As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Girls' Frontline [GFL]: Longitudinal Strain Story event is live

1697072747586

Posts

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    One thing I can note from my run, is if one does go aggressive on capping heliports. Then 6 HGRF echelons + a double Jupiter is probably excessive and another ARSMG will likely work better. So if anyone decides to do more than one run, see how you feel on capping stuff. If you don't feel like letting the heavy armor factions get tons of spawns, you only really need six anti-armor teams. I know when I went, most of the paradeus that I killed were things that could be dealt with using ARSMGs, only got two gundams to spawn, so I probably was too aggressive on capping heliports, but I really wanted that other command center.

    I will look into the trick with spawning SF bosses. Intruder should be that bad and Alchemist was mostly trivial save for the number she did on P90, who need repairs. M16 is awful, but now that I know how to do it, I'm going to get her to spawn if I run another run because she was like 200K or something. Also true, there might be a big shelf at 400K since that's probably going to get deemed the minimum effort for getting the fairy. The SPEQ is meh because the unit that uses it is meh, so that probably chills some enthusiasm to try hard the map, on top of the fairy being meh. My Goal is to try to at least hit 10% if not better. Though I'll see how things stand once I rebuild my resources and fairy points. Hell, would love to do the million point run one of these days, not sure this is the map I want to attempt it on; especially with what I have.

    Also for anyone struggling because this puts a strain on resources.
    -Farm map is good for resource savings but god is it tedious. Sadly, I don't think it's possible to find a budget event amount that isn't tedious and/or combat intensive. I did find Shark and the Sea IV EX to be a good map. Only four runs to get all the crates and that will likely put you close to having all the repair dailies done. I would suggest run the map slightly differently than how the guide suggests. There is the AFK setup that Armchair suggested, if you want to save time and think that ends up being four echelons. I haven't run it to see if that lets you finish in three turns (I think that is the minimum). Another option I've found, if you don't might having to micro, is you pop in a dummy echelon as your fourth echelon. If you do things right, this can also save on rations because you have a whole turn where your non-primary combat echelons will twiddle their thumbs, so delay deploying one to avoid burning rations on it. This setup results in 7 fights. If you go with 3 echelons, seems like the enemy always caps your satellite heliport so you end up having to do 8 fights. Not this isn't great for medal farming because you'll only get 2 medals. Also if resources are tied you do want the crates because you're going to get resources from them whether you like it or not (though seriously do them if nothing else for the data).

    -The dummy in 1-1 counts as a machine enemy. So if you get the intelligence quest to kill 3 machines. Either grab a fodder unit or a single link low level unit you want levels on. Run three times and you're golden. Also get can friend echelons out.

    -If you really want to be cheap about getting your 20 summons in. Again 1-1 can cover you. Drop a dummy echelon down, start, move that echelon over one. Summon friend echelon, put on either eliminate or capture HQ and switch with dummy echelon. It'll kill the dummy and you'll cap the enemy HQ completing the map and getting a single fodder unit. I wouldn't do this for 20 summons, I'd only bother with however many you need to hit five because it's tedious. So sorry in advance, but now that I'm in super resource saving mode and crate farming options sucking, probably only doing five summons for the daily for a bit.

    -30x4 handgun recipe is your friend. Not sure about the lowest budget equip recipe, depends on how bad it is. I feel it's probably better to short for something, but it is an option, that I'll probably test tomorrow.

    -Shred fodder equips and units. Use parts and capsules to hit the dailies if you can.

    -Something I haven't tested, but someone might have. The preferred map for UKM farming does give credit for humanoid armor doll kills. M4+HG will kill everything with minimal damage, might even be zero depending on RNG. So it might be a viable means to farm up those kills for minimal resource investment and might even let you come out ahead AKA the weekly might be feasible as a resource shot.

    -For non-data days, you either want to do the neural cloud corridor because you need meme-fragment or if you're capped on those do the enhancement capsule. Both maps have random nodes that will always give your something. 45 parts and 90 of the other resources IIRC. Neural cloud corridor can also give meme fragments, while capsule map could give capsules or data. Hell, if resources are bad enough and calibration are in excess, then running neural cloud corridor is probably worth it, if you can, no idea what the game will do, even if all the gained meme fragments are going out the window. It's a checkmark for getting the daily done, which is essentially getting free resources and the random nodes are more likely to give your resources than more meme fragments.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    The AFK route that I came up with for Shark and the Sea is three echelons and IIRC 8 battles. Victory on turn 3. The extra echelons back at base have one fight each, and I think that the main team takes part in six fights (three rodlerero fights, two SF mortar fights, one SF brute fight).

    If you are microing, you could probably get away with using smaller echelons instead of a full 5 man team since m16 and shotguns can both tank strelets for days and evade out of the way of rodelero beams. This would give a smaller DPS force an opportunity to take their sweet time clearing the mobs. Grenadiers like SOPMOD, 416, or FAL may be best in this case.

    I think that you just need to pick your poison for crate farming:
    • Illusory peace for completely free runs, but at the cost of your time since you need to babysit everything
    • Beyond the border for cheap runs in less time, but at the cost of fairy commands
    • Shark and the Sea for more expensive runs that don't consume any fairy commands, but with a very low time commitment.


    I haven't seen anyone else suggest shark and the sea. That's just a map that stood out to me when I was clearing the story. I like it since it takes me ~30 second or less to queue up the necessary commands for a run and it only takes 4 runs to max out my daily crates. So that's approximately two minutes of my time devoted to collecting my crates each day.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Faith of Blood II EX can also be done without fairy commands. It's a bit higher demand because you need two echelons that can solo gundams without HoC support. Also once one gets the timing on rodelero jumps, it's easy enough to slot in an ARSMG on the right side to do most of the fights, while having an anti-gundam echelon there to kill the gundam later if that's what RNG demands. I think on average it's probably a bit less combat intensive than Shark and the Sea IV because you'll get runs where you only have 5 fights, but it's rare and you'll get other times where you have 8 fights. it's probably the best crate farm map to also gather platinum medals if one doesn't want to farm those up on separate runs. if you S rank everything, it's a guaranteed 6 medals per map and you could get 2 more depending on what the gundam does. So at 5 maps a day, that comes out to be 30+ platinum medals (I'd say it probably averages around 33-34 medals a day). It does have the con of having to fiddle with hostages because they don't play well with the planning mode.

    So Illusory Peace II EX, Beyond The Border (think it's the first battle one on EX), Faith of Blood II EX and Shark and the Sea IV, are all the maps probably worth considering for crate farming. Each one has a niche it fills. Super cheap, quick but for fairy commands, medal farm bonus and timely but expensive respectively. They all suck in there own way, with the first first one sucking the most.

    Though Faith of Blood II EX is one that some people are likely to graduate from because between stage clearing, dedicated limited drop farming and ranking runs, one is going to probably get enough medals to get the units they want off the shop. This is especially easy for no duper that only need the three limited drops introduced with Isomer. I pretty much just bought X95 because her farm routes suck. I'd have to look at the route for Beyond the Border to see how many nova medal that yields because I suspect a fair number are going to do what I did and buy UKM since her farm routes are also equally crappy to X95 and not everyone can do the 2 check route on the one EX map.

