General tips for Star Warfare: Alien Invasion.
PLEASE NOTE: if you wish to ask questions, please ask them in the Just Commenting page -- the clutter caused by comments on this page is starting to get severely out of hand.
Set-up
Try to wear headphones or earbuds while fighting, as this will let you hear which side of you the aliens/battle are. Try to also listen for this noises the acid bombers and rhinos make, as you don't want them sneaking up on you (they can inflict massive damage especially if you are on a boss fight or a higher level). This applies to a lesser extent in PvP, as some weapons do not emit sounds to players other than the weapon user: however, you will be able to identify what types of weapons are being used by other players from the sound effect.
Setting your sensitivity to the lowest setting will make your aim more accurate, but also less responsive.
Etiquette
Please do not freeload during boss fights to conserve ammo: the payout you receive from the boss is much higher than the ammo costs you will incur. More perceptive players will check whether you are pulling your own weight, and may choose to leave the room if you are refusing to play properly.
Please avoid using swords or shotguns against bosses: both of these weapons are extremely ineffective due to their incredibly short range. Sword users are further considered freeloaders due to their ammo-conversation intent, including Windblade users who attack using the wave projectiles. While the Morpheus is borderline acceptable, there are clearly more efficient weapon choices.
If you're a high-ranked player, please consider supporting newer players if you see them playing enthusiastically in both PvE and PvP rooms. While they may not be ready to attempt an actual boss fight or competition against endgame players, being supportive and showing them a good gaming experience will help encourage them to keep playing the game, whereas unsupportive behaviour will cost us new players to the gaming community.
Please do not share glitches. If you discover a glitch that provides an unfair advantage, please keep it to yourself and never use it while others are around. They will notice and start doing it themselves.
Please do not use weapon combos. Quickdrawing is one thing, but the overpowering nature of, let's say, the Twin Snipers is not appreciated by other players. *Note: As of the 2.50 update, combos have been removed.
Finances/Inventory Management
Tired of farming close range with the blades? Then fight the bosses (online or single-player), since they give anywhere from 40,000 to 1,000,000+ gold. However, it is recommended that you avoid the tougher Tier 3 bosses unless you have high-powered gear, as the enemies and boss fights are quite tough and deal much damage.
Allocate your cash carefully. Ideally, your money should go to saving up for better armor. If you have a good armor already, you should focus on upgrading a nice gun like the MZ-7B2 or the NOVA27. Try to keep around 10,000 energy on hand if you're a beginner, and about 100,000 at higher levels. If you're fighting a tough boss like Siegfried, pack anywhere from twenty thousand to a few hundred thousand (unless you're notoriously bad at aiming). If you need quick cash, use swords, as they don't require any energy. However, the Freedom backpack also eliminates any need for purchasing ammo.
Light Swords are useful investments for newer players, as they do not incur any ammo costs. However, ammo-consuming weapons allow for much faster profit-making, particularly when used to take down bosses. Please also note that it is heavily frowned upon to use swords against bosses, as it is seen as a form of freeloading.
First aid kits are worthwhile investments, given that the boss payout significantly exceeds the cost of the first aid kit. Rebirths are similarly useful, but as they cost mithril, it may benefit you to buy cheaper alternatives.
If you are scared that you will use up all your energy, utilize your second best weapon that consumes the least energy during the alien rush, and then use a heavy duty weapon against the actual boss. This is a pretty hand tip.
The FREEDOM backpack negates ammo costs in PvE, which will allow you to constantly fire weapons without worrying about exorbitant ammo usage. It also eliminates the need to constantly restock on ammo if you're not a fan of constantly needing to restock on more from the Store. Additionally, it offers HP regeneration in both game modes (while it offers 40HP per second in PvE, the exact number is approximately about 1/20 or 1/25 in PvP due to extreme HP scaling).
