Jump to content

 

Survival Settlement strategies


Creech
 Share

Recommended Posts

Mabus, Andrew, Troy and I have been playing Survival on Settlement without a great deal of luck, so I thought starting a discussion about serious tactics may be beneficial both to us and to future players of this stellar game.

 

Going solo I can consistently get to wave 21, and have beaten 25 twice. Mabus IIRC has beaten 26 solo. The issue that we run into is all the Jacobs providing shields in the later waves that the turrets largely ignore, and an inability to run around fast enough to kill the Jacobs due to the size of the map. Part of the challenge in doing this with more than one player is that the difficulty scales rapidly but you aren't really getting as much scrap because it is split four ways.

 

Our approach this week was to have me take an engineering chassis and the other three using assault chassis.

 

I am level 18 using a level 12 Honeychurch Mk IV engineering chassis with sprint legs, two level 15 Muerte Fiesta Numero 6 shotguns, and four emplacements: Level 16 Piercing Sniper Turret, Level 14 Super Shredder Turret, Level 7 Impeccable Collection Pod, and a Level 8 Dampening Generator Mk III.

 

Troy brought flak turrets and Mabus brought a repair crane, and generally we had each of the assault trenches protect one piece of the gun while I tried to collect scrap and place snipers and shredders. The orange base in particular gets hammered by air units, hence the flak turrets from Troy who was protecting it.

 

Some speculation that I would like to try is to run it with four engineering chassis since the turrets are what do the vast majority of the damage and they cost 20% less for engineers. Turret placement is also something to talk about, both location and timing.

 

Playing solo you can throw a sniper down instantly (which I typically do on the long mesa near blue) but in MP you don't have enough scrap at the start.

 

On the long path from the rear elevated spawn point to orange we found it extremely beneficial to place two shredder turrets, a collection prong, and a dampener all basically huddled together. The collection prong on the side of the largest flat area but closest to the spawn point, two shredders as far up the side of the map as permitted, and the dampener on the water side of the lip down off the path. This placement prevented the knobs from blowing up the turrets but created an excellent choke point that could take out even Big Willie as long as he wasn't protected by Jacobs (fully upgraded turrets, of course).

 

Protecting sniper turrets with shredders seems critical as well given the huge number of knobs, plus shredders will shoot at aerial targets in addition to the ground units.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the long path from the rear elevated spawn point to orange we found it extremely beneficial to place two shredder turrets, a collection prong, and a dampener all basically huddled together. The collection prong on the side of the largest flat area but closest to the spawn point, two shredders as far up the side of the map as permitted, and the dampener on the water side of the lip down off the path. This placement prevented the knobs from blowing up the turrets but created an excellent choke point that could take out even Big Willie as long as he wasn't protected by Jacobs (fully upgraded turrets, of course).

 

In addition to your two shredder turrets there I also had 1-2 of my machine gun turrets just to give us more bullets to combat all the knobs and cathy's (at least I think that's what the other little things were called). We also had a couple more turrets set up further down that same path to clean up any that got past the first 4.

 

We can try it with engineering chassis if you want. My only concern about that is the weapons we won't be able to equip. It'll be nothing but shotguns and machine guns. That's not so bad for the smaller enemies but those armored ones and the arty's, willie's, and amplifier's... well, those guys are hard enough to take down as it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any tips or ideas about the best approach for rapid volt dropper elimination would be absurdly useful. In one bombing run they do brutal amounts of damage to the bases, especially early on when the first one appears and had taken one base down to as far as half health by wave 7. When two spawned in wave 26 for us, with everything else going on, it was game over.

 

The trench I have been using allows for 6 weapon slots, where I am equipping dual Albert snipers, and dual flak+ shredder+ machine guns. The armor of the trench keeps me from ever needing to use a repair crane or be revived as even as late as wave 25 I still maintain over half health.

