible and some enemies on some missions can get stuck on those.

Blacker E and Varius shells can destroy buildings too obviously.

DLC 2, Mission 20

I can bet that this will be a fans favorite, but to me, this is a deplorably stupid and pointless mission.

Anyway, each Archelus has offline roughly 1.050.000 health.

There are 3 Archelus spawns with 2, 3 and 6 enemies. Each Archelus spawn is connected to the overall damage that Siren gets. It is possible to trigger all Archelus spawns in sequence if you do enough damage to Siren, but dealing with 11 Archelus is impossible except for AR with heli, and even then unreliable.

Obviously, once the 3rd Archelus spawn has happened, Siren should be the first enemy to go. NPCs can trigger Archelus spawns as they will hit Siren too.

Archelus has one attack that does roughly 30k damage at once. I have a video snippet somewhere of DLC 2-11 from EDF 5 on which a Nyx with roughly 70k armor is trashed by these consecutive attacks and I get killed too. With the Nyx and watching in slow motion, it's possible to see how much each attack is doing in damage to it since the Nyx armor is always displayed.

Which attack it is I don't know, but it's a close range movement one.

On this mission, Archelus can shoot multiple explosive boulder attacks sequentially, even the ones that stay on the ground and explode later and the immediately exploding ones mixed. 😐😑🙄

DLC 2, Mission 30

An unusual mission with mostly static enemies. There are a few groups that can be hit without aggroing others:

- the rightmost frog up left from start can be handled alone without aggroing anything

- the 2 frogs just near the previous one can also be handled separately, but be careful not to hit the leftmost one on its left side as it can aggro the rightmost Kruhl; aggroing the Kruhl sometimes happens anyway

- the 2 laser cosmos up front

- the 4 laser cosmos up right

- the left back solo Elder Kruhl, but be careful handling this one before dealing with the pack below because he'll move and likely will aggro all these

- the frog and red Drone front further away and left

You can also shoot the 8 Kruhls in the bottom row of the right back group without aggroing the red Drone and Elder Krull that are on the mountain top. They will be aggroed if you shoot the middle Kruhls or Cosmos. Middle Kruhls and Cosmos will be aggroed if you shoot the Kruhls below them.

Beware using weapons with reflection shots on this mission like Wing Diver's Thunder Crossbows, Lightning Bows, Raijins and Bolt Shooters.

Beware of the radius of explosive weapons.