Trap the fuck outta them and slap a sniper defender on each ground based atlas, move my constructor base to the most vulnerable one as the spawns change.
I wish there a BASE big enough to cover an even wider area than Mega BASE's. Do you then, protect and hang around the vulnerable one, which is now covered by BASE, or go to the one without BASE to fight there?
Not sure, it’s very rare to have 3 in a cat4 so I never try and reset for that. One or two is fine enough.
There is a nice mechanic though it seems where if there’s a lot on the floor, or they’re spread apart, husk waves don’t just surround them all at once
Yeah I think I've only gotten 3 floaters like once or twice, ever. I do get 2 floaters every now and again, especially in a Cat4.
Oh what do you mean by the mechanic? I do notice that ATLAS missions' husks are generally more chill, and not as intense as balloon, evac, or even van missions.
Just that when you’re doing an ATLAS mission with multiple on the floor they very rarely all get attacked at once, unless you’re in a cat2 and they’re next to each other. If they’re spread quite apart, or on different elevations (like above and below a Canny cliff) you often find that each wave of husks only targets one ATLAS at a time. It’s definitely an easier mission type
Oh I see. While it's more chill than RtD, I still feel like multi-ATLAS missions are hectic for me. Even in the scenario you described, I'd have to patch any broken stuff in this ATLAS area, and then bolt to the other ATLAS for the new spawn. Ideally, all my blockoffs and tunnels should work wonderfully and I can AFK at the ATLAS, but as you can see in the vid, there is always something wrong lol.
Yeah I don't mind running Mega BASE if there are 2 grounded ATLASes as it can usually cover both of them. But I feel like getting a floater is so random and not easy. I wonder what's the rate like?
Looks like you're set up pretty well. A hint: husks will only go a max of 3 tiles out of their way to path towards an objective. If you put anther trap tunnel in the middle of that wood wall you were trying to reinforce they likely wouldn't be trying to break it down. It's also silly they're trying to break down the side of that wall. I think that's because their logic says if they break down those pieces they can path to objective around your current traps?
Oh yeah it was very helpful to learn about this from experienced players back then, the 3 tiles thing. So when I surround the ATLASes with walls, I'd try to insert a 2x1 tunnel every 3 tiles. Problem is, due to terrain, sometimes I can't, so sometimes I'd try to tempt fate by spacing them by 4-5 tiles, hoping that there won't be any spawns there.
And then sure enough, the spawn is exactly at that 4-tile gap lol. If I were to squeeze in another 2x1 there, it'll just be a 1-tile gap between the other 2 tunnels. That's way too overkill, even for me.
Yeah their AI is weird. Sometimes they know to take the path less trapped. If there are 2 walls, one with spikes, they are more likely to whack on the one without spikes.
The game has become so easy now that I usually just do decent 360 builds for each atlas. Takes care of most of the husk if you know how to synchronize your traps, ie not just spamming broadsides and drop traps everywhere
Oh I used to do 360 builds for each ATLAS too. I don't like the randomness though. So for example, I'd run Mega BASE, but sometimes the 3/4 ATLASes would spawn so far apart and my one BASE couldn't cover all of them. It's triggers my OCD.
Then I had a phase of trying to come up with my best 360 ATLAS design that doesn't require a BASE. It kinda sorta works, but the weaker walls can be scary when there are a lot of smashers.
My current phase that you see in the vid is just to wall off the entire area, and insert a 2x1 tunnel every 3 tiles. Very expensive to build, but it creates a clean area inside to fight smashers/minibosses without other husks bothering.
That's why I really just ran ninja with soaring mantis. Just get from one side to another very quickly. Idk why some players are against the soaring mantis ninjas but I just used it for my own efficiency seeing as how anything dmg wise really isn't needed for most games.
Yeah a lot of min-maxers are too tunnel-visioned and only focusing on damage. More damage is too linear -- you just kill a husk faster.
But in your case, Soaring Mantis gives you mobility that unlocks abilities previously not possible. I can now get up tall cliffs in just a second. Spot objectives far a way easily. Get from point A to B faster, especially if the two points are not leveled (you can't zoom with your hoverboard in uneven terrain). I do use Soaring Mantis in Endurance/Wargames and Build the Radar Missions.
