ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON – Quick tips for New Players

Useful Tips for Newcomers from a Series Veteran

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With AC6 coming out and an influx of new player attention, I thought it might be worthwhile to provide a few starting tips/strategies I’ve found to smooth out the early game from my experiences playing the old games (I 100% all games except 5 and verdict day). Obviously, this assumes that AC6 mostly follows the formula of prior games so take these with a grain of salt until we know the game’s final form. I write this as I’ve noticed a lot of first time playthroughs by streamers of earlier games are a struggle for the player as they try to field the starting AC.

The starting AC is terrible

The AC they start the game with in pretty much all of the armored cores is a build that does laughable damage, moves sluggishly, and will struggle to complete any mission. We can improve upon it immediately by rearranging the build using what we start with.

1. The classic starting build is a medium bipedal frame with the cheapest radar back unit, cheapest rifle, cheapest beam saber, and a small missile pod.
2. Right away the player should sell the radar unit, small missile pod, and rifle. The radar provides a worse radar than most head radars adding little value to the player and the missile pod does poor damage for an AC frame that is starved of damage output. The rifle is sold because we will be replacing it as our first upgrade. By selling these three items, we free up funds right away for some light tinkering.
3. Use the funds to upgrade the rifle into something more substantial. I’d recommend one of three choices: A machine gun, a hand gun, or an energy pistol.
4. The machine gun will produce amazing damage for its cost and is quite potent early on, but suffers from limited ammo and high ammo expense (you can actually lose money on a mission if you aren’t careful). The machine gun is appropriate when the first missions involve fighting a small number of more armored enemies, or if you hit the arena from the start.
5. The energy pistol is a good long term early game choice since it doesn’t cost money for its ammo. It’s damage output is moderate for an early weapon and the chief drawback is that you’ll have to be careful not to drain your reactor from the energy consumption and it is quite possible to run out of ammo. It is appropriate when you are fighting a larger number of weaker enemies.
6. Finally the hand gun is a possible choice (although not mine). Hand guns have relatively cheap ammo and don’t do much damage, but what they do have is causing high stability damage (the stat being replaced by poise). With hand guns the idea is to “stun” your target while closing in for a beam saber kill. If you get a hand gun, also upgrade the beam saber.

Generators and boosters are worth their weight in gold

1. Your next priority after solving the weapon crisis with the starting core is to solve the energy/mobility one. You probably won’t have enough money at the start to get a better generator/boosters but it should be the next thing you consider as you start completing missions. It is far better to avoid damage than tank it as every point of damage is costing you money. This is why its important to upgrade these systems ASAP.
2. Boosters have the biggest impact on your mobility of any possible upgrade. A super heavy tank legs mech with a powerful booster will move around quicker than even ultra light legs with the starting booster.
3. Your energy can be thought of like stamina and bottoming out on it will leave you crippled waiting for the slow recovery (energy recharges more slowly when in shutoff mode than normal recovery. Don’t let that energy bar bottom out!).
4. With bigger boosters comes bigger energy drain so focus on upgrading your generator first before upgrading your boosters.
5. In most cases it is better to “fetter” the booster than to hold it when airborne. Holding the booster down continuously will drain your energy fast and is only really done when you are trying to fly straight up. Most people use a “bunny hop” method where you double tap the booster to go airborne while strafing but then just lightly tap it to maintain momentum while airborne and repeat once the AC touches ground again.
6. Energy recharges faster when standing still but standing still in combat is deadly. Use cover to catch a breath and recharge your energy pool when its low.

Spend all your money

1. Parts in armored core sell for the same value they buy for. (you get a full refund on sale).
2. As such, until you are rolling in money you’ll be wanting to invest all the money you have into making your AC better.

Arena for Cash

1. The arena pits the player’s AC against a NPC AC in a duel for cash.
2. Unlike missions, the player doesn’t pay for repairs or ammo. This makes it a great early game activity.
3. Failure in arena has no consequences. There is no cost associated with losing a match. This makes it a riskless way to make money.
4. Some of the games don’t open arena until a few missions into the game.

Read your mail

1. I’m unsure whether this AC will have the mail system, but if it does, check it regularly.
2. Aside from story bits or clues about upcoming missions, mail will sometimes contain free cash or parts.

Faction Alignment

1. If you look in the store at parts they will all contain a manufacturer who produced them.
2. Manufacturers tend to have a “theme” to them (like being a producer of energy weapons, tank treads, etc).
3. As you take missions, pay attention to which company is contracting with you. Missions won’t always be available (choices will go away over time). By performing missions for a given faction, they usually offer more parts in the store and/or sometimes give you free parts as a bonus.

Keep an eye out for the Kawasawa and Moonblade

1. Every armored core game has these two weapons hidden somewhere in them.
2. Look for strange looking crates or out of place doors for hidden secrets.
3. The Kawasawa is an insanely powerful energy rifle (borderline broken/unfair) that does thousands of damage per shot and explodes on impact causing a small AoE. I’d be willing to wager the first time you use one, you’ll probably want 2 and as much ammo as you can cram on your frame for a while.
4. The Moonblade (for which the Moonveil in Souls games is named for) is traditionally the most powerful melee weapon to the point that it can 3-5 shot most ACs. This makes it an incredible weapon for missioning or for melee builds.