EDF 5 - DLC 1 Mission 4 Reclaim Base 236 AR / WD Semi Automated Inferno Weapons Farming

Weapons

Air Raider:

ZEXR-GUN

ZE Blaster (or ZEX Launcher or ZEX Rapid Launcher)

Combat Bomber KM6 Plan Z4

Nix Red Guard

Wing Diver:

Rapier Super Nova, Rapier Nova or Star Rapier (it's likely that even M5 Rapier will work if almost or fully upgraded)

second weapon is irrelevant

A extremely productive mission for farming in split screen. The AR and WD shine here (you can change Fencer for WD (dual Jackhammer without being synchronized will work too).

Transports are too low to hit enemies below them. I suggested in the DLC 1 missions to use Phobos, but KM6 Z4 works better as not only will help to get rid of the 2 groups of frogs although not very efficiently, but also will be possible to use it to kill bees, since you can't or shouldn't use the Phobos for that. ZEXR is really great here. Best second turret is ZE Blaster, yes a DLC 2 weapon. Unfortunately all other turrets suck here, ZEX Launcher and ZEX Rapid Launcher are really dangerous but I've succeeded with either, some luck needed. Best vehicle is Red Guard, for its speed and its weapons work great here.

At start capture both ranger squads while rolling towards the base. Send KM6 Z4 to group of frogs in front, hopefully you'll get some hits. Drop ZEXRs near the base or they won't kill anything. You can probably get a Red Guard now, call it. Fly WD to as near left transport as possible, leave it there she will probably get killed in a snap. Use KM6 on right frogs. Capture WD squad to right, return to Red Guard, hopefully some of the WDS from the left squad will still be alive almost under the leftmost transport, which is the best one to farm. You can also go for the left WDs first, it's difficult to get both WD squads.

At thus point all the enemies will be 15 red bees from each transport. Go to the one in the back, but if there's many bees don't proceed alone, as most bees will surround you and they will fry the mech in a short time. Go slowly if necessary picking health, so that WDs and Rangers will help.

When under a transport, the Red's burner will fry red bees that are dropping from it, even one is enough. Then hit the transport center with the cannister. Install turrets again when you can to have a easier life. Proceed to the next transport, the one that was at right from start.

Finally only one will be standing. Go near it, revive WD when most or all bees are dead, put WD almost under transport, aim rapier forward, pause the game and rubber band fire button.

You now need to kill all NPCs with the AR or they'll bring down the transport. Pick all other crates on the map, as you can only have 128 crates in the map and this will fill fast under the transport. Each bee will drop 1 or 2 crates, 15 bees for each wave, at the 6 or 7th the limit has been reached, and that if every other crate on the map has been collected. WD will pick one crate or another, but don't be too much near the dropping bees, as one can move the WD and there goes the farming session.

Once in a while collect the pile of crates, use the Nix, it will survive a few passes by the Rapier shots.

When bored or think it's enough, bring down transport.

Red bees do provide a reasonable quantity of weapon crates. I've had 7 in a single wave of 15 red bees. This is a really good farming mission, unfortunately restricted to weapons from levels 77 to 103.

https://youtu.be/B15-gP0sjiA

You can also do this with the Ranger or Fencer in another way. At the end keep calling Red Guards, even one can sustain a large number of bee waves. The flames of one burner are enough to massacre all falling bees from the transport. But you can't have it with a rubber band...

It takes 50 secs for each cycle of the transport (including opening, dropping bees and closing).  In mission 40 the cycle is just under 25 secs but loot quality in weapons is much inferior, not only in level but quantity. Mission 40 is better for armor farming, but I don't farm armor however if it's what you want it's a better option.

The only other main game missions that have transports are either too long, too difficult or the transports can't be farmed (moving transports, scripted droppings, dropping tadpoles that don't fall to the ground, Archelus pays a visit missions) so only mission 40 is a good option.

Theoretically you could install the WD with the rapier in a way to get most crates, killing bees as they would fall over you. It's not feasible because the reload is fast but not 0 seconds and you just need a small problem and the WD can be slightly moved or her aim will change and mission failed. I tried...

EDF 5 - Wing Diver weapons analysis, what's good, what's bad

It's very likely you'll divide the weapons between the ones that work in 4.1 style with a reload and a clip or the ones with a charge and full empty clip at once. The mechanics of charging won't appeal to everyone so this is the main choice reason between all weapons.

Besides the charging mechanics there are other buffs and nerfs for some weapon types. Many WD weapons now have recoil in varying amounts, many have damage attenuation (damage will vary according to enemy distance) and a few have drawbacks as the clip empties.

The main objetive of weapons is that they help solve missions specially in inferno. If they don't you're just wasting your time. You can't rely on nice weapons that will work once in a while, you need to have reliable tools that will be efficient and fast in dealing with your problems.

Short-Range

Once you know how to play the WD these will be your main workhorse. They can only be used in close quarters but that's precisely the main virtue of the WD.

The rapiers are now to me the most reliable and useful of all short range weapons. They start slow, but as you progress in weapon levels the higher ones will improve a lot in efficiency and usability. Still was one of the weapons I used in 90% of the missions in hardest, and not much different in inferno. These are normal reload type weapons.

 

The Phalanx series are the rapier thrusts of 4.1, a single focus rapier. Problem is that they're charge and single use weapons, with the benefits and drawbacks these have. They're good to handle big enemies or anchors, dreadful for smaller stuff.

Lances. Oh boy... Once I learned how to really play and have fun with the WD the lances were my weapon of choice in 4.1. Laser Lance Sigma is a stellar weapon. In 5 they're charge weapons, and they also each shot can also be more or less charged for a lighter or higher power attack. They have usually a longer range and do more damage than in 4.1. There's also double and triple simultaneous shots versions. They do consume a small amount of energy.

A variation is the Dragoon series which have ridiculous range for a short weapon (almost 300m for the higher one ?!?!?!?!?). They also deliver ridiculous amount of damage, have penetration power and although greedy in energy comparing to other lances have a better damage / consumption ratio.

The Spark Vines are a sort of poor brother of the original lances. They are reload weapons with a clip, but damage per bullet is very small, so it's a nuisance to kill anything with them. They're the closest thing you'll get to a old lance in theory, but now very useful in practice. Low energy consumption and very short range.

The Spark Whip is a short range Thunder Bow that only damages horizontally. It's reasonable to handle large numbers of smaller enemies, usually one of the weapons I used with a rapier in hard, but become less useful in inferno. Low energy consumption and short range.

Medium Range - Kinetic Weapons

The lasers from 4.1. The ridiculous mechanic they introduced in these weapons is that although they're reloading weapons with a clip their efficiency drops as the clip empties. This mechanic is so stupid that it can't even be understandable why they bothered, because obviously, no one uses them what else were they expecting? Sandlot does make some smart choices sometimes...

Just ignore these.

EDIT It does have its uses on fringe missions where you can't rely on charge to use weapons as they will always consume energy at likely problematic timings, and a rapier and one of these become the best options. A fantastic example in this video from lemonleafier:

https://youtu.be/ktXStpfQd5U

Medium Range - Energy Weapons

This was the other main weapon series for almost everyone in 4.1, the Idunns and Thunder Bows.

The Lightning Bows are the Idunns. The problem is that not only they're now charge and one clip use weapons which is completely idiotic for these kind of weapons, but they decided it wasn't enough and they also are more diffuse and imprecise as the clip empties. Yes, toys department, not even in tunnels they're useful.

The Bolt Guns are similar to the Eclat in 4.1. They're again energy hogs and with little benefits. Reload type, but not very useful.

The Thunderbow Gun are the saving graces of the energy weapons in EDF 5. They're still similar to the 4.1 ones, a large somewhat spread electric charge with a long range. Although it's the best energy weapon by far, the shot speed is slow and you must charge it fully to use, or the shot power and accuracy will be a lot lower. It's a charge weapon 😑, and it consumes a lot of energy for each shot.

Medium Range - Energy Weapons

The Stardust series are the only original weapon for the WD. They shoot a cloud of energy pellets at a long range. They're surprisingly interesting, good against hordes, flying enemies and even big guys. The drawbacks are high energy consumption and how easy it is to blow yourself, by either hitting the ground, the environment, an enemy or an NPC. It's still a really fun to use weapon, and one of my main weapons in hard (after struggling to finish mission 109, I did it first time with the Stardust Cannon Type A and used it in 99% of the mission as the sniper I chose was a fraud 🙂).

EDF 5 - Ranger's road to Inferno's end

Although I'm not a fan of the Ranger there's always missions that are enjoyable with him. If the AR was the Epsilon Railgun class on 4.1, he now seems to be the Free Bike class.

Mission 107 - Invader Assembly

A moderate, but long mission. The AR has a easier life here as expected but the Ranger isn«tin real trouble too.

Bring a sniper, preferably a powerful one, as  the cosmos run like rabbits when have no armor, so it's better to have real damage shot than a few ones that can be hard to land, specially if you're interested in finishing them with headshots for extra crates. Lysander Z, MR100 Fang and if you want to "cheat" Lysander ZF will be good choices. For second, either a rifle or a shotgun will work, just bring one with decent range to help with the 2 waves of Type 2 Drones. Hybrid Protector E9 is a nice choice as enhancement, or the DLC version.

