Sunrider: MoA- Protips and Critical Upgrade Calculations

This is a collection of calculations for the most critical upgrades in Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, as well as a selection of tips to increase understanding of important gameplay mechanics (aggro, CMD/money rewards, formations, etc.). If you want to know how to get the most bang for the least amount of money, this guide is your friend.

Includes both streamlined results and full calculation sections, so it is clear how the calculations were made.

Introduction

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius- Critical Upgrade Calculations and Protips (V1.8)

Author: Disasternoj

Version: Full (1.8). This document contains spoilers. If you have not completed the battle of Far Port, DO NOT READ FURTHER. If a section contains spoiler text like this , it's because that's something you really should enjoy discovering on your own. >:3

DISCLAIMER: Sunrider has a weird habit of varying the prices of upgrades slightly as more upgrades are purchased. All costs listed should be accurate to within 20 Credits, but don't count on being able to afford something if you have exactly the listed cost remaining, and always save before buying anything.

Summary Of Calculations

Sunrider

• Reactor to 120 EN: $1420 [Optimal: Move always 30 EN, w/ Kinetic/Laser to 60 EN -> Move 0, Fire 2; Move 1, Fire 1 + Missile/Assault; Move 2, Fire 1, etc.]
  
• Kinetic to 60 EN: $700
  
• Laser to 60 EN: $280

Black Jack

• (Cry because you're not important)*

Liberty

• Reactor to 140 EN: $6864 [Allows double repair w/ upgrade below]
  
• Repair upgrade [500 HP, 70 EN]: $1000

Phoenix

• Reactor to 115 EN, Assault to 25 EN: $1354 [Allows Move 2, Fire 3 or Move 3, Fire 2 w/ retreat back to protected position]

Bianca

• Reactor to 120 EN: $1420
  
• Grav upgrade [40 EN/use]: $750 [Allows triple grav w/ reactor upgrade, available after Far Port]

Seraphim

• Reactor to 130 EN, Kinetic to 65 EN: $10,758 [Allows double fire- double value of Awakened turns]
  
• (Note: not realistically affordable unless you cut lots of corners or sell the Wishall .

Paladin

• Reactor to 110 EN, Kinetic to 54 EN: $780 [Allows double fire]

*Author's personal opinion. User experience may vary.

Tips

• Buy the Sunrider a shield from the Mining Union immediately. It's worth it, even if you can't afford to upgrade it yet.
  
  
• Different units cost different amounts of energy to move.
  
  
• Lasers' accuracy drops more slowly with distance than Kinetic. This also means that if lasers just aren't cutting it for damage, or an enemy is heavily shielded, moving closer will help greatly with your Kinetic guns' chance to hit.
  
  
• Aggro. The more damage a unit does to the enemy, the more heavily the rest will focus on it. If you're planning on doing a lot of damage with one unit, make sure it's well protected, and consider upgrading its health, armor, and/or evasion. To the best of my understanding, hit chance is the next most important factor in the enemy's targeting routines, although it is possible that lack of friendly defenses also factors in. That means, by default, they're going to shoot at the Sunrider and whatever Ryders are closest, unless someone starts doing a lot of damage.
  
  
• Do every side mission. You need the money. (Note: the only mutually exclusive side missions are the very first two at Tydaria: Slavers vs. Outpost)
  
  
• The faster you complete a mission, the more Command Points (CMD) you receive as a reward. However, you also incur repair costs (subtracted from your money reward) the more health is missing from your units at the end of a battle. Consider carefully whether you want to extend the battle one or two turns, leaving one unit alive, in order to repair your units, earning more money at the expense of some loss of CMD. Generally, it is worthwhile to do so (since money is far more important than CMD, and CMD is a regenerating resource) unless you are not in control of the battlefield and would sustain more damage than you could repair.
  
  
• USE YOUR COMMAND POINTS. Battle commands can let you win a fight faster and with less damage sustained, thereby earning more money... and more CMD.
  
  
• On missions where your goal is something other than total destruction of the enemy fleet, you may earn a Surrender bonus for remaining enemy units that is worth somewhere around half of their destruction value. Kill as many things as you can before ending the mission (without taking extra damage) to maximize profit. This is true of any mission, but especially those that are objective-based. For example, it is also best to complete and escort mission as the last move in a turn, and spend the rest of your units' energy blowing things up first.
  