    Oh before i forget, EX ranking map will reward both medals, wasn't really paying attention to what rewarded what, but my first attempt got me 22 nova medals. Not sure how generous normal ranking map is on medals, but it'll help save time on limited drop farming if someone is still looking to either get one of the three limited drops (Alchemist gave me a copy of UKM) or to just get more medals.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I'll eventually need to work on grabbing a copy of UKM before the event ends. I acquired enough medals farming P22 to just buy X95 with them.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Well my current score of 644539 has me in the top 5%, I doubt it stays there because the event ends on the 3rd, so that's 13 more days for people to work on ranking. On the other hand, I do think resources on hand will be a huge factor for this event right now. For instance I'll have recovered my fairy commands to 200 by 8am, but I'm not sure I'll be at 50K ammo by then. The structures on EX are pretty beefy, I need to see if those reward the same number of points or more than normal because I'd think they'd have more HP. So HoCs are a pretty big deal; especially, since we can't run echelons over buildings to one shot them. The more neglected one's HoCs are the more shots they'll need to kill structures. Also constantly dodging mortar rounds probably opens people's echelon up to taking more damage, so not only would they miss out on points for killing structures, but they likely either lose points for having to retreat or repair more often, or pass up points because their echelon can no longer put up a fight.

    I am curious to see how things play out over the next few days. If my score holds up reasonable well, I might opt to live with it. Granted I'm on the edge of getting the useless talent on the fairy. I really have mixed feeling on the event fairy talents because it makes the fairy much worse and a few event fairy actually end up being useful. This one not so much. Kind of wish they had the event talents give like 5% or something close to DMG I in the way of a damage boost, which would make them competitive, but not mandatory to have with the talent. Also wish they had something like a special consumable, where you could throw the talent on an already raised fairy from the event, for when we get reruns because that's going to feel awkward when we get a rerun of CT and I somehow manage to get fireworks fairy with the event ranking talent. The one I've been raisin on the side is going to be superior not just in the fact that it has levels and will have a higher rarity, but also in that I'll invest in getting DMG II or Fervor on it because it's an event fairy that can be useful.

    Edit: Also with theater to upon us. I guess I should level the Suomi I got a few days ago, since she is probably an advantaged unit for core again. Same deal with Kar, just need to invest in her skill since she is at max. Wish Negev and G36 had dropped when i could afford to do MG recipes because that would've let me spend my core mask on K2. Though I should look at options for QBU 88, since with the right skill level, should probably would be viable in a combat echelon for core 8. Also need to start making special combat reports again and get ATA to cap, depending on how things work out, she might be an option over AGs for Core 8 as well, but she'd need to be at level 100 and 5* rarity in all likelihood since AGS is lvl 100 5* and at iteration 8.

    Mill on
  • OrphaneOrphane rivers of red that run to seaRegistered User regular
    it keeps happening

    unknown.png?width=1109&height=627

  • Knight_Knight_ Dead Dead Dead Registered User regular
    I haven’t gotten any p-22s yet and it took me to pity for my first doll from the boxes.

    Rng be cruel.

    aeNqQM9.jpg
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    So looking at my options because I figure the earliest I would do my next attempt would be this weekend. Chance to get some further training done and to get my resources recovered, shooting for about 70K ammo.

    Here was the setup for my first team.
    M4 Mod 3, Calico, Clear, SAA, IWS with 3* lvl 84 Artillery fairy that has DMG II (Ended up using this just kill elids, but if I try to farm stuff by being less aggressive on capping heliports, probably want to keep the double Jupiter)

    STAR Mod 3, RFB, P90, UMP45 Mod 3, P22 with 3* lvl 96 Command fairy that has DMG II. (Bossing echelon, with the exception of P90, RFB and UMP45's second skill all other skills are SL10. P90 and RFB have their skills at SL8, debating if I should get them to SL10)

    Uzi Mod 3, CMS, MDR, G41, Nagant Revolver Mod 2 with 1* lvl 74 Paradrop fairy that has DMG I. (Figure ARSMG is best echelon to pair with paradrop since they are primarily there to kill Elids. Most relevant skills are at SL8 with both Uzi and CMS having their skills at SL10 and Nagant Revolvers skill 1 at SL1).

    SOPMOD Mod 3, Viking Mod 3, Ribeyrolles, Groza, UMP9 with 1* lvl 68 Paradrop fairy that has DMG II and I know this probably isn't an ideal talent for a 1*. (same deal as the other echelon. Except less investment in UMP9's skill, think it was SL5. Groza is at SL9 and SOPMODs stuff is maxed. Viking has a similar deal as Nagant Revolver).

    M14 Mod 3, FN49 Mod 3, 5-7, Px4 Storm, SPP1 with 3* lvl 85 Taunt fairy with Fervor. (My main anti-KCCO team. SPP1 is there to primarily boost FN49's accuracy and I think I have her at SL3, M14 has all her skills maxed and everyone else has their skills at SL8).

    M200, Grape, Stechkin, PPK, HS2000 with a 2* lvl 68 Twin fairy with DMG II. (My main anti-gundam team. Grape and HS2000 has maxed skills. M200 is at SL9. Stechkin SL8 and PPK is at SL3. If I use PPK in future attempts, I probably will try to get her skill raised).

    Lee, M1911 Mod 3, SRS, Welrod, Serdyukov with 2* lvl 67 Taunt fairy with DMG II. (was intended as anti-gundam but count kill them. In hindsight this is probably too defensive with Welrod and M1911. Serdyukov was at SL3 but she is now sitting at SL8. Lee & SRS is at SL8. M1911 is maxed and Welrod at SL3).

    K5, Wa2000, Makarov, SVD, Contender with 3* lvl 68 Fury fairy with Fervor. (More anti armor and figure this probably couldn't hack it against gundams, not quite fast enough to kill trash the way I'd like it to. Contender is at SL7, Makarov is at SL3 and everyone else is at at SL8. Fury is at SL1, just noting this because every other fairy, other than command and artillery which is at SL8, was at SL10).

    R93, Python, Strayberry, Mk23, Astra with 2* lvl 86 Airstrike fairy with DMG 1. (Was mostly pleased with this one, 15 hydra deathstack sucked, but every unit was alive at the end. R93 is at SL10 along with Python. Strayberry was at SL4 since someone mentioned that is about the point right before you see diminishing returns on data investment since gather you see less return on higher skill levels. Mk23 at SL8 and Astra was at SL3 but she is now at SL8. Airstrike was more to soften things up.

    JS9, Spitfire, RO, G36, 9A-91 with 3* lvl 77 Illumination fairy with DMG II. (Probably should switch JS9 out for Vector given this is anti-ELID and Vector would have a maxed skill and lost links hurt her JS9. RO is capped on skill, G36 & 9A-91 are at SL8, Spitfire has had zero data invested in her and was more of a "crap need another handgun and all the good ones and runner ups are assigned, She isn't great but gets damage on the ARs. JS9 was SL3 IIRC.