The strategy is the same as the AR. Deal with cosmos / colonists, then 1 ship at a time. As long as you handle each group of 3 colonists / cosmonauts, the only annoyances will be the shield bearers bugging you, the missile shooting heavy cosmos (there's one at the front group and another 3 in the same squad in the back, these last ones were not present in hard), the laser cosmonaut and the 2 waves of Type 2 Drones. Once most or all big guys are gone, dealing with the transports is easy. Remember NPCs won't deal headshots.

Of the 3 NPC groups, the rangers will respawn once no enemies are aggroed to you (cosmos that you annoyed but lost you and are humming while stopped are still aggroed to you). The jp wiki says all squads will respawn it's wrong, I did this mission 4 times already in none of them the WDs or Fencers did.

Handle nearer big guys, then keep pissing each group of 3 always from the start zone, use second weapon to handle small stuff that comes or leave them to NPCs. Machine gun and flamethrower heavies are easier to handle since you'll be able to kill them before they can shoot you. A powerful sniper shot will kill frogs with1 headshot, cosmos with 2, heavies with 4 (first helmet armor is beyond even MR100 power).

Finally front ants and spiders transports, then right bees and pillbugs ones, and then it's almost over. At the 4th and 6th transport taken down a Type 2 drones wave will come. When type 2 drones come, fall back to remaining buildings in the back ASAP, and using rangers as decoys shoot drones.

A new ranger squad and2 NPC Nixs will show up really late for the party when the 2nd wave of Type 2 drones spanws. They will come from the back of the start position and proceed to the tracks area. They will be irrelevant.

It's just time consuming as you must take things in small batches.

This is Massive Mobilization from 4.1, just as long but thankfully easier as no gold ants and silver spiders. And no PITA giant walker...

This will take between 30 mins and 1 hour, depending if you're optimizing head shot kills. Don't rush this...

I didn't try this with the HU04 Brute SA9, but it's probably a good choice to handle cosmos, transports and drones, will just be very hard to get headshots.

Mission 98 - Coastal Defense Line

There are 2 ways to solve this mission: focusing on big enemies (cosmos and colonists) or focusing on small enemies (drones).

The problem with the first approach is that the 3rd wave of drones is really bad as it brings 3 imperial type 2 drones which are a absolute pain to deal with and can wipe you out in one attack. The Ranger has a better life in this strategy than the WD as his sniper weapons are more effective, and the Emerald is more useable for stray drones than WD's homing weapons. However this is always difficult as the margin for error is minimal and you can always be in trouble with one or more stubborn Cosmos that go after you.

So the second strategy is easier but you need quite upgraded MEX5 Emerald, the handy and wonderful Reverse Shooter X to extend the life of NPCs and the EX Radar Support System to make the Emerald work better. You just need to be careful and really retreat during the 3rd wave of drones to avoid a imperial one reach you. Without the help of the final cavalry's WDs and Fencers bringing down the transports will be a pain.

At any point the NPCs on the beach are wiped out, without the cavalry arriving there's 99.99% chance you're dead too.

https://youtu.be/DURQtciw84g

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.

Air Raider - Inferno did not end - Guide to Extra Challenge DLC1

If a few of the missions in the main campaign were already difficulty, things here start to get really hairy. There's missions in the DLC1 that are already dreadfully hard for any class, but this is only the starters, even worse will come.

I'll detail the few that I think are manageable without many issues. This is a work in progress, it's quite probable anyway I can't find any even remotely easy solutions for all 15.

Mission 1 - Engage Aggressors 1

This one is easy. There's 4 waves of ants, in wave 3 there's a queen ant, and enemies are in attack mode instead of stand by. The queen will appear isolated to the back far right from start, in the map border near a large avenue. As long as you're the right spot for the queen the end of wave 3 there's nothing much in this mission. Red Guard is enough for 1 queen ant, ZEXR is good for ants, ZEX Launcher too,Phobos 4 will make it even easier. Escape immediately to back to map border, remember turrets are not efficient with obstacles.

WD has a nice life here too, a rapier (for queen, reds and normal ants) and something else with a little more range is all you need (Stardust works fine).

Just an appetizer for the hard stuff...

Mission 2 - Engage Aggressors 2

This mission isn't very hard either. Bring ZEXR, a good exo, Phobos and whatever you want (life vendor, guard post, etc). At start capture NPCs, install ZEXRs, NPC Nix will be wiped out but all ants including golds will die.  Keep moving, staying still is always the worse you can do. Call exo, rebuild ZEXR.

Move right near a large number of NPCs. Use Nix to help kill first wave of yellows. A few more will come from front, use Phobos, then Nix.

All others will come from back use ZEXR and Phobos.

Mission 3 - Airborne Enemies

A medium difficulty mission. Bring Phobos, ZEXR, Nix and ZE Blaster or ZERA or ZEX- Launcher. Best place to be is in the corner you're looking from start after a parking lot, so that's where you're going.

Capture left squad, then right and go up. Drop turrets, use Phobos in a way that levels down most of the area near the corner. You should have the nix before arriving there.

Rebuild turrets uses Phobos twice at least in the next wave. Use turrets for stray enemies, but be careful with the 4 frogs as they have long range plasma cannons, advance to them with nix when most small fish is dead to kill them.

Last wave use Phobos twice again, turrets and the 6 cosmos are less problematic than the frogs were.

Mission 4 - Reclaim Base 236

A interesting mission that can be farmed very productively. Transports are too low to hit enemies below them. Even so, Phobos will be nice to get rid of the 2 groups of frogs. ZEXR is really great here. Best second turret is ZE Blaster, yes a DLC 2 weapon. Unfortunately all other turrets suck here, ZEX Launcher and ZEX Rapid Launcher are really dangerous but I've succeeded with either, some luck needed. Best vehicle is Red Guard, for its speed and its weapons work great here.

At start capture both ranger squads while rolling towards the base. When frogs are alerted use Phobos on the group in front. Drop ZEXRs near the base or they won't kill anything. You can probably get a Red Guard now, call it. Use Phobos on right frogs. Capture WD squad to right, return to Red Guard, hopefully some of the WDS from the left squad will still be alive almost under the leftmost transport, which is the best one to farm.

At thus point all the enemies will be 15 red bees from each transport. Go to the one in the back, but if there's many bees don't proceed alone, as most bees will surround you and they will fry the mech in a short time. Go slowly if necessary picking health, so that WDs and Rangers will help.

When under a transport, the Red's burner will fry red bees that are dropping from it, even one is enough. Then hit the transport center with the cannister. Install turrets again when you can to have a easier life. Proceed to the next transport, the one that was at right from start.

Finally only one will be standing. Using the turrets and NPCs for help try to pick as many crates from the map as possible. When happy, procced to last transport.

You need to kill all WD NPCs or they'll bring down the transport. Then just install yourself under it in a position that you can hit the red bees with burner as they drop. Remember shots from 1 burner are enough. You can summon a new Red long before the burner ends.

Once in a while collect the pile of crates.

When bored or think it's enough, bring down transport.

Red bees do provide a reasonable quantity of weapon cartes. I've had 7 in a single wave of 15 red bees. This is a really good farming mission, unfortunately restricted to weapons from levels 77 to 103.

Mission 5 - Infiltrate Base 236

This one is a really hard cave mission. Passing the first rooms isn't hard, problem is the last maze where there will be 6 tunnel exits, 2 spitting silvers and another 2 spitting each one kind of termites.

Dealing with the tunnel exits is what the mission is all about, so either you try to wait for the number of enemies to reduce and then advance or advance ASAP once you open the door to the maze section you have to bring down at least these 4 tunnel exits or the mission isn't solvable.

I did it with ZEXR, FZ-GUN MX, Guard Assist Gun G and Depth Crawler IV Custom (V will help for extra speed and armor), but it's still a stress.

Mission 6 - Defend Base 236

A medium difficulty mission. The hardest are the 2 waves of gold ants and the one with silver spiders, each with an accompanying armored frog. Capturing the WDs at the start will help you with the stray smaller stuff, so you can wipe out the large number of armored frogs which will wipe out your NPCs.

Mission 7 - Engage Teleportation Anchors 1

This mission can be almost completely cheesed if you use a KM6 attack sideways on all large anchors and another on the smaller ones.

Still not terrible in a more normal way. If you hit a pylon all the ones around it will be active. The most important pylons to destroy are the second from the left which drops red bees and the second from the right which drops silver spiders, so if you get rid of these ones first it's easy. Do all the ones in the right or left first before proceeding to the other side.

I did it with 105mm Rapid-fire Cannon Z, ZEXR-GUN, Guard Post M3 and Powered Exoskeleton Nix ZC. Just capture NPCs and head back. Destroy buildings with cannon to optimize ZEXRs.

Mission 8 - Engage Aliens 1

A relatively easy mission. The only trouble are the 3 multiple rocket launcher frogs on the right side.

I did it with 105mm Rapid-fire Cannon Z, Heavy Bomber Phobos Z Plan 4, Electromagnetic Wall and Powered Exoskeleton Nix ZC or Red Guard. Just try to be precise with Phobos so that most gold ants will be killed. You can also use ZEXRs instead of Phobos (but then you need ZC) and Absolute Bunker instead of Wall.

