Earth Defense Force 6

MISC STUFF

There is a setting for weapon damage display and having it near your character tells you something is taking damage on the screen at all times. The heads of enemies option tells you exactly how much damage you are doing to them and whether you are hitting their weak point. More information, but swarms can fill your screen with numbers.

Online mode/Co-op is a challenge mode with limits to weapons and armor until you clear enough missions with the four classes to reach 70%. Then do a final Online mission (retreating works) to get the notification. 100% every Hard and Hardest mission is more than enough to remove the limiters to lobbies you host.

Co-op is tuned to be played on Normal when starting fresh. Hard missions can take upwards of an hour without enough armor and weapon upgrades.

The plot is a post-apoc future where humanity is Mad Max with lasers. You won't have access to satellite beams or nukes until you complete several missions. The game will red list unusable weapons.

It helps to have a mission list of enemies who appear so you won't bring bad weapons. At the least, note spawners, kaiju, and if underground. Each of which completely changes the pace of a mission.

Item drops are based around difficulty and enemy size. Inferno difficulty doubles the drops, but the map stops dropping crates on the field when there are too many already on it. The game allows up to ~128 boxes and 1024 boxes in total.

Armor increases are not 1:1 per box and Wing Divers need more to catch up to Fencers.

There are several missions that have hidden timers and you need to wait it out or hang around important NPCs before the game lets you advance the mission. If an NPC is talking at you at the start of a mission, you can RESTART it and skip to the action portion.

Cave missions limit what weapons you can bring. You won't be calling bombing runs or air-dropping giant death robots one mile underground. Get used to the Depth Crawler.

Having a weapon for very long range, like rockets, is always a good thing for each mission.

If you have soldiers following you around, you can heal them by taking med-boxes and have them sing and dance with you by emoting.

Some weapons allow for auto-charging while using other weapons. You don't need to hold it like in the last game.

Fencer can boost (jump) and dash (thrust) and need specific weapons to do so for that pair of weapons. You have two pairs of weapons and being able to jump/dash at once allows for incredible mobility. Read the weapon description.

Fencer shields that have Reflector in the name can bounce several enemy attacks back at them. Having two shields with the equipment to buff them makes you almost invincible so long as you have the charges for it. You can spin around inside a swarm on Inferno and not take damage.

Air Raiders have three weapon slots and some should be fire and forget with a long recharge. A good build above ground is generally a weapon you can keep spamming on targets, calling in an air strike (Vesta - DOT with long duration/Phobos - Damage and immediate reuse) over an area, an area of denial weapon like poison Gas or Shock cloud. For cave missions, replace air strikes with another poison gas (stacks) or Shock weapons to hold down an area. The constant DOT is very effective at keeping weaker enemies back and interrupting attack patterns.

Some weapons have defensive uses for keeping Air Raiders alive while still be useful. Calling a Vesta bomber on top of you and between fires can keep most enemies away unless they are flying. Poison gas covers a tall and wide area that will stunlock for a very long time. Bypasses tail anchor shields and armored enemies like Cosmonauts and clams. Certain electric attacks that shock a concentrated area can also bypass tail anchor shields and armor. It covers much more area than it looks.

It helps to have someone dedicated to clearing boxes during missions so you won't need to keep an enemy alive at the end.

You can jump from flying vehicles, quickly use a weapon, and get back in while still flying.

Enemies will usually ignore any map spawned vehicle so long as you don't enter it. Put turrets on it and drive around.

Most vehicles are underpowered with a lack of ammo, armor, and high call-in cost. Speed tends to be most important to surviving long enough to grab health.

Smaller mechs like the Eiren have a jump that lets you maintain a higher speed so long as you keep timing your jumps to escape from the area. Red mechs are faster. Flying isn't very effective.

Missions 107 and 133 have no enemies at all and can be skipped when you cleared them.

Mission 147 requires maximum range. The final boss fight is a slog and having something with over 2000 range is needed. It has multiple hit points on the sides as well.

Inferno difficulty is unlocked when you beat the last mission on any difficulty. That is when you should grind for armor.

Look up a guide on finding the right missions to upgrade certain weapons faster. Some missions have a wide level range for weapon drops depending on the difficulty. Sometimes, the only way to max out a weapon is on a higher difficulty.

Hardest difficulty is a big step up from Hard, but can be done after clearing Hard for each class without too much grinding. Inferno requires lots of grinding. Both may add scripting changes to missions or change enemy types.

Kruuls and Kraken may have one or two portable shields that block almost every weapon with hitscan efficiency until it runs out of energy. Also important is that they won't react if they are unaware and they become very animated when they notice. They can block attacks from behind themselves as well.

It is best to shoot at them away from their body until their shield darkens. That locks their arm in place and they need to wait to recharge to resume moving it. Best to aim from either side and not above or below their head. Mobility is key to knocking out their defense and causing damage before they can recover.

The Wing Diver Saber and the Fencer Blade can defeat the shield quickly and dash behind them to then deal damage. You might destroy the shield arm while doing so, which is always something worth aiming for.

Hardest makes the portable shields have a reflector effect that bounces your attacks back at you and it can store that energy into larger attacks if you keep shooting it.