    Notable units that weren't used along with skill level. Also going to include all 90+ handguns not used because I was scrapping the bottom of the barrel for them. smg MP7 SL10, smg Vector SL10, rifle T5000 SL5, rifle 4 Shiki SL1, hg MP 443 SL1, hg 226 SL3, hg Type92 SL1, smg KLIN SL6, smg Bison SL3, hg Jericho SL1, rifle Springfireld SL4, ar 416 SL4, rifle QBU SL1, sg SAT8 SL10, sg KSG SL9, hg Grizzle SL8 (didn't use her because I didn't like how I couldn't get good tile coverage, though probably should have. ar G11 SL10, ar AN94 SL10, rifle Kar SL6, rifle Mosin Nagant Mod 1 SL1, rifle NTW SL8 for both skills. Not going to include MGs because I'm not sure there is a good spot for them on this map.

    Also her are some fairies I didn't use. 2* lvl 72 Airstrike with SL10 and Fervor. 3* lvl 67 armor with SL1 and Armor I (doubt I'd use her but just in case there is some setup I didn't think of). 3* lvl 66 Preiya & Camilla SL1 with DMG II. 2* lvl 66 Illumination with SL2 and Fervor. 2* lvl 57 fireworks fairy at SL1 with Keen (thinking she is out). 1* lvl 57 Sehra & Nina with SL1 and Sturdy (also thinking this is a dude. Also tried rerolling talents on one of my lvl one warrior fairies and the best I could get was AIM, usable for rifle and I have neough copies to get to 2*, I believe I'd be two short on three star but I'd need to level it and the skill from scratch.

    I'm open suggestions for better setups because I've likely missed something or didn't consider a possible setup. I'm giving though to grinding PA15 to lvl 90 and getting her skill up. I don't know if her buff tiles would nix things, but I could see a potential way to use her to kill the 20 hydra death stack. Don't know if the stun would get hydras to switch tags to for grape to nuke them, but if they can be stunned she might be great for delaying things. Also read something on matsuda about how TEC 9 is good for kill stuff and she might be another good candidate. Looking at some guides and what I have, I think I might potentially have an issue where either I make a good anti 20 hydra death stack echelon but that comes at the price of some other echelons being less good or I don't have the right fairy setup and it's not feasible to hit it. Though I'm thinking artillery could maybe get me what I need and double Jupiter if I keep it won't be too bad off. I could do another rifle echelon but the issue comes down to not many HGs left to use and not many other rifles that are decently leveled.

    Another set of issue is resources take time to generate. So building up the warrior fairy probably puts my next attempt off till Sunday or Monday. Not to mention, where I'm in an okay spot on data and contracts, I'm still limited on what I can do and I would rather burn the contracts on P90 and RFB if it's worth raising their skills. Finally, it requires grinding out both exp and combat reports which slows down resource regen, even if I'm just grinding 0-2. I only have like 400 combat reports left and would like them on hand for expedition stuff, but I can sacrifice efficiency on that if I have to, actually to a point where I get some weeks that allow me to not spend combat reports get units up to a decent level for good returns.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I'm trying to finalize my teams for my first run. I'm aggravated since I was stuck working overtime (again) yesterday, and in my frustration upon returning home I forgot to burn my extra simulation energy on skill data and in turn ran out of skill data topping off a few units. I need a damn vacation.

    It's also extremely obnoxious how taxing this ranking map is on handgun deployment.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I hate how CT's 6 echelon limit was likely an exception for ranking rather than being the new norm. Cynic in me suspects Mica believes a cap of 10 echelons gets them more money, but I'd argue capping ranking maps out at 6 echelons would probably get them more. It makes ranking maps more accessible and if you can field 6 echelons in those and still have 4 for logistics, that would actually make unlocking 10 echelons much more appealing for more players. Likewise, if people have 10 echelons, then they'll feel more interest in getting 10 dorms.

    Anyways, I can say that 644K is now in the 8% range. I'll probably shoot for 800K+ on my next attempt. I'm going to give an experiment a try. Currently getting PA15 to cap because I figure it worth seeing if she could help lock down hydras long enough to kill 20 of them before they walk off the map. Also leveling skills on the warrior fairy. Need to get said fairy to at least lvl 20 for 2* status. Though might attempt to see if I can farm up enough copies to get 3* which would require lvl 40. Likely, will have to burn some quick training contracts. Attempt two will either be Monday or Tuesday. Now that I have a better idea of how to runt the map, I should be able to hit 800K+ easily. I know how to get more points out of the SF bosses and know that I was too aggressive on capping stuff in my first run. Throw in getting all three bridges destroyed instead of two and possibly being able to kill the two 20 hydra death stacks and it might not be that hard to cap and hitting a million could be possible. Granted hitting 800K+ might be doable without out killing the hydra death stacks.

    One thing I would have loved to do, is to get a third paradrop but don't have the time or setup to get one to SL10. Definitely, going to make that a goal before the next ranking event. It'll suck getting three paradrops to decent rarity unless the prototype fairy gets added soon. Just looking at strategies and remembering how things have gone in past ranking maps, three paradrops is probably a good spot to be at.

    As for PA-15. I figure if she doesn't work for this ranking. Just getting her raised and to SL10, will be very useful for farming 10-4E. Don't know if the AoE will event put a dent in them, but the 3s stun on the primary target is going to be very nice and then possible get a 2s stun on surrounding units that are close enough. I'm sure PA-15 will be useful on other things down the line.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    @Mill
    I highly advise against starting Monday. If you don't complete the run in a single play session, then the progress will be lost between Monday and Tuesday when the weekly maintenance hits.

    What I hate about this particular ranking is the abundance of enemies that mix evasive opponents alongside armored opponents. It feels like playing rock/paper/scissors, except you're playing as scissors vs rock and you're supposed to win by just being sufficiently overleveled. I can field several echelons that fit that description, but fielding ten such echelons is obnoxious. ESPECIALLY since ever day I need to reconfigure the echelons again to farm my crates.

    I'm probably overeacting. It's just frustrating when not every team is operating perfectly. I'm trying to take a deep breath and remind myself that not everything needs to be perfect unless you're aiming for the tippy top, which I'm not.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Well attempt two will be Tuesday, tried to see if I could pull another paradrop. No dice, on the upside the first paradrop in a 2* now, so I guess that's something.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I wouldn't worry about extra paradrops that much. IMO there are much higher priorities than getting your hands on more than 2 paradrop fairies. Gaining access to the higher paradrop openings is nice, but I think that higher rarity fairies in general will make the runs smoother than a higher count paradrop opening. That's just my opinion though.

    One other detail when it comes to triaging your resource is to try to keep in mind just how much armor that your rifles need to punch through.


    According to: https://gf.hometehomete.com/en/maps/ , the only enemies that exceed the 195 armor that our rifles can punch through with maxed gold AP ammo are the Hydras, and some of the late-game Paradeus units like their Uhlans and high CE Gundams. Note that Gundams have different armor values depending on specific pod of enemies that spawns. The majority of Gundams have armor in the range of 150 or 173. So +7 gold AP rounds are sufficient to negate the armor off all but the KCCO hydras or the spookiest of Paradeus teams, and +6 gold armor falls just short with 171 pen.

