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.