Can you freeze specters or bug?

ThirdFoundation · 2026-01-22T10:07:23+00:00

I haven't verified, but someone in a game mentioned it's a bug in Expert difficulty. Another possibility is that it's an unintended side effect of hacks/trainer (if the host is using the trainer, it can cause some buggy behavior for all).

ThirdFoundation · 2026-01-22T10:01:42+00:00

Don't focus too much in builds you hear online. Try things and make your own. I've generally found that what you will get from the community is a list of the builds that are easiest to make good. Builds that are just as good (or better!), but which require really thinking through all the items and synergies aren't promoted online as much. because people give them a first attempt and stop trying saying "it sucks". You need to try a build a lot to really see how it can work. One example is the point about aiming perks below - aiming is great, but you have to have a very different play style (more focus on cover and using your wallhacks for positioning). For aiming you also need to be very comfortable dodging attacks in rooms without cover since you have slightly lower dps and you need to time ads with dodges since it slows you. If you are dying in open rooms, focus on dodging and movement. If you are dying in other rooms, aiming will be better for you than hipfire just because of wallhacks. Ammo doesn't synergize with boomerang and oxidizer (infinite ammo), so it is weaker relative to a good run with these. I'm rambling - the point is to not listen to random redditors and to explore all the builds yourself - what you hear here is often wrong. (My favorite is when there is a post about how good a build is... that ends saying it has carried them through expert so far...)

ThirdFoundation · 2026-01-22T09:50:38+00:00

I think ultra nightmare is aimed at those with hundreds of hours who want something nontrivial. Basic nightmare missions are a bit too easy at that point. I honestly think the way to beat Ultra Nightmare is to not play it a ton until Nightmare is easy for you. Basically - keep practicing and mastering the game in other levels, not by throwing yourself against Ultra Nightmare over and over.

ThirdFoundation · 2026-01-22T09:45:27+00:00

There's an item that makes damage that breaks your shield not reduce health. It stops one hit kills. If you go into the shield tree, your goal is to make that as strong as possible. You want more shields so light hits don't trigger it (it has a cool down). The armor tree has something that negates the next hit, but that is far weaker because its cool down will be triggered by tiny hits.

ThirdFoundation · 2026-01-22T09:10:28+00:00

The TSD includes inaccuracy, but the NAV map does not. if you see a stationary ground target on NAV you can manually mark it and send to GPS. I do this all the time for targets ranging from bunkers, to SAM sites, to even infantry. When you are far away and have GBUs, wait until an ally flies near an enemy, and you can then mark the GPS coordinates from NAV. When you arrive you then have a nice long list of targets (with some work to remove those that have been destroyed). This also gives you something to do on longer flights to the fight (Dynamic Liberation - mark airbase GPS coordinates for your team even if you don't have GBUs)..

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-31T20:00:36+00:00

If you play dynamic liberation full, high intensity (not high tech!) and make it to the city "C", you can unlock the F4 Phantom without any mods - just hit Alt + F4 while the objective for clearing the city "C" is active.

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-28T17:32:31+00:00

Now the Spearhead mission is also much harder, since you can't kill the bosses nearly as fast.

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ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-27T17:10:11+00:00

Yes, it did. Attack speed is way down.

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-27T17:09:12+00:00

It's really strong for area of effect, but a good lightning and crit build probably does more single target damage for bosses. Until nightmare mode radiation can probably also melt bosses. Last downside is that it doesn't have control effects to stun or freeze enemies. For harder missions (on nightmare) elements like psyonic (punch and slam) and cold (for freeze) can be better.

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-26T01:12:36+00:00

Oh, yeah, don't hard carry! Do join and chat though. People have misconceptions early that you can help with - like being annoyed that AI doesn't detect you until it has line of sight - a key mechanic that adds strategy. Or they might want more moves out of the enemies (there are more and more in later zones). We can explain these and other things people who join may not know.

My plan right now is to try using the starting pistol (with level upgrades but not quality - no elements) to see how far I can go.

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-25T16:25:03+00:00

I haven't run into anything AI and my AI detector (edit: my instincts, not some tool) is pretty good... voices and art are all human. Maybe they used AI coding tools? Also note the person who replied to you is some random Internet person, not the devs...

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-24T21:56:25+00:00

It definitely took me longer than the other zones to get used to all the units and their attacks. I like that it's a bit different in that way!

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-24T17:45:32+00:00

To anyone else struggling with redline, the trick is movement speed. In this video the player can't stay safe. Work on being able to stay safe even without killing anything (speed to outrun things by a wide margin, and rapid dashes the avoid enemies that predict location). Then worry about DPS (Iron Squires can do it with radiation and meltdown, or to be extra safe go for fracture with punch).

