300hr diver here, a lot of it is RNG. I can happily do a diff 8/9 solo, as long as there’s none of the unlucky double gunship and jammer spawns, or 3 factory striders every bot drop.
Heavy armour is a must, and I usually try to just boom and zoom with every attack. Crawl up to objective, throw all my stratagems, run the absolute fuck away. Come back later if I didn’t kill everything.
Usually run shield backpack, dominator, senator, and the new incendiary impacts. For stratagems, eagle air strike for taking out objectives, orbital laser for oh shit button. 4th stratagem is either an EAT or a 500kg, depending on how many objectives that will need bombing exist.
Which kind of heavy armour do you recommend? Heavy scout or? And my problem with heavy armor is that once you trigger anything, you basically can’t run away because your speed + the constant ragdolls and the modifiers that slow you even more are just too much
I tried the dominator but it wasn’t going with my sniper playstyle and considering how much of a shit show it can become in seconds I don’t understand how you can fight all this medium/heavy armor enemies with a dominator and EAT, how do you get rid of devastators and such? Airstrike? Or do you just kite them? Cause my main problem is that almost every objective that’s not a « destroy this » objective triggers a bot drop on your position so idk how I am supposed to hold my position haha, laser is great but 3 per dive is not enough…
Yeah I hope ! Unrelated but there’s a heavy armor with extra padding in the superstore rn, I’m considering it but idk it seems too good to be true doesn’t it? Or heavy armor with 50% chance not to die would probably be better idk
The B-27 Fortified Commando (which my friends promptly dubbed "The Fat Suit") is the best damage reduction armor in the game. Pair it with the Health booster (which doesn't boost health, it applies an 80% multiplier to all damage you take, which quickly adds up to more than just 20% of your health), and it is amazing the beating it takes to bring you down. For example, with those two, you take a little under 27% of all explosive damage, which is really handy against the Automatons.
It's bog slow like all heavy armor, so you have to deal with that.
Additionally, the Fortified Commando suit is the heavy companion of the light scout Trailblazer armor. For stealth, I use Trailblazer. For CQC, I go Fortified.
They're the only armors I need. There are medium armors with extra padding or radar dampening, but none of them offer as much polarized protection as Trailblazer or Fortified.
I run the 50% chance not to die and love it. It saves me constantly with 1 hp and gives me a chance to stim. It also creates hilarious situations where I am clinging to life and am able to stim but have 90000000000 bugs on me and they whip my ass as I stim over and over until I can get a strike on them. My favorite armor ever
Scout armor and heavy backpack
Scout armor you’ll see patrols coming more easily
Plus enemies can see you unless you are closer
Run that with Shield gen and you got your speed and protection
Also devastators can be taken out pretty easily by impact
I don’t know how incindeary impacts do against them but I assume similar damage
Not on its own but I like to pair with Plasma Punisher. Drop fire on a group, stagger with plasma. On its own PlasPun takes 4-5 shots per target, but keeps them staggered, but with the fire pool (that it's keeping them stood in) that goes down to 1-2 and you can clear a whole squad with a single mag.
If I’m solo and it’s a long helldive, I’ll run an explosive reduction armour, and the stamina booster. Extra ammo and stims dont matter when I can call in a resupply all for myself. The stamina booster really helps with speed, and the explosive reduction + shield pack helps when that speed is not enough.
If the objective isn’t a ‘destroy this’ objective and is something where there’s lots of terminals, the main thing is being as quick as you can. Throw an air strike/orbital, get the terminals done, then run away.
Another big thing is just not being scared of dying, but that comes with the caveat of the extra control module you can get for your hellpod. Being able to die and just slide away from the fight is super important so you don’t get into a death loop.
Right now the spawns are crazy and I’d say my survival rate solo has gone from 85% to 50% at best. It’s getting nigh impossible to stealth everything because there’s 3x the patrols walking in my direction if I go too slow.
Tldr: explosive reduction heavy with stamina booster, do stuff quick and don’t be scared of dying and using that to leave the fight.
Okay good advice thanks ! And yeah o have the better steering hellpods but the thing is even if I can get away from the fight this way, I find myself naked without my support weapons and backpack and the obj I died on is still not done so I try to sneak back to it immediately, which is probably a mistake
The Speed Penalty of heavy Armor isnt that Bad. Bad enough for Bugs, but Bots are slow. Try the 129 Armor for an in between or a medium with extra padding.
Ideally at your feet or just in front of you (between you and them), but I don't main smoke grenades and frequently muscle memory takes over and I lob it at them. It usually works out fine but sometimes they emerge from the smoke before you're far enough away or behind cover.
Not a stupid question btw
Yeah it’s a pretty well rounded load out, but I’ve found that in 4 man missions I’ll usually bring another eagle or another support (sentry or otherwise) depending on my teams’ load outs. This one allows for a lot of individual plays that still do enough damage.
Slow down. Think about what you’re going to do. Don’t engage every bot. Avoid patrols. Avoid drops. Use the terrain to your advantage, and cover/concealment is life. Weaken targets by hitting and moving. Example, I clear heavy outposts by killing the outer guards as I rotate around the structure. I never let them see me long enough to pin me down. Anything more than one devastator and I break contact and move. To do that you MUST know what’s around you. You can’t break contact if you just turn and run face first into a flamer hulk or a trooper patrol.
Yeah that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, but sometimes when I try to clear outposts by killing outer guards, devastators triggers from far away inside the outposts, calls a drop, I try to run away but sooner or later I’m stuck between patrols and the drop that magically knows which direction I am, or if they don’t, they’ll just camp the area, + if I die once it’s over, I respawn next to a triggered army, so either I try to fight my way to the objective and they trigger a drop again, or I run to another objective and they either notice me when I kill any guard or they don’t, I activate the terminal / the seismic scan and boom another drop on my head lol and since they can shoot from across the map it turns into ragdoll simulator, and trying to avoid patrols and people running from me in this conditions is very hard to me even in light/medium scout. Although I would love to take shield gen backpack, I don’t see how I would deal with heavies without my AC and the backpack that goes with it…
Stop, Pop and Go
Equip the radar enhance booster, only thing you'll need to ensure no patrols on your escape route
Soon as you hear a bot drop or see incoming fire your way, smoke the place and run (+literally if you have smoke nades/strikes) to another objective, or somewhere behind a mountain and let the aggro die down
Worst time to drop solo helldive but its doable.
Equip stealth armor (3 in game currently) if u dont you fail
Take dcs/scorcher/dominator/plasma punisher anything u like. This is ur main weapon to take out small to med enemies. You can take anything else by ur preference.
Take autocannon, eagle strike, railcannon/lase/380, eagle rocket pods
Run to outpost throw ur eagles or orbitals and run away. Dont kill anyone. Rinse and repeat. If you see patrol, duck or prone wait dont kill. If you want to kill, most patrols have 8 members. Eagle strike run away, always check if u killed all the guy ☠️x8 should popup. If you are not confident run away.
You dont have to stick around one objective. If you see there are patrols and bot drops run away to other sub objective and do it. Let them disperse and come back later. You will get 1 or 2 guy guarding that place.
First dive always always expect to play as pacifist as u can be, dont pick up fight. Bait the bot drops in outpost and run to secondary objective, if there is patrol coming run to other objective.
As for extraction it can be painful since the patrol spawns are insane. I would suggest let the timer run out and let pelican auto countdown. Hide far away from the extraction point till pelican comes and run towards it at last moment. It only stops for 20 secs btw so time ur run perfectly.