Mission 9 - Engage Aggressors 3

A medium to easy difficulty mission, which due to the large number of silvers is great for weapons farming.

As long as you deal with the left group first and pick the goodies, then the right one there are no major issues. However, you must deal correctly with the silver king to avoid it crushing your NPCs. Phobos 4 is essential to clear the area and soften spiders for ZEXRs, Red Guard and NPCs.

Mission 10 - Engage Aliens 2

This is a medium difficulty mission. A bazillion armored frogs, with one multiple rocket launcher one in the second wave, and 6 in the third one. 

I thought this could be done only by running away around the map border, but frontal attack also works and it's easier. Still, the frogs can easily wipe out all your NPCs and your life will be difficult. Capturing the fencers of the last NPC squad can help to stall the mission, but be careful if they fall into the water pits in the center as they won't get out and will be massacred.

Mission 11 - Underground 1

A medium difficulty mission that can be done with the right gear. Really good for weapons farming 

https://cris3fgametipsandgrumbles.blogspot.com/2021/08/edf-5-dlc-1-11-inferno-weapons-farming.html

Mission 12 - Underground 2

I never thought I could do this one reliably, but it's not dreadful after all It's still hard. And long. There are 3 crucial moments in the mission. Checking the video will help since this will be easier to understand with it.

The problem is this mission are not the Araneas, which won't be a big issue if you're inside the vehicle but destroying the transporters is. There is a safe spot to conquer at the start, but still there will be extra enemies that spawn each time you destroy a transporter, the 4th will spawn a wave of silver spiders and the 5th a wave of gold ants.

There are 6 transporters, 4 in the main cave and 2 in a smaller dual cave that is the place you'll need to conquer in order to survive. In the small cave you'll find a spiders transport in a ledge near the big cave, and a fast green ants one in the smaller back cave. In the big cave there's a black ants transporter, a red ants, a bees and a spiders. Enemies are in stand-by mode, and they won't attack if Araneas try to hit you, but they will if you hit any of their transports. The first goal is conquering 

You should really do this mission or at least the start on easy to know the paths, and the transporters locations. 

You'll need 3 turrets: the ZEX Launcher, the ZEXR-GUN and the FZ-GUN MX. Although the ZEX is usually dangerous it's key for the silver spider's time. I tried using the ZE Blaster but wouldn't work at this phase. The vehicle can be either the  Depth Crawler IV Custom or the V, you just have to be a lot more conservative with the IV, ai's a lot slower and it has less 5000 health.

At start you need to get a vehicle. So throw in the opening the ZEXRs and ZEX Launchers down, more towards the left. Then throw 2 FZ-GUNs below your ledge, put one on each side of the opening and one in the back of the ledge to cover enemies coming from below. If you have less than 6 FZ-GUNs, the ones covering your ledge are the essential ones. Activate ZEXRs, then activate FZ-GUNs. You should have a vehicle in some time. Summon the vehicle in the back of the ledge to avoid issues. climb on top of it. When ZEXRs are ready install them on the top of the vehicle. Activate ZEX, force rebuild of FZ-GUNs as you'll need them ready shortly, activate ZEXRs and proceed to the small cave with the green ant's transporter (left side of the big cave). Ignore everything on the way except an Aranea that is in your path after you entered the smaller cave. You must eliminate this one as it's too near your safe spot and will create trouble, use the DC cannons to help, the ZEXRs will too. Once the Aranea is dead proceed to the smaller cave. If there are green ants alive wait until the ZEXRs kill them, then exit and throw the FZ-GUN Launchers towards the corner so that will be used if it's needed which is likely.

From this point on the goal is always to wait until all small enemies are in stand by and all the ones that would be attacking you are dead.

When this happens the next step is destroying a spiders transport and an Aranea that are on a ledge just top of the second cave, which was totally ignored at the start. Install 2 ZEXRs on the sides of the DC, one on each side. 2 more on the cave corner. Always have the ZEX Launcher and FZ-GUNs installed on the corner for the enemies that will come, and remember that these 2 if they're active they'll trash your vehicle besides the enemies. Don't be hasty if necessary do this on several steps, just get to safety when enemies are coming. While destroying this near transport you should activate the ZEXRs before going to action, you can do that later on other occasions. Remember when enemies are coming retreat to the safety of the inner cave and activate at least the FZ-GUNs. It's useful if you have the ZEXRs, the FZ-GUNs and ZEX Launcher in your inventory in this order.

Once this is done it's a lot easier to handle the big cave. At this point, the 4 transports in the main cave remain. Your issue are them ignore the Araneas unless needed. You can't hit all transports from the smaller caves. The spider one is above and behind the main pillar in the big cave and it's out of reach. The bees are your less problematic enemies they have problems going inside the smaller caves. The worst enemies for now are the black ants as they're faster. So destroying the black ants transporter to the left is the first step. You'll have to destroy 2 Araneas webs (and respective Araneas if possible, but not essential), so do this first.

Always return to safety when necessary, always summon new vehicles, always rebuild turrets, always install 2 ZEXRs on each DC, and 2 more on the ground, always leave the ZEXRs chosen so that they can be easily activated by doing that in a snap exiting and entering the vehicle. If you don't do this, you'll probably die.

Remember once any transport is destroyed more enemies will spawn in the big cave. The black ants one will be easy. Once it's gone and all is calm you'll have to deal with the reds one. This one will be harder for 2 reasons it's difficult to hit and you'll get a nice bunch of silvers to deal with. Although you can really see the red ants transporter, you can hit the ground / pillar near it with the bazookas and the blast will eventually destroy it. You should test this on easy first, this is finicky to achieve. During this retreat, it's ESSENTIAL to activate both FZ-GUNs and ZEX Launcher simultaneously when you retreat as the FZs are not enough to handle the horde. Rebuild ZEXRs and install them all in the ground as the Launcher will end long before the FZs, and you can't take risks. Silvers can be slow and it's not unusual that 2 or more will come later. This is the more dangerous step along with the start phase.

Once this is over, deal with the bees transport, easily visible on the right side. Although the gold ants are easier to handle than the silver spiders still activate both FZs and ZEXs and do the same. One or more goldies can also take a stroll and arrive later, be careful, they can trash your vehicle in a snap.

When this is finished all that remains is a few Araneas and the spiders transport. Install FZ-GUNs and ZEXRs on top of the vehicle, and proceed to the main cave by the right side to the place where you started. Hiding there from the Aaranea threads activate both turrets and continue to the right until you can hit the spiders transport on the main pillar. Ignore the Araneas, just focus on the transport. Retreat to your safe spot if needed and return again. Remember even normal spiders webs are dangerous and do SERIOUS damage to the DC in the open, so don't take risks at this point or you'll regret it (it happened to me a few times when I thought I was a superstar 😂😐😐😐).

Once this final transport is gone, all that will remain are Araneas, which will be easy to handle as they don't do too much damage to the vehicle.

A few notes:

-ZEX Launchers can't be installed in the DC they will crush it. They and FZ-GUNs MX will damage the vehicle if they're on the ground, ZEXRs won't

- a normal spider can do close to 5000 damage in an attack on a vehicle, of course silver spiders and golden ants are much worse, but always consider this when you're in the open

This is a fun mission to do. It's still hard. It's dreadful for crates, due to how long and hard it is. Don't try to shorten things you'll probably die, do this carefully and with time and it can be done.

https://youtu.be/4XSGNWRlNPk

Mission 13 - Engage Aliens 3

This mission is dreadfully hard, especially the 4th wave, after the 3rd probably wiped out almost all your NPCs.

I already did it but had to use Nix Assault and ZE Blaster, although perhaps there was a slim chance that Red Guard could have worked too.

Although most people seem to prefer using bomber attacks (KM6 or Phobos) I stick with turrets. They work pretty well with tadpoles and ZE Blaster is awesome with frogs if you can bottleneck them. Bombers don't allow you to avoid destroying deroys during the 1st phase as this can always happen while you're attacking frogs, and hitting them in the 4th with them is always a gamble. Gunship attack is more precise and needs no points to replenish, although perhaps a Spritefall could work too.

During the first wave focus on the frogs, as the Nix and other NPCs will deal with the Deroys. The problem is that the frogs will concentrate fire on you and it becomes hard. Gathering the NPCs is useful as they will be massacred if you don't, and it becomes more troublesome with fewer NPCs. The ones on the right side are in bigger danger as they don't get support from the Nixes. If you don't destroy all Deroys you can stall the start of the 3rd phase until this happens, which is very useful for replenishing NPCs health.

Lay down ZEXRs for the 1st wave of tadpoles near the Nixes. Gathering the NPCs before was useful as the rangers and fencers that were more away would be massacred at this point if you didn't do that.

Lay down the ZE Blasters again near the hopefully still alive Nixes for the 2nd wave of tadpoles and try to get as many health crates as possible for the NPCs. If you can install ZEXRs near the ZE Blasters better.

