Front Mission 4 tactics

[Nick Walter]

I picked this up to occupy me over the holiday weekend and I'm having a good time with it. This is one of those just-one-more-turn games that can make you forget about trifles like food and sleep.

Anyone know if there is a point to sensor backpacks? Yeah they let you target missiles at longer range, but so what? Missiles have a long enough range without the backpack.

Also, anyone have a recommendation for how many repair backpacks to put in a squad. I've been using one per squad, but the things are so insanely useful I'm thinking of bumping up to two. Repair mechs (I flatly refuse to call them wanzers or wankers or whatever) are so burdened by the repair backpacks that they don't carry a lot of firepower. It makes me worry my squad would be too lightweight offensively.

[olaf]

Slight spoilers below:

The sensor backpack is something you can generally live without. However, later in the game you will get another character who comes preloaded with a missle weapon. So it helps there. The theory being you boost the sensor guy's evasion and send him to the front. He soaks up the attacks and the missle guys can pound away with impunity. If your missle guys have crappy legs and low movement, this strategy is even more useful. Finally, there are 1-2 plot missions later in the game where you have allied missle units, with very bad 3 move legs. The sensor backpack is indispensable here.

Repair backpacks are great, as are EMP. The other kinds dont compare. But, one repair backpack per team served me well enough for the majority of the game. The exceptions being some of the later UCS missions, where your allies are crappy and need lots of repairing to stay in the thick of combat and the late game D13 Simulator mission where you are forced to split your squad into two teams of 3.

In general, the 'default' character classes work well, especially early. Later in the game when more wanzer parts become available you get a lot more opportunities to customize.

My final squad looked like this:

UCS

Daril SG/Melee. He becomes the best unit across both teams with the right gear.
Renges. Left him as a Rifle Sniper.
Chaeffer. Gave him a rifle along with his Repair pack. Early on its hard to do this because of weight/power issues.
Ines. Starts with Grenades/Melee. I gave her the peerless Minotaur arm which combines a bazooka and a rocket launcher, and ditched her grenade launcher and melee wep.
Luis. SG/MG. I left him alone.
Thammond. MG/MG. Left him alone too.

Durandal

Elsa SG/MG. Left her alone
Zead. Missles/Melee. Left him alone for the most part. Gave him a shield when he had weight to spare.
Latova Melee/EMP. Left her alone. EMP rocks, IMO, for most of the game. There comes a time when some missions have enemies with obnoxious resists, but by then the antilock feature of EMP packs becomes very attractive.
Hermes Rifle/Repair. Basically just like Chaeffer, and similarly, its hard to do this early on.
Bosch Bazooka/Sensor. Like the others, hard to switch his weapon early, but eventually you can.
Beck MG/Radio. For a while he had a Vampire arm which combines an MG and a Missle Launcher. But, towards the end game neither weapon is particularly powerful, so I ditched it and just gave him a really good MG.

There are a lot of ways you can take your characters, but the above worked very well for me and aside from having trouble with beating 2 Simulator missions quick enough to unlock their goodies, I trounced the game on normal.

What I found to be most important was: Links. Obviously, bonus attacks rock, but the opportunities are useless if your guys dont have APs to spare. So, make sure you keep their APs maxes and hit the computer shop as needed. Weapon skills are also very good investments, as is evade for front line troops (make sure they arent using cumbersome legs/bodies though, as it will be a waste of the pilots skills). Finally, most of the skills are good, but some suck and should be avoided, IMO, Rush/First/Sensor Plus/Alertness/Revenge come to mind. The only command skill I liked was snipe. Aim and Focus are not worth it. There are tons of great battle skills (the random ones). Blast Shot II. Perfect Shot/Strike/Missle. Boost. The Passive skills are good too. The repair ones, and the ones that affect links (especially the second rank of these that work in any battle the pilot is in, and not just the ones he initiates) are must haves.

I love this game and I am sorry to be at the end of it. I have been delaying the inevitable, putting off playing the final UCS mission.

olaf

edit: Gamefaqs has decent FM4 discussion. There are some corny threads, but a lot of good ones too http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gen...p?board=918883

[quatoria]

Wow, you didn't give the Minotaur arms to anyone? I found the combo double-shot bazooka/rocket launcher *awfully* useful...

[Nick Walter]

I've finally gotten stuck. I'm trying to do the UCS governers mansion mission where I can't let any enemy forces escape and it's just killing me. I've tried it five times now with no luck. A stray helicopter or mech always gets away. Anyone have any good strategies for tackling this one?

[olaf]

Wow, you didn't give the Minotaur arms to anyone? I found the combo double-shot bazooka/rocket launcher *awfully* useful...

Hmm yeah I gave it to Ines...I said that.

I've finally gotten stuck. I'm trying to do the UCS governers mansion mission where I can't let any enemy forces escape and it's just killing me. I've tried it five times now with no luck. A stray helicopter or mech always gets away. Anyone have any good strategies for tackling this one?

Hmm, now that you mention it, this one took me a few tries to get them all. What I did was focused on the copters, because they escape the easiest. Damage as much stuff as you can, but try not to destroy anything until you have your forces kind of consolidated in the center of the city. Then hit the copters, there are 4 IIRC, so after you blast them all you just have one wanzer to destroy before they start fleeing. But if they are damaged, you will be in good position to finish them off before they can get far. Also, you can sort of blockade them if you position your guys right.

olaf

[balut]

That mission is all about Renges and his Focus Down skill - the key is to spread your damage as much as possible with everyone, and use Renges to leg cripple as many Wanzers as you can. Then, in one turn, frag all the choppers - as soon as the last chopper is killed, the enemy calls a retreat, regardless of how many wanzers have been killed. (The formula is either 5 total enemies destroyed or all choppers killed, IIRC)

Lure the enemies to the center of the map by plinking them and retreating so they follow. I'd also turn off some defensive links before this map, as the first time I screwed up by inadvertently fragging enemy wanzers through defensive link fire. Once everyone is clustered in the center, keep spreading the damage around and leg crippling wanzers. As soon as the 4 choppers are weakened as well, kill them all in one round, and polish off the rest.

[Nick Walter]

That mission is all about Renges and his Focus Down skill - the key is to spread your damage as much as possible with everyone, and use Renges to leg cripple as many Wanzers as you can. Then, in one turn, frag all the choppers - as soon as the last chopper is killed, the enemy calls a retreat, regardless of how many wanzers have been killed. (The formula is either 5 total enemies destroyed or all choppers killed, IIRC)

Lure the enemies to the center of the map by plinking them and retreating so they follow. I'd also turn off some defensive links before this map, as the first time I screwed up by inadvertently fragging enemy wanzers through defensive link fire. Once everyone is clustered in the center, keep spreading the damage around and leg crippling wanzers. As soon as the 4 choppers are weakened as well, kill them all in one round, and polish off the rest.

Finally beat it, thanks for the advice olaf and balut. I played hit and run to merge two of the enemy groups together and then had most of my force engage the larger group while Ines, Chaeffer, and Rodriguez engaged the smaller group. I timed it so that the remaining choppers all died on the same turn and then just used my mobility advantage to keep cutting off the retreaters. Ines and Rodriguez killed one clustered group with nothing but repeated rocket/grenade fire which was fun to watch.

Then I beat the sim and got the minotaur arms. Whoo hoo, fun but awful heavy. Now I'm regretting training Ines in machine gun/grenade since I need bazooka/rocket skills.