How to kill shielded enemies?

[LazyHippo123]

At rare times I seem to accidently kill them using random shots, but most of the time they just regenerate shileds to reflect my bullet. What is the correct way to kill them?

[Gafgar]

There are really 4 different enemies with shields, but none of them have them up at all times.

1: The most common one to use the shield is the hunters and it's the most complicated enemy to deal with properly, but there are also many methods of doing. These are bigger drones that patrol an area and puts up the shield when they spot you. They will then hunt you down for a close range shock attack. However, the shield runs out of energy over time, making it more and more vulnerable. In the beginning it will just be a short short interval now and then where the shield turns off with a quick flash to red right be fore it turns off. With good reaction time you can time a bullet in that window and stun the hunter for a moment, giving you yet another chance to deal damage. Two close range burst shots will take it out, but it will take quite a few of the yellow shots. If you want to use those, your best chance it to wait it out till the shield shuts down more regularly or till it turn of completely after a set time. The best way to handle them is to spot them before they spot you so you can avoid them or sneak up behind them. One good burst short on their weapon from behind will kill them. Another alternative is just to outrun them, or an easier one is to find a safe spot on the ground, tank the damage and then use the window the hunter is turned off to kill it.

2: The Strike Turret. These are big turrets that shoot a line of bullets at once. These turrets can't attack while shielding themselves, so they only put up the shield if they are damage but don't see any target to engage. The shield is quite large though, so it don't cover them completely. You can still damage them from behind. As long as you don't shoot at them without them seeing you, they should never put up the shield. And if they do, if you can make to behind them you can still take them down. These turrets also heal themselves when using the shield, so you won't be able to snipe them out a little at a time.

3: There are also a tiny turret version with shields. These turrets have the shield turned on all the time till they find a target, upon which they will turn it off till they lose sight of the target.

4: The last one is the large aracthoids. These robots can't always engage their target as they can't walk outside the platform they are on/the area they are guarding. To counter this they have a shield to protect themselves. If they detect that they take damage from an enemy outside their reachable area or can't fiend the enemy attacking them, they will turn on a shield and heal themselves.

Hope that helps :)

[LazyHippo123]

Wow, thanks a lot for the detailed information!
By the way, could you tell me if the three Fog Core levels are available in Ranked mode? Thanks!

[Gafgar]

The fog core levels? You mean The Unreachable levels?

[LazyHippo123]

Originally posted by Gafgar:

The fog core levels? You mean The Unreachable levels?

Yes, I read about them in guides. I haven't unlocked them by myself. I just wonder if they can be played on ranked mode, or just disappear completely upon finishing them in Story mode.

[crate]

Those levels are not available in ranked. You can play them repeatedly in story mode, assuming you finish the first one you enter the first time you try it.

[Gafgar]

ah, yeah, there are no ranked mode for those levels. We felt it would be too unfair for the Cloud score stuff, take away from their "impact" and be messy to fix if we wanted them in the ranked mode but not give cloud score.
(Having a really secret level that most people have to look up how to find, in order to be able to compete for the top on cloud ranking was not our intention with the cloud ranking)

[ZylpheRenuis]

Though it would be sort of tight to be able to make it more accessible for people trying to figure out *HOW* to obtain said levels in game perhaps? Maybe a steady hint by the orb or narrative?

[Gafgar]

Originally posted by {RaD} Zylphe:

Though it would be sort of tight to be able to make it more accessible for people trying to figure out *HOW* to obtain said levels in game perhaps? Maybe a steady hint by the orb or narrative?

Yeah, it's a tough choice sometimes how much to hide things and so on, and how much content to make optional. But showcasing this secret more would kind of defeat the purpose of it. How it's hidden and kind of outside the system, "not intended to be found", is part of it's narrative. But also, we intended it to be a secret no one would find for months after release (it stayed secret for about a month). Extra content rewarding the fans that just keep playing after completing it and to have some thing extra to reward them. Just like the other ending special to the core.
It's all optional content though and most endings are not hidden that well.
Hope that sounds reasonable.

[van the man]

I'm curious if anybody besides the dev LIKES shielded hunters being in the game, or thinks it's good design. What irks me is dealing with a tedious enemy every single time I respawn, when they're guarding some crazy wall run section that can't be done if they're alive, when said wall run section is hard enough to require many attempts.

I originally came (to the first Cloudbuilt) for the parkour shown in the store page video, and Cloudbuilt delivered, but I found I hate half the levels because I don't like the combat. I'll be looking forward to when I find that combat disabling mechanic (I haven't gone in the direction to find it yet, but have gotten two endings). My guess is the fog core is in the fog levels, I played them a lot in the original, so I didn't go there yet in this one.

[Wasdukannst]

Personally I think the enemies in general are very lackluster in this game. The vast majority of them behave in extremely boring ways that add pretty much nothing to the gameplay and take forever to kill so most of the time your best bet is to just run past everything. That and the lives system are pretty much the reasons I stopped playing this otherwise fantastic game.

[Starlit]

The Hunters can definitely be annoying when you're trying to explore an area for the first time especially if you accidentally flag in front of one. My inspiration comes to mind as an easy place to get demolished by this, in fact my inspiration is just a bit too mean to the first timer. People who played the original at least have some prep but that enemy section is brutal.

For me, I'd say the enemies are largely irrelevant, never really found them to add/detract hugely from the game. Once you get used to them, They are quite easy to manipulate, take out or ignore as you please in most runs. In fact guns have proved useful far more often than they've hindered me in runs.

For record small turrets and snipers take two left click shots to kill while the larger turrets are one blue grenade and one left shot or 6 left shots. Hunters should be killable in one burst though usually you just wanna outrun them.

There are some exceptions to this, e.g. pulse core as a positive and nostalgia as a negative

[van the man]

That end section of My Inspiration is exactly what I'm thinking of. Shielded hunters are completely irrelevant for any occasion other than "still figuring out the level". The rest of the enemies, I'll take them, since they're meaningful obstacles to a run - I'm more of a person who shoots for A times because I like to appreciate the level's design and don't understand the fun in blasting over it, but maybe I'm just not there yet. If you're able to move quick enough, you just outrun the hunters all the way to the end of the level and they don't mean anything other than some slightly annoying sound effects for a little bit.