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Small guide for farming without DLC


cris3f

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This is a small guide for getting armor and weapons.There's tons of conflicting information on this, I tried to make the best of what's available and what I found out. You don't need the DLC, I don't have it and there are good missions for everything in the normal game.

 

ALWAYS leave a backup plan while farming. Just because you're massacring hectors with a tank it doesn't mean that the brand new one you're going to use isn't out of ammo like the one you just exited from. Farming on EDF is boring and tiring it's pretty easy to make a big mistake. If you just lost 1, 2 or 3 hours doing it it's a huge let down to make a stupid mistake. At least I did a few. If you're farming with the Air Raider and have a few ZEXR's plant them in a nice spot for a last sec save your ass stunt. To finish the level you're probably gonna have to kill some really pissed small or big baddies and a big transport. Always put the transport in "smoking mode" (if you're farming with the Blast Railgun E that's 2 shots, the 3rd will bring it down). The transport will drop the same amount of enemies either brand new or deadly smoking, and it's usually between 10 and 12 ants or spiders and 2 hectors for each opening. It's much easier having a second person move your grabbing crates character as it will be safer, but if that's not an option take care. If your second character gets killed finish the games ASAP, usually trying to save his ass will be game over and no gifts.

Special care is necessary in farming missions like 83 or 84, as the black ants are really pissed (there's a striking difference between inferno black ants from mission 1 and mission 84) and even being massacred by ZEXRs for instance they'll manage to take nice bites of you.

 

You can have 2 Air Raider vehicles of the same kind at the same time on each mission (4 if you have 2 Air Raiders). When you spawn a new one, and you had 2 from the same character the game will always destroy the one that was spawned earlier, even if that one was brand new, and the second one is a piece of crap at the time. Remember some vehicles require zillions of points to reload, and on most missions there«s not enough enemies to kill to reload them again. Most of the most powerful vehicles are a piece of junk. They'll be crushed in secs by inferno dragons, ants and spiders anyway.

 

Ants are better to farm than spiders as the later have a bad habit of spreading around  and that makes the job of picking up crates a lot worse. Their pissing mood is much worse unfortunately. For each wave of spiders  or ants usually one weapon crate will spawn. For each hector you can expect from 0 to 3 weapon crates.

 

Farming tunnel exits is much more difficult as you don't have the slightest idea if he's almost destroyed or not and it's usual to destroy it before you wanted.

 

Best level for grinding health

 

Mission 17 - Valley Shadows
Wing Diver - Idunn (the better you have), Monster-S or similar to kill transports.
On hard this should be better and it's still easy, it won't be much better on hardest or inferno so no need to waste resources. Kill all spiders and both transports. Another wave with 2 transports will appear in the valley below, you'll have to go to the river bed. The one arriving from the right will open first, kill that one as soon as it opens and the few spawned spiders. Go to left to where the river splits in 2, the place where the last transport will open. Place somewhere where you'll kill the spiders as they drop. Even a low level Idunn will be enough, just remember to recharge it after each wave has dropped and been killed. You'll hear the sound of th transport opening, spiders will drop after a little while.
Just pick the loot as it piles either with the same Wing Diver or with a second character.

There are other methods using rubber bands but they require very high level weapons with minimal recharge delays. And it can always go berserk anyway, this one is safe and easy.


Best levels for grinding weapons.

 

Weapon drops are random, you can play a level a hundred times and not get the ones you want. It's pure luck.

 

Mission 11 - Air Force
This one is by far the best one when starting. It's the only level where your EDF soldiers will kill all enemies alone. So you can just pick what you want without the need to shoot anything. Preferably use 2 characters. As soon as the games starts move the weakest character front,then down to a passage below the road. On the tunnel there's a small ledge on the wall running along the side toward the water channel. Climb that, if you stay below chances are the drones will kill you anyway. Do the same to the second character. No need to run back to the buildings, this is not a good idea as you«ll not have enough time to return and pick everything you want. There's 3 waves of drones, when there's around 20 drones left exit the tunnel with the character you want, the one who needs weapons preferably and pick what you can, If the character dies,no problem leave the other in the tunnel, EDF soldiers will kill all drones, and whatever you managed to pick will still count. Taking a weapon that can bring down buildings is a good idea for all but the Wing Diver, as some crates will be on top of buildings. There will be plenty of health crates to replenish resources as you'll get shot by the drones. Weapons drops is very low, usually 0 to 4 but for the trouble it's good. Even on inferno this level can be done with low armor. Best weapon you can pick here is Monster-S for the Wing Diver, a level 55 weapon that will open many doors, but it will only drop on inferno. When you have around 2000 health, you can have one of the characters stay in the bridge and massacre drones to help the EDF guys. Just concentrate fire along the street to ease crates pickup.

