Elona Shooter

Games
41

Managed to get to Day 26 on Hardcore, with a Small Guns focused Rogue.
Never managed to get a Gravity Gun, so I’m assuming that helps survival chances. Had a full crew of 2 Shotgun-specialists and 1 Big Guns person with a Rocket Launcher. Hired the Henchman every turn. Finally got done in by just too much enemy artillery at once, and I never got a better gun than my Mk2 SMG with armor piercing.

Oh, and even though the Henchman ate up all the profits, I got all my money from my cache of 55 chickens and robbing the museum every turn.

42

one gravity gun follower kills like half the screen in one shot.

43

How do you get a gravity gun? Spam smiths?

44

I just get them either randomly or from smith, you need to have big gun skill to use them, at least +8.

45

Thank ye kindly sir!

edit: Does not appear to work.

46

I cracked 50 on my first playthrough with the gravity gun. Spoilers (?) follow.

The game rewards the higher-tier hardcore achievements lavishly. Your next playthrough will be geared to post-50 prep, simply because your opening 49 days will be secured by your starting bonuses. However, I finally burnt out, thankfully.

47

^Nice work.

Spoilers

I’m hoping there are other viable strategies for reaching level 50 - I just got my first gravity gun in loot, and decided to sell it as training up a merc to big guns 11 would have taken too long (outside what I would call the “survival horizon”). I’m at day 20 with a laser gun wielding noble - my new favourite gun and character class respectively - and my plan is to see how effective a couple of guardians can be using shotguns along with focussed training in Doc Holliday.

Good advice, but bear in mind upkeep costs - 40 per equipment slot, and 60 for the repairman. Incidentally, in rounds where I’ve used repair hammers, but finished with a perfect wall, I’ve sometimes got the bonus and sometimes not - it may be that you get it only if the last points of damage were healed by the repairman.
Looter, trainer and smith are all worth investing in for a level or 2 - I try to upgrade the smith when I need to refresh his stock list but don’t want to spend the 2 AP. Villa is a decent buy later on as long as you can spare 3 AP a turn to get your damage bonus.

Update: oof!

Need a rest after that…

The shotgun plan worked nicely, and I was even able to ditch one of the guardians for a sheriff - the innate knockback/slowing ability is wonderful.

48

And I’m dead on day 51…

Yesterday I had one of the animated fallout 3 ads on the page, which must have slowed the game to an optimal speed (you don’t want it too slow so that it’s stuttery and unresponsive - I usually scroll the screen until only one ad is showing). Today, it was a static left for dead ad, and the game was a little too fast to keep up with - of course it didn’t help that I’d gambled on not bringing the henchman, and couldn’t afford any more grenades - thought I could wing it with about 45 hp of repair hammers.

49

I started a rogue game with just the aim of getting the chicken medals. The plan being to use the extra rogue money on getting three followers first, then focusing on chickens, and hiring the henchman once it got difficult.

It turned into my best game yet. I managed to get a militia follower with a high enough big gun skill to use the gravity gun I found in the shop, and from there I started getting perfect games, while also generating enormous amounts of money.

Until level 28, when a laser breathing metal dragon thing killed me rather quickly, despite having got a perfect game on the previous level.

50

Well, my last too playthroughs were promising but I died on day 9 (forgot to repair the castle two straight days, so I had like 12 hp to start, and choked and let two kamakazi guys through) and day 11 (not sure what happened there, I think I was playing distracted).

51

Alternatively, select zoom from the view menu.
After adjusting the game to full-screen have found it 100% more enjoyable - game runs at a nice speed and I never lose the crosshair anymore.

Up to day 43 with a ranger in my latest attempt - getting a gravity gun merc working by day 15 makes life somewhat easier. Picked up the Ragnarok survivor medal on day 41 - no spoilers, but it’s a fun and hair-raising encounter (even with said gravity gun) and I recommend it.

52

I still suck at this game…and still keep starting over.

53

I just had a game that went way beyond day 50. It was only meant to be a game to get a sheriff up to level 10 so I could get the medal for that, so I didn’t bother to select hardcore mode, so I missed out on the second hardcore medal.

The most powerful tip I have learned is to use a manual reloading weapon and just hold down the space bar. This forces it to instantly reload after each shot. It’s totally not an intuitive way of using them, and can’t have been intended, but it’s the first tip that the help screen gives. I’m now thinking that a manual reloading shotgun is the best weapon for the player character.

Focus on saving money to get the house upgrades and the followers in the beginning. Don’t upgrade anything beyond about the first level until you’ve done that. Rogue will obviously get you that the fastest. Having three followers should get you past the difficulty hump around day 11.

Then start planning to use a gravity gun. They start showing about around the late teens, and require a high big guns skill. So pick followers that can use big guns, get them armed with a cheap heavy machine gun, and make them focus on their big gun skill.

If you get that done, you should be easily going past day 20. At that point you can start stockpiling the chickens or other crazy schemes.

54

Party skills DO NOT stack.

So if your toon and all 3 mercs each have Active 10, you only get a chance at 10 extra APs per turn, rather than 40, meaning that 30 of your skill levels are superfluous. The highest skill in the party is the one that counts. Kind of crucial information that seems to be pretty obscure.
Anyway, just a public service announcement.

Party skills DO NOT stack.

55

Dead on day 73. And I was getting so close to that next medal…

Kind of brutal. A holy grail may have saved me there, of course I sold a spare one just a few days before despite having loads of inventory space. And possibly I should just have 3 or 4 grenades in the quick slots rather than one grenade and 3 repair hammers - repairing is useless against that kind of firepower.

