[Guide] Survival Spawning Mechanics

[Engelheim]

Survival Spawning Mechanics Guide

 

Work In Progress

 

This guide is primarily dedicated on how to maximize spawning during Survival Missions. Increasing the spawn rate will allow more chances for oxygen to drop. Furthermore it will also detail on how to conduct oneself during survival missions to allow greater teamwork and efficiency.

 

These findings are based upon my own observations. These are by no means how the game mechanics are in actually. Rather they are general assumptions on how, in my experience, spawning works. If you find any discrepancies please feel free to point them out.

 

 

Spawning

 

 

Spawning is dictated by a number of different factors. Below are some of them:

• Line of Sight- Mobs will only spawn if they are out of your LoS.
• Tile Size- Generally speaking, a larger tile will spawn more mobs.
• Spawn Points- Each tile has specific spawn points.
• Player Distance- Mobs will only spawn if the player is close enough to said spawn points.
• Mob Cap- Mobs will stop spawning if there are too many mobs already in play.

   

There are a few exceptions to this such as MOA caskets, Ospreys, Stalker, etc. These exceptions are however negligible.

 

 

 

Tiles & Missions

 

 

The tileset, tiles, and faction will also factor into how many mobs spawn. A list of survival missions can be found here. An incomplete list of tiles can be found here.

 

• Tileset- Because spawning is dependent on adjacent tiles and a cap it would be best to choose a tileset with the greatest density of tiles as well as the least travel time for the mobs to be killed. As such the Corpus Ship tileset would offer the greatest spawning potential.
• Tiles- The best potential for spawning would be to stay in a tile that is adjacent to as many tiles as possible. Because of this large rooms (described in the second link) would be the best option. Furthermore because large rooms are often connected to a permanently open door (such as bypass doors) the connecting tile will spawn mobs in its adjacent tiles.
• Faction- Infested are the best because they have higher caps, charge the player(s) (thus dying faster), and are relatively and easy faction to fight. Corpus would be in second whilst Grineer in last.

   

 

Teamwork & Efficiency

 

 

Now that we have the basics of spawning covered here are some tips on how to further increase spawning.

 

• Always open bypass doors- Mobs will spawn behind bypass doors, taking up the mob cap and decreasing the amount of killable mobs.
• Stay very close together- Unfortunately the avarice of players often get the best of them and one ore more deviates from the group. This is by far the worst thing you can do. Besides the stupidity of dispersing loot, missing exp, and dying, this will thin out mobs throughout the whole tileset thereby lessening the players ability to kill them fast enough.
• Use Capsules only <60%- Capsules regenerate 30% oxygen. Why 60%? Because oxygen modules may be picked up in the mean time wasting a few percent. It isn't much but it does add up and occasionally there may be times when that few percent matters.
• The group doesn't have to follow Capsules- Frankly, some Capsule tiles suck for spawning. If you find a good tile stay in it.
• Have a designated Capsule runner- Having one person responsible for using Capsules will prevent two players simultaneously using them and wasting oxygen. Furthermore a single player will be able to quickly run to a capsule and return to the group, keeping mob thinning down to a minimal.

 

Strategies

 

Images and other info to come.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Engelheim

[Engelheim]

Reserved.

 

DE needs to fix their forum coding.

[Drogra]

In my experience, while infested are the easiest to farm up, they also have the worst Oxygen drop rate, with Corpus having decent drop rate and are fairly easy to kill, and Grineer seem to have the highest drop rate but are the hardest to fight.

 

Infested:  Fast, melee oriented, easiest to counter, very beefy at high levels (insane HP amounts).  Ancients get very hard to kill after level 150 (insane HP and Armor), bring someone with a high damage single target weapon to deal with them.  If you are going for 20+ on a T3, do not bring squishy frames that don't have a radial CC or escape tool, you'll get blind sided by an ancient and dropped in 1 hit.  Bring a Rhino or Vauban for revivals.