 

Help us Iron Brigade Obi Wan Kenobis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, I just reached level 50 solo using the setup I mentioned above. The key for me was placement of the sniper turrets early on. I had been placing them on the large mesa between Blue and Green. This time i placed them on the small one between Blue and Orange. They killed the first vault dropper before it did a bombing run. Next I put three shredders to protect them from knobs, and then upgraded all six turrets to level 2 before I placed any more turrets. After that I basically followed the first post, although I did tend to scatter collection prongs around a bit early on, and instead of trying to get back to Blue between waves, I would go to the center spawn point as a rule.

 

The other thing I would do is purely focus on Jacobs and Artys after wave 10. Instead of killing the Jacobs and what they were protecting, I only killed the Jacobs and relied on my turrets to finish off the rest. I would then run around looking for other Jacobs, picking up scrap, and placing/upgrading turrets.

 

I had all three of my original snipers up to level 3 by wave 12 and they took out vault droppers in a hurry. I also ended up with another shredder to protect them on the little hill next to them, and 5 snipers on the mesa between blue and green protected by 4 shredders. I didn't build anything down in the water near orange until wave 20 or so. I did regularly lose my turrets over on the far path past orange (those grenade launcher guys protected by Jacobs got them every time) but I always had scrap to rebuild. I ended up putting two fully upgraded snipers on the hill side of that path closer to orange which were pretty good at taking out the Jacobs since they had the pierce ability.

 

I did eventually build 3 snipers and two shredders up at the top decoy, but that wasn't until wave 35 or so.

 

Oh, and the achievement didn't unlock until the start of wave 32, which seemed a bit odd, but it unlocked.

 

Love this game. Such a good challenge, fun to play. I played some Survival on Hospital as well, lots of good loot and easily got to 35 or 36 on my first try.

Edited by Creech
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, this is really good news. I'll likely make a few practice runs with this strategy as well to prepare for our run when we meet up again. It sounds like snipers early on is key here, with a heavier focus on upgrading over quantity and making sure they remain protected from the knobs and cathys.

 

Looking forward to finally being able to finish this survival map after trying off and on for the past few years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Swamp strategy:

 

Before attempting Settlement solo, you need to reach wave 20 on Swamp because that will give you the Sniper Turret with Pierce as an award. Because you need the pierce ability to have any chance of a turret taking down a Jacob, Swamp needs to come first.

 

My trench was almost the same:

 

  • Level 12 Honeychurch Mk IV engineering chassis with sprint legs
  • 2 level 15 Muerte Fiesta Numero 6 shotguns (unlocked by progressing 5 waves on Settlement)
  • Level 12 Ironclad Sniper Turret
  • Level 11 Ironclad Machine Gun Turret (better off with Level 14 Super Shredder Turret that is an award for playing Survival Hospital, but I did it without)
  • Level 7 Impeccable Collection Pod
  • Level 8 Dampening Generator Mk III

At the start, turn around and immediately place a sniper turret on the wall behind you, right at the corner closest to the blue base. It is very easy on this map to place turrets in locations where they cannot be reached by knobs. With the exception of collection pods, avoid placing turrets on the ground. Always put them on walls or platforms or the round propane-tank-looking objects. Losing a sniper turret early on will pretty much doom you, so keep an eye out for the grenade launching Burst Transmitters. A great spot for turrets is the wall of the bridge that is in front of the blue base. However, any turret you place on the right side (if you are facing the bridge from the blue base) will be destroyed by Burst Transmitters when they spawn below, and you need to pay attention and kill any Jacobs protecting them quickly or they will cross under the bridge, turn around, and wipe out all your turrets up there.

 

Your second turret should be another sniper up by green. As you go up the ramp from blue, there is a square raised area directly to your right which is a great spot, followed by a third on the propane tanks just past your second turret if you turn right at the top of the ramp, and a fourth on the middle of the railing on the bridge.

 

After that I started placing collection prongs and two dampening generators. The dampening generators I placed down past the third sniper turret on the little wall separating the two paths, and the other right at the end of the bridge railing by blue. Upgrading both of them to level 3 is very helpful and inexpensive. Later I placed two more, one each directly in front of each base, which helped with the few enemies that got through my defenses, but that wasn't until wave 15 or so.

