Highest DPS Weapon setup

This is the highest DPS setup in the game possible

DPS

Here's a brief table of the best weapons, and their damage per second PER SLOT (DPSPS)

- in other words, if the weapon takes up 3 slots, then its dmg is divided by 3 so that u can easily compare it with having, say, three one-slotted weapons:

Fiesta Muerta: 88.76
Hole Puncher: 78.26 (+ splash)
Sod Off: 75.42
Faster Blaster: 56.33
Topiary Trimmer: 55.55
Spud Slinger: 56 (+ splash)
Duke: 51.42 (+ splash)
Massive Magnet Launcher: ~45 (+ cluster/splash)
Perforator: 38.12 (up to 114.36 with pierce)
Hyper Sniper: 39.5
Spurt Rifle: 37.74
Albert: 33.96 (up to 169.8 with pierce+)
Boomerang: 22.72 (up to 35.71 with quickload)
Ripper: 15.62 (1.6 Scrap per Second)

Piercing effects on weapons are very good, because of the incredible urgency to kill Jakobs as fast as possible when they spawn. Being able to shoot through a foe to hit the Jakob behind it is INVALUABLE.

Piercing sniper turrets are absolutely the best turret in any survival mission.

The highest possible DPS trench setup is an assault trench with six Muerte Fiesta Numero 6's. You can get a Muerte by beating Wave 5 of Settlement Survival. This shotgun is also glitched (blessed?) because although the hottip says it has 75 range, it's actually 200.
This is far enough to hit the volt dropper with a full clip on every survival map (if you know where to stand).

The best DPS per slot sniper rifle is BARELY the L4-2Y “Hyper” Sniper, but in all situations you'll want to choose the Albert--because the DPS is nearly identical, and the piercing is incredible. When the Albert pierces 3 or more times, it's the highest DPSPS weapon in the game. You can also pierce through walls, objects, and terrain.

The best DPS per slot explosive weapon is the Hole puncher, and one or two of these can be a good choice.

The best machine gun is the Perforators since the dmg gets doubled or tripled when it pierces. Although these are lazy alternatives to the Alberts and Muertes at best.

Under no circumstances ever is the boomerang a good weapon to bring. I hope I don't need to explain why.

EDIT: Someone asked me to explain why the boomerang is a terrible weapon. Two boomerangs with quickload will do total 71.42 dps. Which means you're an assault trench. And you're not even doing as much damage as an engineer trench with ONE SINGLE Muerte Fiesta Numero 6.

The only 5 weapons you'll ever want to bring are the Muerte Fiesta Numera 6, the Hole Puncher, the Albert Sniper, the Perforaters, and the Rippers.

People have literally beaten every survival map with every base at 100% still. If someone wants, I'll put the youtube video links at the end of the guide.

Scrap Generation

The absolute best scrap generation weapon that can be carried on a mech is the Ripper. 6 rippers will generate more scrap than any other weapon setup on your mech. The Razor of the Gods weapon is glitched and generates a fraction of the scrap that it's supposed to, and for this reason, they should never be used. And no, they aren't "scrap generating on air units only". They simply don't work.

Useful Links

BONUS: HERE IS A 100% UNOFFICIAL LOOT LOCATIONS LIST: https://forums.doublefine.com/topic/4288-100-unofficial-loot-list-and-locations/

The Muerte's are also great, because even though they appear to be a slow-moving bullet, the accuracy is actually perfect. You can aim exactly at your target and hit it, even though the animation completely shows the bullet missing.

A great proof of this is here at the 2:20 mark: https://youtu.be/U2jAvp_HZCY?t=141

The team that beat settlement survival wave with 100% base health was using the following 4 mechs:
Karlsson - 4 Rippers, 2 Muerte Fiestas with SSMG Turret (Super Shredder Machine Gun Turret) / Repair Crane
CraneSelker - 2 Fiestas with Massive Mines Turret / PST (Piercing Sniper Turret) / SSMG Turret/and some other green
Karlsson - 6 Fiestas with Archie Turrets/Collectors
Honeychurch - 2 Fiestas with SSMG Turret/Dampeners/PST/Collectors

[TheMrGrokas]

Still looking at this in 2025. Man I wish they remastered this game so that playing with more than 2 or 3 people would be more stable. Great list here, and good commentary below.

[Zunkin]

Jehr, you mentioned playing with Julica Knight? If she is the person I am thinking of she is one of the true OGs from back when the game was still called Trenched on the Xbox arcade. She was usually up for experimenting. I remember she helped me test out and and break the game with explosive barrel generators during an early survival swamp run. It turns out it will hard crash the game if chain too many barrel explosions together, or at least it used to. It would be a beautiful thing if they patched that bug.

I'm not certain if they are the same person, but a top female Iron Brigade player with Knight in her name is an awful lot of coincidences. Did you play back in the early Xbox days? If so we may have crossed paths.

[Zunkin]

Just as pierce can greatly increase situational DPS, there are other weapon abilities that are even more effective in this regard. When it comes to total DPS I don't think any of your picks take the top spot if situational abilities are taken into account. On something like a hospital survival run where huge numbers of enemies pour onto the map at the same time, I doubt there is anything that can top Mr. Pancakes in total DPS. The MRV+ coupled with magnet+ effect they have along with explosive splash damage will often result in single well placed shots causing thousands of damage.

[Chaos Uncensored]

Thats what i am trying to figure out, would love to play some survival with peeps but no one ever joins.

[BoneHead62794]

anybody still playing?

[jehr]

Me and a buddy beat Settlement without sniper turrets. He backed out in the 70's when base health was really bad and I rode it out. It was a 2 person job, so he still gets credit as my wingman. R.I.P. Bill. Bill, aka 'Toxic', demanded to bring lasers because he got sick of running from cathies. We spent a good 6 months refining the strategy and testing build patterns. Anyone who considers a laser a sniper doesn't understand the math of this game. I was the first to beat swamp without snipers (selker I, super shredder mg's, massive mines, dampener, lt. archie turret and 2 fiestas). Back in the day, it was about who could beat what the hardest way possible for bragging rights and proof of skill.

[Taolan]

Dear Gods.

Settlement at 100% base health?!?

Madness!

[Jyunip3r]

for those playing this in 2022 (madlads), here's a link to the loot list forum post on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190610013549/https://forums.doublefine.com/topic/4288-100-unofficial-loot-list-and-locations/

[jehr]

Red Phoenix, Julica Knight, Baddest Ever and a 4th I didn't know is the settlement 100% base health team, if I remember correctly. Baddest Ever always ran Karl with 6 fiestas. One time Julica, me and a 3rd I don't remember died on wave 99 on swamp. My skill level came a long way since then.

[Typhoonoftempest]

I'm sad that Mr Pancake or the Hedge Trimmer don't come anywhere near here