  
• Level 1 upgrades are cheap and plentiful. You can get more bang for your buck by spreading out your money among your units.
  
  
• Side effect of all significant Reactor upgrades: can move and still do 1 important thing, usually.
  
  
• Other very important upgrades: Shield Range on support ryders & Sunrider, Flak on EVERYONE WHO HAS FLAK, Missile Storage, Lvl 1 HP upgrade on everyone you expect to get shot at.
  
  
• Consider Accuracy upgrades on the Seraphim for dealing with enemy support Ryders .
  
  
• Location, location, location. Positioning for maximum defensive coverage is key to survival.
  
  
• Eventually, you get to pick the starting positions of all of your units.
  
  
• Missile spam is the name of the game for most of the enemies you'll encounter, making Flak one of your most important upgrades, and formation Flak coverage doubly so. Capital ships always have Flak range 2, and player-controlled Ryders always have Flak range 1.
  
  
• You can test out upgrade schemas for free in the Simulator- AKA Skirmish Mode. There's an Upgrade icon button in the starting menu there that takes you to a version of the R&D screen with unlimited funds. (These upgrades last only for the duration of the skirmish.) It's also good for devising fleet formation and new strategies, but who uses it for that? Let's see how THEY like having 16 missiles fired at them every turn.
  
  
• Consider buying fleet accessory ships for extra Flak & shield piercing, if nothing else. Cruisers are as featured in Far Port Invasion, Frigates are laser boats w/ shield debuff. (Available after Far Port)
  
  Tactics for author's specific playstyle:
  
• Overwhelming first strike
  
• Health & Evasion on Phoenix for Evasion Tanking
  
• Use Full Forward at the beginning of every battle, if possible
  
• Defensive formation, HO
  
  Roles for author's specific playstyle:
  
• Sunrider: Artillery, Missile Boat, Overwhelming First Strike
  
• Paladin: Artillery, Missile boat
  
• Seraphim: Long-range artillery
  
• Phoenix: Mop-up, Melee, Evasion Tank, Anti-Ryder
  
• Bianca: Buff/Debuff, Dragging people around the Phoenix for free attacks (Anti-Ryder)
  
• Liberty: Buff/Debuff
  
• Black Jack: Mop-up, Missile boat, Anti-ryder

Full Calculations

Process: find inflection point of cost curve w/ (reactor cost + energy cost), and you've found the cheapest way to get your result.

• A set of triple asterisks (***) indicates this location on the cost curve.
  
• Values in brackets [] indicate cumulative sums.

Seraphim

Base Reactor: 100 EN
Base gun cost: 100 EN
Awakening cost: 100 EN

Reactor
105 EN: +199
110 EN: +278 [477]
115 EN: +389 [866]
120 EN: +544 [1410]
125 EN: +761 [2171]
130 EN: +1065 [3236]
135 EN: +1491 [4727]
140 EN: +2087 [6814]
145 EN: +2921 [9735]
150 EN: +4089 [13824]

Gun
95 EN: +100
90 EN: +180
85 EN: +324
80 EN: +583
75 EN: +1049 [2236]
70 EN: +1888 [4124]
65 EN: +3398 [7522]
60 EN: +6116 [13638]
55 EN: +11008 [24646]

Fire twice in one turn
55 Gun - 110 EN: 24646 + 477 = 25,123
60 Gun - 120 EN: 13638 + 1410 = 15,048
65 Gun - 130 EN: 7522 + 3236 = 10,758***
70 Gun - 140 EN: 4124 + 6814 = 10,938
75 Gun - 150 EN: 2236 + 13824 = 16,060

Kill 2 Cruisers/turn
480 Kinetic Damage (Level 9): 3429
502 Damage: 4899 (Level 9 + 1470)
(These damage values are doubled in Awakening, allowing for full or partial one-shots of cruisers. Note that buffs do not stack in Mask of Arcadius- the strongest buff will apply.)