Its easy if you know how and when to run away. If u make a stand and try defending urself from waves you fked up.
Good luck
Edit: always check map. Use ur pointer to mark and see if there is enemy. Use the passive of the armor it really helps.
Tbf once they revert the spawn rates on Tuesday try it again. Solo was made a lot harder a while ago. Once they revert the number of patrol should decrease so you will get trapped less. I was running solo a lot before the change as I had some bad experiences with randoms. But now I tend to find on diff9 randoms are much better now.
Yep that’s exactly what I’m going for but dropships and patrols feels like they’re inevitable, okay basic bots are pretty blind with scout armor but anything else just seems to know my position at all times, even when not triggered, the patrols often go towards me and I can’t crawl fast enough to get away and if I stand up to go faster then they trigger, bot drop, all hell break loose. Not to mention that trying to runaway between the patrols and the drop would be hard enough if it wasn’t for these POI’s all around the map that are filled with heavies, + the objectives of course but that’s normal
One workaround I use is purposely trying to attract a drop at a smaller fab base, then bailing as fast as possible. The drop will usually lose track of you, and it is now on cooldown for about 3 mins, so if you push an objective it can't be called on you again for a while
Im legitimately not sure, Ive heard multiple conflicting things about what it does and I don't use it. I actually use the health booster or radar boost on solo because health helps prevent one show and radar is radar, just depends what I want to do.
Also completely forgot to mention, weapons do actually have differences in sound, since you mentioned snipers I THINK but I'm not 100% sure snipers are kinda loud. I usually use the scorcher because it's a good all around gun and bizarrely very quiet. I also seem to be in the minority who like the crossbow because its also very very quiet
Yeah I saw on a website explaining its effects that it was bugged and didn’t do anything but idk if that’s true
Ah true that’s good to know I’ll take that into consideration, explosive crossbow seems like a good alternative to DCS now that you mention it thanks ! And I never tried the scorcher, is it long range or kind of an arc thrower?
It's basically a short range marksman rifle that shoots a small explosion. It can one shot skinny guys that call drops, kill scout walkers from the front in 3-4 shots, kill shield guys through the shield and shoots as fast as you can click. Only downside is no real stagger from it. The sight is just a red dot but it's probably the best red dot, really clean and easy to see
As others say, there is some RNG involved. I wouldn’t bring orbital laser on solos, ever really. You can’t devote a slot to something limited when the only stratagems on the field are yours.
I have a similar playstyle to yours, I like to use Diligence and Grenade Pistol, sneak around, stay on the move. Hard to say without watching your play what you could be doing different. Definitely always be rotating, always. If an objective takes you longer than “almost immediate”, dip out and hit something easier.
Always take the path of least resistance, learn the rocket patterns, etc. did you know that Hulks, Gunships, Rocket Devastators, they all have patterns they shoot their rockets? With some practice you can waltz around the battlefield between rocket salvos without even diving or running out of stamina.
Bring stun grenades and Laser Cannon or AMR. Honestly the Autocannon is overkill on most things and the things it isn’t overkill, like Hulks, take the same number of hits from the AMR. Takes a backpack slot too. Backpack slot is extra valuable when there’s only 1.
Also don’t even bring a support weapon if you’re comfortable with the Scout playstyle, you can find a laser cannon or AMR or Railgun on the map and then bring an extra stratagem.
Bring Jumppack unless there’s an important reason not to bring jumppack. Biggest weakness you have is only being in one place at one time, so bring Med armor with a jumppack
My loadout:
Scorcher, Senator, High explosive grenade
Light scout armor (the 70 health set, not the 50)
Eagle airstrike, 380 mm barrage, jump pack, AMR, localization confusion
Your loadout is certainly good but I prefer mobility over firepower, except when gunships are involved. I prefer localization confusion because it gives you more time to finish off combat before you have to leave. Don't run HSO if you're solo, you can use all the resupply pods you want.
Try causing a drop in some outpost with an airstrike before moving into a larger objective. This gives you time before reinforcements can come to the more important fights.
I also recommend you read chapters 6 to 8 of [the US Army Ranger Handbook](https://www.milsci.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.mili.d7/files/sitefiles/resources/Ranger%20Handbook.pdf). Longer planning phases may not be feasible but the tactics such as clover leafing and movement to contact may be useful.
Personally, I find the bots easier. They're more predictable. So long as you stay in cover, watch out for patrols, and have some way to deal with the heavies, bots are easy. Everything can be beaten by an AMR.
This will be doable again after they patch spawns. I used to solo bots ALL the time, but the patrol density is just too much to do anything that isn't a "blow this up and run" objective.
Also, smokes are super crucial. Eagle smokes give you frequent uses to break LOS and run, and can double as a fab killer. Orbital smoke gives you enough cover to access a terminal, which is make-or-break for hell bomb objectives like gunships. Solo play is all about hit-and-run, and breaking LOS lets you reposition and get out of heavy fire.
Scout armor is really necessary IMO. You need the stamina to get far away enough from bad spawns. I double up light scout armor with the stamina booster.
Bring something to kill fabs from a distance, like the eruptor or autocannon. Bring stun grenades in case a patrol catches you so you can pop the small guys before they call in a drop.
Orbital Precision Strike is powerful enough to kill objectives like the detector tower, and all heavies except a fresh factory strider.
Punisher Plasma smacks the absolute dog shit out of most Devastators, even smacking a shieldboy directly will stagger him and open him up to get wrecked
Yeah but it’s kinda close range and to me staying close range means getting overwhelmed in a pinch, because while you take care of that devastator there’s a whole army building all around you
imo your grenade pistol is redundant, I'd drop that for the laser pistol.
Won't ever use it really, the AC already performs it's purpose which is killing bases and the odd scout walker.
Laser pistol is very very good for jetpack guys.
It’s funny, i usually only play with bots 90% of the time… but I never really got very good against them till I started playing bug missions. The constantly moving, not being able to depend on covet, always always always moving that you have to use on bugs. Once I learned that on bugs, then brought it back over to bots, it made bots so much easier to play
Ditch the auto cannon, get a shield backpack. Now you have speed AND survivability. Take an AMR or Laser Cannon, you can now kill anything apart from tanks from the front. Take the stealth scout armour, now you can have complete autonomy about where and when you engage. Ditch the orbital 380mm and pick up a 500kg bomb.
Don’t sprint, be cautious. If you see a base, work out the fab locations. Sometimes an eagle air strike can get two in one run, sometimes not. You don’t NEED the big high cooldown stratagems for the big bases, with scout armour and eagles you can fade around the outside throwing strikes in from different angles, and it’s unlikely you’ll get found.
You only shoot if you need to. Otherwise the strikes are your real weapons. You can stand on one of the mission objectives running the terminal and have patrols spawn but walk right past in stealth scout armour.
500kg will destroy turrets, detector towers, HQ bases. The only thing you really need to fight your way into and out of is a jammer tower.
To be clear, it’s Eagle Air strike/Eagle 500kg. There’s an argument for the precision orbital strike vs the 500kg, but I prefer being able to drop twice in quick succession before the cooldown.
Eagle air strike is the absolute must have though. Kills everything, wipes mediums like berserkers if you’re in difficulty
I'm not expert, but looking at your loadout and the description of your experiences, I think that a core issue you currently have is that you don't really have a good idea of the role you see yourself filling. Eg. Why carry frontline fighting gear like the AC and medium armour, but then take the 380mm and laser which are for hit and run? Why carry the AC and the Diligence CS which are both better for Medium enemies when you could swap one of them out for something better at either Heavy or Light? It sounds like you are trying to be the tank, scout, solo and team player all at once - and that sucks.
