Armored Core V

[Toxicity]

Ok, so a few questions.

1. The scrap heaps found in story missions, how do they work? I've found several of them throughout the missions, but I'm not entirely sure how to pick up the parts or otherwise access them. I've gone into scan mode when near one and pushed every button on the controller, but nothing seems to happen other than a box identifying the scraps as "scrap heap A" or "scrap heap B", and I've not noticed anything new whenever I go back to assembly or the parts store.

2. I'm new to PSN, so I'm still trying to learn the ins and outs of the system. Is voice chat possible while we're in mission and in the main menu/world viewer? The group text chat we've been using is pretty clunky and impractical for in mission communications. I've already got a headset, so that's no problem.

3. Lastly, I've been wondering where we plan to go with our team. My roomate has joined up with the team "Paranoia", and from what I understand they're doing quite well and have been making strong claims on the south eastern area of the world map.

I don't play very many video games anymore, but the few I do still play I play regularly and I take seriously, sometimes a little too seriously. I wish to play competitively, to win, and to make a name for myself. I want to log on and see my team's emblem on the world map. If the rest of our team doesn't share the same ambition, then I'm afraid I will not be sticking around once I get my footing and feel confident in my abilities.

[Seraphic]

1. Scraps are collected by touching the scraps in scan mode; no buttons necessary. When you grab it, you should get a subquest notification. The scraps should unlock a part in the shop, but it's hard to tell what it is, since it should be just one part per scrap, right?

2. We all used our mics the other day and it worked out well. While on the world screen, we can hear every everybody on the team. While deployed on a mission, we can only hear persons who have rendezvoused into the same mission. 03 is getting a mic tomorrow.

3. I certainly have ambitions for territory, but our members are still very new right now. Xchaos, the member I recruited has already gotten two territories for us by himself. I have also recruited another member, Ryu, who is one of my subscribers.

We seem to need 50k team points for each territory gained, and that's not easy to amass in such small numbers. We need stronger players, and I need all of you to help me recruit. I am also going to remove our password tomorrow. I would have liked to just play with friends and build a strong team that way, but I am not getting enough help. You'd think we'd have more of mechatalk with us, but apparently a whole board of mecha enthusiasts don't even play mech games. How absurd and disappointing.

Anyway, Xchaos and I have already begun campains on the Southwest territory, so we'll concentrate our efforts there. Just be careful, because my mercs and I were counterattacked in an emergency mission where three ACs came to defend the territory. Needless to say, we were destroyed because I wasn't expecting it.

I created custom turret setups for the two areas we captured. It's a pretty cool system.

[Outlaw]

I didn't even need to spam the kick; two swings from my laser blade to the main train took the thing out completely.

Blades I expected to be powerful, the kick not so much. Besides it's handy for those moments were you toggle to your blades, go to take a swing and realize you're still in scan mode; so instead of doing the smart thing and switching back to combat mode you mash on the kick button, take out the target, and get the sub mission. Not that I'd know anything about that...

Ok, so a few questions.

1. The scrap heaps found in story missions, how do they work?

Just look at them while nearby in scan mode. When you see the sub mission pop up you know you've collected it. You can also see what you got by tabbing over in the post mission victory screen. So far all I've managed to find are functional versions of all the junk parts I got at the beginning.
Edit: ninja'd

[Seraphic]

I've decided that I'll do some recording tomorrow. It should help us attract members.

I would also like to fight some other teams to see what that is like. I've heard that apparently nobody is very active in territory battles on the ps3 side. It's possible the other teams could be inexperienced. Be there. You don't want a bunch of mercs representing MAHQ, do you?

[Turinu]

I'll be getting on all day today, so I'll have plenty of time to finally get used to this game and up my skills again. Considering how poorly I've been doing at missions just by winging it, I definitely need to get back into my groove.

[mobiusdiablo]

One day, so much progress. Wow. Hopping on now myself.