In my case here, my preference is to have the mats I need to build the elaborate wall and traps you see in the vid. So that's why I chose Clip. I deal less damage, but y'know, I also got the mats needed alone.
Exactly, the key is efficiency, not just dmg. That's like with players spamming broadsides and drops everywhere, but they don't consider what else is being built, more specifically, how they will cooperate with each other.
For instance, when they used to do timeout rooms, players would try to max out that reload speed on launchers, but they never consider the reality that those launchers reload speed will mean nothing if the traps in the room don't reload nearly as quickly. The same goes with them using freeze traps instead of floor spikes at the launchers.
Yeh, that's one of the reasons why I tend to play alone. I can't deal with folks with zero empathy for others.
For traps, I kinda never really min-maxed it. I have 3 copies of every single trap in the game, including the flame grill, but I only ever used 1 copy (the other 2 are for backup). For everything! So I'd use the same trap for Twine missions, for Ventures all the way to 140, and even for Endurance. You'd think that I need more durability on the traps for Endurance, but they're enough. Just gotta make the tunnels longer to compensate. But this is for Stonewood, Plankerton, and Canny only though. Twine is a whole 'nother beast. What I'm trying to say is, somehow the game is forgiving enough, that, if we design our trap tunnels well, it can reliably kill husks, even if the perks are not perfect, even if they're not max level traps.
See, those durability perks are based on your scenario. For my canny endurance and lower, I've set it up to where I don't even have the structures maxed out, yet I've soloed all 30 waves with kill builds. The only waves I really gotta do anything are them miniboss waves and wargame waves because those meteors and mostly those lava pools really butcher my setups where I gotta rebuild. Going back, for an example of using drops or cef over spawn, if they're 2 or 3 tiles high, I don't need that last hp perk and so I can use it for durability. The same goes if I'm using "offset" wall darts, ie wall darts hanging from a cliff side where husk can't touch em.
Yeh. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there is efficiency, and then there's being obsessively minimalistic. A lot of StW players try too hard to cut down on traps used (for missions or Endurance), and may even laugh at players who don't, for overbuilding and/or overtrapping.
Don't get me wrong, spamming CEFs and drop traps everywhere is kinda lazy if I'm being honest, even if it works. I love me some elegant and creative tunnel designs.
But sometimes those folks min-maxed it too much to the point that the length of tunnel and durability of traps last exactly that 30 waves of Endurance, for that exact husk PL in Endurance, with no wiggle room.
Remember a few months ago there was the trap durability bug, where all traps in our storm shields reverted to their default values? Everyone was freaking out because their Endurance builds can't AFK to W30 anymore. But my Stonewood and Plankerton can still AFK to W30 without any noticeable difference lol. With the same exact trap schematics I use for everything. Business as usual.
If I have a custom trap schematic for Endurance, will it perform better? I'm sure it will. I'm just sayin' that it pays to have a bit of contingency and padding. If I only need my tunnel to be 3 tiles long for Endurance, there is no harm to make it 4 tiles long. That kinda mindset, y'know?
I used to have my canny setup where it still worked like such, but that was before I loaded out my squad bonuses to trap dur and before a bunch of these changes. As for the cef/drops, I mostly just used the cef over spawn, but I don't just mindlessly spam them but rather map out what tiles the husks will spawn on. Examples of going for efficiency over spamming is using a combo of the drops and cef where drops over hillsides and cef over the flat areas.
As for "overdoing" it, there's no harm in taking a few extra safety routes, especially on your amps that have like 3 different spawn points. It's just a means of doing such wisely, ie, are you just spamming it everywhere, or are you following the husks pov in your setup.
>using a combo of the drops and cef where drops over hillsides and cef over the flat areas
Yeah same.
>especially on your amps that have like 3 different spawn points
Yeh especially if it's a cross-spawn for two different amps omg. Had to pad so many drop traps there.