 

Corpus: Average on everything, with mixed short range and long range units, very squishy (limited armor, moderate hp, lots of shields).  Bring cold damage on your weapons and laugh at them.  Tech's and Fusion Moa's will eat you in seconds at high levels, so focus them fast, use same strategy as Ancients, bring someone with a long range high damage weapon to drop them.  Bring a Loki or Rhino for revivals.

 

Grineer:  Go into these planning on fighting tanks.  With hitscan weapons being standard fare for most of their weapons, plan on your shields being gone most of the time.  Napalms will lay down a carpet of death preventing you from moving towards them and Scorchers will eat you in close, with everything else running distraction so that these 2 units can ruin your game.  Radial Disarm, Radial Blind, M.Prime are your best friends here.  Taking away their guns will keep you alive for a lot longer then any other faction.  Blind is a life saver for your entire team.  M.Prime makes them move as slow as a turtle and shoot slower to boot, and makes them actually die quickly.  Recommended to bring a Loki (Invis and Disarm) and a Frost (with a BIG bubble, Scorchers and Napalms have "Splash" which penetrates the edge of the bubble for 3-6m, and freeze to shut down napalms/gunners/bombards at range till you can focus them, ignore your damage abilities, they deal no damage after level 50ish).

[Egg_Chen]

Nice so far.

 

One thing I have noticed is they can spawn close to you in the same tile, but always out of Line of Sight.

This may even be an anti-camping mechanic as it is usually happens when I am stationary for a while.

 

For example, on the Grineer Galleon levels I often have a heroic last stand at the bottom of the slope.

I stand in the extraction room looking up, but mobs have spawned behind me in the actual extraction room.

 

The only other thing I would add is make sure you open all the yellow security / two player anti-rush doors.

If you don't the mobs won't :)

 

Edit: I have since double checked this to make sure I am not giving you false info.

Stood in the extraction room, but not far enough to extract and looked up the slope to the cross shaped room.

After about a minute a couple of Grineer appear behind me, within about 5 metres (perhaps they flew in?).

Edited November 4, 2013 by Egg_Chen

[Ganjiblob]

The main downside of the infested is if you have a Nekros. Dessicrate does not work during death animations and most infested flap about for ages before immediately dissolving. I find Grineer to be the best from a Nekros standpoint as they fall down quickly and their corpses persist for quite a while.

Furthermore I find Grineer survival maps to be generally better than Corpus ones. This is due to Corpus maps tending to be (topologically) long lines, while Grineer maps tend to be rings with branching dead-ends.

[Spearfish]

Good guide, especially the part about capsule runners..

[thejynxed]

Don't neglect Trinity. Blessing can be used for capsule running, reviving, soloing Napalms, etc. EV and WoL are also good for this stuff, and Blessing seems to have an "unlimited" range of affect. I can cast it and it applies to everyone even if other players are out of LoS and far away.

[Engelheim]

In my experience, while infested are the easiest to farm up, they also have the worst Oxygen drop rate, with Corpus having decent drop rate and are fairly easy to kill, and Grineer seem to have the highest drop rate but are the hardest to fight.

Thanks, I'll have to check if the drop rates are different. I mostly do Infested survival so I haven't noticed.

 

Nice so far.

 

One thing I have noticed is they can spawn close to you in the same tile, but always out of Line of Sight.

This may even be an anti-camping mechanic as it is usually happens when I am stationary for a while.

 

For example, on the Grineer Galleon levels I often have a heroic last stand at the bottom of the slope.

I stand in the extraction room looking up, but mobs have spawned behind me in the actual extraction room.

 

The only other thing I would add is make sure you open all the yellow security / two player anti-rush doors.

If you don't the mobs won't :)

 

Edit: I have since double checked this to make sure I am not giving you false info.

Stood in the extraction room, but not far enough to extract and looked up the slope to the cross shaped room.

After about a minute a couple of Grineer appear behind me, within about 5 metres (perhaps they flew in?).

I had a fleeting suspicion of this. Thanks for testing it out.

 

Yellow doors are bypass doors.

 

Will update the guide in a bit.

[Engelheim]

Guide updated. Mobs do indeed spawn out of the LoS. Images and finishing of the guide to come sometime this weekend.