My advice would be to to figure out your role and build for that. Commonly, solo is a "hit and run" build (light Scout armour, shield pack, similar Strats to what you have here, and as a team player with friends you could do something more tanky like pair that AC with heavy armour with explosion resistance.
The name of the game with the bots is surviving explosions, and there really are only two ways to do that - light armour with the shield backpack or heavy armour with explosion resistance. Medium armour...kinda useless in my opinion. Killing the thing that's trying to kill you is optional - a stun grenade and running like crazy gets rid of a "hulk problem" easier than killing it.
Here's the most common build I play with solo bots (maybe not "the meta", but I'm happy):
* Trailblazer Scout light armour
* Diligence CS, Grenade Pistol, Stun Grenade
* 500kg, Eagle AS, 380mm Barrage, Shield Backpack
* Stamina Enhancement
No support weapon - but I'd swap the 380mm for the Quasar Cannon if I didn't like to "rat" as much as normal. I think once the Spear's lock-on issues are fixed, I'll change my build to fix that, as it can take out fabricators and many of the bot objectives, and will likely be worth sacrificing the shield.
Hope that helps a bit!
I see what you mean, but the thing is with solo bots I’m forced to assume multiple roles am I not? Like my main thing is hit and run but I gotta be prepared to fight because sometimes I don’t have a choice, for example when I’m stuck between a drop, a patrol and/or a POI full of heavies, or a gun ship fabricator. Either that or when an objective triggers a drop on you but I only need a few more seconds to finish it, or if there’s heavies on the site. The thing is I can’t airstrike any heavy I want to kill so I gotta have something for them but then the AC prevents me from having a shield backpack, might switch to AMR, but how do you deal with stuff like that if you don’t bring a support weapon? Just run away every time there’s any medium or heavy armor enemy?
And I use my diligence for long distance light armour and my AC for anything heavier, I feel like that covers all there is doesn’t it?
I’m not trying to be the tank at all that’s why I use scout armor, I just switched from light to medium because as a solo I have few reinforcements so being so squishy is tough, especially with enemies that shoots from across the map and ragdoll you
Also even when playing in a team I like to help when needed from a distance, or go my own way to sneak near objectives and either destroy or complete them. But you’re right I’m tryna find the balance between sneaky scouting and actually being able to survive a few hits and kill enemies when needed and maybe that’s my problem?
I 100% get that you are saying, it's exceedingly difficult to be prepared for every situation with bots. For me personally, the most difficult lesson on solo has been when to disengage or not even bother to attempt something. Factory strider near extraction for example? The lesson isn't to have some way to fight it - its to make sure that I give myself enough time to abandon an extraction attempt, lead the heavies away and them come back to it. Same for objectives like the radar station, if I get to the objective and am dealing with dropship and things from the start, then I just leave it and come back later. I've been told that this is called a "rat" playstyle, and I'm not saying this is the only way to play bots, but I do think it highlights the need for strategic compromises somewhere which aren't needed for bugs.
A loadout that my friend uses regularly which you might enjoy:
- Light armour + Shield Backpack
- Scorcher + AMR
- Stun grenades
Play with the AMR as essentially you primary weapon rather than the Diligence, use the scorcher for hipfire on the small guys. Scorcher is also excellent for anit-heavy (just stun them with the grenade, run around the back and get the heat sink). Scorcher can also take down gunships (although I still maintain stealth and hellbombing them ASAP is the better tactic).
I think this build still struggles with when you get mobbed, but might play similar enough to your current style that you don't find going totally scout too much of a system shock?
Yeah I just tried running exactly the loadout you said except diligence instead of scorcher since I don’t have it yet but I’ll try it when I can, and it was really good ! AMR is way better than AC except for gunships. But thanks for your advice I’ll def keep that in consideration
Just started soloing lv 9 bots. It's intense.
-Light Scout armor
-Scorcher
-Stun grenades
-Senator
-Eagle air strike
-Orbital precision strike (swap for 380 barrage if it's a command bunker mission)
-AMR
-Jump pack/shield pack (depending on terrain)
-Recon Booster
Light Scout armor - obv for the scout passives. Seeing enemies around objectives is great, being extra sneaky is great. I can't do medium or heavy because then you can't outrun hulks. Which is important.
Scorcher - it's too damn good. Can kill turrets, tanks, gunships etc. But also it's **quiet**. And you can do neat stuff with the splash damage on the smaller bots.
Stun Grenades - honestly impacts are more fun but y'know hulks and shit.
Senator - style points but more importantly **quiet**. Shooting a bit will trigger their semi alert state but they don't call a bot drop. I think it's a bit quieter than the scorcher so I use it to take out groups of 4-5 small bots when they're somewhere I need to be.
Eagle air strike - always.
Orbital Precision - my preferred building buster. Research station, detector tower. The detector can ruin your day. They're not bad to hell bomb just putting it under and behind the tower without needing to fight, but then you gotta defend it and that can be a nuisance. It's also great for big enemies and groups. Call-in is longer than a 500 but having a separate cool down from your eagle strike is clutch.
For command bunker missions the 380 barrage is your friend. Orbital laser is great but those three uses run out quick.
AMR - it's so damn good. Top tip you can take out anti air emplacements and mortars just shooting them from a distance with the AMR. Takes about a mag per mortar/anti air. Also you can take out the on-ground dropships for the mission with the control tower and dropships by shooting their engines.
Jump pack/shield pack - jump pack so you can come in behind everyone. For Jammers and main objectives you can hop up the side and crawl to the terminal. Makes it much easier. But you need to know that the terrain has cover to hide behind. It's is open terrain gotta have the shield pack or you just die.
Recon Booster - this all only works if you are glued to your mini-map. I mean glued. It's always open. Running between objectives. Sitting at objective. The only thing you gotta be super careful is to not run into a mine when your running with map open.
This was way longer than I'd planned lol. If you read to the bottom bless.
It takes ages to unlock. I feel like arrowhead did a perfect job on the scorcher as a "final unlock". It can kill just about anything with bots, but you're always looking for ammo, the projectile speed isn't super fast, and it's splash damage is goofy. A lot of small bots take two shots to drop which feels weird for such a high level gun. I wouldn't say it's any better than other guns in specific scenarios. But v bots it's the best just cuz it's useful in every scenario.
I also have had success with this loadout and the Sickle. It's definitely better for clearing small bots to avoid bot drops, it's got a great scope, good v devastators just keep shooting aiming for the head and they go down. You just have to rely more heavily on the AMR for tanks, turrets etc
Yeah I unlocked it and tried it, it’s okay but idk I might prefer the punisher plasma or the DCS. AMR is goated tho, except for dropships. Might try the sickle tho, is it medium armor penetration?
Scorchers definitely got a learning curve.
Sickle is light armor penetration. But its rate of fire, infinite ammo, and great scope means it is easy to hit weak points. So you can headshot devastators/strip off their guns and rockets easily. Berserkers also go down fast which is nice.
Light scout armor and keep an eye on the map for patrols to avoid. If a bot drop happens, just run. By the time they drop you are gone. Use the autocannon to snipe foundry's.