The SAM-005-I and Jin.Jingle backpack is also recommended for profit-making purposes: the extra 25% gold for SAM-005-I and the extra 35% for Jin.Jingle you receive will generally exceed all ammo costs you incur, provided you're not constantly spraying with your weapons. If you also have the FREEDOM backpack, consider changing backpacks once you have fought a boss once or twice within the same day: lower boss rewards may result in different profit levels depending on your exact ammo expenditure.
Bosses in PvE (single-player) do not award Mithril. Fighting bosses online is the only way to get Mithril outside of the daily bonus for going online or IAP'ing. However, bosses in single player AND multiplayer provide exp and gold.
When fighting bosses, it's best to have 3 people despite the higher health of the boss (when there are multiple players, the health of enemies goes up). More players means a higher gold reward per kill, as well as for the boss. However, if you're playing a high-tiered boss fight, choose 3 high-level players, not 3 inexperienced players with Viper Armor. You need teammates that can actually survive and help you take down the significantly tougher boss.
Weaponry
Remember to upgrade your weapons! Fully upgraded weapons have three and a half times their original power! They are also MUCH more efficient energy to damage-wise.
'Laser Guns- don't get any wrong ideas- They're direct upgrades off of assault rifles with higher power along with the ability to pierce multiple enemies with one shot. They should be your general purpose weapons once you unlock them. The Nova 27 is an excellent general purpose gun that can be bought without Mithril.
'The BLADEMASTER backpack is recommended if you're a big sword user, because it gives extra speed, float ability, and extra sword power for a bargain price (about 1,200,000, no Mithril). But on boss levels, do not, I repeat, DO NOT use any sword on ANY boss fight, as you will be killed while trying.
'With Gatlings, it is recommended to use the FREEDOM or Jin.Jingle/SAM backpack alongside them, as they consume the most energy of all weapons at the fastest rate. If you don't spam shots, however, the gold bonuses from the SAM or Jin.Jingle should produce a higher net profit than equipping the freedom.
Find a combination with your guns! A good combination will give you higher damage output ( example: use the SPD-005-3 with a shotgun)
General Combat
In all combat scenarios (PvP and PvE) do NOT try running over long distances with a Gatling cannon or an RPG, especially when you're using a heavy armor. A total of 6 or more speed is always good, while having anything less than 5 speed makes you a sitting duck. If you have to run from point A to point B across the map, switch to your assault rifle or laser gun before running.
For a mobile combat style, keep moving and frequently check behind you: having earphones will help considerably as 3D sound may tip you off as to where an alien or enemy player may be relative to your position.
Camping as a combat style may vary in effectiveness depending on the map layout: in general, camping is more effective in PvE than it is in PvP due to the relatively slower footspeed of aliens.
If you have friends that play this game and have FaceTime, Skype, etc., then "Squad Up" with them." It's much more fun when you're able to communicate with your teammates and give them warnings about hostiles on PvP and PvE.
PvE
Alien Rush
Camping is a highly effective defensive playstyle when you choose a spot where enemies cannot spawn behind you, and where you still have room to dodge projectile attacks from Energy Flies and Scorpions. Spawning aliens tend to come from the same preset directions when you consistently use the same camping spot, so memorizing the spawn patterns for your chosen spot will help your survival considerably.
Alternatively, a roaming combat style will generally allow you to get more alien kills than a camping player when used on certain PvE maps. When roaming, keep moving and frequently look behind you. Again, earphones and memorising the spawn patterns will greatly aid in your survival, as this playstyle is particularly prone to the Acid Bombers if they happen to spawn right on top of you. In the "Stadium Arcadium" map, dont try to find a way to the upper level; the upper level is inaccessible, despite the aliens spawning there.
If you're fighting a Rhino, have at least one person fight off the other weaker aliens (but still have one or two people fire at the rhino) if you're playing co-op instead of everyone focusing on destroying the rhino.
Under certain conditions, Sniper Rifles can take down a Rhino in 1-2 hits. There are no radars in the game, so be warned that aliens may sneak up on you while your focused on the Rhino, however, so be mindful of your surroundings.