When this wave shows up activate all turrets you can and proceed along the road to its left from your start position. The 4th wave will spawn when there are less than 30 tadpoles alive from the 110 that compose the 3rd wave. When you reach a pronounced left turn, you'll have a small hill in front of you and the goal is to reach the other side of this hill. Go along the road and you can follow a path to reach your destination. During this travel, you'll surely encounter at least 3 frogs that spawn precisely on the spot you'll be aiming to reach. Try to deal with the deroys you can along the way.

Rebuild ZE Blaster and ZEXR ASAP when you reach your goal and install the ZE Blaster in the small canyon leading to the hill back from the road, for the frogs, and the ZEXRs (not all) in the hill back (for the blue tadpoles). Kill as many deroys as possible, the 2 further back and left are likely the 2 middle ones with more plasma cannons that are more important to destroy.

Mission 14 - Engage Aggressors 4

A medium difficulty mission,

I did it with Heavy Bomber Phobos Z Plan 4, ZEXR-GUN and Red Guard.  The third weapon can be a guard post, life vendor, whatever you want Just capture NPCs and deal with the 4 waves. Judicious use of the Phobos and correct rebuild of the ZEXRs will help a lot.

Bad for weapons.

Mission 15 - Engage Outpost Base

EDF games - benefits and disadvantages of playing online

It's crystal clear that EDF games are created to play in coop. It comes to the ridiculous point that Vita games are REALLY meant to be played online (!?!?!?!?!?!?!?, smart decision Sandlot).

Granted there's tremendous fun to play them online, it's rare to find such a pleasant game to do so. If you find the right people it can be absolutely awesome. However, this is problem number one, finding the right people. I played mostly 2025 online, only found one gamer that was a pleasure to play with and we did solve most missions, even without voice chat. But let's not be naive most people will finish online, especially inferno, with at least 1 person in their party with a gazillion armor, which was acquired leggit or not, doesn't matter. The others will be dead all throughout the majority of the mission. And unless the party host has limits off doing some missions in lower difficulties with weapon and armor limits can be really troublesome.

In EDF 5 (and in 4.1) the game is actually easier if you play with 3 or 4 people online. You have 4 times the firepower and different abilities with 2x the difficulty in the case of 3, 2.64x in the case of 4, so as long as everyone knows how to handle things and it's coordinated it can and will be easier. If it's chaos and everyone for himself it's impossible to solve anything, which unfortunately it's what usually happens and why I generally don't like and avoid playing EDF online. The only major issue is that NPCs usually die faster as they're not scaled as much but more importantly their issues and problems become bigger.

But with the right party it's a hell of fun.

EDF 5 - M40 Brutal Battlefield Inferno weapons auto farming solo AR

Ideal weapons:

- Heavy Bomber Phobos Plan 4 for initial massacre

- ZERA-GUN to pretend it kills anything in inferno

- Anti-Aircraft Bunker ME, best thing I could find to keep me alive until the Nix arrives

- Nix Red Armor, best exoskeleton to use here under level 70. Still the revolver (R1 on PS4) has damage falloff so take this into consideration.

Weapons should be almost fully upgraded to succeed, or at least will improve a LOT your chances

Armor: 1000+

Can't be done with base armor, due to how hectic the mission is, it's extremely difficult not to be hit, specially by drones.

Plan:

I tried several weapons to see if this mission could be done reliably with weapon limits (level 70 for this mission, it's the weapons level you can get here and in previous ones). It's still hard specially at the start but this combination was the best I could find.

The ZERA is almost junk in inferno and won't kill much, but it was the least bad of all level 70 turrets. The drones can eat you alive in secs, ants when they arrive too.

Throw immediately Phobos to front, capture NPCs and try to fall back. If you stay at the start position you'll die when the ants arrive. While rolling back put in succession the shields, and when reaching them drop ZERAs and activate. If you gathered points try to use again Phobos.

You should try to send Phobos slightly to left and right to hit Colonists that will come from both directions (none will come from front, so the objective is to try to hit them).

ASAP summon exoskeleton and enter it. When enough enemies have dies, a new wave of spiders will com from left, try to use Phobos on them.

When you're in the Nix jump backwards to right from start, as the 2 Grim Reaper squads will come this way and you need them. Help in what you can your rangers to survive until the GR show up. If they die, you'll likely die next. Check when you can reuse ZERA and Phobos. Summon new Nix when possible.

Joining the Grim Reaper squads is not easy. They move like crazy and managing to get the leader inside the Nix capture ring is sometimes quite hard. Still you need them, so do your best to pick both squads. Rangers should be all dead or just 1or 2 alive, they'll recover at the very end.

Get rid of remaining colonists, they have plasmas and these can do major damage to you and NPCs, and when Rangers are dead they'll focus on you and GRs.

Transports will start dropping ants and 3 queen ants will come from the buildings area. If you can install ZERAs to help with the first wave of ants which is more powerful. Then focus on queen ants. Use Phobos if possible, and advance to them to kill the 3, you'll take more advantage of the revolver and you'll last longer than NPCs, so it's better that you do this than wait for GRs to be slaughtered by the queens. Use all Nix firepower on them, they'll be gone in a snap.

All that will remain is the 3 transports dropping ants and 2 red drones. Don't let guard down, a single ant can kill you with 1000 health, and red drone attack can do the same. Take down 2 of the transports when you can, as safely as possible. Cannister shots from Nix Red are great for this.

Killing the 2 red drones will be a major PITA. ZERAs will help, some lucky cannister shots too. When they're are dead and no ants are alive, the Rangers will respawn.

At this point just sit the Nix under the last transport exactly where ants fall, you don't need to do anything else. Photo below shows the spot, but it's extremely easy to figure.

 

Ants will be massacred by the Grim Reapers and Rangers as soon as they fall from the transports. Due to the large capture ring, all crates will be automatically picked. I left the PS4 alone running for 30 minutes, Nix had not even lost 10k armor, there were just 3 crates immediately outside the ring area, all other ones were picked.

https://youtu.be/f7tSmiB7T8g

Auto-farming is NOT in the video, but frankly it's a joke compared to what had to be done before. I stopped it when there was just the 2 red drones and the last transport, I'm always afraid to be near or over the 15 minutes auto recording limit of the PS4.

EDF 2025 - Inferno high end weapons farming guide

In Earth Defense Force 2025 (地球防衛軍4.1 in Japan, so basically EDF 4 there) the good missions for weapons farming are different from 4.1. Air Raider has a huge edge on this, as he's the easiest class to achieve this.

The last 3 missions are not exactly high end, but the ones that enable you to reach 71+.

- Mission 82 - Battle to the Death

This is the best and easiest mission for high end weapons. The main reason is that you can farm infinitely (within limits 😁) a large carrier dropping hectors, which can yield more weapon crates than usual enemies. Air Raider rules here, as expected:

https://youtu.be/7aYb-81qupM

Other weapons than the ones I used can also work (dual ZEXR), but the shield gives peace of mind in the end

- Mission 84 - Scorching

A medium difficulty mission for the AR, with the Epsilon Blast Railgun E and dual ZEXR. Can be infinitely farmed at the end if you leave the left transport alive that drops ants. Killing all flying vehicles from first wave will take time but can be faster split screen using the second class. On second wave most important is killing giant bee followed by center transport that drops spiders. Second best mission after 82.

- Mission 83 - Massive Mobilization

A medium difficulty mission for the AR, with the Epsilon Blast Railgun E and dual ZEXR. Can be infinitely farmed at the end if you leave the back left transport alive that drops ants. Biggest issue in this mission is the Flying Vehicles, as one can kill you in a snap if you have below 2000ish armor. The rest of the mission is easy if you only attack one transport at a time. Hectors and deroys are a piece of cake with Epsilon.

Unless you can snipe flying vehicles with a second class it's advisable to make a few runs with ZEXRs at start to try to reduce their numbers, it's boring but will pay off.

- Mission 85 - Star Eaters

Not a awful mission after all, can be done in roughly 15 minutes with AR. Drops are spread and not many, but quality is usually good as it's the last mission.

https://youtu.be/XXmgb_LhlNk

- Mission 77 - Fallen Flagship

Reasonable mission with AR or Ranger, but sometimes killing the shield bearers becomes a nightmare as you can go down the crater and they come up and you're in trouble if you can't go up again.

- Mission 71 - Death Queen

The start of this mission is daunting for everyone except the Wing Diver. Equip RZR Launcher or similar, immediately fly and shoot down to kill "flock" of spiders. Don't come down from ledge until all, or almost, spiders are killed. Not stellar in weapon crates but good.

2025 missions are not in the dark, so they're easier than in 4.1. BTW you can learn the maps in 4.1 by playing the similar missions in 2025, maps are equal and most cave missions are almost equal.

- Mission 45 - Blue Fighters

A easy mission for the Air Raider or Ranger. Since you're killing hectors infinitely in the first wave, it's productive as hectors have a higher chance of dropping weapon crates. All other missions until the end ones are not very interesting

- Mission 14 - Preventing Landfall

A easy one due to the massive number of NPCs. Just help with the drones, and with what you can with the hectors. But mission is almost after mission 11, so weapon drops are not that interesting, as mot good ones will be already in your possession.

- Mission 11 - Air Force

A almost self farming mission. Just go to the tunnel under the bridge just in front of start and wait there that the NPCs almost finish third wave of drones, then exit and pick crates. Kump on the ledge in the back of tunnel to avoid drone hits.

