Closed Casket Special

A guide on working your way through the True Psychogamer (Closed Casket Special) achievement for Brigador

GETTING STARTED

Before anything else i want to say that this guide is for those that probably have decent experience with the game. This achievement should be the capstone to playing and probably one of the last that you will attempt to get.

Closed Casket Special will be referred to as CCS from now on. It is difficult but its no worse than trying for Full Linear Solo Nobre (FLSN) or the Campaign achievements. There is one trick that can make the first half of the CCS much more bearable to get through.

CHOOSE YOUR LOADOUT

Straight to the point you are looking at this guide to try and get an edge. The first thing you want it to pick your pilot. I would always recommend The Auditor


Why? Because for the first half of the campaign no mobile enemies will spawn. This makes the initial 20 levels (Long Yard - Souto Spaceport) a cakewalk where it will be very hard to take any damage during your run. There are 2 notable exception to these levels that i will cover later.

If you dont want to simply have to walk through those levels i would pick Norman Osberger


Low difficulty is the name of the game you want to get the achievement first then you can think about doing challenge runs later.

Next the mech I completed my first run with Oxybeles a spacer mech. Equipped with a Banshee and Metronome with Active camo for support.




This is where i got the idea for the loadout if you have to time watch this madman destroy CCS:
Brigador - Closed Casket Special - All Guns, Captains and Garrisons


You don't need to use the same loadout i do but i would recommend something similar to it. A high ammo faster firing weapon for killing of most enemies that are alerted and actively coming for you.

Examples by class:
Hvy: Konig, Cheiftan
Main: Banshee, Thunderclap
Aux: Stutter, Belter, Galinha
Tur: Mae Dois, Disco
Sml: Lockdown(Low damage but disables movement on non shielded targets) , Bonesaw

Your other weapon should be a larger heavy hitting weapon that is capable to putting down even the largest targets on 1 or 2 shots, or causing massive AoE that can clear large groups of enemies with a single shot.

Examples by class:
Hvy: Everything in this class will do one or the other, personally I like the Harvester.
Main: Abbot, Zeus
Aux: Metronome, Preacher, Jericho
Tur: Scimitar, Gutterball
Sml: Faker, Pinch(acts like an EMP and stuns)

NOTABLE LEVELS

I will now list out a couple of levels that may be blocks to your progress. This is not a comprehensive guide to all the levels just some that I found to be more difficult than others.(Usually meaning that I died there during a run.)

If you took my advice to use The Auditor then this is something to be aware of during the first 20 levels of the game. Specifically on West End Slums and Nobre Dunes Gated Community. On both these levels there are static defense turrets. They are not very dangerous to you but you should be aware that they are there and can cause unnecessary damage.

Nobre Dunes guns 1 & 2
West End Slums guns


The West End Slums guns are far more dangerous as there are 4 of them all lined up together. The easy way to deal with them is to hit any of the fuel lines or the orbital guns that are positioned behind them.

FLY BLACKBIRD
This is the first level that is not effected by The Auditor, enemies will spawn as normal from this point on.

GLORY BOX

Immediately move up behind those houses and kill the 2 tanks lined up there preferably with a stomp. Then go back to the start and kill anything that comes from the other side of the start zone and rotate around the map counter clockwise(down and left) from the start killing as you go. Be very careful with aggro as you will be very quickly overwhelmed.

INCH OF DUST


Move up and left following the map border. From there simply snipe anything that comes into your vision range and use the large border area around the map to retreat and re-position if needed. Here you have a lot of open area to move but you can similarly be run down by larger numbers of fast enemies so be wary of how many you aggro at once.

FOUND GHOST


Move down slightly to get in range of the 3 Arlo hovercraft and kill them all at once or in quick succession depending on your weapon loadout. Then using the marked treeline in the right image as cover, snipe at any encroaching enemies that move forward to investigate. If things start to get too hot disengage and move up and through the pipelines in the left image. Make sure to prioritize any of the alarm walkers that come into range first.

WEIGH ME DOWN


Here you need to move forward enough to lob a shell into the center and try to kill a few enemies with that then immediately move down and right killing the one drone next to the ammo tower and continuing to move away from your starting position as quickly as possible. There are over 30 enemies on the map and they will very quickly be on top of you due to the maps small size if you stay in one spot too long.

My suggestion is to unlock these maps and play them with your preferred loadout a couple times in freelance before trying a CCS run and potentially dying 30+ levels into a run.

BRIGADOR FOR DUMMIES

This section of the guide is something that should be common sense for the experienced player. However there are a number of little ways that you can change your gameplay habits that will make it much easier to get through CCS.

Avoid Fuel lines, Fuel Storage, and Gas Stations.




















Simply because they can explode dealing heavy damage or killing you.Even shooting them from a distance is sometimes counter productive. If there is a large enemy or several crowded around one of these go for it. If not its best to stay away and leave them be as the explosions will often draw a lot of attention that you might not be ready for.


Be careful around Orbital Guns and Ammo Towers.


