EDF:IA 100% Achievement Guide

Strategies for how to gain all achievements in the easiest way possible.

Introduction

Difficulty - 2/10
Time to complete - 150-200 hours
Number of playthrus - 3 plus replay
Number of players required - 1, but more make it easier.

Campaign Walkthrough

EDF is about killing bugs in the most grindiest way imaginable. This walkthru will take you through the basics first, then best grind tips at the end. There are 4 classes that you need to level up to Tier 8. Any time you beat a heavy enemy has a chance to drop a weapon crate, the weapon dropped is random - can be for any class but is limited by level. Any “Normal” stage will drop up to level 4 weapons, any “Hard” stage will drop up to level 6 weapons, any “Inferno” stage will drop up to level 7 weapons - and includes all drops prior. Dropped weapons generally aren’t any better than weapons you unlock through levelling up your Tier, so don’t worry about this just yet, you will have to farm an Inferno stage later for them all later.

Your “Score” listed in the top left is your experience and your currency. There is a cap on about 65535 per stage, once you reach this you won’t receive any more for the level. When you win, you get 65535 points towards level-up and 65535 cash to spend on new weapons. That's all there is to it, so lets get started.

Start off with the campaign on Normal, not sure if the higher difficulties are unlocked yet but start on normal. Your two AI buddies aren’t very good at killing, but they are good at reviving. If either AI buddy or yourself die, the stop what they’re doing and prioritise reviving - which can help. On Normal difficulty, you cannot level up higher than Tier 4, after that you earn zero experience. It is a good idea to level up, but you won’t be able to grind just yet, so play around with your AI buddies (or a co-op buddy) and push through the levels.

For a starting class, I recommend going with Battle, mostly because at Tier 8 they are going to make Insane difficulty unbelievably easy, they also make a great grinding class. Progressing through story will net you a bunch of achievements. Once you beat Normal difficulty, you’ll want to level up. Best way to do this is load stage 1-1 (on Normal), equip your best Missile Launcher, detonate the first anthill, then when the next 2 anthills turn up. When this happens get as far away as you can, rubber-band your controller so it constantly attacks and go do something else for an hour and a half. When you come back, kill the anthills, kill the Hector and relish in your 65535 points. Rinse/repeat. When you get max experience, repeat the same process on 1-1 on Hard difficulty until you’re Tier 6 to give you the easiest run through. Same deal with Inferno. So much grinding, but being Tier 8 is almost required for Inferno - and best of all, you get the Genocide Gun unlocked for free.

Each class has a Genocide weapon. Its an instant kill on any enemy, has a massive blast radius and best of all, will kill you too. Wait, what? The only class that can survive the blast is the Battle class. Bring up your shield, fire the Genocide and you live. Everything dies. Easy Inferno. This is essentially the campaign done besides grinding. Following this will get you a good way though the campaign achievements, I’ll touch on Survival a little later.

Common Kill Achievements

Look What the Rookie Did! | Who Ravages the Ravagers? - Kill 5000, 25000 enemies.
Will come through natural progression.

Amateur AntKiller | Welcome to the EDF | Ant Farmer - Kill 100, 1000, 10000 ants.
Black and metal ants count towards this achievement. You will get this easily farming on your first playthrough easily as you'll be killing ants on Stage 1-1. If not, you will definitely get it in survival.

Newb | Spider Fighter - Kill 100, 10000 spiders.
Ejaculating spiders and metal spiders count towards this achievement. You can farm these from anthills, but you will easily get enough farming survival. Don't stress about this one.

Ticker Picker | Tick Tock Ya Don't Stop - Kill 100, 5000 ticks.
You will get the first one easily, the second one will come through survival if you're following this guide. Alternatively, you can clear a stage of all but a Bomber Spider and let them constantly spew out ticks that way.

Hector? What? | Hector Wrecker - Kill 10, 100 Small Hectors.
You will get 10 in one playthrough, while farming for weapons you'll pick up the rest easily. Don't stress here.

The Sting's the Thing | War Against Soaring Pests Award - Kill 10, 100 wasps.
Both yellow and metal count towards this. You'll get 10 in one playthrough, the rest will easily come when farming weapons as metal wasps are the best weapon drops.