 


Besides this level only ones that are worthy for farming are all on inferno, as the weapons level is a lot better.

 

Mission 45 - Blue Fighters
Best option
Wing Diver - Monster-S, any Idunn the best you have
Other character - machine guns, limpet on Air Raider, a vehicle to move faster
A level with just hectors and EDF soldiers to take the heat. As soon as the level starts use the Monster-S in the transport just above you. Let it recharge and shoot again. Finish the transport with the Idunn, if you can't Monster-S it again when it opens later. There will be 4 hectors just near you, they're focusing on the EDF soldiers. STarting with the ones near you, shoot the hectors with the Monster.S once, then finish them with the Idunn. What is reasonably important is helping to keep the 3 EDF soldiers alive as once they're all dead all hectors will focus on you. When possible, just Monster-S twice the remaining transport. It will start to smoke but will need a third shot to kill, but it will make it easier when needed. The transport will drop 2 hectors at a time, it«s easier if you manage to get them out of the transport in the same opening. Just Monster-S each as oon as possible and finish them with the Idunn when in range. Try to shoot them as near as you can while avoiding the massacre of the EF soldiers. This will make it easier to pick crates as they'll be scattered near the sports filed just below center from start. Pick things with your second character, even if it's a second Wing  Diver. AVOID contact with the EDF soldiers, or farming will end. When the last EDF soldier dies, kill remaining hectors as fast as possible (or do it when there's just one EDF soldier for a while) then kill the transport ship (one remaining Mosnter-S shot will do it).
Another 2 shielded hectors will spawn in the back. Kill the left one, two Monster-S shots in the armed arm and it's gone. A new pack of EDF soldiers will entertain the other hector. Monster-S him once, pick remaining armor and weapons then finish him.


Mission 71- Death Queen
Best option
Wing Diver - Dual Idunn the best you have, probably difficult without FF
Air Raider - ZEXR-Gun (ZEX Launcher but more dangerous)
Ranger - AF100
After the overwhelm of spiders in the beginning this level is easy, but don't underestimate the 2 queen bees. If you have the Air Raider and the ZEXR-Guns run to the border of the ledge plant the 3 while making him rolls, then activate them immediately. Don't use grenades, explosives or rockets. the result will be that all spiders will attack at once and probable death. Control the spiders that manage to outsmart the ZEXRs with the other character (or a limpet gun). If you're not using Air Raider, use dual Idunns or AF100 to kill the spiders as they show up in the ledge. With the Fencer, good luck. It's not a 100% sure strategy, sometimes it will fail. It's difficult with a low level weapon, there's too much spiders and they don't die easily in inferno. Never drop from the ledge until all or almost spiders are gone. getting to the floor will activate the bees wave, and dealing with the spiders alone is enough. The bees are easy compared to the spiders. There's will be a tunnel that opens to the left you can go up it has a cave with no exit, it's a good point to just kill the few bees and start from there. It will be difficult to make both character survive if you're playing with 2, just remember that the Wing Diver will be the only one able to return to the ledge. If your other character dies there there's no other way to revive him. The remainder is easy just try not to piss all bees at once in the big cave. This way you'll only deal with a queen at a time, which also makes picking up crates easier. The Idunn FF is the best weapon to kill the queen bees, by far. There's usually a reasonable number of weapon crates, from 3 to 12. Mission 70 is much less interesting number of weapon crates is usually very small.