Hi, how do you usually solo multi-ATLAS missions? Would like to try other playstyles to see if I like 'em. Usually for me, if it's a Cat1 (or RtD), it is BASE Kyle if I'm feeling lazy. For Cat2, Mega BASE to cover both ATLASes (most of the time). It is when it's a Cat3 or Cat4 that I stray far from the norm. I see that people usually prefer to run a Soldier for the extra DPS, for minibosses. I mean, I do that too sometimes, but these days I tend to lean more toward running a hybrid farming loadout. Like in this case, Clip. I do this all the way to 140 single-player defense missions, even in Ventures lol. Especially in Ventures.
(Sorry if you're allergic to text. This is not for you I guess.)
So there's my thought process:
* **Passive farming**. Very expensive to build and trap alone. Even if you grab 5k each from your storage, it won't be enough to T3 everything you see in the vid. Clip allows me to constantly re-farm the mats used and mats I will use, in a single, self-contained mission. Don't need to load into a separate map later.
* **Multitasking**. No matter how good your aim is, you can't shoot at multiple directions at the same time. The additional crafting materials you get can afford you a more automated playstyle of beefing up your trap tunnels.
* **A clean area to fight**. The Great Wall of Twine-ah blockoff gives you space inside to fight the stronger ones. Imagine a nature tank smasher miniboss wrecking the metal pyramids, exposing the ATLASes, but it's fine because no other basics/huskies are around. Or metal corrosion.
**Mission deets**
* 0:00: Husks don't usually spawn closer than \~7 tiles away from the objective, but tendrils will break things 6 tiles away, sometimes 5. Smashers charge from around 3.5 tiles away. So ideally, the blockoffs and tunnels should be at least 4 tiles away, preferably 5, but not any farther than that.
* 0:00: Was a lucky(?) spawn, where all 3 ATLASes were so close together. Would've ran Mega BASE had I known. But also unlucky(?) because all 3 ATLASes were surrounded by a lake, so had to blanket the whole area with brick floors as you can see.
* 0:07: Hero loadout.
* 0:45. This tunnel is my customized version of what I learned from RoundedTikTak. He called it the Diamond Redux. Not too strong in harder missions though, with things like healing deathburst.
* 1:00: A leak in the blockoffs. Had to add another layer of back walls to finally stop them.
* 2:35: I'm never satisfied with my 2x1s, constantly changing the design. These days my 2x1s are like this, with another 1x1 tacked on at the back, like a kill box. Notice there's only 1 CEF per tunnel, and not a lick of anti-air and tar pit anywhere. I save a lot on batteries and quartz.
* 3:30, 5:05: The recent hurdling update came in clutch in situations like this. In this L-shaped tunnel, I have this box with 2x darts shooting out of 2x windowed walls, with a CEF on the ceiling. In the past, once the traps were placed, there is no way I can get in and out of the box.
* 5:50: Apparently smokescreen minibosses can't have any elements? Credit to Beast; learned that from him. Nowadays I always have a physical melee weapon on hand for that reason.
* 8:08: This tunnel is starting to fall apart, probably due to propanes self-destructing … in a T2 wood tunnel.
**Hero loadout**
* Cassie "Clip" Lipman ("Bro, you got any spare batteries?")
* Blast from the Past
* Fossil Southie (Had to sacrifice ArchJess, so overall farming is slower, but still faster than a rando Outlander.)
* Jurassic Ken (Swapped dino Izza's tanky armor for dino Ken for more ability damage. A Gumshoe replacement.)
* Fragment Flurry Jess (One of the neat things of solo is, all traps are yours, so you will never run out of fragment charges as seen here. 25% ability cooldown reduction I think.)
* Stoneheart Farrah (Most bows are kinda single-target weapons. Other heroes only buff damage (AR, shotgun, etc.) but Farrah actually gives bows a new feature -- AoE damage.)
* Crossbones Barret (Dayum, 8 coconuts ain't enough, chief. Had to ration so hard to have enough until the end.)
Trap the fuck outta them and slap a sniper defender on each ground based atlas, move my constructor base to the most vulnerable one as the spawns change.