Line up enemies using beam-class weapons, as the piercing properties of the lasers allows for easy combo kills.
Similarly, the splash damage of the Plasma weapons are useful for attaining combos due to their splash damage and high rate of fire.
See Camping Spots and Aliens for more information.
Boss fights
Sniper Rifles are a dangerous choice to use against bosses due to their low firerate: missing a single shot with a sniper causes your average damage output to drop significantly when compared to full-automatic weapons such as the Machine guns, Laser Guns and Plasma weapons. The manual firing mechanism of the sniper also means that to maximize it's damage output, you must have a good grasp of its reload timing. In short, this is not a recommended weapon class to use as your primary weapon during a boss fight.
As stated in the Etiquette section, please avoid freeloading during boss fights, as that often results in players either leaving or getting killed. Also please avoid using Light Swords, Shotguns, Light Bows, Grenade Launchers and RPGs due to their ineffectiveness at long range (The projectiles of explosive weapons take too long to travel through the air).
Weapons generally considered effective against bosses include:
- Crab - 2333 dps
- NOVA-27 - 1960 dps
- LIT07 - 2375 dps
- Laser Cannon - 5250 dps while firing (3281.25~3500 dps including overheat/cooldown)
- M-27B1 - 4117.6 dps
- M-Z7B2-5,659 dps
Hyper clips are highly effective against bosses. They are relatively cheap and add a huge boost to damage for 30 seconds -- they'll actually help you save on ammo costs if you can deal more than 2000 worth of energy within the 30 seconds. Don't use them against the boss rush, as you just end up wasting it on a few of the basic aliens.
Floating backpacks such as the F.L.O.A.T and the Blade-master allow you to avoid the slowdown and damage of poison splattered on the ground when fighting against Poison Pit and Serpent. However, be warned that you can still be hit by the poisonous spit while they are still traveling through the air.
PvP
You have unlimited ammo in PvP. Consequently, bonuses which reduce the cost of ammo are irrelevant in PvP, but the FREEDOM's regenerative properties are still useful if you do not have another regenerative backpack.
Serious PvP play is generally not recommended unless you have mid- to end-game equipment (armors such as the Atom or above, and weapons such as the NOVA-27). Unrestricted PvP matches tend to be dominated by players with end-game armors and strong mithril weapons, so newer players may find the kill/death ratios quite skewed until they gain some experience and stronger equipment.
While stealth is possible in PvP, be mindful of the large colored "P1" indicator floating above every character's head -- it can give away a player's position before the actual body of the character comes into view, such as when a player is hiding behind a low wall, or hiding on an elevated platform such as in Air Crash.
There are a few camping spots in PvP Maps too. An example would be the Air Crash map, where you hide behind the top-left corner and snipe the people going up the second level. There tends to be more than one camping spot in each map. If you find them, use them as an advantage.
In PvP, some weapon/pack/armor combinations are useful for different things. A sniper usually wants power and will be more damaging that way, and a super fast capture the flag strike fighter wants fast suits than say high HP.
In team matches, using team-based backpacks can significantly improve your team's overall health, damage or damage reduction.However, please note that the effects of most team backpacks do not stack; only the Visnu's damage reduction effect doesn't have this restriction stated explicitly.
When playing PvP, consider flanking or using alternate routes that other players don't ordinarily use. An example includes using the side-passages through the mazes on Kill House: the central passage tends to form a choke point in Team Deathmatches when multiple players are fighting there, and the mazes allow for surprise attacks by sneaking behind the enemy line. You have a better chance of winning if you fire the first shot.
Try and predict what your opponents will do and/or where they are most likely going to be, (e.g. snipers on Kill House tend to hide in one of the three mazes, and then exploit a glitch where they can fire through the wall)
Hyper clips can assist with getting kills, and a single kill will cover the cost of buying the hyper clip.
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