EDF Sandlot games - graphics quality, why are they so "bad" 😂

I do love reading the threads on Gamefaqs, Reddit, Steam, etc about the graphics quality of Sandlot EDF games. Why does this game has PS/2 graphics? Why people play this junk? Why don't they use a decent game engine like Unreal? I just laugh my ass at the stupidity or dumbness of the naysayers.

First and clear point. Sandlot had only two paths. Either go for a hectic environment with as many simultaneous enemies, bullets and destruction as possible with the obvious graphics quality trade off. Or go for a game with good graphics and then have just a few enemies at the same time in nicely detailed but totally or almost static backgrounds which is what happens in 99%+ of the games these days. They decided long ago to follow the first path. If you want the second path go play another game or go for Iron Rain.

Second. Sandlot is a very small company, so what they've achieved is still remarkable. They seemingly have no John Carmack, Tim Sweeney, Johan Andersson, or similar level guru. Even so, they still have managed to create and improve a game engine that handles a remarkable number of graphics entities at the same time. Is it perfect? No, but it's still very good and it creates an awesome gameplay experience, completely unique if people mostly bothered to really learn it. Do remember that it's not only graphics that are involved. There's physics, movement patterns, environment (added in EDF 5), hit detection, and all this adds a lot of requirements for computational power.

Third. They took some really hard chances and succeeded. How many developers ported, adapted and fine tuned reasonably their proprietary engines to run on the Vita, where there's nothing even remotely similar to their games specially in performance? Or on the Switch where they're making strong inroads?

Fourth. Do realize that many of the constraints of  Sandlot's engine is not only on the graphics processor but also on the main CPU itself. Controlling the huge amount of entities, from bullets, enemies, enemy parts, NPCs, and their physics properties when necessary requires a lot of computational power that the graphics processor can't handle. So they have 2 bottlenecks, the CPU and GPU.

All major games engines have been developed to provide graphics quality and fidelity over sheer numbers of moving objects. It's what the market wants (I won't discuss the quality of gameplay of the vast majority of the gorgeous games that are produced these days, I find that almost all of them are a boredom festival in gameplay). So no Sandlot can't use any usual game engines like Unreal, CryEngine, and even worse something more generic like Unity or GameMaker.

As a example it's clear that Epic are the company that takes more advantage of Unreal Engine. It's not difficult to see why, they have the unique inside knowledge and extremely vast financial resources and consequentially manpower in numbers and quality to achieve that. Even so it's not unusual for Fortnite, which clearly is a remarkable game in production quality (not talking about gameplay...), to have slowdowns or graphics glitches and other issues. If you even remotely want to compare the number of entities that are at the same time on screen or even on the map and their characteristics with a EDF Sandlot game, well you really have a IQ problem. Is Fortnite it a more optimized game overall? Surely, but again it's like comparing the capabilities of rocket building at Jet Propulsion Labs and a team of students at a small university. Could Epic make a game with the characteristics of a EDF Sandlot game with Fortnite quality graphics for instance. No? For two reasons. The hardware, even current generation consoles and high end game PC's can't handle it. And worse, all processor and GPU development is again 99% geared towards quality and not quantity because it's what the market wants.

Another usual comment that makes me laugh is that there are plenty of games that have more action and enemies than Sandlot ones. Which ones?

There is one (yes 1) that followed a sort of similar approach. The game is World War Z, from Saber Interactive. For starters they also created their own game engine, Swarm Engine, which seems dumb as bats because accordingly to the usual commenting genius on the threads they could have used Unreal or anything else 😂. OK, the answer is that clearly they're just as stupid and incompetent as Sandlot. Moving on. I played World War Z enough to see what they achieved. The numbers of enemies are really high but they followed different paths from Sandlot. Enemies are mostly blurred entities which are much less complex polygon entities than Sandlot ones. Enemies move in concentrated hordes at high speed which create a lot of opportunities for compromises, as for instance you don't have to generate all the hundreds of enemies as most will be out of sight (Sandlot does the same as everyone else, but they have much less chances to take advantage of tricks due to how the game is done). A few (really few) enemies will become more defined when they're attacked or attacking in close quarters, but at the cost of blurring and make more compromises on everything that is not focused. And you don't have a gazillion bullets and explosions at the same time on screen, neither half a city crumbling at the same time. The graphic quality of enemies is largely inferior and they're much less complex entities in World War Z compared to EDF Sandlot games, and environment is a lot better on WWZ compared to EDF Sandlot games, but still graphics quality is clearly not stellar in WWZ. Both games made compromises to achieve what they wanted, and both games are not alike. In gameplay WWZ is the more usual boring brainless shooter, it's still fun, but has no depth, strategy or flair like Sandlot games have (my opinion of course, sales numbers say otherwise).

The crumbling city missions with termites in EDF are look a likes and probably Saber took a peek at them.

Ultimately they're just different games, only probably similar in that they were both so dumb to use proprietary engines and so incompetent because they don't have Borderlands 3 quality graphics which was so, so easy to achieve... 😂

Sandlot does evolve in a few things from game to game. The environment is better on EDF 5, than on 4.1. They removed the dragons, oops wrong, they were not actually removed, tadpoles are dragons (their movement and attack pattern is exactly the same as in 4.1 even down to the blue tadpoles / red dragons behavior, it would have been a waste to throw away all the work on them) , and they were substituted for a enemy with a clearly inferior polygon count and physics complexity (how many times you have tadpoles stuck on buildings or the ground compared to dragons...?). They clearly try to optimize the game as much as possible but there will always be compromises to be made. But unless they clearly reduce the number of enemies and their complexity (no more deroys, giant insects, motherships, etc), the number of bullets on the game from NPCs, enemies and players, and reduce movement patterns the game won't improve much in appearance even for next-gen.

So before you open your mouth think what you're saying... Or just create a better game than Sandlot, if it's that easy.

The game producer, Nobuyuki Okajima from D3 Publisher, has already said that they prefer to add more enemies and zaniness, over quality and fewer glitches, so we can hopefully expect that for the next generations of more powerful consoles and PCs. Please, please let that be true, same gameplay quality and more brain teasers. That will be absolutely awesome.

I wouldn't mind at all having more games with crappy graphics, sound and other compromises but a really good gameplay.

EDF 4.1 - Air Raider and its quartet of wonder setups

In EDF 4.1 there's 3 weapons setups that are stellar for the hardest missions. These will make many hard and messy missions easy to handle. And the winners are:

- Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E, Guard Post M3 and Life Vendor ZD.

This setup will work on missions where you have a reasonable number of NPCs, focusing on keeping them alive. They're reasonably competent with small stuff, and you can deal with big stuff with the Railgun. The Railgun machine guns aren't very good but can still help with small stuff if needed.

Best missions to use: 84 - Scorching, 82 - Battle to the Death, 78 - Heaven's Army and 77 - Fallen Flagship.

- Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E and dual ZEXR-GUN.

This will work really nicely when you have big stuff to handle, and lots of small stuff that will not come continuously. Pity turrets didn't rebuild in the background like they do in EDF 5.

Best missions to use: 83 - Massive Mobilization , 75 - City Flaws, 69 - Tower Siege, 67 - Giant Ship, 66 - Teeth of the Universe and 61- Bug Tower

- Naegling Self-Propelled Rocket XEM and dual Strafe Plan C (Bomber Charon).

Strafe Plan C is no Phobos from 5 but they had a terrific characteristic in 4.1: all, or most, enemies would follow the bombers so you could use the Naegling on them in peace. So if you keep amassing points and sending them, and using Naegling to kill stuff while they do it, some missions will become very easy. When I learned how to use them I even tried to see which missions could be done with this setup. Not a lot unfortunately😋.

Best missions to use: 76 - Monster Camp and 37 - Dense

It's also the best way to solve Demon Army, mission 96 online. 2 AR's with this loadout can make most of this mission a joke, except at the end when it's a pain to kill the flying vehicles that will be under the map.

Almost, almost managed to do Waterside Bugs with this setup once but this one is very hard.

- Vegalta AX, Guard Assist Gun G and Life Vendor ZD

- Vegalta AX, Guard Assist Gun G and Power Assist Gun MG

Epsilon is no panacea for every mission. I did come to terms that Vegalta can provide a good solution for some missions, particularly if you need the flexibility of close attack with a few long-range ones. The problem is that it's easy to get destroyed, that's why the Guard Gun is essential, and many times the Life Vendor too. Power Assistant Gun can be crucial in solving a few missions as fast as possible to avoid other issues. Vegalta's bigger problems are the danger of self-damage from using the cannon and its awkward movement.

A late addition to the list, which changed from a trio to a quartet.

Best missions to use: 77 Monster Party, 78 Labyrinth of Light, many of the DLC missions

The EDF western games syndrome - Part 2 - Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain

Oh boy. It's clear how this is going to be...

I'm perfectly open to all kinds of games. I would love for a similar game to EDF to show up (closest things are Dead Nation and Alienation, and by closest it's still really far, only similar in vague terms of gameplay).

I don't even own yet EDF Iron Rain. I played it for 2 hours on a powerful PC of a friend who liked the game (but doesn't like EDF 4.1... 😁) and had mostly finished it and almost everything unlocked.