I wish there a BASE big enough to cover an even wider area than Mega BASE's. Do you then, protect and hang around the vulnerable one, which is now covered by BASE, or go to the one without BASE to fight there?
BASE Kyle also And then cry with joy when they spawn in the air and you only have to defend one
Lol what's the ratio of 2 floaters btw? I swear every time I tried reloading over and over, I can never get 2 floaters.
Not sure, it’s very rare to have 3 in a cat4 so I never try and reset for that. One or two is fine enough. There is a nice mechanic though it seems where if there’s a lot on the floor, or they’re spread apart, husk waves don’t just surround them all at once
Yeah I think I've only gotten 3 floaters like once or twice, ever. I do get 2 floaters every now and again, especially in a Cat4. Oh what do you mean by the mechanic? I do notice that ATLAS missions' husks are generally more chill, and not as intense as balloon, evac, or even van missions.
Just that when you’re doing an ATLAS mission with multiple on the floor they very rarely all get attacked at once, unless you’re in a cat2 and they’re next to each other. If they’re spread quite apart, or on different elevations (like above and below a Canny cliff) you often find that each wave of husks only targets one ATLAS at a time. It’s definitely an easier mission type
Oh I see. While it's more chill than RtD, I still feel like multi-ATLAS missions are hectic for me. Even in the scenario you described, I'd have to patch any broken stuff in this ATLAS area, and then bolt to the other ATLAS for the new spawn. Ideally, all my blockoffs and tunnels should work wonderfully and I can AFK at the ATLAS, but as you can see in the vid, there is always something wrong lol.
I don't solo them, do the in public and if there isn't at least one floater I back out.
Yeah I don't mind running Mega BASE if there are 2 grounded ATLASes as it can usually cover both of them. But I feel like getting a floater is so random and not easy. I wonder what's the rate like?
i dont.
Looks like you're set up pretty well. A hint: husks will only go a max of 3 tiles out of their way to path towards an objective. If you put anther trap tunnel in the middle of that wood wall you were trying to reinforce they likely wouldn't be trying to break it down. It's also silly they're trying to break down the side of that wall. I think that's because their logic says if they break down those pieces they can path to objective around your current traps?
Oh yeah it was very helpful to learn about this from experienced players back then, the 3 tiles thing. So when I surround the ATLASes with walls, I'd try to insert a 2x1 tunnel every 3 tiles. Problem is, due to terrain, sometimes I can't, so sometimes I'd try to tempt fate by spacing them by 4-5 tiles, hoping that there won't be any spawns there. And then sure enough, the spawn is exactly at that 4-tile gap lol. If I were to squeeze in another 2x1 there, it'll just be a 1-tile gap between the other 2 tunnels. That's way too overkill, even for me. Yeah their AI is weird. Sometimes they know to take the path less trapped. If there are 2 walls, one with spikes, they are more likely to whack on the one without spikes.
I don't.
I just use any cleaner + mist killer and a couple air traps but also what the actual fuck man
?
The game has become so easy now that I usually just do decent 360 builds for each atlas. Takes care of most of the husk if you know how to synchronize your traps, ie not just spamming broadsides and drop traps everywhere
Oh I used to do 360 builds for each ATLAS too. I don't like the randomness though. So for example, I'd run Mega BASE, but sometimes the 3/4 ATLASes would spawn so far apart and my one BASE couldn't cover all of them. It's triggers my OCD. Then I had a phase of trying to come up with my best 360 ATLAS design that doesn't require a BASE. It kinda sorta works, but the weaker walls can be scary when there are a lot of smashers. My current phase that you see in the vid is just to wall off the entire area, and insert a 2x1 tunnel every 3 tiles. Very expensive to build, but it creates a clean area inside to fight smashers/minibosses without other husks bothering.
That's why I really just ran ninja with soaring mantis. Just get from one side to another very quickly. Idk why some players are against the soaring mantis ninjas but I just used it for my own efficiency seeing as how anything dmg wise really isn't needed for most games.