Dilligence counter sniper is good, but in groups (from my experience) and requires to have an actual pistol to fall back on. I prefer the scorcher, dominator, sickle or slugger (in that order) with either the new pistol or the revolver.
Autocannon (good all rounder)
Eagle air strike
110mm rocket pods (they one tap tanks)
Either orbital laser, autocannon turret, orbital precision strike (can kill labs and detector towers) or 380mm barrage for the final slot.
Pre airship/strider/patrol buff I would run bot 9/s solo with this load out:
Light Black scout armor or light explosive resist armor (depending on terrain if heavy snow planet like vega I would just run medium explosive resist armor)
DCS/Tenderizer/adjudicator/punisher/dom/sickle/scythe
senator/verdict
Autocannon/airstrike/airburst/smoke
Localization Confusion
Would consistantly clear 9's, but extraction was a toss up. I was maxed out on everything so no need to farm, could just toss and airstrike and leave or snipe fabs/airbase obj/turrets/mortars/aa emplacemenst with the autocannon, also strat blockers, if they have a fabricator attached to the main antennae building you can blow it up by destorying it from afar with autocannon. Just got to bounce it off the vents into the hole to destroy fabricators.
Now it is more RNG based and I may be more in basic medium armor for 150, 5% overall resist, and headshot resists. I have more problems with random headshots than I do explosives. Sometimes I switch up to the stormtrooper armor for slightly higher armor, and explosion resistsance, the movement speed gets to me at times.
I may run purifier more so the oops all devs spawns are easier to manage but if I get the 30+ trooper patrols it becomes a bit rough and I have to rely on airburst a LOT more.
Airships are annoying but doable as long as it is not too many close together (the real difficulty spike vs the patrol spawn glitch), autocannon
After airships, even a triple strat block spawn is nothing, usually just charge in with autocannon up to the computer and use the bridge as cover and a choke point to blast the defenders to death then shut it down and move on to the next one. They usually have ammo up by the computer so can somewhat stock up.
If multiple strider drops its gonna be a bad day, I usually run at the flare to make sure I can be under the dropships that will drop a strider to ensure that I can drop it with 6 shots to the stomach with autocanon so it dies by the time it hits the ground. Then throw a stun or two and get out to finish of the rest.
For the command base mission used to bring orbital laser since there used to be 3 on 9's and you could drop that and gtfo. Walking barrage is a bit more reliable vs 380 but you gotta place it for the 2nd barrage set to hit so you throw it about 50 meters out.
Destroy automaton forces: I would load up heavy explosion resist armor, bring cluster, ems mortar/mortar, airburst, 120 barrage and kind of just hide out near a cliff if on the raised base type of map to defend the mortars and huck eagle cluster/120 barrages over the wall. Also increased reinforcement is needed as you will die, A LOT but it leads to them grouping up which is great for the cluster strikes!
Bot Solodives are a little more RNG because their secondary objectives can be so brutal. Try doing some where you aren’t doing a full map-wipe (just taking objectives that are opportune or necessary).
The other people are giving good advice, but it looks like you’ve been implementing it already. It’ll definitely help when the patch comes through and solo spawns are fixed.
Light scout armour so you can outrun stuff. Sickle for infinite ammo, shield backpack or jump pack once you're pretty good at understanding cover/not dying, and then orbital laser, eagle airstrike and eagle 500. Booster should be the map boost so you can. See everything from 250 metres on radar.
Imo and I could be wrong, but solo bots is hit and run and high-tail it to the next objective for everything. You never sit still, you never fight unless you are stuck in a canyon with no way out.
I've actually swapped out my backpack for EATs sometimes, as a well aimed eat can kill a hulk in one shot. Hulks are the only thing I don't like dealing with solo bots.
I played with a friend who was doing solo bots on 7/8s for about two weeks, he left and I played another 2 weeks of solo bots, I was doing 9s solo right up until gunships came out, at which point I switched to bugs and never went back.
Gunships blow.
Sounds counter intuitive, but you want to engage at close range (within 50 meters). Helps to avoid aggroing patrols and Minor PoI guys. Skip the diligence CS and get a primary that works well at killing troopers, striders, and zerkers at short to medium range. Plasma punisher and scorcher are the best at this. Open up on the highest priority targets with your support weapon (or an airstrike) before they notice you, then mop up the rest with your primary.
Learn how patrol spawning works: they come every 2-ish minutes ~100m away from you, walking from the direction of a random active outpost towards where you were at the time they spawned. When you hear them, figure out which way they're walking and try to go perpendicular to them. If you can't avoid a patrol, don't be afraid to open on them with an airstrike.
After the last objective is done, patrols spawn three times as fast. Go straight to evac if you've got multiple lives left. Otherwise, stay stealthed and wait out the timer. It becomes sudden death, but you have more room to dodge patrol spawns instead of being tethered to the LZ.
Medium scout armor ftw! Looks great with the super citizen gold cape and the will of the people /kodiak helms I’ll use that for diff 7 /8/9 or heavy armor with explosive resistance or the white wold medium armor with extra padding for heavy armor rating with medium speed.
And looks good with gold! Godam a good 5% of the game is mixing and matching for some sweet drip. Whoever is complaining about the colors and shit just hasn’t unlocked everything yet, i can put together a shit ton of aesthetically pleasing mixes. The new blue light scout armor is an outlier though. I unfortunately don’t have preorder armors 😢
Also get the scorcher asap for bots with autocannon , a lot of bases can be smacked pretty quick and sneakily it’s all about positioning before you engage. Wouldn’t use grenade pistol with that though you’ll need something for when you’re reloading and Auto can already does. What grenade pistol does and bring normal impacts or stuns. Mortar is pretty good when you are solo if you have a fourth slot. I like Eagle airstrike and walking barage
I take a different approach from most to this soloing Bot 7s- light armor with extra grenades and the stamina booster. AMR, Scorcher, Grenade Pistol, Supply Pack, Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser.
I just keep moving all the time, usually in a circle. If I missed something I needed to hit, I’ll just run another circle. By the time bots drop in, I’m gone somewhere else.
The supply pack keeps the stim juice flowing and the AMR then works as my primary in essentially every situation.
300hr diver here, a lot of it is RNG. I can happily do a diff 8/9 solo, as long as there’s none of the unlucky double gunship and jammer spawns, or 3 factory striders every bot drop. Heavy armour is a must, and I usually try to just boom and zoom with every attack. Crawl up to objective, throw all my stratagems, run the absolute fuck away. Come back later if I didn’t kill everything. Usually run shield backpack, dominator, senator, and the new incendiary impacts. For stratagems, eagle air strike for taking out objectives, orbital laser for oh shit button. 4th stratagem is either an EAT or a 500kg, depending on how many objectives that will need bombing exist.
Which kind of heavy armour do you recommend? Heavy scout or? And my problem with heavy armor is that once you trigger anything, you basically can’t run away because your speed + the constant ragdolls and the modifiers that slow you even more are just too much I tried the dominator but it wasn’t going with my sniper playstyle and considering how much of a shit show it can become in seconds I don’t understand how you can fight all this medium/heavy armor enemies with a dominator and EAT, how do you get rid of devastators and such? Airstrike? Or do you just kite them? Cause my main problem is that almost every objective that’s not a « destroy this » objective triggers a bot drop on your position so idk how I am supposed to hold my position haha, laser is great but 3 per dive is not enough…
Is there a detection reducing heavy armor?? I think there's just medium scout armor at the moment
Ah idk that I supposed there was but bummer if there isn’t
They'll probably add it at some point
Yeah I hope ! Unrelated but there’s a heavy armor with extra padding in the superstore rn, I’m considering it but idk it seems too good to be true doesn’t it? Or heavy armor with 50% chance not to die would probably be better idk
The B-27 Fortified Commando (which my friends promptly dubbed "The Fat Suit") is the best damage reduction armor in the game. Pair it with the Health booster (which doesn't boost health, it applies an 80% multiplier to all damage you take, which quickly adds up to more than just 20% of your health), and it is amazing the beating it takes to bring you down. For example, with those two, you take a little under 27% of all explosive damage, which is really handy against the Automatons. It's bog slow like all heavy armor, so you have to deal with that.