Phoenix

Move 3, Fire 2: 60 + 2*A EN
Move 2, Fire 3: 40 + 3*A EN
Move 3, Fire 3: 60 + 3*A EN

Base EN(A): 30

Reactor:
105: +150
110: +210
115: +294
120: +411
125: +575
130: +805
135: +1127
140: +1577

Assault:
28: +100
27: +200
25: +400
24: +800
22: +1600

Move 3, Fire 2 (60 EN to move)
105 - 2*22: 3250
110 - 2*24: 1860
110 - 2*25: 1460
115 - 2*27: 954***
120 - 2*30: 1065
125 - 2*30: 1640

Move 2, Fire 3 (40 EN to move)
110 - 3*22: 3460
115 - 3*24: 2154
115 - 3*25: 1354***
120 - 3*25: 1765
125 - 3*27: 1940
125 - 3*28: 1740

Liberty

Reactor: (w/ Repair upgrade, 2/turn at 70 EN)
105: 200
110: 280
115: 392
120: 548
125: 767
130: 1073
135: 1502
140: 2102 [6864]

Bianca

Reactor: (W/ Grav upgrade, 3 pulls/turn)
105: 200
110: 280
115: 392
120: 548 [1420]

Paladin

Reactor
105: 200
110: 280 [480]
115: 392 [872]
120: 548 [1420]
125: 767 [2187]
130: 1065 [3252]
135: 1491 [4743]
140: 2087 [6830]

Kinetic: (base 60 EN, move 40 EN)
57: 100
54: 200 [300]
51: 400 [700]
48: 800 [1500]
45: 1600 [3100]
42: 3200 [6300]

Fire twice
100R - 48K: 1500
105R - 51K: 900
110R - 54K: 780***
115R - 57K: 972
120R - 60K: 1420

Conclusion

If you found this guide useful, have ideas to improve it, or if I've missed something you feel is critical, please do let me know in the comments!

I'm just a huge fan who wants to make the game more accessible. Enjoy! :)

[froggx]

it's only natural of course, sunrider 4 rekindled interest in the series, MoA is free, and this is quite helpful for MoA. I would have benefited from this guide if I'd found it before I started since MoA is quite difficult compared to the other Sunrider games.

[disasternoj]

Big thanks to the folks leaving Awards! Glad to know my guide is still helping people almost 5 years on.

[froggx]

@disasternoj: I <3 the Vanguard. I really enjoy warping around and lining up shots too. I even put upgrades into the Bianca just so I could move Ryders around with gravity gun to line up shots with 5+ hits. When I played through on Admiral difficulty I couldn't justify doing that anymore cause the Vanguard gets nerfed down to around 600 damage so the result is about the same as trying to destroy a fire ant mound by jumping on it. It kills the weak enemies and leaves the strong ones pissed off and swarming all around. I only got to fire the Vanguard once that whole playthrough and that was in a freak situation where the planets (and 5 enemy Ryders) aligned

[disasternoj]

@froggx: You're not wrong. Going above 80% shield tends to make enemies stop using lasers. I buy the Sunrider's shield anyway because I have way too much fun warping to the side of enemy lines and wiping out half of them with the Vanguard- this leaves the Sunrider rather vulnerable to the survivors. XD

In my latest run's standard formation, this was also somewhat mitigated by the fact that I ended up with the Phoenix and the laser frigates not fully covered by shield overlap, such that the enemies fall into the trap of shooting lasers at my evasion tank.

Generally speaking, the way I play if they're close enough to use kinetics on me it means I should've been killing them with MY kinetics much sooner. Given accuracy upgrades and Full Forward, nothing survives into close range with me except occasional Ryders.

[froggx]

Playing on admirial difficulty I found shield strength made a big difference in enemy behaviour. If all your units are covered by shielding over 80%-90% enemies will stop using lasers, close in, and unload with kinetics. This sucked for my long range, heavy shield upgrading play style; it was easier to be shot by lasers with my 80% shielding than it was to take kinetic damage that ignored shields. Kinetics seem to be cheaper as well, so some enemies that could only fire lasers once per turn would be able to fire 2 kinetic rounds per turn.

If I got the shield generator for the Sunrider but didn't extend the range, giving it over ¬80% while my other units weren't, I would have instances where enemies would close in and dump kinetics into only the Sunrider. I ended up ignoring the Sunrider shield generator and upgrading Liberty and Bianca to provide 40% shields over 2 hexes so that they could cover everyone (I used the "big ball of units" combat formation because it simply works).

[⚡Judge Zed⚡]

Cool guide! To any newbies most important thing is abuse FLAK defense to not get rekt(F).

[philosoraptorgames]

I'm only a few missions in but friendly defences definitely factor into the enemy's targeting decisions. Moving outside shield range is basically dropping the soap. Not saying never do it but you need a good reason and a plan for what to do if it goes south.