    So, if you're trying to pinch some resources, only the KCCO teams and your very strongest teams among the anti-paradeus forces actually need the maxed 5* AP ammo. The rest of your rifles can make due with some weaker AP ammo.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I've been opting on spread out resources with my daily enhancement quests. I figure the like 8 +2 gold equips is going to do me more good than another +10 gold equip. Goal is to get them there eventually, but right now spreading things out like that lets me get overall more stats across more echelons. Also finally remembered to lock all the gold equips I want to keep and the fairy rage craft I did earlier today got me another gold scope, so I suspect that at about the 13 or 14 that I have, I'm in a very good spot. HP ammo and exos are probably going to be my bane on the equip front. Maybe HV amoo, since I only have eight, but that means mass ARSMG echelon deployment would need to be back in vogue.

  • OrphaneOrphane rivers of red that run to seaRegistered User regular
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Okay, didn't get 800K. Had bad RNG for a few attempts and the one I settled on only gave me 18 AP on turn 2. Also made some dumb mistakes. I did manage to kill the hydra death stacks, PA-15 is kind of iffy with a 2* warrior fairy. Actually sacrificed M14 because I got tired of resetting on the second hydra, which didn't have HOC support. I suspect with 3* Warrior PA-15 would be great; especially, at 5 given that she is there to stall things. Though managed to get 798445 as my score, don't know if that will keep me in the top 10%, but I'm so done with this map. Probably could have gotten 800K+ if I had pulled off triple M16 (got double, but didn't kite things rights to get the right spawn) and/or intruder.

    It's a bit frustrating and it really shows some of the issues that mica needs to get off the asses and fix already.
    -Screen clutter, you can't see the map without doing tons of zooming in and out. Had to do one reset because I had a unit move when I was trying to deselect it.
    -Screen lock, I'm still floored this no brainer wasn't added day one three years ago and is still an issue. The design literally screams, "you should have a screen lock since people need to select and swipe things."
    -A deselect for equips. I think I had 10 minutes wasted figuring out where equips were and echelon setup for huge maps already takes a ton of time.
    -A way to practice without pissing resources away. There is no way to test stuff without going to the map and sometimes you have to hike your ass over to what you need to test things on.
    -Affection continues to be a terrible mechanic, namely the loss of affect if units die. I'm already being dinged a ton on ranking as is, it's really not needed.

    I'll take a screen shot of all my echelons be I take stuff apart and go into normal play. Upside is I think normal caps at 700K, so I'm ahead of anyone that can't or won't do EX. I know for the next ranking, I'll need to do better because I think Ceia did a two combat echelon on EX that got 700K. So either I'm not microing enough and thus having to repair too often. Need to hold off a little on heliport capping or need to work a little on echelon setups. Might have also been better served with more grenadiers and less repairs on anti-elid dps. Looking at the chart, I'm somewhere in 6 or 7%. So not really optimistic about 10%, though will hope I don't go down a percent each day and maybe that we get an influx of people going for bare minimum needed to get the fairy towards the end. Pretty sure I have the SPEQ locked regardless of how things go and the fairy was already secured. Yeah, this map kind of sucks because it's rifles frontline and Mica is working very hard to break their design. I like the idea of mixed echelons, but the vast majority of tiles don't play well with the concept and it can be a huge loss to output without the tiles.

    Though I guess I prep for second theater now. Need to get Suomi to lvl 100 and SL10 before core 8, since she is supposed to be advantaged again, unless Mica changes how they do things. Also want to get EM-2 to lvl 90 and SL8. I think EM-2 might be good for dealing with the swap striker bastards.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I started my run tonight and ended up having to abort part way through. I was advised by some people to use the opening linked below, but it really isn't outlined very well. Over 50% of the teams aren't even labeled. A graphical glitch led to me wasting one of the supply zone bombardments, and my team in the supply zone was utterly unprepared to engage a hydra since the instructions clearly labeled it as an anti-smasher team (read: ARSMG)


    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PFX2RrqQQuDJtbAeV40IqIjgzNJbUr2uv_XiJtOZn3E/htmlview?pru=AAABc8HLWj0*cv5AJ1JapcQyZpEUeqeXrA#

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    I used that one myself and agree that it is in need of cleanup.

    Also I wish it did a turn three for some parts of the map because it would really help if people knew that you'd need to do something about the hydra stack, even though it's be heavily damaged so that you can get the supply line points ASAP. I've found the best strategy is to spawn one of your anti paradeus echelons on a helipad that you now control near the sanitation tower and run it into the hydra death stack, then move it to take where you need. I think part of the issue with the last run was that if I was going to shut down paradeus heliports, the button right area near SF Boss land is probably the best area to let them spawn, I think you can get three paradeus heliports fairly close to each other and you have the HoCs for both SF and paradeus, probably could keep some of the hostages around longer for conga line AP discounts. For the two attempts I finished, I left the top left open and that was essentially just two heliports for paradeus spawns once I go heliports under control. Bottom right setup probably also frees up AGS for KCCO stuff. Honestly, for elid farming, double grenadier is probably best, just either make sure their on different timers or except that you need to micro one. Then have molotov's as off tank and use a handgun on 4 as the buffer and spotter. If one has a Zas or two, don't even need forced manual since she'll nuke a group before I think even the molotov, then molotov happens, then a second or two later Fal/Sop/416 happens. I do think you'll have to the grenadier in one group on manual though. I wouldn't use K5, I think that's the mad bomber, because she loses damage from lost links. As for smasher team, I'd probably go with Shrimp, honeybadger or JS9 as the off tank and if you play your cards right just have that echelon always end it's turns not on contaminated zones. I will say HS2000 is amazing on an anti-smasher team, you just need to make sure main tank dips down to 2 or 3 at times to keep elids from eating her face if they live long enough to stumble into melee range of her (other reason I'd make sure this echelon never ends it's turn on contaminated nodes). Finally, also know what to account for to get triple M16. I can kill all three copies, just need to repair in between kills probably.

    I know I said I wouldn't do another run, but looking at how resources are going. I might, against better judgement do so, if I'm not in top 10% and it looks possible. I've got a better idea of what to do now. I figure I definitely want 19 or 20 AP at start of turn two. I also know how to nail all relevant enemy artillery emplacements before end of turn 2 and know which ones have to go down on turn 1. So I can make fishing for those nodes easier. I'll probably check spawns and see if I want shift my paradeus farm to another spot on the map. Also will try and make sure fury has some levels on her skill since she is going to see use. Don't' think it's really feasible to fish for another warrior fodder to get my current one to 3* and getting her dmg 1, dmg II or fervor is probably a crap shoot. Also need to figure out how to deal with KCCO, my anti death stack just isn't good at killing cyclops without 2B supporting them and AGS helps some. Plus, also thinking of how best to cap elid pads, thinking, I should focus on probably shutting down the left side with the exception or one two pads left open for anti smasher team. Think I could leave two open and have that echelon chill on a clear node. Plus

    Of course the problem is also making sure I get good spawns and don't get too aggressive on gathering move points. I suspect, I'm not getting quite the best setups to kill gundams. Like my team with SRS and I think Lee has been disappointing on this front.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I'm going to try a different opening that was linked to me by someone in discord.