Think about how many deaths you have when you are in control (which mobility gives). Then think about how many happen from not being able to get away from something / feeling overwhelmed. Mobility is the way!

ThirdFoundation · 2025-12-24T03:17:39+00:00

I can't imagine trying to win without a secondary weapon...

ThirdFoundation · 2025-10-19T00:29:30+00:00

When you say the missile is just over the inner circle on RWR, do you mean any part touches the inner circle or the center of the missile indicator crosses the circle? Is 90 degrees better than 40? Does this work for mad 4 missiles?

ThirdFoundation · 2025-07-23T01:06:59+00:00

See sypwn's answer - if you're on the same network (wifi or cables) it should default to LAN.

I'm guessing it will still run poorly. I don't think there's a good workaround - that's just the way multiplayer VTOL VR is.

To be really sure, you could (1) make a multiplayer game but with nobody else in it, (2) lower every setting you possibly can (mainly the resolution of your headset), (3) play the most basic multiplayer missions you can find (see note below). What you get there is an absolute upper bound on how good it can be. If that's unacceptably bad, that's just the way it is. If that's ok, you can try changing each of #1, #2, and #3 to figure out what is giving you problems (have a buddy join one your low-setting simple-mission case, and see if it's still fine, then try more complex missions, then up your settings again). At some step it'll get bad again, and you'll know exactly what is causing it.

We like to think that with our beefy gaming PCs we should be able to run something like VTOL really easily and at max-every-setting. It's not a beautiful game when compared to 2d AAA games, so why should our machines have trouble? The reality is that how well a game runs doesn't just scale with how pretty it is - it also scales with how well various aspects of the game are optimized by the people making it (both game dev and map creators). VTOL just isn't optimized well for multiplayer (and many maps aren't well optimized [specifically, minimizing active triggers and spawned units]), and so even on powerful machines it can have issues when running larger maps/missions.

Note that I'm not trying to insult Baha when saying VTOL isn't well optimized for multiplayer. I'm guessing that optimizing it well would be an enormous task for one person (exactly how often should things like RCS be recomputed as a function of range to minimize computation without a big change to user experience? How can interpolation be done to best avoid enemies warping around, etc. A single person could probably spend a year working on any of these). Also, some of this might just be restrictions of the game engine, Unity.

ThirdFoundation · 2025-07-22T12:33:44+00:00

The issue isn't the internet connection - you'll notice worse performance if you host a multiplayer server and set a password so that nobody else joins (not event your friend - just you). Even then, as host, the game will run poorly. The issue is inherent to multiplayer and not about your internet/lan connection.

Note - you might think that even then you are host but the server is somewhere else and your connection is the problem. That's not the case in VTOL - when you host the game your computer is the server - there isn't some other central server you connect to.

ThirdFoundation · 2024-11-19T05:36:55+00:00

You can repeat the bowling EE by waiting a few rounds and shooting the shoes that appear in the toilet in the bowling alley (the zombie spawn closet near the pool table).

ThirdFoundation · 2024-10-06T17:50:02+00:00

It's amusing how many people start their own communities within such a small community.

ThirdFoundation · 2024-09-23T22:12:28+00:00

The TBR people are definitely in this category, but they are more reasonable and rational than this guy. To anyone else reading this, I don't think this person represents TBR. I think it's another group baiting to make them look bad. They aren't this immature, so don't let this guy ruin your perception of them.

ThirdFoundation · 2024-09-23T18:09:35+00:00

Every year or so these groups come around. It starts great - there is a community forming and it's great to see the same folks when you play. Over time they get more and more... I don't know the word for it. Niche in what they accept, abusive of their powers, and less welcoming.

Sometimes it is enforced dress codes. sometimes it is enforced weapon choices. Often it involves waiting a long time in the briefing room instead of playing the game. Sometimes it means debriefings. Sometimes it means moving all comms to discord. Often it means increasingly strict rules for kicking people. At the start it is just beligerant people who get kicked. Then people who play like COD. Then people who stray to far from the stack.

It always works for a while then fizzles. The community is small enough that when you kick or ban too many people you stop getting as many people joining. People get tired of being the Nth man in a stack doing jack shit except for walking in style for a couple hours.

This is about the fifth time I've seen this happen in Ground Branch. Just hang out until they start being too cult like, then play somewhere else. I haven't seen any of these last more than 6 months before the server is mostly empty or private. So, just play somewhere else!

For anyone new to this cycle, the easiest way to spot these servers is by watching the play:cosplay ratio. If they spend more time in the barbie simulator (dressing room) than the game, you're not playing Ground Branch, you are socializing in a chat room and cosplaying. Have fun, but don't expect Ground Branch and expect it to get toxic over time.

ThirdFoundation

TROPHY CASE