I feel happy with my loadout vs bugs. Spray and pray is easy to understand. Run and gun. I’m not as confident with bots.
Loadout: Armor is medium with crouch aim bonus. Base gun, the Adjudicator (assault rifle) from Democratic Demolition because of its armor pen. 2ndary is Autocannon and ammo backpack. Strategems are orbital laser, eagle airstrike, and mortar sentry.
All the advice I read is “go slower, avoid patrols, etc.” and I’m fine with that but everyone I play with does the opposite. They engage EVERYTHING. I feel like I’ve got OK damage per shot, but everyone is getting there faster and killing things faster because they got there earlier. So I end up feeling like I’m not pulling my weight.
Are you playing on level 9?
Ok, so maybe playstyle advice is more appropriate.
Scorcher (or Dominator), and lean into your autocannon a lot more to make 4 easier. If you don’t have those, anything that 1-shots the little guys is ok. Hang around boulders more for cover. Shoot arms or legs off of things if you can’t shoot heads off of things. Take out factories with your autocannon by shooting the angled vent straight on to angle a shot inside. Take out striders with your autocannon by shooting their leg or crotch joint (the driver will survive; watch them for a flare). Take out devastators with your autocannon by shooting their face or take their gun arm off and move on, but they can still punch you. Take out the small guys with your primary. Prioritize small guys in a patrol.
Scorcher can kill strider drivers with 3-5 shots to the front armor straight on.
AC into bots hanging from drop ships.
Reload your AC before it is empty to get a clip in without cocking it again, same with any other gun.
Redeemer clip into a berserker to kill it. Move while firing redeemer.
Impact grenades can take out factories in the open door or into the vent (aim at the bottom of the vent). They can take out striders in the front armor anywhere. Normal grenades can do the same to factories, but I can’t recommend them for striders.
Eagle Strike factories and groups. Orbital laser when you are in big trouble if you want another safety net. At 4, this should be plenty. Shield or 500k or Precision Strike for your third or EAT for your third. Don’t forget to pick up your AC after firing an EAT. Don’t be afraid to fire EATs at anything giving you trouble.
If you go with EATs, try dropping EATs on cool down when at an objective site. One EAT can take out a dropship thruster.
Railgun on “unsafe” mode eats devastators for breakfast with a 3-second charge to the body, if you’re feeling spicy. It doesn’t do much against heavier units without headshots at that charge though.
Try to throw more than 5 strategems a match.
If everyone you’re with is taking every engagement you don’t have to be with them. Just do the mission. Kills don’t count
FWIW, the shield backpack and either AMR or Quasar/EAT have served me well against bots, but I typically run light armor. I bring the grenade pistol to handle factories.
If you aren’t already using it, there’s never been a better time to get into the AMR now that they buffed the damage and finally zeroed in the scope.
I try to branch out but almost always drift back to something like:
Regular Breaker
Autocannon
Walking barrage
Eagle airstrike
EMF turret
Bots are easy until you get into level 8 games with the Solo Sprint Brothers that aggro the whole map.
Headshots are OP against bots.
I tend to prefer the liberator, I set it to burst or even single fire, calmly ADS, and then one shot all normal bots, one by one.
You can take down the piloted walkers in one shot, too, if you can hit the guy riding it.
Bigger bots I tend to spam bullets at a bit more, but for them too, headshots are extremely effective.