The arena is one of the most important elements of Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, without which the already quite complex game becomes impassable. Like multiplayer, this option is not immediately available to players, but only after a certain mission. In this guide, we will tell you when the Arena and multiplayer open, and also suggest the optimal mech builds for a comfortable completion of the activity.
Let's make a reservation right away that, as in most From Software projects, the player is required not so much a specific weapon or style of play as a general understanding of the capabilities of his mech. The arena is passed even with starting weapons if you correctly track the actions of opponents and react to them correctly.
What is the Arena in Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon and why is it needed
The arena is an established element of the Armored Core series. These are not real battles, but a simulation of data collected from mechs. As in previous games in the series, the Arena is one of the ways to farm the in-game currency. In the simulation, you will fight with various mechs that you will meet as you progress.
In addition, for winning the Arena, the player receives chips - currency that can be spent on upgrading the fur (customizing the OS). They provide various bonuses, which remain with the player even if the fur is completely reassembled. They are conditionally divided into four categories:
- New opportunities.
- Damage amplification.
- Increased protection.
- Protection programs.
New opportunities
A fairly situational category that many players can safely bypass. For example, when buying one of the power-ups, the player will be able to kick after the dash. Another bonus opens up the possibility of manual aiming, and the third one allows you to change the main weapon and take more guns on sorties.
It would seem that they are quite useful options, but often they are either extremely rare or not useful enough to spend chips on them. Basically, you will be investing in one of the shields, as well as damage and defense boosts.
Shields
There are four types of shields:
- Combat armor;
- Impulse protection;
- Pulse armor;
- Terminal armor.
Pulse Defense and Pulse Armor create "blue" shields that absorb a certain amount of damage. The difference between the abilities is that the armor creates a defense on the mech itself, while the defense creates a hemisphere, protecting the point.
Combat Armor does not provide a shield, but allows you to create an energy blast that destroys projectiles flying at you and damages nearby enemies. Terminal armor works like pulse armor, but not by pressing a key, but at the moment when the mech's health drops to zero. The armor exists for a certain amount of time, or until the player is "pierced". But during this interval, the hero can apply a repair kit and survive.
You can choose armor to suit your play style, but impulse armor is considered the most versatile, as it allows you to survive strong enemy attacks while maintaining mobility, and also has several charges, the maximum number of which can be increased for chips. The activation of the armor has an animation during which it is easy to miss a hit.
Damage and Defense
In addition to armor, the player has the right to invest chips in damage and defense modifications. Damage modifications allow you to increase the damage of each type of weapon by a percentage: energy, kinetic, and explosive, as well as the damage of melee weapons and "direct" damage to enemies stunned by a downed "yellow" shield. Here you can also upgrade the speed of hacking: by connecting to drones, towers, and other “data loading” animations.
Security modifications are probably the first place you invest chips. Only here you can increase the overall survivability of the Mech by increasing the amount of health received from repair kits. In this case, it will not be possible to increase the number of repair kits. There's also an upgrade here that slightly reduces any damage taken by a percentage.
We recommend investing points in the “Repair Kits: Optimization” improvement, then increasing the hacking speed and pumping up impulse protection, and then improving the damage of the weapons that you use most often.
How to open the Arena and access to multiplayer
The Arena and the “Nest” (as multiplayer is called in the game) do not open immediately, but after completing certain missions. This was done so that the player gets comfortable with the game, and also to smoothly introduce the new progression system - the chips that we talked about above.
The arena will become available to the player after completing the missions "Collecting Combat Logs" or "Investigating the Second PSVB Weapons Cache". Together with the Arena, we will also have access to the OS Settings tab, where the player has the right to spend the earned chips. You can also “replay” the Arena missions by fighting opponents again, but you won’t be able to get chips, and the total number of COAMs will be halved.
Multiplayer is probably something that not all "newcomers" to the Armored Core series will discover. The fact is that the "Nest" opens after defeating the "Sea Spider" in the second chapter. This is a rather difficult boss, the achievement for defeating which, at the time of writing the guide, was received by only 35% of the players.
After completing a mission, players will be taken to the final menu tab, allowing them to battle other players and try out different mech builds. The modes "1 on 1" and "3 on 3" are available here. Match rules are marked in the screenshot below.
Unfortunately, From Software did not add any awards to the winners. Most likely, it is for this reason that the number of matches in multiplayer can be counted on the fingers of one hand. However, the low percentage of players who completed the second chapter also affects the situation.
How to Unlock and Defeat New Arena Enemies in Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon
First, opponents of the rank "E" will be available to the player in the Arena. In order to “rise” higher and open up new enemies, you need to perform plot sorties. After certain missions, the "Arena" will be replenished and the player will be able to earn more chips to upgrade his fur.
As for the optimal builds for passing the arena, everything is individual here and depends on your skills. We completed most of the Arena missions with the Vvc-760PR Plasma Rifle, HI-32:BU-TT/A Pulse Blade, VP-60LCS Laser Cannon on the right shoulder, and the Vvc-703PM Plasma Launcher on the left. The complete assembly is shown in the screenshot below.
The general tactic is to maintain a medium distance, knocking down the enemy's armor with shots from shoulder cannons and right-hand weapons, and then delivering crushing blows with the pulse blade. On rare occasions, we replaced the plasma rifle with a laser shotgun and went into close combat.
Please note: both you and the enemy do not have repair kits, which means that there is no way to replenish health either. That's why most fights don't last even a minute. If you encounter difficulties in passing, try to analyze the enemy’s weapons and choose equipment for the least comfortable distance for him.
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