 

Mission 77 - Fallen Flagship
Required:
Wing Diver - Monster-S. Idunn the best you have or Fenrir 3-Way
Good second character
Ranger - any powerful sniper, MEX5 Emerald
The hidden gem of inferno. Once you have the Monster-S, which you can get on Mission 11, this level is within reach and it will become very easy. The prize: weapons up to level 93, which only leaves 1 weapon out (Air Riader's Rule of God, a level 95 weapon which extremely  rarely can come here in the lottery anyway). At first waste the hector, sleeping far away to the right of the crater's border (2 M-S shots). Then kill the big deroy (2 M-S shots). This is important so that the EDF soldiers near the hector will continue to distract the baddies on the crater.
Next kill the flying vehicles. These are a pain as they usually come one or 2 at a time. Use Idunn,or better a homing weapon. This is also  important to avoid the massacre of the EDF soldiers.
Then turn your attention to the 3 big guys inside the crater. Start with the blue hector (by far the most dangerous), then the deroy, then the last dual plasma hector. Monster-S is great for this. Before descending the crater kill the 2 remaining shield bearers, which usually are climbing or up the crater. Only the Wing Diver will be able to return to the crater top, or the Air Raider with an helicopter. Shoot the brain, earth eaters will come down, shoot the 4 orange round glowing panels and pick everything. Once you've collected all you want just shoot the brain again, it will go away.
For added weapon crates drops, once you're comfortable you can snipe all the pieces of the deroys legs. The spikes and the glowing diamonds can also yield weapons. The MEX5 Emerald is fantastic for this job. You can also kill each of the weapons in the earth eaters before destroying the main 4 panels. more crates will drop. Between 4 and 15 weapons crates are possible on this level.

 

Mission 82 - Battle to the Death
Best option:
Air Raider: 2 x ZEXR Gun and Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E. Essential weapons, try with others but these make the job very easy.
Other character: powerful sniper, Idunn or Thunder Bow for Wing Diver, a reasonable piercer and shield for movement and good machine gun or cannons for Fencer.
As soon as the game starts use Air Raider, ignore the EDF soldiers, turn right and run. Summon tank to dirt path just below the cliff, climb the small hill to the beach to your left and before its summit plant and activate the 6 ZEXR guns. Don't approach the beach or the Argo will crush you. Hide in the tank once it appears. use the other character to kill a few flying vehicles or let the ZEXR guns do their work. With a powerful machine gun, shotgun or middle lightning shoot completely upwards, you'll bring down a lot of flying vehicles.
Alternatively hide the second character in the vehicle too, re-spawn more ZEXR guns, remember they reload  only while character is outside the vehicle. Just hide character really near vehicle.
When ALL flying vehicles are dead, reload both ZEXR guns, spawn them near your tank towards the right large transport, but DON'T activate them. Then shoot the Argo. 6th Blast Menace EML shot to Argo, there will be a voice message from EDF, at the 7th both large transports will open. Shoot the right one, where the flying vehicles are spawn,  ASAP. Exit tank, activate both sets of ZEXR guns. Enter tank take down Argo, more 5 or 6 shots will be needed. AT least one hector should be approaching, kill him. Locate the tank just on the dirt path right below the cliff, at the end of a small straight line before it makes a right turn. Pointing towards the remaining large transport the hectors will have to climb down a cliff, then be in a small valley then in the cliff just in front of you. If you kill them correctly they'll start spawning two for each opening of the large transport. You can even kill them while they travel in the small valley both at the same time with 2 shots. Each 4 -6 dead hectors a new Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E can be reloaded.
At this time it's turkey shooting, you'll fill the valley between the tank and the transport with weapons, armors and life crates. Just pick them with the character you want most, travel with a tank if necessary returning to the same place.
The 2 hectors will do 6000 to 7000 damage to tank, or around 3000 to 5000 to each character each time they both shoot.
Just remember this is inferno a mistake and you can ruin a 1 hour session of farming. Always save the Air Raider and a tank, if anything goes berserk shoot the large transport (3 BLast Menace shots required), and remaining hectors. Don't fool around it will cost you.
You can also make cowboy farming with both characters near the dropping point of hectors. Do remember that the debris from the first hector will probably affect your shots for the second one. I think it's very error prone and dangerous, I've ruined too many farming sessions with this option. 
Number of weapon crates depends on your patience and the goodwill of the game. Hectors usually have a nice yield, I think the most I picked here were around 80 (takes 2 to 3 hours to get that many).


