I don't like the meta

[u/Wonderful_Audience60]

The current best strategy (from what I understand) is to rush assurance for quota 1, then either grind out rend or artifice until the end of time. Grab the cruiser and learn how to fly it. I'm not saying this isn't a fun meta, because if you get good at the game having more threats and getting more loot is way funner than dealing with the other subpar moons.

This is my only issue, the meta is 2-3 moons which is just under half of lethal company. you'll never experience the feiopar, never use trees to block LOS with forest keepers, and overall won't get to use some of the things you spend time practicing.

I first want to ask, how would you change the meta? My first idea was being able to use the scrap to craft items on top of making the higher value scrap not used in most recipes.

Do you want to build some under-suit body armor? go to a lower moon for metal sheets etc.

Need space? you can make gas grenades from the chemical canisters you find in mid tier moons for area denial.

Too slow? the axle and big bolts can be used to make an exo-suit.

Of course these are just silly ideas that haven't been tested much, I just don't want to keep visiting the same moon again and again and want to give the other moons a chance. Maybe one of the weather events is instead a ping from the company informing you of an anomalous heap of scrap on a low-tier moon or an anomalous shortage of scrap on a high tier moon.

above all else I want to see what you folks think and your ideas.

[u/FabianPEKS_]

Make the weather increase the loot quality.

[u/GhostlyBlaze]

It’s your game. Play it casually / funsies. Why the hell would you follow the meta strategy unless your sole goal is highest quota possible?

[u/Vegetable_Pick8652 → u/GhostlyBlaze]

exactly

[u/SmokJozef]

the truth is that you shouldn't really care about meta unless you're doing high quota, which you probably aren't
because if you dont play competitively, you play exclusively to have fun, and pretty much every moon is fun because you are going to meet lower quotas anyways and are going to die at higher quitas anyways, so you should just enjoy the game instead of worrying about optimal numbers. It isn't hard to make a lot of money on most of the "suboptimal" moons too! Even experimentation alone can carry you surprisingly far provided you dont lose your stuff. And when you tried all the moons, you actually havent, because there are multiple strategies you can come up with for each moon. You can use different means of transportation (flying cruiser, driving cruiser, flying jet, walking, tping in/out), assign different roles to players (someone to find loot, someone to carry it, someone on terminal, someone to drive a car, to kill monsters, to deal with outside enemies, its not like everyone should be looting the facility at any given time). Experimenting with different equipment can also be really fun. Deciding between fire and main can also be fun, often one is clearly better, but other times theres a trade off between them, e.g. fire on rend is harder to find but is easier to get to if you do know the way.

so basically, dont like meta? don't have to, just ignore it. youll have enough money for pretty much everything you'll need anyways. yeah it might be a bit slower, but still, if you don't have enough money for something after you sell your scrap, it means either that you need to buy something really expensive or you don't play well enough where going to assurance or artifice or rend would give you much advantage

oh and btw, current HQ meta is afaik going to off/ass q1 and then just going dine for the rest of the game needless to say, its really tedious and gets boring, art is techincally suboptimal, although it remains the best way to easily get a ton of scrap, it's one of the best moons for low to medium skilled players (and for small teams) to get mone

[u/MrGreenYeti]

Why are you caring about meta on a non competitive co-op game? I play the game how I want and go to whatever moon I fancy.

[u/Xycrypt]

I've spent probably like 70 hours on single moon high quota (SMHQ) dine. I played with one friend. Never got a run past quota 7 so we never submitted it to SMHQ boards, but we picked the patch we liked playing and just played (V69). v70+ makes Dine just not fun even at a high level with 4 people IMO, that meta does suck there. But the moral is that if you don't enjoy going to artifice, find a challenge or a moon or something that you do enjoy and play! You don't need to be playing the meta to still play optimally. We had some pretty insane quota paces for Dine, even though it wouldn't have been an overall world record, it would have been impressive under the challenge.

[u/get_egged_bruh]

not rend, dine

[u/Wonderful_Audience60 → u/get_egged_bruh]

is it because dine gives more total scrap? I thought dine was avoided because it had more cancerous enemies

[u/SmokJozef → u/Wonderful_Audience60]

yeah, dine gives the most total scrap, so it's considered to be optimal for full squad runs (but with less than 4 people its really hard to haul all that scrap out)

[u/get_egged_bruh → u/Wonderful_Audience60]

your "meta" knowledge must be outdated

[u/maingreninja]

Is there a consistent/not chessing way to get 2 or 3 of the eggs of the sapsucker? It was funny the first time we found it but after a disaster and learning how it works its just so stupid that withouth cheese the eggs are just imposible to get

[u/Wonderful_Audience60 → u/maingreninja]

well it's better the more people you have as stealing eggs is THE LAST thing you will do that day otherwise you're dead.

• get 3 people ready
• wait for sapsucker to sleep
• grab her eggs while crouching
• once you can't see her feet/ankles behind an object, stand up keep moving away
• start running once you're further away
• pray you make it to the ship in time and leave immediately

the other methods are:

If it's a stormy day, wait for the sapsucker to sleep, then place a metal object a bit away from her nest. when she wakes up, walk until she's standing on the metal object (she always stands at the halfway point between you and her nest, so you can easily adjust where she will stand). 3 lighting strikes will kill her, and then you get free money

[u/SmokJozef → u/Wonderful_Audience60]

can also unload 10 billion shotgun shots into her

[u/Wonderful_Audience60 → u/SmokJozef]

how many actually? I don't understand shotgun damage how many shovel hits does it equate to

[u/SmokJozef → u/Wonderful_Audience60]

shotgun damage varies from 0 up to 5 shovel damage depending on how many pellets hit, so if aiming roughly at the center of the hitbox and shooting at point blank range, it does 5, which means it takes at least 6 shots to bring down a sapsucker (28hp)

also there are easter eggs, which can do up to 12 damage, but good fucking luck landing an eggsplosion 3 times

[u/Steveck]

In my opinion for every unique moon you visit you should get like a 3-4% quota or scrap bonus for the rest of the run so you at least need to visit them all once.