It's a Start | Gunship Down | Fleet Depleter - Kill 100, 1000, 10000 gunships.
This one sucks ALL of the things. You'll get maybe 250 gunships throughout one campaign. As of writing this, Fleet Depleter is the last achievement I need. The best method I've found for this one is to load up Stage 3-1 on Normal with your Battle and rubber-band your controller. With a little luck, you wont kill the Carrier at the end and it will continue to spew out infinite gunships. Remove AI players as they will steal your kills and it won't count. Good luck with this one, it will be one of the last you get.

It's Bomber - Kill 10 Bomber Spiders.
There are about 8 in the campaign, you will get this easily through normal playthrough.

Mechs Master - Get 500 kills with the Mech.
You will get one of these early on in the campaign, they appear in Survival mode too but not the stage I recommend. This may be a bit of a grind, but nothing compared to the rest. Just repeat a stage with a Mech on Normal once you've levelled and this will come easily.

I Heard Them Scream - Get 500 kills with the Tank.
As with the Mech, the Tank appears in Survival but not on the stage I recommend. There is a campaign stage with a tank right at the start, repeat this one until it pops. No real tricks here.

Nothing Turret - Get 500 kills with Base Turrets.
Will easily get this in Survival, don't waste any time here.

The Architect | Demolition Derby | Collateral - Destroy 500 buildings, 500 cars, 500 world objects.
Do not waste any time here, this will easily come during normal progression. You'll laugh when they pop - "I've killed 500 already?"

Campaign Kill Achievements

Nesting Instinct | Homewrecker - Destroy 10, 100 Anthills/Spider Nests.
These are everywhere and are a blessing and a curse. Infinitely spawning ants and spiders, good for grinding but can sometimes be a pain to get in and destroy to stop the flow of enemies. You can bust them with an explosive weapon, but they'll regenerate shortly after. Need to manually detonate these with explosives. They're everywhere and this will pop with natural progression. The good news is, the Genocide Gun will completely destroy these - no manual detonation required. Very handy for Inferno playthrough.

Eyes Up! | Carrier Dropper - Destroy 10, 100 Carriers.
You will only see around 10 Carriers in a single playthrough, however the weapon grinding and gunship killing Stage 3-1 has one in it. You will need to repeat this stage more than 100 times to get those achievements, so don't go out of your way for this one.

Patricide - Kill a Daddy Long Legs.
You will meet one in the campaign, impossible to miss. Just shoot it in the red glowing circle underneath when it opens.

Manticide | Manticore - Kill 1, 10 Mantises
You will see maybe 5 in a single campaign, will collect this achievement over the course of the playthroughs. Just shoot it. Anywhere.

Hectorcide - Kill a Large Hector.
These appear in the campaign, impossble to miss. To kill it, shoot it in the chest until a red glowing circle appears, then shoot there. Shooting anywhere else won't do anything, even with a Genocide Gun.

Regicide - Kill a Queen Ant.
You will meet one in the campaign, impossible to miss. Just shoot it. Anywhere.

Lander Commander - Get 250 kills with the Lander Turret.
This is the on-rails shooter part of the game that starts with Stage 1-1. You'll probably replay this stage a lot of times levelling up your classes, so don't go out of your way for this one.

Campaign Other Achievements

Lemon Squeezy | Chopper's Choice | Infernal Master Destroyer Deluxe - Beat the game on Normal, Hard and Inferno.
Beat the campaign 3 times. Does not stack.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Incapacitate a teammate.
This can be you AI buddy, will definitely come through natural progression and is almost required for the revival achievement.

Helping Hand Award | Bedside Manner - Revive 1, 250 teammates.
The AI in campaign are ideal for this. While you can get it in Survival if you play co-op, campaign is easy especially with the Genocide Gun. I picked this up through natural play on the way through Inferno, just make sure you keep your two mates alive (and don't let them revive each other as it won't count for you).

Campaigner - Unlock all armors.
Will come through natural progression. Pick Battle first, the rest will unlock as you play.

Scavenger - Collect all dropped weapons.
This is one of your first massive grind achievements. There are a total of 107 dropped weapons, of which you probably won't use any. They appear in your weapon list with a radioactive symbol next to them (as does the weapon crate you collect them from). Weapons are completely random so you will need to grind a LOT.