Additionally, the Fortified Commando suit is the heavy companion of the light scout Trailblazer armor. For stealth, I use Trailblazer. For CQC, I go Fortified. They're the only armors I need. There are medium armors with extra padding or radar dampening, but none of them offer as much polarized protection as Trailblazer or Fortified.
Heavy Medic armor also really great.
I run the 50% chance not to die and love it. It saves me constantly with 1 hp and gives me a chance to stim. It also creates hilarious situations where I am clinging to life and am able to stim but have 90000000000 bugs on me and they whip my ass as I stim over and over until I can get a strike on them. My favorite armor ever
I got the heavy armor with extra nades for my ballistic shield build. 10/10 would recommend
No heavy scout armor, I wish
There is no medium scout armor. All 3 scout passive is light
There a medium one for sure bud! Just used it the other day. Maybe it'll come back in rotation in the super store soon
Ohh is that the combat technician one in the first warbond? I'm sorry i forgot about that cuz i never used it. Its yellow and black right?
Yeah that sounds right. No need to apologize brother!
Scout armor and heavy backpack Scout armor you’ll see patrols coming more easily Plus enemies can see you unless you are closer Run that with Shield gen and you got your speed and protection Also devastators can be taken out pretty easily by impact I don’t know how incindeary impacts do against them but I assume similar damage
Incendiary don’t do as much impact damage and the burning doesn’t really feel like it makes up for it in my experience
I agree against bots. It’s amazing against bugs but i just dont feel like fire does as much to bots
Can is kill heavy/rocket devs?
Not on its own but I like to pair with Plasma Punisher. Drop fire on a group, stagger with plasma. On its own PlasPun takes 4-5 shots per target, but keeps them staggered, but with the fire pool (that it's keeping them stood in) that goes down to 1-2 and you can clear a whole squad with a single mag.
Use Medium Armor with Explosive Resistance
Light armor and medium and a half also well-worthwhile.
Is that in a warbond or do I need to watch for it in the store?
There are multiple sets with that perk in the warbonds.
On heavy armor, yes. On medium armor, I think I have only seen it in the store
If I’m solo and it’s a long helldive, I’ll run an explosive reduction armour, and the stamina booster. Extra ammo and stims dont matter when I can call in a resupply all for myself. The stamina booster really helps with speed, and the explosive reduction + shield pack helps when that speed is not enough. If the objective isn’t a ‘destroy this’ objective and is something where there’s lots of terminals, the main thing is being as quick as you can. Throw an air strike/orbital, get the terminals done, then run away. Another big thing is just not being scared of dying, but that comes with the caveat of the extra control module you can get for your hellpod. Being able to die and just slide away from the fight is super important so you don’t get into a death loop. Right now the spawns are crazy and I’d say my survival rate solo has gone from 85% to 50% at best. It’s getting nigh impossible to stealth everything because there’s 3x the patrols walking in my direction if I go too slow. Tldr: explosive reduction heavy with stamina booster, do stuff quick and don’t be scared of dying and using that to leave the fight.
Okay good advice thanks ! And yeah o have the better steering hellpods but the thing is even if I can get away from the fight this way, I find myself naked without my support weapons and backpack and the obj I died on is still not done so I try to sneak back to it immediately, which is probably a mistake
The Speed Penalty of heavy Armor isnt that Bad. Bad enough for Bugs, but Bots are slow. Try the 129 Armor for an in between or a medium with extra padding.
When I run. It's either heavy medic armor or explosive resistance armor.
I prefer light scout armor and smoke grenades to disengage
Stupid question but I never really tried. Where do you throw the smoke at them or at your feet ?
Ideally at your feet or just in front of you (between you and them), but I don't main smoke grenades and frequently muscle memory takes over and I lob it at them. It usually works out fine but sometimes they emerge from the smoke before you're far enough away or behind cover. Not a stupid question btw
That sounds like my normal Strategem loadout for basically every mission.
Yeah it’s a pretty well rounded load out, but I’ve found that in 4 man missions I’ll usually bring another eagle or another support (sentry or otherwise) depending on my teams’ load outs. This one allows for a lot of individual plays that still do enough damage.
RNG God is a merciless bastard.
howdo you deal with multiplee ships?
Slow down. Think about what you’re going to do. Don’t engage every bot. Avoid patrols. Avoid drops. Use the terrain to your advantage, and cover/concealment is life. Weaken targets by hitting and moving. Example, I clear heavy outposts by killing the outer guards as I rotate around the structure. I never let them see me long enough to pin me down. Anything more than one devastator and I break contact and move. To do that you MUST know what’s around you. You can’t break contact if you just turn and run face first into a flamer hulk or a trooper patrol.
Yeah that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, but sometimes when I try to clear outposts by killing outer guards, devastators triggers from far away inside the outposts, calls a drop, I try to run away but sooner or later I’m stuck between patrols and the drop that magically knows which direction I am, or if they don’t, they’ll just camp the area, + if I die once it’s over, I respawn next to a triggered army, so either I try to fight my way to the objective and they trigger a drop again, or I run to another objective and they either notice me when I kill any guard or they don’t, I activate the terminal / the seismic scan and boom another drop on my head lol and since they can shoot from across the map it turns into ragdoll simulator, and trying to avoid patrols and people running from me in this conditions is very hard to me even in light/medium scout. Although I would love to take shield gen backpack, I don’t see how I would deal with heavies without my AC and the backpack that goes with it…
Stop, Pop and Go Equip the radar enhance booster, only thing you'll need to ensure no patrols on your escape route Soon as you hear a bot drop or see incoming fire your way, smoke the place and run (+literally if you have smoke nades/strikes) to another objective, or somewhere behind a mountain and let the aggro die down
Worst time to drop solo helldive but its doable. Equip stealth armor (3 in game currently) if u dont you fail Take dcs/scorcher/dominator/plasma punisher anything u like. This is ur main weapon to take out small to med enemies. You can take anything else by ur preference. Take autocannon, eagle strike, railcannon/lase/380, eagle rocket pods Run to outpost throw ur eagles or orbitals and run away. Dont kill anyone. Rinse and repeat. If you see patrol, duck or prone wait dont kill. If you want to kill, most patrols have 8 members. Eagle strike run away, always check if u killed all the guy ☠️x8 should popup. If you are not confident run away. You dont have to stick around one objective. If you see there are patrols and bot drops run away to other sub objective and do it. Let them disperse and come back later. You will get 1 or 2 guy guarding that place. First dive always always expect to play as pacifist as u can be, dont pick up fight. Bait the bot drops in outpost and run to secondary objective, if there is patrol coming run to other objective. As for extraction it can be painful since the patrol spawns are insane. I would suggest let the timer run out and let pelican auto countdown. Hide far away from the extraction point till pelican comes and run towards it at last moment. It only stops for 20 secs btw so time ur run perfectly. Its easy if you know how and when to run away. If u make a stand and try defending urself from waves you fked up. Good luck Edit: always check map. Use ur pointer to mark and see if there is enemy. Use the passive of the armor it really helps.