The first few times I tried all these missions I questioned how they could be done in Inferno. Once you have a few good weapons and follow a good strategy, most of them are easy. Less than 5000 armor is enough, I did most in the 3000 range and I'm not such a great player. Until then most are a nightmare to deal with. Other reasonable levels for farming are 83, Massive Mobilization, and 84, Scorching (Air Raider, dual ZEXR-Guns and Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E). You'll probably find others, too.

 

Coming up is a list of best weapons to have, and a baddies annoyance rank.

 

 

Edited by cris3f
More stuff I forgot
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The armor farm strategy can be an AFK method too. Just put one character in front of where the spider will fall and another player on the left/right of the same spot. Put 2 rubber bands so that they press the R1 button (I had to make an "X" intersection to have enough pressure on the button), for each pad, and they should shoot automatically. One character with a full loader and another with half, so that they would never reload together (obviously you need to find a good weapon, it depends from which class you are using).

 

 

UPDATE: with this method I got around +50Hp with double WD in 1 hour. Actually before try this I was using another method which looks mathematically faster. I play in mission 52 Bug Invasion on Easy with double WD and a Mirage as homing weapon (15 targets at once, a single shot can kill), I quickly kill all the enemies in the north, grab the armors, then I do the same for the last 2 waves, obviously for the last one leave 1-2 enemies alive and grab all the armors. I can get +12-15 HP in 5 minutes (this time includes all the loading screens and the time to start again this mission), so in around 1 hour I should get +120-150 HP.

However I think that I will go for the DLC 3 farm trick, which is the fastest possible way.

 

UPDATE 2: definitely there is nothing as good as the dlc 3 farm (you need the dlc since only there you can find the silver spiders which give 3 items each one), my WD is over 10,000 armor already. It isn't a waste to spend 8 euros for that, it will definitely save me a lot of frustration for the Inferno run.

I thought at the beginning that I could farm the armor without the dlc, but now I now that this is a very bad idea, the dlc can seriously save 50 hours or more of farm (if you want a very powerful WD soldier which is probably the best since she can fly, in order to pass the Inferno difficulty and use her to carry through it the other 3 classes).

Edited by VirtualNight
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The Mirage is a good idea. Pity it won't be successful on Inferno, but the better one is on hardest. The Mirages can't kill flying vehicles on Inferno thought, or at least in reasonable numbers and fast enough.

 

Concentrate on weapons, If you pick most armor from normal levels plus the armor you'll get from farming weapons levels will be more than enough to tackle inferno.

 

The rubber band methods is better safe with the Master Rapier, will kill all small baddies, 0.5 secs reload and 800 ammo.

 

Try Bug Invasion on Inferno you'll get a clear picture why what matters is weapons and strategy. Hint: a 30000 armor tank last less than 10 secs with a few spiders...

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Additional tip for the armor farming: the "Void Ship" level (#44) is also a good one for that. It throws enemies every 30 or so seconds. The method is very simple: when you get to the third wave in that mission with three ships, leave the last transporter and focus on killing the enemies it spawns. Just stand below the chosen ship and kill dropped bugs. I did it with Wing Diver and used XSX Plasma Launcher (level 67 weapon), while standing a little bit back, just for the safety measures :P. I have also chosen the ship closest to the canal/water which drops red ants. They are much slower and less dangerous than the small spiders. All I did was setting my aim on the spot where they land and pressing shoot button from time to time (it's good to have the volume turned up so you can hear when the ship is opening its hatch :)). I even did that while writing this comment, so it's actually a piece of cake. After certain amount of shots there will be a big pile of stuff with loads of armor. I'm not sure if it's faster than the underground tunnel exit method or not. When I tried the above-mentioned method the amount of boxes seemed limited. It may be due to the little place of the tunnel exit. I got around 17 armor boxes per 10 minutes of actually not doing much :) That plasma gun has 4 projectiles so the chance of missing is very low, and that's very helpful. You can also try to use Fencer with Jackhammer M3, stand below and wait for the poor ants to get wasted :D

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  • 2 months later...

Hello. Great guide. I recommend level 83 too. Just leave 1 ship and farm it. 

 

Speaking about that. Does anybody have an advice to get the gungnir. Without using the dlc? Any pattern or something useful. 'Cose I've been farming this weapon for over 50 hours and I don't know what to do... 

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Both 83 and 84 (Massive Mobilization and Scorching) are also good levels for farming, but do return less weapon crates ( usually just 1 for each dropped ants wave). They're also longer and more troublesome than Battle to the Death, and hectors do give usually more weapons crates.