They are similarly explosive and should be avoided.
Ammo towers are also very important lifeblood for the brigador when you have downtime make sure to know where ammo towers are on the map and resupply or top off your ammo whenever you can before you leave the mission.

Dropped ammo can save your life.


When you can try to pick up ammo from enemy wrecks. That little bit can be the difference between running dry on one or both weapons or having enough to get to an ammo tower and finishing the mission. CCS is a marathon, keeping yourself topped up on ammo will make progression that much better.

Beware special terrain.


As shown above there is muddy terrain, this will slow down tanks, and mechs. It does not do anything to hovering vehicles. Train tracks work similarly to this and will slow down any non hover vehicle that travels on them.

Learn how to perform a running artillery shot.


Artillery as shown above has a pretty short range right? WRONG!

Artillery shells can fly way farther than you think all it takes is a bit of movement and you can see the firing arc of the shell moving offscreen to hit a target that you can't even see.


Why is this important? Brigador is all about picking your fights and engaging in combat on your terms. Make the enemies cluster up around a shot you fired halfway across the map then fire again at that same spot to kill all of them too. The other benefit of this is if you are firing from far enough away you tend to aggro far fewer or even none of the other enemies on the map.

You can kill yourself with your own weapons.


With some weapons firing at extreme close range can get you killed. If the weapon you are using has AoE damage listed in the notes try not to fire near where you can be splashed by it. As shown above another danger is artillery on shorter vehicles, beware of firing arcs when under elevated rail lines, tall walls, and tall buildings. The shell will arm and explode immediately if it hits most things stronger than a tree or some of the large residential houses.

Special weapons are amazing.

All three of the special weapons, active camo, smoke screen, and EMP grenade are great.
What about audio kinetic pulse? Its fun and has its uses but for the way that you will want to play when doing a CCS run its kind of useless. You have to be extremely close to use it(risking taking a lot of damage when you dont want to) and if you are using it as a close range GET AWAY FROM ME! weapon you are probably already in deep trouble anyway.

The other 3 specials are much better active camo > smoke screen > EMP.

ACTIVE CAMO - Is great for how it allows you to simply hit an button and run away with little to no penalty most of the time. Be careful though as you are not invincible and can still be attacked if someone is close enough to melee you.

SMOKE SCREEN - Works as a wall only you can see through and can get you a lot of free kills because enemies will react to being shot through a smokescreen but will not shoot back. This is because they don't have line of sight to shoot back at you.

EMP GRENADE - Is kind of a weaker version of active camo, it allows you to shut down enemies and completely disables them but only in a limited range. It truly shines though against enemies with shielding as it allows all damage to bypass straight to their health.

OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS

CCS is a marathon, it will probably take around 2 hours to complete the whole thing.
So here are some tips to keep yourself from spending too long on an already long freelance run.

Choose a loadout that is a good all rounder.
It needs to be able to take damage and deal damage, going for the smaller mechs and vehicles may seem tempting but they lack the staying power of the medium and large variants that have much larger shield and health pools.

Bigger is not always better.
This is mainly to keep from choosing only the biggest and "strongest" mechs and vehicles. They can take more hits but sometimes trading speed for larger health/shield pool is worth it.

Be a coward.
Simply put fight when you need to but the second you think you are going to get overwhelmed RUN. Keeping yourself alive is more important than anything else.

Abuse the AI.
Enemy units will not hesitate to run you down and kill you but only if they can actually get to you. They can destroy terrain with weapons fire but they will never try to break through walls when they dont have a visual lock on your Brigador. Even then they can't run through heavy walls and terrain like you do. There are choke points and numerous kill boxes that you can set up to lure enemies in single file and mow them down one by one.

Learn to disengage.
Using you special weapon to go offensive works pretty well, using your special weapon as a get out of jail free card is way better. Try to save your active camo and EMP grenade to shut down attacking enemies and run away. Smoke screen can do this to a lesser degree but its more of a hold your ground and kill anything stupid enough to come at you. Sadly audio kinetic pulse doesn't really fit in here, it can work but if you're going for the CCS achievement I would say don't use it.

Take your time.
There is no time limit to complete the missions so don't feel any pressure to finish them quickly.

Find your exit.
In every level there are numerous objectives. You only need to complete one of them then you can leave. Don't bother wasting time going for comms, substations, ammo, or other objectives when you dont have to. Do the minimum and get out.

Prepare to die.
You may beat this on the first try. If so, CONGRATS! More likely you will take more than one try to finish this. (I beat it after 5 tries.)

Use The Auditor.
I said this at the start of the guide and ill say it again here. Use The Auditor as your pilot. That way you can coast through the first 20 missions of the CCS with little to no difficulty.

Have fun.
I hope you enjoy the guide and if you need help be sure to ask.

[Yuri]

I tried what jameson said below. I somehow dismissed Mother's Love before as a novelty/meme without really trying it, but Full Linear Solo Nobre, Campaign Run and Close Casket Special all become pretty much a cake walk with it.

[Jameson]

The new method is select Auditor, Mother's Love, Dual Konigs, and EMP and don't forget Campaign still has spawns (which will still be negligible for you)

[ZeroAffex]

Nice guide, thank you!