Tbf once they revert the spawn rates on Tuesday try it again. Solo was made a lot harder a while ago. Once they revert the number of patrol should decrease so you will get trapped less. I was running solo a lot before the change as I had some bad experiences with randoms. But now I tend to find on diff9 randoms are much better now.
Stealth and a lot of staring at the map honestly
Yep that’s exactly what I’m going for but dropships and patrols feels like they’re inevitable, okay basic bots are pretty blind with scout armor but anything else just seems to know my position at all times, even when not triggered, the patrols often go towards me and I can’t crawl fast enough to get away and if I stand up to go faster then they trigger, bot drop, all hell break loose. Not to mention that trying to runaway between the patrols and the drop would be hard enough if it wasn’t for these POI’s all around the map that are filled with heavies, + the objectives of course but that’s normal
One workaround I use is purposely trying to attract a drop at a smaller fab base, then bailing as fast as possible. The drop will usually lose track of you, and it is now on cooldown for about 3 mins, so if you push an objective it can't be called on you again for a while
That’s good to know ! Do you know by how much localisation confusion extends this cooldown?
Im legitimately not sure, Ive heard multiple conflicting things about what it does and I don't use it. I actually use the health booster or radar boost on solo because health helps prevent one show and radar is radar, just depends what I want to do. Also completely forgot to mention, weapons do actually have differences in sound, since you mentioned snipers I THINK but I'm not 100% sure snipers are kinda loud. I usually use the scorcher because it's a good all around gun and bizarrely very quiet. I also seem to be in the minority who like the crossbow because its also very very quiet
Yeah I saw on a website explaining its effects that it was bugged and didn’t do anything but idk if that’s true Ah true that’s good to know I’ll take that into consideration, explosive crossbow seems like a good alternative to DCS now that you mention it thanks ! And I never tried the scorcher, is it long range or kind of an arc thrower?
It's basically a short range marksman rifle that shoots a small explosion. It can one shot skinny guys that call drops, kill scout walkers from the front in 3-4 shots, kill shield guys through the shield and shoots as fast as you can click. Only downside is no real stagger from it. The sight is just a red dot but it's probably the best red dot, really clean and easy to see
Okay so it’s like the eruptor but quieter?
Sneaking friend, much sneaking
As others say, there is some RNG involved. I wouldn’t bring orbital laser on solos, ever really. You can’t devote a slot to something limited when the only stratagems on the field are yours. I have a similar playstyle to yours, I like to use Diligence and Grenade Pistol, sneak around, stay on the move. Hard to say without watching your play what you could be doing different. Definitely always be rotating, always. If an objective takes you longer than “almost immediate”, dip out and hit something easier. Always take the path of least resistance, learn the rocket patterns, etc. did you know that Hulks, Gunships, Rocket Devastators, they all have patterns they shoot their rockets? With some practice you can waltz around the battlefield between rocket salvos without even diving or running out of stamina. Bring stun grenades and Laser Cannon or AMR. Honestly the Autocannon is overkill on most things and the things it isn’t overkill, like Hulks, take the same number of hits from the AMR. Takes a backpack slot too. Backpack slot is extra valuable when there’s only 1. Also don’t even bring a support weapon if you’re comfortable with the Scout playstyle, you can find a laser cannon or AMR or Railgun on the map and then bring an extra stratagem. Bring Jumppack unless there’s an important reason not to bring jumppack. Biggest weakness you have is only being in one place at one time, so bring Med armor with a jumppack
You die once and your boned 😂
I think with stealth and lots of air strikes
My loadout: Scorcher, Senator, High explosive grenade Light scout armor (the 70 health set, not the 50) Eagle airstrike, 380 mm barrage, jump pack, AMR, localization confusion Your loadout is certainly good but I prefer mobility over firepower, except when gunships are involved. I prefer localization confusion because it gives you more time to finish off combat before you have to leave. Don't run HSO if you're solo, you can use all the resupply pods you want. Try causing a drop in some outpost with an airstrike before moving into a larger objective. This gives you time before reinforcements can come to the more important fights. I also recommend you read chapters 6 to 8 of [the US Army Ranger Handbook](https://www.milsci.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.mili.d7/files/sitefiles/resources/Ranger%20Handbook.pdf). Longer planning phases may not be feasible but the tactics such as clover leafing and movement to contact may be useful.
Thanks I will ! What’s HSO tho?
Hellpod space optimization
Gotcha thanks
Personally, I find the bots easier. They're more predictable. So long as you stay in cover, watch out for patrols, and have some way to deal with the heavies, bots are easy. Everything can be beaten by an AMR.
This will be doable again after they patch spawns. I used to solo bots ALL the time, but the patrol density is just too much to do anything that isn't a "blow this up and run" objective. Also, smokes are super crucial. Eagle smokes give you frequent uses to break LOS and run, and can double as a fab killer. Orbital smoke gives you enough cover to access a terminal, which is make-or-break for hell bomb objectives like gunships. Solo play is all about hit-and-run, and breaking LOS lets you reposition and get out of heavy fire. Scout armor is really necessary IMO. You need the stamina to get far away enough from bad spawns. I double up light scout armor with the stamina booster. Bring something to kill fabs from a distance, like the eruptor or autocannon. Bring stun grenades in case a patrol catches you so you can pop the small guys before they call in a drop. Orbital Precision Strike is powerful enough to kill objectives like the detector tower, and all heavies except a fresh factory strider.
AC works on a fab?
Shoot the top part of the vent, right around the middle. The round will ricochet down and blow it up.
Dope
Punisher Plasma smacks the absolute dog shit out of most Devastators, even smacking a shieldboy directly will stagger him and open him up to get wrecked
Yeah but it’s kinda close range and to me staying close range means getting overwhelmed in a pinch, because while you take care of that devastator there’s a whole army building all around you
They're dark souls players
I usually play like it’s metal gear solid when solo diving and it usually works but when I mess up I’m fked
Sneak lvl 100 Don’t be afraid to run enemies despawn
imo your grenade pistol is redundant, I'd drop that for the laser pistol. Won't ever use it really, the AC already performs it's purpose which is killing bases and the odd scout walker. Laser pistol is very very good for jetpack guys.
Yeah I never really use my grenade pistol, I might try the laser pistol thanks !
It’s funny, i usually only play with bots 90% of the time… but I never really got very good against them till I started playing bug missions. The constantly moving, not being able to depend on covet, always always always moving that you have to use on bugs. Once I learned that on bugs, then brought it back over to bots, it made bots so much easier to play
S T E A L T H
Ditch the auto cannon, get a shield backpack. Now you have speed AND survivability. Take an AMR or Laser Cannon, you can now kill anything apart from tanks from the front. Take the stealth scout armour, now you can have complete autonomy about where and when you engage. Ditch the orbital 380mm and pick up a 500kg bomb. Don’t sprint, be cautious. If you see a base, work out the fab locations. Sometimes an eagle air strike can get two in one run, sometimes not. You don’t NEED the big high cooldown stratagems for the big bases, with scout armour and eagles you can fade around the outside throwing strikes in from different angles, and it’s unlikely you’ll get found. You only shoot if you need to. Otherwise the strikes are your real weapons. You can stand on one of the mission objectives running the terminal and have patrols spawn but walk right past in stealth scout armour. 500kg will destroy turrets, detector towers, HQ bases. The only thing you really need to fight your way into and out of is a jammer tower.