 

On Gungnir. If it's your last weapon, it's or can be a nightmare. Try to play levels 85+ online, preferably with someone else because if you play alone it will be 3x harder, and flying vehicles, dragons, bees and orbs become a nightmare. Collect all weapon boxes, not easy on Star Eaters. First time you'll play the level online will probably be the one that will wield any decent weapons, if you replay it several times the chance you'll get any new weapons are very low. This in my experience. I got my last weapon on Star Eaters inferno online, it was an Air Raider one, and I had already done Star Eaters offline, and used AR to carry all other classes. Got it with a miserable total of 3 weapon crates, in the 3 offline runs I had stripped the brain 3 times and collected everything (a 90 minute job for each run) and had a lot more weapon crates.

Yes weapons is the crappiest feature of EDF games, seems to be the same issue in all of them.

 

As I said in the guides I wrote be careful about farming or even getting normally the last weapon using DLC. It's quite probable you'll not get the 100% weapons trophy. And no solution except start from the beginning if you don't have a recent save.

 

Good luck.

 

Edited by cris3f
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Thx for the advice cris.

 

Well it's not my last weapon (still missing air raiders rule of God and a lot of the fencer weapons, I haven't used him too much). Dude but what do you recommend me.  Try to farm rule of God instead of gungnir online? I mean it's the hardest weapon to get, and if you can only get good weapons once, it's a hard decision to make.

 

 

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I lost 150 hours on farming offline to try to get just Rule of God, with no luck. Even with around 100 weapon crates in the same mission. I had inferno 40+ done for all classes, so no new levels could yield Rule of God. Even online farming the same levels (Battle to the Death, Massive Mobilization and Scorching) it did not show up. Neither finishing 87 Troubled Valley, 89 Legion of Monsters ,91 Demon Army and 92 Surrounded!  all online only levels, which theoretically could have yielded Rule of God (only 87 and 91 are farmable anyway, but both yield very few weapon crates). As I said got it on Star Eaters online, first time I did it online and was with AR of course. But Star Eaters online in Inferno is very tough and long, not easy to find a player(s) which can do it and is willing to spend the time necessary for that. Star Eaters is a joke even online with a WD armed with Monster-S and Gungnir, but only up to hardest.

 

As I said in the guides I would leave the fencer weapons for last, after you have ALL for WD and AR.

 

You usually get good weapons once, for each class. So if you do the same level online with different classes there's a good chance of a nice "gift" for each one.

 

Edited by cris3f
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Great, now only Rule of God missing. Gungnir is very useful in some levels, but reload time means it's not a general use weapon. Like the Mosnter-S you have to have for the energy bar to fill totally to get the 3 beams and make 150.000 damage. Dual yielding Gungnirs only delivers 50.000 in the second one.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 26.10.2017 at 8:09 PM, cris3f said:

I lost 150 hours on farming offline to try to get just Rule of God, with no luck. Even with around 100 weapon crates in the same mission. I had inferno 40+ done for all classes, so no new levels could yield Rule of God. Even online farming the same levels (Battle to the Death, Massive Mobilization and Scorching) it did not show up. Neither finishing 87 Troubled Valley, 89 Legion of Monsters ,91 Demon Army and 92 Surrounded!  all online only levels, which theoretically could have yielded Rule of God (only 87 and 91 are farmable anyway, but both yield very few weapon crates). As I said got it on Star Eaters online, first time I did it online and was with AR of course.

 

I got Rule of God a week ago from Hectors in Battle to the Death mission. Did some farming sessions of that level on inferno for a couple of days that have lasted around 1 hour (as it's pretty boring :P), and the game has given it to me after like 5th session with AR and WD. It seems that it's just based on luck and nothing else then.

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So I was very unlucky, and I've met a few other unlucky players. BTW there's other weapons that can be extremely difficult to get (Hreidmarr, Luonotarr, Gungnir, even Lysander Z). The really last few, specially if they're high level weapons, are the usual problems.

And yes farming on EDF games is boring and stupid. And totally unjustifiable except on the mind of the !$%&%#% development manager of these games. EDF2 on the Vita is even worse. a lot worse.

 

Edited by cris3f
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  • 4 weeks later...

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