Best custom team for higher difficulties?

[Mngwa]

I already have all robots unlocked and started to play normal difficulty. I am mostly playing with custom team as it is quite fun to search for the best combination. Since I liked Rusting Mechs most I tweaked them a bit - Lighting Mech, Jet Mech, Rocket Mech. Pilot used is Isaac Jones (the one that allows to reset round twice). This is so far the only team I was able to win normal mode with. Any ideas for another ones?

off topic PS: This game has huge potential for multiplayer PvP, I wish it would be implemented in future. It would be swell.

[Brosef Iosif]

That obviously depends on how you like to play. However here are some of the assets that are very nice to have: a mech that can deal 4+ damage (that would be Combat, Unstable, Rocket), a mech that flies, good displacement in general, trying to get three different types...
I got the 30000 perfect scores with these custom teams:
Beam (Camila Vera) / Rocket / Nano
Combat (Camila Vera) / Volcano / Nano
Swap (Chen Rong) / Defense / Nano (just for fun)
You can see that there are lots of similar things, I still think the second team is better as it's just more versatile. Nano mech is super strong as it combines many different roles, he can displace, prime for more damage and heal as a free action, easily one of the best mech in the game. Camila Vera is certainly one of the best pilots (Isaac Jones sorry but... he is like second worst), alternatively Kazaak in the Nano Mech is insane.

Lightning Mech, Nano Mech and putting Mafan in a close combat mech to tank the Lightning's damage is very decent as well. I did this by accident with random squads but it's in fact very potent.

Some base teams like Fire Behemoths (Chen Rong in Swap mech) or Frozen Titans (Bethany in Ice mech) can be very strong, I'd suggest maybe try to win hard with the base teams before trying to build an optimum custom team. I'm sorry but the fact that you take Isaac Jones as your first pilot tends to show that you still have a lot of uncertainty in your gameplay. So... how could you build a perfect team?

Also, if you just wish to cheese the game to get the hard achievement, the easy thing is this:
Ice / Ice / Ice (Bethany or Mafan).
Block a lot and use the shielded pilot as a joker.

PS: Probably like... lurk more? Devs have said they have no intention for a multiplayer and in fact, it's absolutely not made for this, the whole spirit of the game (attack transparency and unequal gameplay, you're supposed to protect buildings first and foremost) isn't suited for multiplayer, it's entirely thought as a single-player, just like FTL.

[Mngwa]

Brosef Iosif:
Thanks for interesting insights, will try. Out of curiosity, who is the first worst pilot?

[Brosef Iosif]

It would be Ralph the starting pilot.
However, there's hopefully plenty of pilots that are very strong and you aren't limited to a couple that are above the rest. Harold, Prospero, Camila, Archimedes, Kazaak, Mafan are all very potent with different strategies available. For instance, if you like Rusting Hulks, Camila is the obvious choice in the Jet Mech and it makes the rest much smoother.

[Sinocelt]

3x Ice Mech

Boring, but easy, even on hard. Ma-Fan as pilot of one of the three.

[konokono]

Is 3x Ice really that good? I tried it on Normal and didn't like it much. So hard to achieve any of the objectives. And when the map starts with 4+ Vek things can get dicey in a hurry. I imagine it's even worse on Hard?

[Brosef Iosif]

Originally posted by konokono:

Is 3x Ice really that good? I tried it on Normal and didn't like it much. So hard to achieve any of the objectives. And when the map starts with 4+ Vek things can get dicey in a hurry. I imagine it's even worse on Hard?

Yes it can be very strong but it plays quite differently to other teams. First, it's much much more viable if you take Mafan or Bethany. Mafan is better overall because its shield can never be disrupted entirely and also because you have more chance to get Bethany in pods.

Objectives are irrelevant, besides, you don't need that much cores (like 2-3 for move, a couple of more for additional weapons that's it). You'll have enough core from time pods. The goal isn't to perform objectives but to prevent grid damage. I suggest starting with firefly who can help you de-freeze easier. One thing is that you'll need to block a lot, don't stay on the back, go to the front, use Mafan to clear the worst vek and chain from there, go blocking with the other two, you need to at turn 2 at least. Of course you need to pick your fight, just like in any other cases, defend missions are easy because you can freeze the target (train in particular). I did it on hard a couple of times, only lost once, but it surely demands you to think in a slightly different fashion.