    I did give some extra thought to the one that I previously used though. When that set of instructions called for an "anti-smasher" team, one thinks of ARSMG teams and not something that can take on Hydras. However I think replacing one of my ARs with NTW20 mod3 would still prevail against the smasher and would be able to chain-kill the crippled hydra.

    However, I also don't think that there is any reason to actually send the illumination team into the supply zone. The illumination team provides vision to paradrop the Elid team into position and bombard one of the supply turrets before crossing the point of no return. Once that illumination work is done, I don't see why we can't just shuffle echelons along the swap chain to move the Double Jupiter team into position to clear out the supply zone.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, that is also an option as well with double Jupiter. I mean it would definitely work on the hydras, I'm less sure about the smasher because that guy is tanky as fuck. So if you clear smasher with anti-smasher team, you could pop your double Jupiter in on a helipad that lets you get into the supply area, it's not as AP efficient, but it does let you clear the area out and get the Jupiter in a spot that takes it to where you need it later. Not sure double Jupiter could kill it fast enough and clear the elids. As for NTW, I'd have to see the math. One thing she has going for her, is I gather she is pretty good at killing hydras. For smashers, she bypasses the shield they get. Issue is if you put her in a double Jupiter over IWS or grape, is that you might not kill elids or the smasher fast enough. I know M4's cannon does silly amounts of damage, but that's contingent on maintaining links and if your double Jupiter is using handguns, well they are terrible tanks against the smasher and I'm not sure how much mileage a taunt fairy will give here either.

    I'm probably not using the illumination to it's full effect, but seems like turn two is where you really need it for clearing enemy artillery emplacements and getting paradrops in. I didn't see much point in getting it off of CD for added vision afterwards. If you're clearing things and have handguns, you'll probably not waste any AP. Then again, I was probably too aggressive on taking heliports.

    Other things that might be missed that will help people on score and saving ammo. If you do go in with an HoC to clear artillery in KCCO spot before moving in anti-death stack team. You only need to use it to kill artillery. Don't know if they are immune to death by echelon running over them, but I can confirm the anti-air structures aren't. Also you can get 10K points for ganking the purification tower, so if you aren't using it or can afford to run an HoC down there, that is an option. I haven't quite figured out how that tower works, so I just destroyed the tower when I figured i wasn't going to benefit to see if it gave points. I know I'm a horrible commander for doing so in all likelihood.

    Right now my score show of 800K is at 8%. I really want it stay under 10% because they I won't have any temptation to do another run. I'm pretty sure I'll have the resources that I could make another attempt on Sunday, just that I rather not. Hoping, there is a huge influx of people that don't really care to get the SPEQ popping in this weekend. Also wish Mica did a better job of explaining to people that aren't competitive that if they spawn a lvl 1 dummy echelon on HQ and then end the attempt, that will give them a decent chunk of resources and some gems for only 2 manpower. It's a bit sad that so few attempt ranking and that comes down to Mica not communicating that their is a very big return for the lowest effort attempt and that would help those that are doing the ranking maps.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Assuming that your jupiter team is running the standard taunt fairy, double jupiter obliterates the smasher. The taunt fairy is like kryptonite to smashers just like twin fairies are kryptonite to a lot of paradeus units. It forces the smasher to start further back, or rather it stops your dolls from advancing quite as far forward. This really nerfs its AOE pain field since your dolls are standing further back.

    The original "anti-smasher" team that I ran was AN-94/AK-12/AUG/Ro635/Contender. I would replace AUG with NTW20 if I were to go that route. AN-94 and AK-12 were putting out most of the damage since they get that sweet advantaged unit firepower boost. NTW's presence would certainly be a downgrade for the smasher fight, but I think that they'd still clear it. That said, I think I'll just be sending double jupiter into the supply zone instead. I've run out of enough rifle equipment to make another competent rifle team, so I'm going to leave them as an AR/SMG team that can focus on clearing any strelet/rodel groups and act as a dummy in the later turns when paradeus armor is omnipresent.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Interesting, didn't know taunt was so effective against smasher. In hindsight, I really should have used AN-94. At some point, I need to raise AK-12 and get her skill maxed; especially, if she keeps showing up as advantaged in stuff. I'll have to see how double jupiter does against the smasher, if it works for people, I might go that route if I do another run. I'm still hoping I can stay in top 10%.

    So looking at the Q&A.

    If we get gunslinger girls collab this year, it'll be after a mandatory client update. I haven't seen anyone post what the new daily quest rewards are, but we haven't gotten the apparent rework for those because it's not compatible with current client. So I have no idea if they make those more rewarding or not. I'd like to see all the kill X ones be worth a damn. Would also like to see the heavy production stuff and fairy related stuff pulled because it's just a really bad refund.

    Also Japan is getting SF Capture soon. So that means we're getting the current and shitty pay to collect model, that could be pay to win if SF echelons can be used on ranking. I'm hoping Mica just commits to SF echelons not be allowed in ranking and ensure that max potential SF echelons aren't essentially requires to make any content a non-nightmare (aka I don't want a ch 9-1N where it's fucking awful with regular echelons and the SF setup that free to play have and then see a full potential SF echelon make it a job). Sure I won't be happy with the setup and I know whales will complain about not being able to use their SF units to dominate ranking, but I'd find that a tolerable setup. If SF ends up being required and we get a pay to win setup, that's going to kill my enjoyment of the game. I pretty much stopped with Arknights because it really did shit on people that were free to play. Sure you could get everything eventually, but at the pace they were going, you were going to mix out on clearing limited maps because you likely didn't have a deep enough bench to do them and by the time you get it, well you'll have missed stuff.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    The thing is that AN-94 and AK-12 are really kinda secondary for this event. Ideally you're running a bunch of rifle teams and then run one SF team to take care of the SF bosses. For the SF team you want STAR since she outdps' the DEFY dolls at night and RFB for picking SWAP Jaegers off of the backline, so AN-94 and AK-12 get muscled out of the "ideal" team compositions since ideally we wouldn't field a dedicated ARSMG team in our comps beyond the single SF bossing team.

    I thought that the game was calling for you to have a bunch of overleveled rifle teams that could deal with evasive infantry at night, but actually it's just asking for you to have leveled 2B14 and AGS30 and for your rifle team's tanks to stall for time against infantry until the HOCS flatten them. But I don't quite have 8 rifle team's worth of equipment, so ARSMG teams to fill the gaps is the solution. Getting the rest of our HOCs up into fighting shape should be a priority for high ranking scores on future events.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I'm glad my original HoCs are all 5* lvl 100 with a mix of iterations. Problem is, I know I could optimize the chips better, but god is HoC Tetris awful. ><

    HoC support pretty much makes the cyclops a non-issue; especially, if you have a a 2B with a good amount of lethality and skills maxed, she just murders them. AGS is less good, but I think my issue with her is my probably have badly optimized chip setup because I haven't used any sort of calculator to sort her out and I should. I could probably get her down from 4 shots to 2 or 3. I could probably get more stats that aren't pierce and reload on BGM, but she is almost to the point where I think she might be able to use less shots some things. I want to say, she can almost one shot structures.

