EDF - NPCs and their paranoias

NPCs are essential to your success chances in most missions. In EDF 5 they evolved a lot but they're still way too far from perfect.

In EDF 5 they're still eons away from 4.1, which were also eons away from 2025. At least there's good progress at NPC training camp.

Most WD NPCs will be good bodyguards. They're almost always the best at maintaining contact with you. There are a few equipped with Monster or similar weapons that will be mostly cannon fodder, since they will be continuously in overcharge.

Their major issue is that they easily get stuck in buildings in city maps, especially if you change directions quickly. It's advisable if you're using a merry-go-round technique around the map edges to wait for them at corners, if that's possible. They also get stuck and confused with bridges, blowing them up before they reach them will help (this will happen for instance in Star Eaters in 4.1).

Like the rangers, they also have a desire to fight hopeless battles instead of just falling back. Unfortunately, there isn't for now away way to force them to do something.

A more apt squad of WDs will eventually be in most missions, it will be known as Storm 4.

Ranger NPCs are pretty good, just slow. Sometimes a few squads will have rockets, be careful and consider if capturing them is a good idea as this can cause issues, by blowing buildings when you don't want. Depending on a mission they can still be helpful.

There's a special squad in which the leader (Sarge) is equipped with a Blazer gun, which will be called Storm 2 after the mission "Reclaiming Base 228: Stage 2". These are usually very good and helpful. This squad will usually recover in all missions once there are no aggroed enemies to you, until then you see them kneeled down with a black health bar.

The Fencer NPCs were the most incompetent group on 4.1. They were usually the first to die, while snail crawling around. As a plus they were usually equipped with pointless weapons for the mission in question. However in EDF 5 some use their jets to move around and become very useful. Some use, and effectively cannons. Not always, some have a suicide wish (mission " Forced Entry" is a good example). There will be special squads of them called the Grim Reapers which are quite good, and if I'm not wrong they show up for the first time in mission 40, Brutal Battlefield. They'll be known as Storm 3 eventually.

Don't think even the slow NPC Fencers are incompetent in EDF 5. A striking example is the ones in 94, Bloody Battle, which do a pretty good job as long as you keep them fed. The Grim Reapers are very good to keep as bait as they usually can manage to keep up with you even better than WDs, however they can get stuck on some areas like the long lakes in some city levels (an example is mission 110, The Nameless).

There are some enemies that NPCs have more trouble dealing with, in order these are from worse to better:

- yellow ants (1 or 2 will wipeout a entire squad of NPCs in a few secs)

- red ants (or purple)

- tadpoles (any)

- bees (any)

- silver spiders (they do try but silver spider webs are nasty)

- spiders

- grey ants

Drones are another issue, as most fly so high that most NPCs can't hit them.

Colonists and Cosmonauts they will handle them, but takes time. They usually only hit them on the body, hitting other body parts is usually by chance if they were trying to hit the body but another body part was in front of their line of fire.

Big enemies, they can't handle them, you should do that.

One of the major issues in all EDF Sandlot games is that if you capture a squad by reaching its leader, when the leader dies all NPCs under its control will become unpaired and you must reach them to capture again if you want or can. The only way to avoid this is to kill the squad leader and capture all its remaining members individually.

NPCs won't try to escape from a red ant or tadpole grab. They will not die immediately but the only option for them to escape is at the end of the set time for that to happen or that the red ant or tadpole is killed by a player or another NPC.

NPCs can damage your vehicles, even if they're empty.

NPC Barga's are terribly inefficient against everything except Archelus, Erginus, colonists and cosmos. And they still have their days against these...

If NPCs are still they are much more prone to damage from enemies, especially in higher difficulties as it's unlikely enemies will miss their shots against them. So always remember that if you don't capture NPCs they will likely die a lot faster.