Need Advice for Playing Solo

[shan]

I like to play solo sometimes, usually against bugs but I do the other factions as well. However, I get overwhelmed too easily by large crowds of enemies especially during "Raise Flag" missions. I would like some general advice or build / stratagem recommendations if possible. For some context, I usually play on Suicide Mission difficulty and prefer desert / ice maps where its easier to see things in the distance (not sure if trees and foliage on maps has an affect on enemies detecting me and spawning in). I usually use the Medium Machine Gun with Guard Dog (Assault), 500 KG Bomb, and Orbital Laser along with the Breaker / Adjudicator, Grenade Pistol, and Thermite.

[♞Stygian Nova]

stealth and smoke, i would avoid flag missions and kill missions solo.

[gothicpando]

Don't.

[Mazelex]

A good chunk of my time is solo and I find any gas weapon to be really useful. It buys you time to pick things back up if you are overwhelmed and most gas stratagems are pretty low cooldown. I also bring some sort of turret, normally gatling or missile. Sometimes though you just get overwhelmed. I really hope they add some sort of solo tool, an extra stratagem slot or companion like Bosco in Deep Rock.

[Chocbomb]

Arrowhead have been slowly ruining solo play for a while now.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3215462783

[Chaoslink]

Yeah, some mission types just aren’t suitable for solo play. Flag raise missions require you to not only hold an area for a time, but also clear it entirely without leaving the radius. By yourself, this would mean needing a very high DPS rate to kill enough of them to push back. Things like mechs would be needed to get enough damage out fast enough, but they’re limited in number and ammo and there’s more objectives than mech call ins.

Do note, the game is meant to be played with four people. Solo play is something players might want, but it’s not really in line with the spirit of the game. Can’t say strongly that they really should do anything to make solo play better.

[GustavoM]

Just experiment weapons, stratagems and all that until you find something you are comfortable with.
t. I can solo most diff. 7 missions just fine and I'm (still) trying to figure out a more optimized stratagem/weapons loadout.

[Asi_the_Red]

Solo flag missions seem like they're most suited for stealth play. Try running the recon armor that lowers your detection radius. You can dodge most patrols by diving prone before they see you, but you'll need to leave the guard dog at home so it doesn't pull aggro for you.

For strats try Jump Pack, MG turret, AC turret, your choice of Eagles or anti-heavy support weapon. At the flag, throw your turrets down, then jump pack up high and let the turrets do the heavy lifting. If a heavy shows up and it doesn't look like the AC turret is going to get it use your Eagle / support weapon. You'll probably want to take a medium pen primary.

Chaoslink's suggestion to bring a mech seems like it might work too, I like the missile/MG mech, haven't used the double AC one yet.

[AbientAle]

Originally posted by shan:

I like to play solo sometimes, usually against bugs but I do the other factions as well. However, I get overwhelmed too easily by large crowds of enemies especially during "Raise Flag" missions. I would like some general advice or build / stratagem recommendations if possible. For some context, I usually play on Suicide Mission difficulty and prefer desert / ice maps where its easier to see things in the distance (not sure if trees and foliage on maps has an affect on enemies detecting me and spawning in). I usually use the Medium Machine Gun with Guard Dog (Assault), 500 KG Bomb, and Orbital Laser along with the Breaker / Adjudicator, Grenade Pistol, and Thermite.

Missile/Auto/Gat turret and a support *( depending on enemies/diff ) is best imo. If you can set them up "behind" the breaches before you start, you can usually kill a good 50% before the turrets are all out of ammo. Still might be rough so you could also try staggering the turrets release or use mechs over support weps and just rawdog it with mech/turrets. I would suggest the AC mech as its way more accurate and less likely to miss swaths of precious ammo on the dirt. -also.... get the MG turret for the supply stratagem, one extra little turret can help!

[NotaBear]

use a rover (the bullet one is better than the laser one), and use sentries. This should increase your dps to fend off even the worst swarms.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Asi_the_Red:

Solo flag missions seem like they're most suited for stealth play.

The only problem I see with that is how they added the requirement to clear the area after the flag raises. If you just let their forces build up, you have far more to deal with all at once and if you leave the area, the flag starts to lower again and you get even more spawns. I’ve not tried a stealth approach, but just looking at it, I’m not seeing how it’d help. Maybe if you can get an orbital napalm barrage off or something to clear everything in one go, but that seems incredibly risky.

[Asi_the_Red]

Ah, did not realize they'd changed that. Orbital Gatling Barrage might be good for clearing the whole area. It's heavy AP, has decent duration.

[Midas]

Turrets help, guard dog helps, Fast strikes like strafing run that can kill or CC a lot of things like orbital gatling, napalm barrage, gas strike. Make sure you can quickly kill whatever kinds of targets appear so you don't get pushed off the objective.

[S4ffr0n]

I run around with grenade launcher and scorcher with a supply back pack for bugs (lvl 10). If for whatever reason I'm not with my teammates on a bug flag objective I do have decent odds of being able to solo it (I will admit the deaths are almost allways caused by grenade launcher bounce back).

This build does struggle with titans if you're not used to exploiting the model assets' seams and safe spot (since the enemy nerf lvl 3 pen can do decent damage to non acid sack HP parts.)

Scorcher is very fast at killing a charger arse first and clearing jumpy buggers/shreikers.

Grenade launcher is good at killing all lights, mediums and certain heavies like the impaler and in general it's fast fire rate means you can clear a horde before any can call out as well as how easy it is to use while running full sprint.

They are both very ammo hungry so this is where the supply back pack comes in, also an extra 8 stims to survive chaos more.

Thermite is also useful for spore chargers but you could probably switch this to a EMS to give you brearhig room if you get swarmed.

Senetor is useful to try to stealth small groups in your way or for when a small/medium unit jumps right on top of you.

I would highly recommend you take muscle enhancement since it greatly reduces bugs being able to acid lock you.

I did used to run light with extra padding which is fantastic for kiting and zooming into super big nests to destroy the holes but medium servo assisted does seem to help reduce dying to AOE from your own weapons and acid spews at the same time which is useful for chaotic situations.

For AOE weapons on bugs like scorcher and you can actually still use them if something if it is too close to you: don't hit it directly, instead aim for the ground/wall near it but further from you.

Grenade launcher can do this too but slightly differently, aim under the bug so the bounce back is blocked by the bug itsself.

For orbitals is varies but since heavies like titans and spore chargers are the biggest threat to this build I'd say pick things that can kill them and have a decent cooldown rate or long usage times.

[Vintage Shin Kartz]

For solo I run RR/Quasar, MG turret, Gatling turret and a 4th strategem depending on mission or mood.
The overarching idea is that I'm outsourcing the containment of hordes and focus on heavies and objectives

[Trooper #900129-H]

Any rapidfire, ammo efficient primary to quickly kill hordes

Autocannon to wipe mediums, flyers, stalkers and bugholes

Stunbaton to wack anything that comes near, giving you space to recover if overrun

Termite grenades to deal with chargers and inpalers

EAT to deal with titans and inpalers

And finally low cooldown orbitals
Orbital Gatling is great for surpressing bugholes, napalm is great to but longer CD

Eagle cluster is great too for clearing big hordes, upto 5 uses before cooldown kicks in, but struggles against heavies

Engineering kit on armor is great to help stabalise the AC and gives extra grenades

Other than that: dont fight every bug you see, avoid patrols and kill the small stuff that can sparwn in bugbreaches first