56

The difficulty hump for me starts around day 40 when all of a sudden the hitpoints on the monsters coming at you seemingly triple, and it takes 3 headshots to kill stuff that used to only take 1.

57

Yes. After Day 40 you’ve seemingly completed a ‘round’, and it resets back to the early levels, but with many times more enemies and loads more hitpoints.

I just finally got a hardcore game beyond that point. I used a sheriff with two sheriff buddies and a grenade launcher ranger (hoping to pick up a gravity gun but never found one).

I was getting perfect games all the way up to level 40, then it was a constant struggle to survive after that.

I am enjoying this game more than I really should.

58

having 2 followers with gravity gun is pretty much GG, I managed to survive Ragnarok at round 15 using 1 follower with gravity gun, I used bowgun + 2 chalice.

59

Started a Rogue, and thought an AAR might be interesting this time. 11 days in so far (probably a bunch of spoilers, but will try to avoid anything obvious):

The initial priority is to get a merc up to Big Guns 11 so that they can use a gravity gun. In the less dangerous early levels, I can focus my resources on gaining gold and exp. After turn 10, I just want to hang on by my fingertips until I have an operational grav gun by ploughing all of my resources into castle defences.

Day one

Here I can make the most of accrued medal bonuses from previous games. After the first round I have ~2350gps and 4 APs to spend. 2 APs are used on robbery, bringing me up to ~2400 gps - I can now afford a house upgrade and 2nd merc.
The first recruit on offer is a teamwork 6 aim 9 guardian - pretty good, but not the big gun specialist I’m looking for, I can afford to be choosy at this early stage. My last 2 APs are spent to get a different recruit - luckily I end up with Ferrari, a teamwork 3 aim 10 militia - I plonk down the 2400 gold to obtain her services, and set her skill focus to Big Guns.

Day two

Williams, a Hunter with great stats, arrives at the barracks. Little Girl gets the boot to make way for him.
I spend my money to get repairman 1 and 12 chickens. The former may help me earn perfects more often (for this the castle walls need to have max hps at the start of every wave and at the end of the day). As for the chickens, it’s always useful to have a safe way to spend that last leftover AP to gain a few gps, but I don’t intend to make any greater investment for a while.

Days three to eight

Now that I have 2 mercs I’m happy with, most of my resources are invested into greater experience gains. Dinner is eaten every day, for 3 APs a time. Williams picks up cookery skill, which gets focussed. Trainer is increased to level 4, for 19% gain in exp per day. Additionally I buy a few smith levels and inventory slots.
My Rogue gains capable 2, along with the party skills threat and active, with focus placed on the latter. I won’t take any more party skills until I have hired my 3rd merc, in order to minimise any potential overlap.
Equipment-wise, I decide to replace Williams’ Bow-gun with a 4 mod-slot shotgun, and Ferrari gets a cheap HMG to replace the hunting rifle. My Rogue’s pistol is replaced with a revolver - better for the armour and hp-heavy waves to come. A 5 slot mk-2 hunting rifle did turn up on the smith, but I decided not to buy it - potentially a decision to regret as 5 mod slots are quite rare.

Day nine

I buy looter up to level 3 along with another inventory slot - I want to get the most out of the boss day loot. Eating dinner with the boost from Williams’ cookery 3 provides a 45% exp bonus - especially useful for boss day.
Ferrari has reached Big Guns 8, and I’m able to replace her cheap HMG with a chain gun bought from the smith.

Day ten

I sell the loot and buy repairman 2. Tough day ahead, I’m using 2 grenades, a grail of jure and a sniper revolver (for killing crows) in my quick slots.

Day eleven

I survived with a few worrying moments. The revolver took down the ballistae and suicide bombers quickly enough, with help from the odd grenade. A few rats, barbarians and dragonflies got through in the meantime, but castle hp didn’t drop below 30.
Picked up a mk-2 laser gun in loot, but since it needs small guns 12, and my Rogue is only up to 6, I will probably sell it and invest the cash in immediate survival measures.

60

Spoilers ahead:

Well I’m at day 81 on hardcore, the only medal I need is the impossible badge, which is given at 100 days hardcore.

Some comments:

My party is me as noble, 2 hunters, and a ranger. I have a mk-8 4 slot bowgun with all autofire and fire rate mods lvls 2 and 3… and it’s overwhelmingly overwhelmingly powerful. I used ragnarok expecting to also have to use a grail… and I dropped all the dragons before they even started their charging animation. The 2 hunters have lower quality bowguns, and the ranger has a grav gun.

I thought the ranger would be helpful with his “make everyone rampage” class ability, but it hasn’t triggered in about 30 days because he gets few kills since I’ve gotten a powerful bowgun.

If you’re trying to get all the medals, go do something better with your time, but failing that, play the game on casual with all the easy mods on and get everything except the hardcore medals. By day 60 or so you should easily be able to let the ai play the game for you, and you’ll just have to party and sleep every few minutes after the round ends. Not too bad if you’re browsing or doing work or whatever.

Having all the non hardcore medals also makes hardcore mode much more manageable.

If the shotgun glitch is powerful enough and you don’t mind taking advantage of that, maybe that’s an alternate to the auto-modded bowgun, but failing that I think this is the only strategy to do high day hardcore.

One of my hunters could have been exchanged for a noble and probably been better.

Skills that matter a lot: breeder, leadership, engineer, bow master, alert, taunt, and others obviously.

Taunt hp gains for enemies do not stack… this is a big deal.

Get leech on a grav gun asap.