It's a gimmick team, it can be very strong but it's certainly not the be all end all. However, because it's so mono-strategical, once you get it, know how to place yourself, how to restrict the vek attacks by simply blocking their field with iced veks, it can be very strong.

[konokono]

Originally posted by Brosef Iosif:

Originally posted by konokono:

Is 3x Ice really that good? I tried it on Normal and didn't like it much. So hard to achieve any of the objectives. And when the map starts with 4+ Vek things can get dicey in a hurry. I imagine it's even worse on Hard?

Yes it can be very strong but it plays quite differently to other teams. First, it's much much more viable if you take Mafan or Bethany. Mafan is better overall because its shield can never be disrupted entirely and also because you have more chance to get Bethany in pods.

Objectives are irrelevant, besides, you don't need that much cores (like 2-3 for move, a couple of more for additional weapons that's it). You'll have enough core from time pods. The goal isn't to perform objectives but to prevent grid damage. I suggest starting with firefly who can help you de-freeze easier. One thing is that you'll need to block a lot, don't stay on the back, go to the front, use Mafan to clear the worst vek and chain from there, go blocking with the other two, you need to at turn 2 at least. Of course you need to pick your fight, just like in any other cases, defend missions are easy because you can freeze the target (train in particular). I did it on hard a couple of times, only lost once, but it surely demands you to think in a slightly different fashion.

It's a gimmick team, it can be very strong but it's certainly not the be all end all. However, because it's so mono-strategical, once you get it, know how to place yourself, how to restrict the vek attacks by simply blocking their field with iced veks, it can be very strong.

Ah thanks. I hadn't thought to ice myself as a way to block enemy attacks but that makes perfect sense. I can see now what makes the team so strong

[Brosef Iosif]

Originally posted by konokono:

Ah thanks. I hadn't thought to ice myself as a way to block enemy attacks but that makes perfect sense. I can see now what makes the team so strong

Yes that's the major strategy in my opinion. Once you're sitted on an emerging veks, there's no going out and the other very strong thing is that since most of the veks attacks are single target, you can either triangulate from a spawn and shoot either a vek or the building that's being attacked to negate it. Freezing buildings is a very strong option that basically nobody else has but the Defense Mech.

[SexyPanther]

Off topic but what is the difference between Normal and Hard? Do the enemies take more damage? Are there more of them?

[Brosef Iosif]

It's been a while since I've played Normal but iirc, it's mostly the proportion of alphas. You'll have at least one at the start of each mission as soon as Island-1 and the proportion is something like this: 1/3 for the 1st island, then 1/2, then 2/3 and by the 4th, all veks are alphas. Also, in Hard you get two leaders on the Last Stand, one for each stage, I think it's not the case in Normal.
But other than that not much, no more or new enemies, veks aren't buffed, maybe more spawns... It's the larger number of alphas that is the main change. It forces you to focus on moving the enemies rather than kill them outright however, it's not such a massive change in my opinion than easy to normal as there you get more enemies to deal with. I'd argue that more enemies are worse an issue than stronger ones but well.

[SexyPanther]

Thank you very much. That was very informative.

[Mngwa]

Btw I must say that I find combinations with nano robot the best. This robot is just best asset for any team - it has great A.C.I.D. attack which also pushes enemy apart from doubling damage which is useful in almost any situation.

[Brosef Iosif]

What's awesome with the Nano Mech is that, its ACID attack is already great, Viscera Nanobots though means you never have to bother healing, it makes getting additional damage by pushing veks onto your own mechs much more sensible as you heal when attacking. It means blocking is easier as well. It opens up the gameplay substantially. It's almost a free action for the whole thanks to a single core. Then it also opens up Kazaak gameplay which can be tricky otherwise but is just plain insane strong in this mech because it completely nullifies its downside.

Also Nano Mech has great movement and is one of the rare mech that flies, which doesn't hurt. Legit one of the strongest mech of the roster, if not the most.

[SexyPanther]

I never would have thought about that synergy in terms of using acid to damage enemies to pull them into you while healing on kill. Brilliant. I like that even squads I thought were useless have strategies to discover.