 

I upgraded all four snipers to level 3 and then started placing more snipers: 2 more on the wall next to the first emplacement and one behind it on the platform, two on the far side of blue (there is a two level platform you can walk up, and I placed one on the square structure to the left so it could see all the spawn points, and one to the right at the back on the wall at the edge of the map. For the first one, if you place it on the propane tanks it will likely get destroyed by Burst Transmitters so keep it on the square instead.)

 

Amplifiers seem to be confused by collection prongs, by the way. If you place one in front of each spawn point the Amplifier will stop and hover over it, but never attack it. This makes it much easier to avoid losing turrets.

 

I did start placing some machine gun turrets around wave 15-16, but on the ground directly in front of the bases (with the dampening generators between them) and only if I could immediately upgrade them to level 3. The primary reason for this wasn't to kill Knobs, but to protect my trench from Cathys which were super annoying. Obviously they killed Knobs as well, but that was secondary.

 

*** That was my approach for beating Swamp solo, and it got me to level 25 (the achievement is for beating level 20). I later went back with the pierce sniper turret (unlocked by reaching level 20 on Swamp) and the shredder turret (unlocked on Hospital) and reached level 60.

Edited by Creech
Link to comment
Share on other sites

DLC Roadmap

 

 

Presuming you have already beaten the core game, the strategy is to unlock specific pieces of equipment so that you can build the correct trench to beat the two Settlement maps that have achievements. The entire DLC can be done solo or with up to three other players in co-op via LIVE. The difficulty scales with the number of players, so co-op may not be the easiest approach, depending upon the map, skill set, and equipment of the various players.

 

The first step is to build a trench as close to this as you currently have equipment for:

 

  • Level 12 Honeychurch Mk IV engineering chassis with sprint legs
  • 2 level 15 Muerte Fiesta Numero 6 shotguns
  • Level 16 Piercing Sniper Turret
  • Level 14 Super Shredder Turret
  • Level 7 Impeccable Collection Pod
  • Level 8 Dampening Generator Mk III

Play to level five on Settlement twice to get two of the Muerte Fiesta Numero 6 shotguns, plus it will give you an idea of what the map looks like and how the spawns work early on. Don't worry if you lose before wave 30, you will come back to this map later.

 

If you don't have a Level 14 Super Shredder Turret, I would suggest playing Survival Hospital a few times. Every time I played it I was given a Super Shredder in a loot box (although it is not a level specific award, so there is bound to be some random factor in this). Alternately your best machine gun turret may work.

 

Next is to beat Swamp level 20 so that you unlock Swamp Survivor and get the Level 16 Piercing Sniper Turret (which is an award for reaching level 20). The last Survival map to play is Settlement, this time with the full setup detailed above, and unlocking Settlement Survivor.

 

DLC Campaign: There are five maps to work through on the Mars campaign, and Bear Buster will unlock after killing the boss on the final map. You can skip the entire campaign and just complete the last mission if you play with a partner who has beaten the campaign, and the boss can be defeated in about 2 minutes including cut scenes if you take an assault trench with good weapons. The final boss looks like a building (this wasn't very clear to me originally), so shoot the big building in the middle of the map and it will start falling apart and then die. If you play the campaign, the trench detailed above is very good for all levels except the last one where an assault trench works much better.

Edited by Creech
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it would be interesting to try this strategy with two players using identical trenches. More and stronger enemies, but not scaled as far as with four players and the scrap would be more per player. You guys might try it this week, or I will happily jump back in next week.

 

Troy, I never responded to your concern about weapons. The double Muerte setup does a LOT of damage and is good at taking down everything except Knobs and Cathys.

Edited by Creech
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well.. using this strategy I was able to get up to wave 37 solo and unlock this achievement. I would have gotten further except I made two clumsy mistakes along the way that drained blue and orange down to a fraction of an inch around wave 22.

 

You are absolutely right, once you get enough snipers out early and get them protected and upgraded, it's just a focus on zipping from one end of the map to the other and taking out Jacobs.

 

I am still happy to help the others get this achievement as planned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
  • Create New...