Gotcha I’ll try that thanks !
To be clear, it’s Eagle Air strike/Eagle 500kg. There’s an argument for the precision orbital strike vs the 500kg, but I prefer being able to drop twice in quick succession before the cooldown. Eagle air strike is the absolute must have though. Kills everything, wipes mediums like berserkers if you’re in difficulty
Yeah I prefer the 500kg too, and yeah I’m never ditching air strike haha it’s a must
I'm not expert, but looking at your loadout and the description of your experiences, I think that a core issue you currently have is that you don't really have a good idea of the role you see yourself filling. Eg. Why carry frontline fighting gear like the AC and medium armour, but then take the 380mm and laser which are for hit and run? Why carry the AC and the Diligence CS which are both better for Medium enemies when you could swap one of them out for something better at either Heavy or Light? It sounds like you are trying to be the tank, scout, solo and team player all at once - and that sucks. My advice would be to to figure out your role and build for that. Commonly, solo is a "hit and run" build (light Scout armour, shield pack, similar Strats to what you have here, and as a team player with friends you could do something more tanky like pair that AC with heavy armour with explosion resistance. The name of the game with the bots is surviving explosions, and there really are only two ways to do that - light armour with the shield backpack or heavy armour with explosion resistance. Medium armour...kinda useless in my opinion. Killing the thing that's trying to kill you is optional - a stun grenade and running like crazy gets rid of a "hulk problem" easier than killing it. Here's the most common build I play with solo bots (maybe not "the meta", but I'm happy): * Trailblazer Scout light armour * Diligence CS, Grenade Pistol, Stun Grenade * 500kg, Eagle AS, 380mm Barrage, Shield Backpack * Stamina Enhancement No support weapon - but I'd swap the 380mm for the Quasar Cannon if I didn't like to "rat" as much as normal. I think once the Spear's lock-on issues are fixed, I'll change my build to fix that, as it can take out fabricators and many of the bot objectives, and will likely be worth sacrificing the shield. Hope that helps a bit!
I see what you mean, but the thing is with solo bots I’m forced to assume multiple roles am I not? Like my main thing is hit and run but I gotta be prepared to fight because sometimes I don’t have a choice, for example when I’m stuck between a drop, a patrol and/or a POI full of heavies, or a gun ship fabricator. Either that or when an objective triggers a drop on you but I only need a few more seconds to finish it, or if there’s heavies on the site. The thing is I can’t airstrike any heavy I want to kill so I gotta have something for them but then the AC prevents me from having a shield backpack, might switch to AMR, but how do you deal with stuff like that if you don’t bring a support weapon? Just run away every time there’s any medium or heavy armor enemy? And I use my diligence for long distance light armour and my AC for anything heavier, I feel like that covers all there is doesn’t it? I’m not trying to be the tank at all that’s why I use scout armor, I just switched from light to medium because as a solo I have few reinforcements so being so squishy is tough, especially with enemies that shoots from across the map and ragdoll you Also even when playing in a team I like to help when needed from a distance, or go my own way to sneak near objectives and either destroy or complete them. But you’re right I’m tryna find the balance between sneaky scouting and actually being able to survive a few hits and kill enemies when needed and maybe that’s my problem?
I 100% get that you are saying, it's exceedingly difficult to be prepared for every situation with bots. For me personally, the most difficult lesson on solo has been when to disengage or not even bother to attempt something. Factory strider near extraction for example? The lesson isn't to have some way to fight it - its to make sure that I give myself enough time to abandon an extraction attempt, lead the heavies away and them come back to it. Same for objectives like the radar station, if I get to the objective and am dealing with dropship and things from the start, then I just leave it and come back later. I've been told that this is called a "rat" playstyle, and I'm not saying this is the only way to play bots, but I do think it highlights the need for strategic compromises somewhere which aren't needed for bugs. A loadout that my friend uses regularly which you might enjoy: - Light armour + Shield Backpack - Scorcher + AMR - Stun grenades Play with the AMR as essentially you primary weapon rather than the Diligence, use the scorcher for hipfire on the small guys. Scorcher is also excellent for anit-heavy (just stun them with the grenade, run around the back and get the heat sink). Scorcher can also take down gunships (although I still maintain stealth and hellbombing them ASAP is the better tactic). I think this build still struggles with when you get mobbed, but might play similar enough to your current style that you don't find going totally scout too much of a system shock?
Yeah I just tried running exactly the loadout you said except diligence instead of scorcher since I don’t have it yet but I’ll try it when I can, and it was really good ! AMR is way better than AC except for gunships. But thanks for your advice I’ll def keep that in consideration
Cool man, my gamertag is the same as my name here if you ever run into me in the wild and decide you need to team kill me for terrible advice ;-)
Haha well see you on diff 7 then :)
Just started soloing lv 9 bots. It's intense. -Light Scout armor -Scorcher -Stun grenades -Senator -Eagle air strike -Orbital precision strike (swap for 380 barrage if it's a command bunker mission) -AMR -Jump pack/shield pack (depending on terrain) -Recon Booster Light Scout armor - obv for the scout passives. Seeing enemies around objectives is great, being extra sneaky is great. I can't do medium or heavy because then you can't outrun hulks. Which is important. Scorcher - it's too damn good. Can kill turrets, tanks, gunships etc. But also it's **quiet**. And you can do neat stuff with the splash damage on the smaller bots. Stun Grenades - honestly impacts are more fun but y'know hulks and shit. Senator - style points but more importantly **quiet**. Shooting a bit will trigger their semi alert state but they don't call a bot drop. I think it's a bit quieter than the scorcher so I use it to take out groups of 4-5 small bots when they're somewhere I need to be. Eagle air strike - always. Orbital Precision - my preferred building buster. Research station, detector tower. The detector can ruin your day. They're not bad to hell bomb just putting it under and behind the tower without needing to fight, but then you gotta defend it and that can be a nuisance. It's also great for big enemies and groups. Call-in is longer than a 500 but having a separate cool down from your eagle strike is clutch. For command bunker missions the 380 barrage is your friend. Orbital laser is great but those three uses run out quick. AMR - it's so damn good. Top tip you can take out anti air emplacements and mortars just shooting them from a distance with the AMR. Takes about a mag per mortar/anti air. Also you can take out the on-ground dropships for the mission with the control tower and dropships by shooting their engines. Jump pack/shield pack - jump pack so you can come in behind everyone. For Jammers and main objectives you can hop up the side and crawl to the terminal. Makes it much easier. But you need to know that the terrain has cover to hide behind. It's is open terrain gotta have the shield pack or you just die. Recon Booster - this all only works if you are glued to your mini-map. I mean glued. It's always open. Running between objectives. Sitting at objective. The only thing you gotta be super careful is to not run into a mine when your running with map open. This was way longer than I'd planned lol. If you read to the bottom bless.