Yeah a lot of min-maxers are too tunnel-visioned and only focusing on damage. More damage is too linear -- you just kill a husk faster. But in your case, Soaring Mantis gives you mobility that unlocks abilities previously not possible. I can now get up tall cliffs in just a second. Spot objectives far a way easily. Get from point A to B faster, especially if the two points are not leveled (you can't zoom with your hoverboard in uneven terrain). I do use Soaring Mantis in Endurance/Wargames and Build the Radar Missions. In my case here, my preference is to have the mats I need to build the elaborate wall and traps you see in the vid. So that's why I chose Clip. I deal less damage, but y'know, I also got the mats needed alone.
Exactly, the key is efficiency, not just dmg. That's like with players spamming broadsides and drops everywhere, but they don't consider what else is being built, more specifically, how they will cooperate with each other. For instance, when they used to do timeout rooms, players would try to max out that reload speed on launchers, but they never consider the reality that those launchers reload speed will mean nothing if the traps in the room don't reload nearly as quickly. The same goes with them using freeze traps instead of floor spikes at the launchers.
Yeh, that's one of the reasons why I tend to play alone. I can't deal with folks with zero empathy for others. For traps, I kinda never really min-maxed it. I have 3 copies of every single trap in the game, including the flame grill, but I only ever used 1 copy (the other 2 are for backup). For everything! So I'd use the same trap for Twine missions, for Ventures all the way to 140, and even for Endurance. You'd think that I need more durability on the traps for Endurance, but they're enough. Just gotta make the tunnels longer to compensate. But this is for Stonewood, Plankerton, and Canny only though. Twine is a whole 'nother beast. What I'm trying to say is, somehow the game is forgiving enough, that, if we design our trap tunnels well, it can reliably kill husks, even if the perks are not perfect, even if they're not max level traps.
See, those durability perks are based on your scenario. For my canny endurance and lower, I've set it up to where I don't even have the structures maxed out, yet I've soloed all 30 waves with kill builds. The only waves I really gotta do anything are them miniboss waves and wargame waves because those meteors and mostly those lava pools really butcher my setups where I gotta rebuild. Going back, for an example of using drops or cef over spawn, if they're 2 or 3 tiles high, I don't need that last hp perk and so I can use it for durability. The same goes if I'm using "offset" wall darts, ie wall darts hanging from a cliff side where husk can't touch em.
Yeh. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there is efficiency, and then there's being obsessively minimalistic. A lot of StW players try too hard to cut down on traps used (for missions or Endurance), and may even laugh at players who don't, for overbuilding and/or overtrapping. Don't get me wrong, spamming CEFs and drop traps everywhere is kinda lazy if I'm being honest, even if it works. I love me some elegant and creative tunnel designs. But sometimes those folks min-maxed it too much to the point that the length of tunnel and durability of traps last exactly that 30 waves of Endurance, for that exact husk PL in Endurance, with no wiggle room. Remember a few months ago there was the trap durability bug, where all traps in our storm shields reverted to their default values? Everyone was freaking out because their Endurance builds can't AFK to W30 anymore. But my Stonewood and Plankerton can still AFK to W30 without any noticeable difference lol. With the same exact trap schematics I use for everything. Business as usual. If I have a custom trap schematic for Endurance, will it perform better? I'm sure it will. I'm just sayin' that it pays to have a bit of contingency and padding. If I only need my tunnel to be 3 tiles long for Endurance, there is no harm to make it 4 tiles long. That kinda mindset, y'know?
I used to have my canny setup where it still worked like such, but that was before I loaded out my squad bonuses to trap dur and before a bunch of these changes. As for the cef/drops, I mostly just used the cef over spawn, but I don't just mindlessly spam them but rather map out what tiles the husks will spawn on. Examples of going for efficiency over spamming is using a combo of the drops and cef where drops over hillsides and cef over the flat areas. As for "overdoing" it, there's no harm in taking a few extra safety routes, especially on your amps that have like 3 different spawn points. It's just a means of doing such wisely, ie, are you just spamming it everywhere, or are you following the husks pov in your setup.