    I'm pretty sure HoC's are probably going going to be a huge limiter for some. If they haven't been raised enough, Gundams will live long enough to wreck echelons, will cyclops hordes. It really helps with SF bosses, even with the ideal comp, which I have, it's always nice to see 2B flatten the jaegers that don't get targets first by RFB and makes sure they can't do much if M16 decides to be a jerk and stun the kiting tank before they can retreat back. Then there is the whole resource thing. Low pierce HoCs are going to eat a ton of resources. Ideally, you have a ton of pierce on both AGS and BGM to quickly eat structures for far less ammo and rations.

    Also for 2B and BGM having all the skills at 10 helps a ton. 2B has the one that is essentially, a second hit on non-shield targets, can't remember what percent of damage it gets, but at S10 it really helps her kill things. Her other skill that debuffs enemy units is also handy for things that survive and reducing what they can do if they manage to reach firing range. BGM has the reload speed skill, so getting her to fire faster is a boon; especially, since her RoF is lower than the others IIRC. Her skill that lets her stack lethality on a target is more of a mixed bag because it's not a priority stat for her. That said, you often want BGM for killing shielded enemies and they will more often than not live long enough for her to get it fully stacked, so it's more damage on something you probably want dead ASAP, like gundams. Of the original three, I'd say AGS is the one that has a dead end skill, she has a skill that increases her precision, but you can cap all her stats and apparently HoCs don't eat the massive accuracy penalty that night maps inflict on non-HoCs. Plus, any shield breaking stuff always hits. So you get very little return on the investment. IMO best bet is to get that skill through all it's levels that use basic data and then call it a day. It's not nothing, but basic data and batteries are cheap enough to make it worthwhile. Once you need intermediate data, I'd argue most would have other units in need of said data more than AGS needs her percision skill to give her a minor accuracy boost.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I just want two nights where I don't have to work overtime. TWO NIGHTS.

    This pretty much settles it. I'm going to burn vacation time for SC. It seems dumb but I can't ask for such a simple thing apparently as a few nights peace to sit down with a big ranking map.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Anyway, I was linked this other 2 paradrop opening. At a glance the notes are better documented than the one that Mill and I were referencing.

    https://pastebin.com/2BjbpuU2

    below are the author's echelons, with notation by me labeling their role. The unlabeled ones are anti-paradeus rifle teams.
    0e8mc9h9y3vk.png


    additional notes from the author
    I swap CMS out for P90 when killing M16, then back to CMS for Nimogen. Also switch Illumination fairy out for another 5* Warrior after the T2 retreat.
    Echelon 6 is used for early to mid game fights that HOC can't reach.


    I had intended to try this opening out tonight, but fate did not smile on me.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    That is a much cleaner walk through for the opener. Also like how it has stuff for parts of turn 3. I'll probably go with that guide if I make a final attempt to beat my current score. It's still at 8%, so don't know if I'm secure in being in the top 10% or if I'll have to do one more run if I want to stay there.

    Currently, training to recover resources, but also having to spend stuff trying to get the last fodder warrior fairy because I suspect getting a 3* warrior will help make things go smoother for the anti-death stack group. Been slowly getting levels on the fairy, since it's something. No luck on getting a better talent than Aim (really not a fan of fairy calibration). Upside for fairy farming is that i was sitting on 3.5K equip contracts and 800 cores, so T3 crafting was an option and man am I getting lots of fairies, just not what I need. All the 3* fairies just hit that point, so it'll be a bit before I get 4*.

    Granted, theater starts right after this ends. So I'm not too troubled by prepping for another run that might not happen, since some of the stuff I'm doing will benefit me in theater. Heck, put together three teams for farming crates in Shark and the Sea that don't include any modded units and mostly avoid max level units. So I've managed to get some levels on P90, CMS, RGB, RO, P22, R93 & Wa. Some of those units will see use in theater and all would see use in another ranking run. Also pretty sure, I'll be using all of them in future ranking and story content.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Well I finally got a ranking run going. Yay me. So far so good. 20 AP on turn 2, and I'm pausing for the night after clearing the first KCCO deathstack according to plan and deploying the secondary KCCO team.

    @Mill
    I can't say whether you should run again or not. I'm not sure what's going to happen. On the one hand, this weekend will see the largest influx of ranking players by far. So a lot of people will be surpassing your score. However, by the same token a great many people will be scoring below you. Last time some people actually saw their rank standings improve as lower scores amassed beneath them. But last time we also had a cookie cutter pacifist run that people could follow. One more factor is that ranking has an easy mode this time, so that might mean more lower scores.

    If you do make a final run and follow the opening that I linked above, I noticed two oversights on turn 2.
    • First, on the third step for turn 2 the author mislabeled the artillery nodes that we're blowing up. He accidentally called out the nodes of the gates that are adjacent to the artillery. You probably would have noticed the discrepancy anyway and figured out the intent.
    • Second, on step thirteen, the author asks you to move Echelon 9 (the KCCO deathstack team) to P23. In my run, a Strelet team was occupying P23. While Echelon 9 was within HOC range, I saw no reason to risk the deathstack team taking any unnecessary damage prior to its key battles. Since we deploy AGS from Ech 9's previous location immediately afterwards, there is no reason why you can't shuffle units around the chain to utilize a more expendable squad to clear the strelets. Then, once AGS links the chain of units, you can reshuffle said surrogate squad back to its original position and then move the deathstack team back to the frontline again so that it can travel into KCCO territory.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I'll probably do the KCCO slightly different because I know my death stack isn't going to do well against cyclops echelons and I probably won't have a 3* warrior fairy. Granted, this is contingent on how my feel and how ranking scores look tomorrow. If I'm in a good spot tomorrow, definitely won't do it.

    I just need more rations. Also thinking I'll fish till I get the 20 AP turn 2 start. That gives one more freedom. Finally, my last score was done by killing M16. I know how to get the right setup for three of them and will shoot for that first thing on turn 7. My mistake was I did that last, and I really want my bossing echelon to move past the SF helipad IIRC, so the SF echelon drops to that node. Then move to get the other one where I need it. Also missed one SF boss, so 800K should be doable.

    Only thing I still need to work out is how to go about capping helipads. I think I need to have more paradeus spawn and do my KCCO setup so I'm getting some of those helipad spawns as well. Not mention, going with double grenadier on elid teams and I guess I'll use KSG as a tank for the second team. If I use double jupiter for smasher and the crippled hydra death stack, I could probably build another semi-anti armor team. it'll mostly kill rodeleros and strelets, but maybe I can get it to a point where it can deal with single gundam teams. I have the lvl 90 rifles and could half ass the HGs, just equips are another issue.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    My KCCO deathstack team's gameplan against Cyclops groups is to try to stall for time until the artillery fairy's SL10 artillery strike completely flattens the enemy. The handguns still get a chunk taken out of them from the basic attacks, but the fight is over before the grenade spam at the 10 second mark.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Well my current score is in 9%, so unless we get a wave of people that score below it, that drive my score back into 8% today, I'll probably be doing another run. RNG doesn't seem to want to give me another warrior fairy. At this point I'm wondering if it'll toss another twin my way to give a 3* twin or if it'll toss me 4 more artillery fairies to get me to a 4* one. Or force me to do something with all the shield fairies clogging up my roster because none of them have rolled with a native talent that is worth a damn.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Remember that ARSMG squad that I talked about putting a rifle into? Well I didn't since I ended up reworking my deathstack team and NTW is in it, so I just kept the ARSMG team as-is to clear out strelets and redeleros. Howver, by chance, a Doppelsoldner just attacked it. Surprisingly, they won the fight. It was one of the weaker doppel squads since it only had one doppel in it. Essentially RO tanked a ton of grenades while AGS30 sandpapered it to death.