It's crystal clear to anyone that EDF Iron Rain is not a EDF Sandlot game, and that was likely the objective. But that is precisely the main issue with the game. EDF Sandlot games are really good because of the gameplay. They have fans because of the gameplay. But that wasn't replicated or used in Iron Rain. If they tried it was a fantastic success like in IA.

The story is reasonable? Seems so. There's a lot of customization? Yep. There's a new class, the Prowl Rider? Yes, he's there and it's moderately fun to play.  I could not care less about a story or customizations, that so many people insist on asking Sandlot to add, when the game is a boredom fest to play. Does customization change the gameplay at all? I know I didn't experience it but it's a awful grinding fest like IA. Yes I know Sandlot games clearly don't excel in that dept either.

The NPC are dreadful incompetent and dumb. Some enemies are nice. Some graphics and animations are dreadful, some are good. There's no hordes. Small maps. Few missions. No strategy, just mostly dumb shooting / slashing. Ouch...

Yuke's did try and probably even did a decent job and yes they introduced a more different and better game than IA. Many people even do enjoy the game, but many people enjoyed IA too (how on earth can that be possible...😋😁). But this was a disaster in the making because like in Insect Armageddon, they removed the most brilliant aspect of EDF, and tried to make something that's it's not like it. Which again is fine, but then just call it Iron Rain. This is like selling a new Coca Cola that is Fanta. No matter how much you call it Coca Fanta, it's most likely not either and not good. This is the biggest issue with these games, they're not even remotely relate to Sandlot games except in theme, that is kill bugs. So do the smart thing market them as different games not EDF ones. As a brainless shooter is slightly fun, sell it as such a game. But they don't and shoot themselves in the feet.

D3 and Yuke abandoned the game shortly after the release, no wonder. The game wasn't successful in the west and a complete flop in Japan. Yes it's still miles better than Insect Armageddon, but it's still light years away even from EDF 4.1.

I'll buy it once it's less than 5 euros... Mostly for laughs. 🤣

I don't think they have learned the lesson and we'll see a third take. D3 is even owned now by Bandai Namco the japanese equivalent of  EA / Activision smartness, so we can surely expect that.

Last. I see so many people asking for Prowl Rider to be added to the Sandlot games. I truly hope not, I'm 99.99% sure it will be one of the worst decisions and dreadful mistakes Sandlot will do to the game. The class simply does not fit into the Sandlot style of gameplay.

The EDF western games syndrome - Part 1.5 - EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 WINGDIVER THE SHOOTER

This will be really short...

 Yes I know this isn't exactly a games for western audiences, it was a game for EDF fans.

First issue. Why was the title all in caps ??????? They needed to shout it?

Second issue. Who on earth thought a 2D shooter would work with a giant weapon grind? And with pseudo 3D enemies?

Third and last. The game is a weak shoot'em up. The game is a weak EDF game. The game is a weak game.

This sums it all up. It was a flop and it was justified to be one. Sadly wrote more than the game deserves.

It's a error to try to milk the cow of the core fans with pointless games.

Best games of all time on all platforms

This is an always difficult list to make. I've played a ton of games in my life, but some do stand out above everything else. The most troublesome is to be objective and not subjective. I'll try that.

Platform games

Easy.

- Super Mario series. Since Super Mario 64, Nintendo crafted what simply defines a platform game. I read eons ago an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto that they started the games by working on the Mario movement and controls and that's what it's all about. Fluidity and joy.

- Ori series. Microsoft did hit gold when they bought Moon Studios. Ori was built on the same principles as the Mario games and it shows. It's simply a joy to play these 2 beautiful games. Hope there's a third

- Rayman series. Some brilliance and originality along with great gameplay

Honorable mentions. Iconoclasts, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Fez, Celeste

LittleBigPlanet series (mostly 1 and 2) deserve a mention for truly fantastic and original ideas, lousy games, unfortunately. Rare's games from their golden age (Banjo's games, Donkey Kong Country, Knight Lore) are still quite good but have not aged that well. Psychonauts 2, seems very interesting, the first was good but not enough.

Racing/driving games

- Kart series, Nintendo. Simply the best and most fun, not pure racing but very well done brilliant gameplay and with decent AI

- Forza Horizon Series. Another Microsoft smart buy. These games are good and really enjoyable to play

Honorable mentions. Gran Turismo series, Blur (a game with half-decent and interesting AI, but plagued with other issues), Burnout Paradise (dumb but fun)

Shooter / Twin Stick shooters

- Geometry Wars series. Simplicity is sometimes the best approach, a fine example of this

- Dead Nation. Best Housemarque game by far.

- Assault Android Cactus

- Robotron: 2084. Yep, still that good, a simple concept but a really good one

- Ikaruga. A synonym with extreme difficulty

Honorable mentions. R-Type series. Alienation (could be the best of all, a true pity of too much RNG downgrading the game). Gradius series. Radiant Silvergun. DoDonPachi. Sine Mora.

FPS Action

- Horizon Zero Dawn. A decent story (not important but better than a bad one), interesting combat, and good enemies. As a whole miles away from all similar games anyway.

Games with no specific genre

Or that don't fall exactly into other categories

- Journey. Not exactly a game, but a really good experience

- No Mans Sky. A launch disaster that evolved into something awesome and unique. Best continued development of a game ever. Kudos to Sean Murray.

- Sandlot EDF series. A series of games like no other.

- Elite Dangerous. Be prepared for hundreds of hours of gameplay to be good at it

EDF 5 - Wing Diver's road to Inferno's end

Not really a fan of the Wing Diver in EDF 5. The charge before mechanics are more a nuisance than a benefit. People say she was overpowered in 4.1 but it wasn't the case, quite the contrary as now you can overcharge a really powerful weapon, use it and will not have any effect in your energy. The main benefit of her was that it become easy and reliable to really manage energy. You had weapons with a clip, knew how much you could use them before getting into trouble, then played the game according to that. Now it's the opposite. You never know when you'll go into emergency charge. Having to hold the weapon charge is a absolute crap even worse with the annoying beeps. I do find myself only using Rapiers and not much else. Stardust Cannon is a interesting weapon but very dangerous to use unfortunately. 

The fun of the WD was the guerrilla tactics and sneak somewhere and wreck it then fall back, recover and repeat and that is a lot more unreliable if you're wasting uncontrollably a lot of your energy pach charging weapons continuously. Frankly even the Ranger seems really interesting compared to her now. Or the fencer... Crap.

Mission 106 - Suicide Squad

This mission is surprisingly easy for the Wing Diver, considering it's one of the last. There's 4 waves and if you handle them correctly it's easy to survive.

I used the Mirage 15WR and the Gleipnir α both roughly half upgraded, with the VZ Plasma Core. The VM Rush Core is probably good too, but mine is so basic in stats it's unusable.

Consider all waves position from start, looking at the WD NPC squad.

Capture both ranger squads, and while hopping to the WD squads use Mirage on bees. The rest of the 1st wave will come form your back, throw Gleipnir towards them and hop back to the WDs. Stay between the 2 buildings near the WDs for minor protection against bees and tadpoles. Always keeps firing Mirage, which is a really very good weapon since it will stun most enemies and eventually kill them, being particularly effective against bees and spiders. The main point is breaking their movement and attack, so that NPCs and you have a easier life.

When there's a few enemies, stop firing so that Gleipnir can have time to rebuild. Hop around picking health and weapon crates.

Second wave will come from roughly the map sides from the position  of the WD squad. the best way to handle is to leave the ranger NPCs near the original position of the NPC WD squad and fall back to your start position and beyond. Shoot Gleipnir near the rangers and fall back shooting Mirage first to bees coming from front right and then the pillbugs coming from left. The WD squad will likely cover your ass with the stray enemies.

Third wave, coming from same positions, same strategy. Try to get surviving rangers towards WD start position, then fall back. Shoot Mirage at bees and tadpoles. Start to walk to the left, as the Grim Reaper squad will eventually spawn there and you want to capture them. Help the NPCs, then stall to rebuild Gleipnir.

Last wave will com from all over the map borders. The best place to go is the corner back from start position, since the bees will come from there and they'll head for your spot making their original one free. Stay in the middle, shoot Gleipnir, then goto the place with few bees. Shoot back, and start to rotate again to left. Eventually the Ranger squad with the sarge will spawn in the right end of  elevated area with the tracks and will move to further forward from along them where the NPC WDs were. They'll usually have a pretty nice life, with nothing to do, as you likely won't even need them. Concentrate towards the end in picking crates, it will only go berserk if you make a big mistake (I made a few small ones in the video).

The mission is usually pretty bad in weapon drops, and they'll be all over the map or at least over a really large area. It's not unusual that 1 or 2 pillbugs from the last wave (or the 3rd) are stuck in buildings.

https://youtu.be/0EESzzfP2Ng

Mission 98 - Coastal Defense Line

There are 2 ways to solve this mission: focusing on big enemies (cosmos and colonists) or focusing on small enemies (drones).

The problem with the first approach is that the 3rd wave of drones is really bad as it brings 3 imperial type 2 drones which are a absolute pain to deal with and can wipe you out in one attack. The Ranger has a better life in this strategy as his sniper weapons are more effective, and the Emerald is more useable for stray drones than WD's homing weapons.