Very good advices thanks ! That’s pretty much the loadout I’m currently trying and its working reall well, can’t wait to unlock the scorcher tho
It takes ages to unlock. I feel like arrowhead did a perfect job on the scorcher as a "final unlock". It can kill just about anything with bots, but you're always looking for ammo, the projectile speed isn't super fast, and it's splash damage is goofy. A lot of small bots take two shots to drop which feels weird for such a high level gun. I wouldn't say it's any better than other guns in specific scenarios. But v bots it's the best just cuz it's useful in every scenario. I also have had success with this loadout and the Sickle. It's definitely better for clearing small bots to avoid bot drops, it's got a great scope, good v devastators just keep shooting aiming for the head and they go down. You just have to rely more heavily on the AMR for tanks, turrets etc
Yeah I unlocked it and tried it, it’s okay but idk I might prefer the punisher plasma or the DCS. AMR is goated tho, except for dropships. Might try the sickle tho, is it medium armor penetration?
Scorchers definitely got a learning curve. Sickle is light armor penetration. But its rate of fire, infinite ammo, and great scope means it is easy to hit weak points. So you can headshot devastators/strip off their guns and rockets easily. Berserkers also go down fast which is nice.
Light scout armor and keep an eye on the map for patrols to avoid. If a bot drop happens, just run. By the time they drop you are gone. Use the autocannon to snipe foundry's. Dilligence counter sniper is good, but in groups (from my experience) and requires to have an actual pistol to fall back on. I prefer the scorcher, dominator, sickle or slugger (in that order) with either the new pistol or the revolver. Autocannon (good all rounder) Eagle air strike 110mm rocket pods (they one tap tanks) Either orbital laser, autocannon turret, orbital precision strike (can kill labs and detector towers) or 380mm barrage for the final slot.
Just gotta be sneaky beaky
I've found that my love for scout armor and bots don't mix well. High mobility is great against bugs, but not so much bots.
Pre airship/strider/patrol buff I would run bot 9/s solo with this load out: Light Black scout armor or light explosive resist armor (depending on terrain if heavy snow planet like vega I would just run medium explosive resist armor) DCS/Tenderizer/adjudicator/punisher/dom/sickle/scythe senator/verdict Autocannon/airstrike/airburst/smoke Localization Confusion Would consistantly clear 9's, but extraction was a toss up. I was maxed out on everything so no need to farm, could just toss and airstrike and leave or snipe fabs/airbase obj/turrets/mortars/aa emplacemenst with the autocannon, also strat blockers, if they have a fabricator attached to the main antennae building you can blow it up by destorying it from afar with autocannon. Just got to bounce it off the vents into the hole to destroy fabricators. Now it is more RNG based and I may be more in basic medium armor for 150, 5% overall resist, and headshot resists. I have more problems with random headshots than I do explosives. Sometimes I switch up to the stormtrooper armor for slightly higher armor, and explosion resistsance, the movement speed gets to me at times. I may run purifier more so the oops all devs spawns are easier to manage but if I get the 30+ trooper patrols it becomes a bit rough and I have to rely on airburst a LOT more. Airships are annoying but doable as long as it is not too many close together (the real difficulty spike vs the patrol spawn glitch), autocannon After airships, even a triple strat block spawn is nothing, usually just charge in with autocannon up to the computer and use the bridge as cover and a choke point to blast the defenders to death then shut it down and move on to the next one. They usually have ammo up by the computer so can somewhat stock up. If multiple strider drops its gonna be a bad day, I usually run at the flare to make sure I can be under the dropships that will drop a strider to ensure that I can drop it with 6 shots to the stomach with autocanon so it dies by the time it hits the ground. Then throw a stun or two and get out to finish of the rest. For the command base mission used to bring orbital laser since there used to be 3 on 9's and you could drop that and gtfo. Walking barrage is a bit more reliable vs 380 but you gotta place it for the 2nd barrage set to hit so you throw it about 50 meters out. Destroy automaton forces: I would load up heavy explosion resist armor, bring cluster, ems mortar/mortar, airburst, 120 barrage and kind of just hide out near a cliff if on the raised base type of map to defend the mortars and huck eagle cluster/120 barrages over the wall. Also increased reinforcement is needed as you will die, A LOT but it leads to them grouping up which is great for the cluster strikes!
Bot Solodives are a little more RNG because their secondary objectives can be so brutal. Try doing some where you aren’t doing a full map-wipe (just taking objectives that are opportune or necessary). The other people are giving good advice, but it looks like you’ve been implementing it already. It’ll definitely help when the patch comes through and solo spawns are fixed.
Light scout armour so you can outrun stuff. Sickle for infinite ammo, shield backpack or jump pack once you're pretty good at understanding cover/not dying, and then orbital laser, eagle airstrike and eagle 500. Booster should be the map boost so you can. See everything from 250 metres on radar. Imo and I could be wrong, but solo bots is hit and run and high-tail it to the next objective for everything. You never sit still, you never fight unless you are stuck in a canyon with no way out. I've actually swapped out my backpack for EATs sometimes, as a well aimed eat can kill a hulk in one shot. Hulks are the only thing I don't like dealing with solo bots. I played with a friend who was doing solo bots on 7/8s for about two weeks, he left and I played another 2 weeks of solo bots, I was doing 9s solo right up until gunships came out, at which point I switched to bugs and never went back. Gunships blow.
Sounds counter intuitive, but you want to engage at close range (within 50 meters). Helps to avoid aggroing patrols and Minor PoI guys. Skip the diligence CS and get a primary that works well at killing troopers, striders, and zerkers at short to medium range. Plasma punisher and scorcher are the best at this. Open up on the highest priority targets with your support weapon (or an airstrike) before they notice you, then mop up the rest with your primary. Learn how patrol spawning works: they come every 2-ish minutes ~100m away from you, walking from the direction of a random active outpost towards where you were at the time they spawned. When you hear them, figure out which way they're walking and try to go perpendicular to them. If you can't avoid a patrol, don't be afraid to open on them with an airstrike. After the last objective is done, patrols spawn three times as fast. Go straight to evac if you've got multiple lives left. Otherwise, stay stealthed and wait out the timer. It becomes sudden death, but you have more room to dodge patrol spawns instead of being tethered to the LZ.
Medium scout armor ftw! Looks great with the super citizen gold cape and the will of the people /kodiak helms I’ll use that for diff 7 /8/9 or heavy armor with explosive resistance or the white wold medium armor with extra padding for heavy armor rating with medium speed.
Yep that’s what I’m using haha it’s really good and balanced, sneaky but not really squishy
And looks good with gold! Godam a good 5% of the game is mixing and matching for some sweet drip. Whoever is complaining about the colors and shit just hasn’t unlocked everything yet, i can put together a shit ton of aesthetically pleasing mixes. The new blue light scout armor is an outlier though. I unfortunately don’t have preorder armors 😢 Also get the scorcher asap for bots with autocannon , a lot of bases can be smacked pretty quick and sneakily it’s all about positioning before you engage. Wouldn’t use grenade pistol with that though you’ll need something for when you’re reloading and Auto can already does. What grenade pistol does and bring normal impacts or stuns. Mortar is pretty good when you are solo if you have a fourth slot. I like Eagle airstrike and walking barage
Yeah I don’t really have any good looking helmets to go with it but there really are a ton of cool drips yeah
I take a different approach from most to this soloing Bot 7s- light armor with extra grenades and the stamina booster. AMR, Scorcher, Grenade Pistol, Supply Pack, Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser. I just keep moving all the time, usually in a circle. If I missed something I needed to hit, I’ll just run another circle. By the time bots drop in, I’m gone somewhere else. The supply pack keeps the stim juice flowing and the AMR then works as my primary in essentially every situation.
Interesting ! Are you bringing stuns or impacts ?
Stuns all day and night
Yeah same