    Fortunately, the illumination fairy's skill had just expired. So I'll be withdrawing the echelon to reset that skill timer. While it's gone, I'm going to squeeze a rifle in there. Not sure who yet, but it will at least make them better able to deal with very light armor.


    Unfortunately my family had lots of plans for me today, so I took part in the family activities instead of being rude and playing video games. Consequently I won't be finishing this run before reset and I'll be missing out on one day of crates. Not the biggest loss since I've gotten everything that I truly need out of them, but that data that they tend to have is so juicy and I'll miss not having it.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Whelp, need to do another run because my current score is in 10%, so don't want to risk falling lower in the ranking. Only thing I'm not entirely sure on is the best heliports to farm for points. I know I want to cap stuff eventually for the points from the heliports and supply nodes. Also know that with some better planning, I should get triple M16 and the one SF boss I missed, which I believe was Intruder. Not sure how many points she was worth, but think it's a decent chunk. Also need to figure out how I want to break into KCCO turf, I'm thinking anti-deathstack team isn't ideal against cyclops without HoC support. So contemplating if I still pick up the bomb with that and just enter into KCCO around turn 4.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Mill wrote: »
    Whelp, need to do another run because my current score is in 10%, so don't want to risk falling lower in the ranking. Only thing I'm not entirely sure on is the best heliports to farm for points. I know I want to cap stuff eventually for the points from the heliports and supply nodes. Also know that with some better planning, I should get triple M16 and the one SF boss I missed, which I believe was Intruder. Not sure how many points she was worth, but think it's a decent chunk. Also need to figure out how I want to break into KCCO turf, I'm thinking anti-deathstack team isn't ideal against cyclops without HoC support. So contemplating if I still pick up the bomb with that and just enter into KCCO around turn 4.

    On the KCCO front, you can test different KCCO teams to test things out on turn 1.

    To test the deathstack killing power, just have a different echelon clear the way for the deathstack team to move in. You have just enough AP to go fight one deathstack. My benchmark was that the team could win both fights if you're capable of winning one fight with at most one HG being struck by artillery. As for the run-up to the fight, IIRC your deathstack will have to fight between one and two cyclops teams. One of which should be within HOC range if you follow the guide I linked earlier. You can also test this is turn 1 by having a second echelon clear out the strelets and then having having the deathstack team fight both sets of cyclopses to see how well that your team handles it. The artillery fairy skill helped me a lot. Airstrike should too. I think some people might have used taunt. Ideally you want something that clear two cyclops teams and both deathstacks before being repaired, which is admittedly a tall order.

    However you can get by so long as you can scrape through clearing one deathstack. Remember that there is a bug in this game for helipads that are underneath the umbrella of multiple SAM sites. If you destroy one same site, then the helipad will be rendered accessible for the remainder of the turn. So you can possibly do the following: Capture a helipad like K11 on the turn prior to attacking the deathstacks. Attack and destroy one deathstack by the skin of your teeth, destroying one SAM site, and allowing access to K11 to deploy your generalist KCCO team. The generalist KCCO team moves to an adjacent tile to maintain vision to K11, then you retreat/repair/redeploy the deathstack team so that it is fresh for the fight against the remaining deathstack. If you have enough AP, you can probably move the deathstack team north to K4 to destroy the artrillery before retreating it. If you then move back to K7 to bait the second deathstack, the fight would be easier because the artillery would be dead. However this is far from ideal since it burns way more AP, but I think it may be better than forfeiting the zone.


    The guide that I linked sets up triple M16 but not double Intruder. I'm not sure if you can do both double Intruder and triple M16 in one run or not. My brain has been a bit fried, so I'm just following this since triple M16 is juicier than double Intruder and I'm not shooting for top 100 anyway.


    For the team that runs north to capture the second bomb and capture the enemy command post, you really want HS2000 and maybe a twin fairy. M200/Grape seems to be the ideal DPS pairing for that team, but your Grape will probably be used for the KCCO deathstack. The thing is that this team will be seperated from HOC support for awhile, so they may need to brute force through some Gundams on their own. Since i didn't have HOCs helping with the shields, the enemy team managed to get off multiple map wide grenade spam attacks. However manually activating HS2000's skill let my team shrug off that attack. Personally I ran Nagant revolver too for the damage down debuff, which let my team survive multiple simultaneous grenade spams since they had to push through one of the bigger Gundam squads. The twin fairy is just ridiculously good at stonewalling paradeus troops in general and will work as your tank for sustained damage. I'm seriously considering training up a second one to SL10.

    For helipads, I've been capturing the ELID and KCCO ones more or less according to the timetable in that guide, and have for the most part allowed paradeus to keep all of their helipads so that they keep producing units. In my run I've kept control of the southern heavy helipad and allowed paradeus to reclaim the two northern ones. The southern one is important to keep since it maintains the supply line.


    One other thing that I've been doing is always keeping an illumination fairy active. I only have one illumination fairy deployed this match, but I've been withdrawing the team and redeploying it whenever the skill wears off. That costs me a few thousand points, but in my opinion it is worth it and sometimes things work out so that withdrawing and redeploying is convenient for patching or rearranging your swap chain.


    Finally I've been making heavy use of GIMP, the image editing program, to help plan my turns. For a base layer I have a copy of the map. Then I create new image layers where I mark the locations of my units, and then I swap the illumination team around the entire chain and mark the map with the location of every known enemy. Then I'll make some more layers to mark locations that are imperative to defend and potential attack routes.

    I try to stay on schedule for the SF/KCCO/ELID zones. Once I've done that, I see how much AP is left and try to plan a route that clears as many helipad clogs as possible, while also keeping the hostages/supply line/command post/HOCs safe. Maximizing kills has been secondary to me compared to clearing clogs.

    tduo1vwi0gwy.jpg
    a high rez image of the isomer map

    mwe1x2akbqc0.jpg
    an example of my planning scribbles. Roughly, the magenta blows are the location of my assets. Orange letters denote enemy squads (zombie, gundeam, strelet, rodelero). Yellow are sites that are presently threatened and must be defended. The colored lines represent a plan that I'm sketching out. I still need to finalize the plan, but it's gonna work out something like this.

    M200 moves down from P9 with the third bomb and kills the gundam at p21.
    M200 switches with M4
    M200 swaps through the stack (resupplying along the way), before popping out of the chain at P6
    M200 sweeps south before swapping into the chain again so that my illumination fairy team (who is going dark at end of turn) occupies P17
    M200 shuffles through the chain and exits at P34
    M200 sweeps through the rodlero chain and plants the bomb on the bridge and retreats.
    BGM moves to P37 to grant HOC coverage over all of the eastern gundams
    M4 sweeps through all of the gundams
    M200 redeploys at p36, filling the hole in my chain.
    STAR swaps through BGM and m200 to clear the SF boss before falling back to SF3 to setup triple m16
    Retreat illumination fairy team from P17
    Redeploy illumination fairy team at P34 to defend the front.