The best stage I've found is Stage 3-1 Remix Mode. When the stage loads, if you get spiders and wasps, just restart the stage. If you get metal ants and gunships then you're in for a treat. Clear out the starting area of the map and when the Carrier turns up at the end, it will dispense an unlimited supply of metal wasps. These have a good chance to drop a weapon. Rubber band your controller, but keep an eye on it incase you start to lose too much health. This is where the Battle armor helps, band both triggers so he keeps his shield up. Additionally, weapon drops will disappear if left uncollected for roughly 10 minutes.

If you get tired of this stage and you have the Genocide Gun unlocked, load up Stage 3-2. Right at the start is about 4 Small Hectors, each with a good chance to drop a weapon. Nuke them with your shield up, collect the goods. If you don't get any new weapons, just quit and restart, only see it through the rest of the level if you get something new.

All Dressed Up... | Lifer - Level up 1, all armors completely.
This is another massive grindfest, thankfully each class has a decent missile launcher that you can idle on. The hardest part will be getting each one to around level 3 or 4 before they can use it then go ahead and idle Stage 1-1. Increase the difficulty as you reach the Tier cap. Very mindless.

High Roller | Daddy Warbugs - Purchase all weapons for 1, all armors.
Goes hand-in-hand with the idle levelling achievement. As you idle for 65535 experience, so does that get you 65535 cash. Some of the Tier 7 weapons are stupidly expensive. You need to expect to have to idle for around twice the amount of time required to level all classes to Tier 8. Another ridiculous achievement, thankfully it can be completely idle. Drop the difficulty down to Normal if you wish. While the experience cap is still there, you will still earn 65535 cash.

Survival Achievements

I've made a section for Survival all on its own. Survival itself is awful. Maybe its fun with a bunch of friends, but I can't see how. None of your campaign levels or weapons carry over. Everyone has a very small amount of weapons to choose from, and everyone must be the Trooper. Seems completely against everything that EDF was made for, and to top it off, it has one of the most awful achievements in the game - survive 500 waves, thankfully there is a way to help get through that one too.

Surviving | Social Dead Butterfly - Get 1000, 10000 kills in Survival mode.
These will come pretty quickly if you use the method listed below for the 500 waves. You'll get around 100-150 kills in a few waves, so these will likely pop halfway to your 500 wave goal.

Good Start - Make it through 5 Survival Mode Waves in One Session.
This is the only real tough achievement. It is possible solo, but strongly recommend jumping online to find even one other buddy to help out. Being able to revive is invaluable.

Hangin' Tough | Survive-o-Rama - Survive 100, 500 waves (total) in Survival mode.
This one will probably end up being 50 of your hours waste on this game. If you enjoy Survival, by all means, hook up with some friends and see how far you can get... but I personally find this mode to be pointless. You could play around with the handful of maps, some have different vehicles, but for 500 waves, heres the most mindless way to do it.

• Required equipment: 1x wired 360 Controller, 2x Rubber Bands.
  
• Wrap one band around the right trigger and grip so you're constantly shooting.
  
• Wrap the other band around the right stick and grip so you're constantly turning around. Try not to turn too fast and make sure you're not looking slightly up or down.
  
• Load Map 1, Cornerstone.
  
• Immediately strafe (to the best of your ability) to the left and enter the Base Turret with Y button. This is why you don't want to turn too fast.
  
• The turret will begin to spin and shoot.
  
• The first 3 waves of Cornerstone are ants, spiders and ticks. The Base Turret should be able to survive enough to complete these 3 waves in around 10 minutes.
  
• Once you reach wave 4, don't even bother, just hit Start, Restart and press X to join the map again and repeat.

Highly recommend doing this while watching TV on another screen or playing on a different game platform. While this isn't the most efficient way to get the 500 stages, it certainly is the easiest and I dare say after the first 100 waves you will be well and truly sick of this game mode. The achievement should have just been 100 and you wouldn't need these kinds of shenanigans.

[Fuhrer_51[RUS]]

What to do if some of the achievements are not taken into account by Steam? They are listed in the game menu, but they are not in steam. ._.

[ArkaiL]

if someone wants to team up for the coop achivements pls tell me!! i wanna make them while playing the mode but its imposible to go past the 4 wave alone :( pls add me and lets play!

[khalil]

i say the first mission pick a rocket launcher that detect enemies and pop start shooting but put sometihng in the left mouse button so the item is the player (: lol

[Pilou]

Hey 3-2 Busy work is the best stage for grinding as you will find 3 anthills right at the beginning there you just pick a rocket launcher and shoot from spawn into the air