[Balthasar81]

Hi guys,
I'm new around here, mostly been a lurker for years (Gundamn was in single digit episodes). I've played most of the AC games, I did my best on the PS and PS2 ones.
Do you mind terribly if I join up to the MAHQ group. I've only started playing V today so I'll probably be hitting the multiplayer after I get some experience under my belt in the single player.
I'm using Balthasar81 as my user name for the game.
I head everyone online today, are you just using bluetooth headsets or something?

[mobiusdiablo]

Nah, we don't mind at all, welcome to the club. And yes, we're (or at least I'm) using a bluetooth headset. I think Seraphic, Shori, and a couple others have them. We do usually open up a chat room, but it's terribly inconvenient sometimes, like in battle.

[Seraphic]

Welcome, Balthasar. Glad to have you! Yes, some of us have blutooth mics. Mine is an old cell phone model from like 10 yrs ago, but it works surprisingly well. I also have a spare just laying around that I never opened, lol. I'm happy to see you at the forum, too. This is generally a good place to get in touch with "senior" members of the MAHQ team if we happen to be offline on PSN.

Anyway, here is our first gameplay video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkpVjQNfEuk&hd=1

Whatever footage I capture will be uploaded to this channel, so make sure to keep up with it! =3

The MAHQ team has expanded greatly since I took off that password. We should have at least 10 members last time I checked. Chaos has been gaining areas for us like mad. He's a machine, I tell you. I'm having a lot of fun.

[crashlegacy14]

Nice Vid man. I particularly enjoy the way you edited together that opening, even if it was rather lengthy. I strongly suggest you get together with another person who can record their game play to show two perspectives of the matches (allowing you to draw it out while largely maintaining raw ass kicking) slowing down "critical" areas of battle would also be nice.

But you know now you suck right. Now I really wish I had the excess money to pick up a copy of the game on the PS3 to join you all on that front. I feel lonely on this end because I don't know many people at all who play the game, and even then most are split off into their own groups.

Is that Boost Glide you're spamming? on a related note I think I've got most your AC's frame (not sure about the torso & head) as one of my own units lol.

[mobiusdiablo]

I'm actually toying with the idea of getting capture equipment, if my money will permit. Then again, it's kind of sad that you can't normally do replays of battles or have a theater mode for this, especially since there's no real way of confirming kills on some modes.

[crashlegacy14]

I agree, I'm quite surprised the "theater" hasn't caught like wild fire in competitive multiplayer games yet. (oh god I'm actually posting a one liner.)

[Seraphic]

I'm not going to use that OP all the time--mostly just for each chapter mission on the Let's Play and maybe matches that I like in particular. I'm also trying to figure a good way to shorten it.

I already know a guy called mushinronja who has suggested that we do a dual Let's Play eventually. Since he's so active, we could very easily do something like that. He's part of Irrelephancy--the ps3 branch, anyway.

Sorry that things are that way for you, Crash. To be honest, things were rough at first, but we all worked really hard to gather these folks into the MAHQ team. I think if you formed an MAHQ team 360-side with free admission, people would flock to it easily by virtue of being familiar with mecha anime. A good number of our members joined for that reason.

I wouldn't call it spamming, but I'm using high boost over and over because it's the only viable way to move in the game. I mean, you can't even change direction properly without using it. I wish they would decrease the momentum and make the regular boost work as well as it did in Last Raven, with the high boost and glide boost being icing on the cake to increase mobility.

I also have some complaints about the energy regeneration formula in this game. I mean, all of my schematics have fantastic recovery rates, but it only works in scan mode. Outside of that, regen is practically non-existant, and I'm sure that's true for everybody else. It's really annoying that you HAVE to use scan mode to recover energy at a decent rate.

Mobius, decent capture EQ can be complex and expensive, so make sure you do your research. If you spend less than $100, your video quality will probably look terrible, but perhaps it's a good idea to get some experience working with the equipment and software first. It's taken years for me to get as far as I have, and I don't even add any real effects to my videos at all.