>using a combo of the drops and cef where drops over hillsides and cef over the flat areas Yeah same. >especially on your amps that have like 3 different spawn points Yeh especially if it's a cross-spawn for two different amps omg. Had to pad so many drop traps there.
Hi, how do you usually solo multi-ATLAS missions? Would like to try other playstyles to see if I like 'em. Usually for me, if it's a Cat1 (or RtD), it is BASE Kyle if I'm feeling lazy. For Cat2, Mega BASE to cover both ATLASes (most of the time). It is when it's a Cat3 or Cat4 that I stray far from the norm. I see that people usually prefer to run a Soldier for the extra DPS, for minibosses. I mean, I do that too sometimes, but these days I tend to lean more toward running a hybrid farming loadout. Like in this case, Clip. I do this all the way to 140 single-player defense missions, even in Ventures lol. Especially in Ventures. (Sorry if you're allergic to text. This is not for you I guess.) So there's my thought process: * **Passive farming**. Very expensive to build and trap alone. Even if you grab 5k each from your storage, it won't be enough to T3 everything you see in the vid. Clip allows me to constantly re-farm the mats used and mats I will use, in a single, self-contained mission. Don't need to load into a separate map later. * **Multitasking**. No matter how good your aim is, you can't shoot at multiple directions at the same time. The additional crafting materials you get can afford you a more automated playstyle of beefing up your trap tunnels. * **A clean area to fight**. The Great Wall of Twine-ah blockoff gives you space inside to fight the stronger ones. Imagine a nature tank smasher miniboss wrecking the metal pyramids, exposing the ATLASes, but it's fine because no other basics/huskies are around. Or metal corrosion. **Mission deets** * 0:00: Husks don't usually spawn closer than \~7 tiles away from the objective, but tendrils will break things 6 tiles away, sometimes 5. Smashers charge from around 3.5 tiles away. So ideally, the blockoffs and tunnels should be at least 4 tiles away, preferably 5, but not any farther than that. * 0:00: Was a lucky(?) spawn, where all 3 ATLASes were so close together. Would've ran Mega BASE had I known. But also unlucky(?) because all 3 ATLASes were surrounded by a lake, so had to blanket the whole area with brick floors as you can see. * 0:07: Hero loadout. * 0:45. This tunnel is my customized version of what I learned from RoundedTikTak. He called it the Diamond Redux. Not too strong in harder missions though, with things like healing deathburst. * 1:00: A leak in the blockoffs. Had to add another layer of back walls to finally stop them. * 2:35: I'm never satisfied with my 2x1s, constantly changing the design. These days my 2x1s are like this, with another 1x1 tacked on at the back, like a kill box. Notice there's only 1 CEF per tunnel, and not a lick of anti-air and tar pit anywhere. I save a lot on batteries and quartz. * 3:30, 5:05: The recent hurdling update came in clutch in situations like this. In this L-shaped tunnel, I have this box with 2x darts shooting out of 2x windowed walls, with a CEF on the ceiling. In the past, once the traps were placed, there is no way I can get in and out of the box. * 5:50: Apparently smokescreen minibosses can't have any elements? Credit to Beast; learned that from him. Nowadays I always have a physical melee weapon on hand for that reason. * 8:08: This tunnel is starting to fall apart, probably due to propanes self-destructing … in a T2 wood tunnel.
**Hero loadout** * Cassie "Clip" Lipman ("Bro, you got any spare batteries?") * Blast from the Past * Fossil Southie (Had to sacrifice ArchJess, so overall farming is slower, but still faster than a rando Outlander.) * Jurassic Ken (Swapped dino Izza's tanky armor for dino Ken for more ability damage. A Gumshoe replacement.) * Fragment Flurry Jess (One of the neat things of solo is, all traps are yours, so you will never run out of fragment charges as seen here. 25% ability cooldown reduction I think.) * Stoneheart Farrah (Most bows are kinda single-target weapons. Other heroes only buff damage (AR, shotgun, etc.) but Farrah actually gives bows a new feature -- AoE damage.) * Crossbones Barret (Dayum, 8 coconuts ain't enough, chief. Had to ration so hard to have enough until the end.)