So the second strategy is easier but you need quite upgraded weapons, and the Big Bang core (for its 200% weapon recharge). You just need to be careful and really retreat during the 3rd wave of drones to avoid a imperial one reach you. Without the help of the final cavalry's WDs and Fencers bringing down the transports will be a pain.

At any point the NPCs on the beach are wiped out, without the cavalry arriving there's 99.99% chance you're dead too.

https://youtu.be/kjWMHTpLtFE

Mission 91 - Sparking Abyss

As would be expected this mission is easier for the WD than for other classes. I used the Monster GZ and Power Lance ZA. From start fall to a plateau in your left. If you go all the way to the left you can destroy with Monster the rightmost tunnel, which drops ants and it's the one you'll really want to get rid first. Then go up to the area with the cave I talk about in the AR run. It's seldom that pillbugs will go that far, but all ants will. Once all ants are dead your life will be a lot better.

Once you think all ants are dead (red dots in ceiling are ants for sure...), descend first bridge and go to central pillar zone (where I descended with DC in AR's video). If you stay there it's very rare you'll get pillbugs. Snipe the 3 cosmos with Monster. If they don't die they will usually go inactive humming below the pillar at the bottom of the cave.

When there's no cosmos in berserk mode or they're all dead, proceed with care along the bridge below that will go directly to the tunnels. Destroy the central one. You can then rest in a ledge just above where this tunnel was, I stayed there a few times, only was hit by a pillbug once. From this location, you can hit easily the remaining tunnel.

Return to the bridge leading to the tunnels, and stay at the top near the pillar, pillbugs will all line and try to climb it. If too many come at the same time, just fly upper.

If there's still cosmos alive at the end it won't be very problematic, although usually they'll be under a ledge at the cave bottom just under the central pillar.

Mission 73 - Light Defenses

The WD has a reasonable easy way out of this one. Bring your most powerful and less energy consuming Rapier and a Powerlance or similar with a reasonable range (120m+) to avoid surprises.

While capturing NPCs, your first goal is to go inside the labyrinth of shields and destroy the spiders anchor at front, then deal with the other spiders one in back and finally the bees one which is right of this one. This will destroy the spawns for almost all troublesome enemies. Then recover everything going outside to the map borders. It's very important to get rid of all the bees now using Powerlance mostly, with spiders coming second. Don't ignore any gold ants of course, the single silver spider will be easier to dismiss.

NPCs should be all dead or very near that. When it's possible go to oversized anchor and destroy it. Recover if necessary and destroy the 2 black ants anchors.

All that will spawn now is red ants, which are a joke to deal with using the rapier.

Destroy all shield bearers, pick crates and destroy the final red ants anchor.

Bring a core that helps with flying and / or dashing.

Lego Games on consoles - which ones are good, which ones are bad

Lego Games has always been one of my favorites. Not only I loved Lego bricks as a child, the main magnet towards the games is the humour and silliness, along with some well crafted worlds and clever situations. The story isn't a plus for me in games, if I want a good story I watch a movie, or better read a book. Even so some of the Lego Games have reasonable crafted stories anyway, and the ones based on licensed properties sometimes are successful in following the original story.

There's a reasonable gap around 2012 between the games. Previous to this date games had no dialogs and the story was told by animated sketches with grunts. After 2012 games have voice dialogs to convene the story. I do think the humour was much better and generally more accomplished on the older games. This was far more difficult to do, as it's like the difference between making humour in silent movies and movies with recorded sound.

Console games

2007

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

This is a compilation of the 2 original games of what can be considered a "Lego game" (2005's Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and 2006's Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy). They're both really well done games with lots of humour, silly situations and some good intros. The plot line of the first 6 movies is sparsely followed, it's not perfect but not bad. Graphics and details is largely inferior compared to newer games, but were good for the time and were improved in the compilation from the original GameCube  / PlayStation 2 / Xbox versions. The game engine was in its infancy, several things are still very basic.  It has co-op play but in a limited manner, as both players would be only able to move in a shared window with border limits. Even though it's the first game(s) it's still one of the best and you should really not miss it.

2008

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures

Considering how exceptional the original material for a game that explored humour could be, this one is good but not stellar. It follows sparsely the story of the first 3 movies. There's a few clever ideas but nothing really fancy.

While being inferior to the 2 Star Wars previous games, it's still a good game to play.

Lego Batman: The Videogame

The first super hero based Lego game and it's quite good. The plot is original, and reasonable. It plays differently from previous games, you can play hero and villains missions.

It's much better than Indiana Jones which was released in the same year.

2009

Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

A sequel to the first Indiana game, the first to have trophies on PS3, as the others already had on the xBox 360. IJ and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the worst of the 4 movies, the plot is just dumb and there's less silliness and humour. Not that IJ and the Temple of Doom was a good one either. Although many people love this game I find it inferior to even the first Indiana game.

They added a creator which was more or less useless, and force you to finish a completely pointless and boring replay that adds nothing if you want all achievements / trophies.

This one I would recommend to just skip.

2010

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4

Telltales being a British company it would have been dreadful if they made a bad Harry Potter game. It doesn't disappoint. They follow the plot of the original story remarkably well. There's plenty of good humour and silliness. The hub is quite good, and is well integrated in the game. Graphics and gameplay that had evolved since the first Star Wars Saga are even better here.

Only downside is that it's a buggy game, thankfully not much at least in my experience, but it's worse than previous ones. They probably tried to push the game engine too much and the problems showed up. It's still one of the Lego games I do recommend that you shouldn't miss, Harry Potter fan or not.

2011

Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

I was probably expecting too much of this one. Having loved the Complete Saga I was hoping this one to be better. The game was reasonable until I got to the first battle between armies, in which you control one side. When I saw it and started playing I was thinking, wow this is amazing. Really, really short excitement time, when I saw how absolutely dreadful and pointless theses missions are it was a absolute pain to do any of them. I thought it would have strategy but there's none, it's mostly dumb as bats squads on your side and vehicles so slow you'll fall asleep driving them, and stellar armies and leaders on the other side. Unless you cheat (hint use Super Speeder) many of the timed battles I think are impossible to achieve. I did try but lost my patience.

The space battles are good and cleverly done. Major drag is that you must return to a central point in the hub to change characters.

Another one I recommend skipping as you'll likely be bored to death to fish the battle missions too.

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

I'm not a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Still like with Harry Potter, clearly there were huge fans of the movies at Telltales and they made a really good game. It has the best humor and silliest situations of all the Lego games. It has very clever and original uses of the game mechanics. It really could be a stellar game. But it's not due to bugs, bugs and more bugs. The game would freeze a ton of times. It finally come to a section in the boat's hull where I had to move bombs, and there it was a absolute nightmare (rebuild of the PS3 disk each time😑😐). The game would always freeze and I could not progress. When I thought I couldn't finish it  and was going to throw the towel I decided to try another character besides Jack Sparrow, and amazingly the game did not crash. Well it did in other areas, but I was able to finally finish the boat area. Don't use Jack Sparrow unless you need the compass...

If you forget the bugs it's even the best overall, followed by SW complete Saga and both Harry Potter games. Problem is if you're unlucky and get the freezing nightmare...

Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7

Like the first Harry Potter game this one is very good too. There isn't much to add, just a sequel with the same qualities. And the bugs too unfortunately.

Still highly recommended like the first.

2012

Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

This one had a first: the first Lego game to add dialog. Original dialogs, since Lego Batman games have original stories.

Lego The Lord of the Rings

Another first: not dialogs, that were launched in the previous game, but movie dialogs, with scenes using original dialogs from the movie.

2013

Lego Marvel Super Heroes

Lego City Undercover

2014

The Lego Movie Videogame

Lego The Hobbit

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

 

2015

Lego Jurassic World

Lego Dimensions

2016

Lego Marvel's Avengers

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2017

The Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2

Lego Worlds

2018

Lego The Incredibles

Lego DC Super-Villains

2019

The Lego Movie 2 Videogame

Portable console games

2013

Lego Legends of Chima: Laval's Journey

2014

Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril

Lego Ninjago: Nindroids

2015

Lego Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin

EDF 5 - DLC 2-8 Inferno weapons farming solo AR

A ton of silver spiders, and just that 😂😑😑😑😑😑. Not only do they have a gazillion armor, but their movement is also very varied and unreliable. It's very usual to see a spider jump half the map to your back, and in the case of this mission, it's not only one. The main issue is how fast you can be in a sea of webs and even one of the supplied 175k+ armor Nixs will melt in 1 or 2 secs.

It can be done just using them but the number of ammo in all 4 Nixs is not exactly enough, but not very comfortable to be safe.

There are 4 Nixs along with a squad of WDs in each in 2 of the beaches, to the back left from start. The WD NPCs have tremendous issues leaving the main beach, even the group in the smaller beach is sometimes slaughtered as it gets to the main beach from their initial position.

2 places will spawn more than 10 silvers if you pass near them, the jp wiki mentions 3 but the one by the beach will the spiders spawn anyway if you go near it or not. The easiest to know is the bridge (where you start in the infamous easy to farm mission 87) and in the mountains near the river to the left and right of this bridge. I do think it's possible that on some occasions and runs they will spawn anyway, at least it seems to happen.

