Does anyone have any tips on how to get five gears in the first Mech Arena mission in the Earth DLC?

[『HORIZON』]

The second one is easy, there are lots of tanks you can throw around. But the first one has all those annoying parachute jumpers! They take so long to kill! Does anyone know what to do? What actions give me the most points?

[Warc1]

Go for the shortest time for each round as opposed to trying to get style points. You need 40,000 points to get 5 gears. You get 20,800 just for killing everything and you can consistantly get 20,000 time bonus points by concentrating on speed kills. That gets you 5 gears without any need for style points, even though you'll probably get a few thousand without trying.

For example, here's how to quicky complete the last round. Start just outside the large building on a bit of a hill at the back of the base and look towards the sea. The cargo plane carrying paratroopers will fly straight at you at the very start. The second you see the plane, shoot it down and all of the paratroopers are killed at once.

Next, rush over to the gate and block the access road as the soldiers' Jeeps drive straight at you. They'll bunch up in front of you so you can take them all out with one force pulse. The Mech will be right behind the Jeeps, so open up with the autocanon and destroy it before it gets in the base. Turn around and the drones will be lined up behind you. They can be wiped out quicky by firing the autocanon while drawing them in with the grip. Takes around 30 seconds to complete the entire round.

[『HORIZON』]

Originally posted by Warc1:

Go for the shortest time for each round as opposed to trying to get style points. You need 40,000 points to get 5 gears. You get 20,800 just for killing everything and you can consistantly get 20,000 time bonus points by concentrating on speed kills. That gets you 5 gears without any need for style points, even though you'll probably get a few thousand without trying.

For example, here's how to quicky complete the last round. Start just outside the large building on a bit of a hill at the back of the base and look towards the sea. The cargo plane carrying paratroopers will fly straight at you at the very start. The second you see the plane, shoot it down and all of the paratroopers are killed at once.

Next, rush over to the gate and block the access road as the soldiers' Jeeps drive straight at you. They'll bunch up in front of you so you can take them all out with one force pulse. The Mech will be right behind the Jeeps, so open up with the autocanon and destroy it before it gets in the base. Turn around and the drones will be lined up behind you. They can be wiped out quicky by firing the autocanon while drawing them in with the grip. Takes around 30 seconds to complete the entire round.

I didn't know you can shoot down the plane! Thank you!

[Tasty Gravy]

I did it by:
Waiting for the people to get out of the cars and then using force push.
Using force push on the soldiers once they get close enough.
Throwing the drones into each other.
Shooting the plane.

While it does help to do it faster, you will end up getting more points for style. The lowest points you can posibly get for a kill is from shooting it, while the highest is with the force push, so use it all the time for max points. The exeption though are drones, you get more points for throwing them into each other.

I did this while diding it in a very good speed while getting max style points, getting me to almost 5 gears after the second last wave.

[Warc1]

If you want to get the highest possible score, I agree that a balance of style and time will get you there. However, if you only want 5 gears, it's easiest to just focus on time.

Above, I gave the method for the quickest completion of the last round. You can break that down and use the same approach for each component of every wave. If you do, individual rounds take as little as 3 seconds and max out at 30 seconds for the "everything" round. That gives you more than 20,000 time bonus points where I have never exceeded 15,000 style points.

More importantly, you will take virtually no damage over the entire challenge since the waves are destroyed before most enemies can fire a single shot. This is significant if this is your first mech challenge because it allows you to easily reach 5 gears without any gear mods (e.g. no armour) since there is no risk of destruction from enemy fire.

[DocENT]

Originally posted by Warc1:

Go for the shortest time for each round as opposed to trying to get style points. You need 40,000 points to get 5 gears. You get 20,800 just for killing everything and you can consistantly get 20,000 time bonus points by concentrating on speed kills. That gets you 5 gears without any need for style points, even though you'll probably get a few thousand without trying.

For example, here's how to quicky complete the last round. Start just outside the large building on a bit of a hill at the back of the base and look towards the sea. The cargo plane carrying paratroopers will fly straight at you at the very start. The second you see the plane, shoot it down and all of the paratroopers are killed at once.

Next, rush over to the gate and block the access road as the soldiers' Jeeps drive straight at you. They'll bunch up in front of you so you can take them all out with one force pulse. The Mech will be right behind the Jeeps, so open up with the autocanon and destroy it before it gets in the base. Turn around and the drones will be lined up behind you. They can be wiped out quicky by firing the autocanon while drawing them in with the grip. Takes around 30 seconds to complete the entire round.

Thanks so much for this. I'm playing the game now and this helped SO much! Shooting the plane down before they deploy is the key!