I agree a 'theater' mode is useful, but it technically has very limited capacity for the gaming population. Not everyone will use it as a studying tool (though any competitive player should) and only a small fraction of the population has capture equipment.

It also makes me curious exactly how the replay mode from the ps2 games functioned. It seemed to me that the game recorded the positions of each AC and when they fired, and then applied those actions to the model of your build. (Because if you notice, if you ever quit partway through a replay, the ACs stop what they're doing and stand still as though they've been told to stop.) I think something that like that would be difficult to do, especially now that the multiplayer is 5 on 5.

[crashlegacy14]

A great way to shorten the OP would be to cut from the raven at the beginning directly to the grid blade & assault armor sequence at 0:49 and onwards. and I'd highly suggest keeping the excellent audio in that sequence you did an amazing job there.

Cut your boosters off as you turn, your AC will complete a quick 90 degree turn. It seems like it's just the plain deceleration that allows you to make the sharper turns happen, so you could probably mimic it with high boosts and not turn off your booster but it'd be really clumsy with the standard control layout. On a side note, I wish there was a settings option that allowed you to change the thruster control style from toggle to hold.

I feel your pain on the energy regeneration in this game. one of my ACs doesn't even mount recon units (which I could have an old school torso gun in it's place) but has to move around the battlefield in recon mode just to be able regen energy at all. On the other hand he makes a great distraction when I whip out the grind blade and charge something down.

By theater mode I was meaning the sort that Halo fans have been enjoying for some time now, complete with the games inter-connectivity with the Bungie servers it allowed people to easily upload videos of their performance for highlight reels and what not to be made online. hence the abundance of halo game-play vids, no capture gear is required. That sort of Theater mode should pretty much be standard in all competitive games IMO.

[mobiusdiablo]

I've gotta counter you guys on the terms of energy regen; though not every machine can do it, my current test project showed very promising results; it moved and felt almost like a NEXT, and energy regen outside of Scan Mode was approximately 3 seconds tops. Then again, this was also using THE most speed-based parts, with no regard to anything else. I ultimately had to tweak it, since 23k AP + little defense + barely holding 2 weapons does not make for a good combination.

Buuuuuuut, considering how light and effective the pile drivers are, coupled with the AC's ridiculous speed (let's not even get to it Quick/High Boosting), it could be a very viable option, depending on the map and situation. Especially with that two-stake pile driver - anything save for the mightiest tanks hit by that is a very dead AC (IIRC, it's the strongest weapon before proceeding into Overed Weapon territory).

Speaking of tanks - I must thank you dearly, Seraphic, for sending over your schematic to me. I don't see how it's 'high maneuverability', but it IS high-dakka. Seriously, I can mow down at least two AI ACs with the damn thing on a regular basis. The only thing I have against it is how craptastically it moves, but hey, it's a tank. And if I want high mobility, I got my own Eldritch and my test model for that.

[Seraphic]

Hi, guys.

I know how to 2nd stage.

>=3

[mobiusdiablo]

...did you just spend the dead hours of the morning learning to 2nd Stage?

I APPLAUD YOU, GOOD SIR only if you teach us

[crashlegacy14]

second stage? did I miss something?

[mobiusdiablo]

2nd Stage High/Quickboosting. Seraphic found a Korean vid on it, but I didn't expect he'd learn it so fast.

[Toxicity]

I played for quite some time last night and this morning. I beat the story mode and completed all the order missions, and I've completed the subquests for all of the order missions except for two, both of which put you 1v2 against zodiac ACs. I can kill both ACs in either battle no prob and S rank the mission, but I cannot seem to take less than 10k AP damage.

Seems like energy weapons are just useless right now, so I built a heavy reverse jointed AC with loads of KE and CE defense and equipped with dual battle rifles, dual gatling guns, and a subcomputer in the shoulder.