There are 165 silver spiders in this mission. Considering that they usually drop 2 crates (but can also be just 1 or 3), it's at least 330 crates. Remember that only 128 crates can be on the map at the same time and the goal is crate collection, not zipping through the mission.

Essential weapons:

- Heavy Bomber Phobos Z Plan 4. I think I tried every weapon to see which ones could kill, delay or cause havoc on the spiders to help. This was the only one that worked. It's also easy to use since you can just exit a Nix and launch it without aiming, it will be in the direction you are facing and you just need to step back a little to avoid getting hit.

- FZ-GUN MX or ZEXR-GUN. The first are the best towers to handle silvers, as they stun them and can do that to several at once. However, for collection purposes, the ZEXRs can be more useful. You can also use the DLC KM6 Plan X18 if you have it, but unlike the Phobos won't stun and blast spiders, and it won't kill them in 1 attack unless they're in the center of the attack pattern

- Guard Assist Gun G. These will help tremendously in the survival of the Nix. A major plus is how fast they rebuild. Not easy or a good idea to apply during the more stressful Nix changes,

- Blacker E9 or E10, for its speed, it's the best escape vehicle. You can also try a Grape. The Nix Assault is also quite good.

Armor: 1000+

surviving until the vehicle arrives isn't easy. After that you either manage or not, no armor will save your ass if things go berserk

Plan:

Drop the turrets to your back around the start position. Your goal is to capture the NPCs and stay near the blocked tunnel entrance, so spread the turrets in a way that covers the enemy's approach from their spawn points. When near the tunnel, start throwing Phobos attacks, with some luck 1 or 2 silvers will die, enabling you to call the vehicle. You'll probably be able to call 3 or 4 Phobos attacks but after the second it's likely a new wave of spiders will have spawned outside the map to the tunnel side, so throw the Phobos to that area.

Surviving until the vehicle arrives is unreliable. Keep moving slightly, shoot a Guard gun pellet to the ground to help if you want. When the vehicle arrives, use a Guard pellet on it and enter it. If it's a tank run away immediately to the beach by the right track. If it's a Nix Assault you can stay in the start area and clean up the 2 initial spider waves.

Your Nix Assaults have 90k armor, the 4 that the mission has provided on the beaches have almost twice that. Once you reach the smaller beach capture the WDs, enter a Nix if necessary (it will be mandatory if you're in a tank), and proceed to the next beach. The Nix Asssult is fast and its jumps are huge but be careful as sometimes it's a hindrance. It's also really easy to get into an uncontrolled fall on them or be stuck in slow motion during a climb. The NPC WDs have some real troubles crossing the area between the 2 beaches, often they will get stuck in that area and will be massacred by the spiders.

From this point on, the whole idea is to get from the end of the big beach to the start area, killing a few spiders at these ends, to avoid spreading too much the crates. Once you hop back to the other area, prepare turrets, rebuild Guard Gun and summon new Nix Assault if you want and have it, and pick all the crates you can.

You just have to be careful when the last wave of 60 silvers spawns at the end of the bigger beach. This wave will destroy your Nix if you're not careful, so get away from that point if you're near when they spawn. Once you've done this mission a few times it does become reasonably easy.

Take advantage of the last one or two spider groups that can be spawned at the end, as these can also provide a few weapon crates.

With the ranger and WD something similar can be done but takes more time and you have to be a LOT more careful. The lack of the Guard gun means the supplied Nixes can fry in a snap, you can't leave turrets to do your job while you're picking crates and you can't summon further Nixes (if that was your choice). The AR has a huge advantage here.

EDF 5 - Air Raider DLC weapons analysis

The AR seems to be the neglected child when it comes to DLC weapons. Most are plain insipid or not useful. Granted he received the best kit in the main game towards the end.

DLC 1 - Level 100 - B10 Mortar

Like all other Artillery weapons, they're useless. Too slow and too difficult to pinpoint.

DLC 2 - Level 108 - T2HS Rocket Cannon

A Gunship attack, just a high-speed version of the level 86 one, as they share the same stats. Insipid.

DLC 1 - Level 102 - Heavy Bomber Phobos J Cluster Bombs 

A bomber attack that is overall inferior to the Phobos Z Plan 4. The extra damage from the cluster bombs won't likely kill many different enemies from the Phobos, the hit area is smaller and it's very slow to arrive. Phobos Z Plan 4 remains king of usefulness.

DLC 2 - Level 106 - Combat Bomber KM6 Plan X18

An interesting variation of the KM6 that has 18 planes in a star pattern. The pattern isn't useful for all occasions but it can be used in a few missions, but its huge area is a problem in missions with enemies on standby as it becomes difficult to avoid them. Hefty reload points, more than 3000 when fully upgraded, which makes it hard to use on most missions as the majority of enemies will wield usually less than 100 points. It's interesting for levels with lots of silver spiders as these provide 1700 points for each kill, but they will only die if they're hit by the attack center, and unlike with the Phobos they are not spread around and stunned. Even on mission 108 which has a huge number of enemies, it's a difficult weapon to have available for regular use. 

DLC 2 - Level 110 - Heavy Bomber Vesta E Plan X2

Like all napalm bomb Vestas it's nice but doesn't work all that well. It's not efficient and many enemies will not be hit by hit. Unlike KM6 and Phobos, it won't be a major help to solve any mission.

DLC 1 - Level 106 - Lionic UA45XE

The Lionics are fun but won't solve any problems. This one it's still the same crap.

DLC 2 - Level 107 - Limpet Splendor ZAM

Another pea shooter, yay... 😂

DLC 1 - Level 104 - ZEX Rapid Launcher

A faster shooting version of the Launcher with more rounds that deliver less damage. It's rarely useful due to the issues I described for the lower turret. Ends in a snap too.

DLC 2 - Level 111 - ZE Blaster

A really powerful turret. Probably best DLC weapon for the AR. On city missions, you can install them on walls or other environmental items to take down transports. Only slow as hell to turn around, but massive damage and stuns enemies.

DLC 2 - Level 112 - Absolute DZ Bunker

An even better version of a good shield, providing twice the durability. although it must be said that the level 89 one was enough for me until now.

DLC 1 - Level 102 - Powered Titan

The Titans are fun but more useful in multiplayer games. They're slow as molasses and need several players to really take advantage of them.

DLC 2 - Level 106 - Blacker E10

The Blacker's main point is its speed and that you can now install bunkers on its top making it a speedy fortress. The weapon can be useful, but it's imprecise, it has a ton of recoil and it's easy to destroy the tank and NPCs.

DLC 1 - Level 101 - Caliban Support Vehicle SA Turbo

The Caliban is not that useful, especially in solo play. They have reasonable speed, and provide health recovery but 0 ways to defend themselves, don't heal NPCs and it still takes time. There are more interesting options in vehicles.

DLC 2 - Level 108 - Armored Vehicle Grape SRXE

The Grape is difficult to control but it has smashing speed and its weapon has an auto-aim. If you can master its controls you can do amazing things with one. There's one Japanese player that you can take a few driving lessons from and strategies, he's a master with Grapes, it's on the video recommendation pages.

Still, the Grape isn't foolproof for mistakes in EDF 5, like it was in 4.1. You can turn it on its sides and upside down a lot easier than it was on the older game.

DLC 2 - Level 107 - N9 Eros Vulture ZAM 

I do hate the heli controls in the game, so this one is irrelevant to me. Specs seem reasonable.

DLC 1 - Level 104 - Nix Saber

An exoskeleton with laser swords. It's cool but ineffective.

DLC 2 - Level 112 - Nix Assault

A quick movement exoskeleton like the Red Guard, but marred by inferior weaponry. The explosions are the same as the Nix Grenadier EZ ones, but you have 2 sets there. The Grenadier is no big deal either. Tried to use it on several missions but either the Red Guard or Nix ZC were always much better options. The machine guns are interesting but they have damage fall-off, so they're only good at close range.

EDIT

Well, opinions can change. He's not actually that bad and can be useful when speedy movement is crucial, like on missions 100 and DLC 2-8 and 2-12. It has a tendency to skid after landing from a jump so be careful if you exit it, it can stop quite away from you.

DLC 2 - Level 103 - Depth Crawler V

The best Depth Crawler, with enough armor and firepower to withstand many thorny situations. Very speedy, sometimes even too much as it's difficult to stay correctly in the ground in narrow tunnels. Very useful anyway. This is probably the best vehicle of the DLC ones.

DLC 2 - Level 110 - Strike Barga

Like helis, Bargas are not my cup of tea. But let's face it the armor of this thing is huge.  The problem is that measly spiders and gold ants melt it in a snap. Control sucks too, not as bad as the heli but not far. Still using a Barga once in a while it's cool, and they have more possibilities in multiplayer.

Conclusion

Very few interesting weapons for the AR in the DLCs. The Blacker and Depth Crawler are simply evolutions of previous ones and not very dramatic ones, the DLC Barga does have a huge armor, the Assault will come in handy in a few missions. And in weapons, only the ZE Blaster is really useful or different from main game weapons. The KM6 Plan X18 is too costly in points to be viabke, 

A big disappointment.