    That's the rough plan. I still need to finalize who should start where during all of this to insure that the proper defensive teams proper HOCs are allocated to the right locations when I end turn. I had originally planned to deploy star back to the central heavy helipad at P26, but then I realized that i needed her at SF3 for bait. So I'm going to have a hole in my chain, so I won't have utter freedom to rearrange everyone before I hit end turn. I'll need to make sure that everyone is in the right positions before the chain breaks. Push comes to shove, the helipad at P45 is technically expendable and less valuable than the one at P34, so I might write it off if I have to. The enemy isn't guaranteed to path into it anyway.

    edit:
    brain fart. P20 is threatened too. I'll need to account for that.

    edit2:
    several brain farts. That's what I get for concocting the plan when I was tired.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, trying a different team layout that another non-duper showed. Can't match it exactly and deviated on a one or two spots where I could because I figure they just didn't raise everything. For instance what you linked the guy didn't use NTW, but I suspect she'll work better than FN49. I'll find out if that's the case soon enough. Also putting artillery fairy on the death stack. Hoping it's SL7 can get me through the cyclops; especially, with the handguns have PEQs and one of those be m1911.

    One thing I have to say, that I really dislike about this map is the RNG amount of AP we get at the start of turn 2. I wish they had set things up so that would be consistent, the opener isn't hard to setup, it's just a few minutes. So it's rather cheap to reset if you get 18 AP. IMO this is bad design because that AP can make a notice. RNG has value, but it needs to be in such a way that it doesn't warrant tons of resets.

    Looking through additional guides, tells me I've been way to aggressive capping heliports. So I'll try following some on heliport caps. Give paradeus more time to spawn more stuff and just hope that I can kill enough off it to break well past 800K.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Oh that's right, you've only ranked in Singularity and CT before right? There weren't many helipads to capture in those two. All of the other ranking maps were basically trying to strike a balance between letting the enemy keep their helipads to spawn more enemies to farm, while maintaining just enough helipads to ensure that you have enough AP to clear out any clogs.

    As for the opener, I kind of doubt that they put any thought into what openers that we'd use and that the RNG on helipads is a coincidence. At least the odds aren't that bad. It's 25% to "fail" with 18 AP, 50% to get the 19 needed for most of the guides, and 25% to get an extra AP. The painful RNG is fighting the deathstack underneath the artillery. However in that case it's more of a "you weren't supposed to do this SKK!!! You were supposed to drag a HOC forward! You're making this so much harder to save a few AP", to which we reply "Yes."

    I just finished up turn 6. I'm still feeling good about the run. I'm clocking in at 82 kills and 515255 points at the start of turn 7. Now to turn on the illumination fairy and see what I'm up against this turn.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, I hate cyclops, seems like a fuck you enemy for people that don't have a high level fairy to make them die fast if they are using rifles. I have to do a different approach to KCCO. Pretty much need to hike an HoC in. Also I'm starting to wonder if the devs managed to break another unit because I've been really disappointed in any echelon that has SRS and I have her at SL8 and I'm using setups that should work for her. Given that K5 was also broken, I'm wondering if it's the same deal with SRS.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I've been concerned about SRS too. I gave her team one of my HS2000's since I had heard such glowing things about her before the event, but now I'm hearing a lot of people being dissatisfied with her. As she's not one of my flagship echelons, I haven't used her offensively and have just had her playing defense. However, through chance, so far enemies have pathed away from her every time.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Yeah, makes me think she is bugged because that was the same deal with K5. She had glowing reviews and then during Singularity something got bugged and she ended up debuffing the whole echelon. I mean, when you aren't relying on her it was hilarious but if you were using her or knew someone that did, it elicited the "WTF Mica!"

    Well made tons of mistakes. Didn't anticipate dreamer boss echelon moving into a gundam and dying. So only two M16 kills. Lots of unneeded retreats. Tons of resets. Had to feed lots of sweets to units in anti death stack team. Didn't quite have the dps. Also getting really good at get units done to almost zero health and then retreating them before they die. That said, 95 kills and a score of 884793, God do I hope that keeps me in top 10%. This tells me I was capping stuff way too fast. If I didn't have to do so retreats, I probably could have gotten 900K+ without triple M16. Probably could have gotten it if I didn't let the one SF echelon get eaten by a gundam maybe, but might not have had the AP with how this run went. Each M16 kill pretty much required have to retreat and repair if I wanted to kill a boss. Thankfully, Star, RBG and P22 were able to punk the last SF echelon spawn despite missing links and having no tanks.

    I'm hoping next ranking map will be easier for me. I'm pretty sure the biggest thing that hurts me at this point is fairy rarity and to a lesser extend fairy talent. I suspect I'll have some four star fairies by then, won't be running with any 2* and will get better talents on fairies. I do have to say, not a huge fan of the gamble for talent rerolling because sometimes it takes a ton of rolls just to get a worthwhile talent. Also hoping to get some of the SPEQs properly setup because both FN49 and NTW's not being maxed did me now favors. Same deal with UMP45's SPEQ, but not nearly as detrimental as the fail on the other two. Not to mention filling in more gaps with gold equips. Though all green items were either PEQs, HP Ammo, Cloaks and the exos. Finally, hoping to get the skills mostly taken care of, still have some units that didn't have SL8 that were either group damage buffing skills and personal dps buffing skills. Ton of enemy debuff, but those would probably help in some cases. I actually went and grabbed Bren Ten, since I could get her to 90 and needed a handgun that would work somewhere other than position 4. Hoping, we either get mods for handguns or new handguns that do well in positions 5 and 8. I've noticed I've got a few lvl 90 HG, that want position 4 and leave no compromise for other positions. Anyways, hoping that when the next ranking maps rolls through, I'll be in a spot where most of what I need to is power level the new units that drop with it, if those are good meta units. Also might be a little better at the micro. Probably need to make better use of hotkeys. Also will get a chance to raise skills on some of the other 90s, so I'll have some options if we get another case of a recommended unit not working well. I have Gr 28 and 4 Shiki at 90, just at SL1. ><

    All that said, Mica's devs really need to get off the asses and handle a few things.
    -Screen lock. This should have been implemented day 1, three years ago when this was released in China. It still hasn't been implemented. It has always been a no brainer on design and shows that a number of people didn't think when they built the code and signed off on it. That nature of ranking makes it more aggravating when you try to move a unit and the game decides that you wanted to move the screen, resulting in either having to reset or just getting screwed. I also wouldn't be surprised if this resulted in players quitting because it's a pretty bad over sight on Mica's part and it's even worse that they don't seem inclined to fix it.
    -Unequip all equips. It's just needed to reduce how much time players spend shuffling gear.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    I got held up again. Missed sunday's daily crates too...and come to think of it, data day too since you can't start combat sims with in-progress battles (ARRRRGGHHHH!!!!).

    I got a great score though. Just shy of 1.19 mil.

    iuc45mo7ua7x.jpg


    That was probably my least favorite ranking map. I'm too tired to put why into words right now though.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Sign In or Register to comment.