Hi! This guide shows some of my loadouts that I use in AFF. I'll show an image of each loadout and the components, then explain how I use it in game.

The loadouts in this guide are kitted out with all the bells and whistles that I can get at maximum rank, but for those of you at a lower rank, you may have to forgo some of the extra weapon modifications or find substitutes if you can't afford them. As long as you have the core weapons included in your loadout, you should be fine (and you can always scavenge weapons from fallen soldiers). Here's an idea of what you can alter:

• Knife specs. If you're using your knife, either something has gone horribly wrong, or you know exactly what you're doing. Unless you are trying to use your knife, you don't need any specs for it.
  
• Multiwrench specs. Your multiwrench will work just fine without any modifications.
  
• Low magnification sights. While it's nice to have a holo sight on a shotgun or pistol, these weapons are mainly useful at close ranges, where hipfiring is just as if not more effective than aiming.
  
• Hardpoint ammo. Despite being a direct upgrade to standard ammo, it doesn't do any extra damage to players, so you can stick with standard ammo and do just fine.
  
• Internal modifications. While it's great to be able to tweak a weapon's stats in your desired direction, the cost is very high for such small benefits. Spend your points on important things like weapons, support items, underbarrel attachments, or suit modifications.
  
• Fancy grenades. You don't need to pour all your points into grenades for them to be effective. Regular grenades with a double smoke charge can provide concealment for an entire team, with almost zero cost.

Also - don't take my loadouts as gospel! These are just what I use, and only use a few of the many weapons available in AFF. Much of the fun in the game lies in experimenting with crazy weapon combinations, so go wild! Dual SGZ's? GU34 with a flamer? Bolt-action rifle modified for close combat? Do it!

These things are very important for your loadouts, and you'll need to think about what playstyle you are aiming for when you choose your equipment, but as always, experiment with crazy new combinations to see what works.

Grenades come in three types: regular, gyro, and spring. Regular grenades behave as you expect; gyro grenades seek out targets once thrown; and spring grenades act like thrown land mines, bouncing up and exploding in your enemies' faces if they get close. I personally find gyro grenades the most useful as they explode on contact and so can detonate fast if needed, but it's up to you.

You can also choose to equip detpacks instead of grenades; these hold one powerful charge and can be set off manually or with a proximity detector. They're great to use against vehicles or capital ship core lockouts, as well as landmines. You can switch modes with [x] by default. I find these better than spring grenades, as you can carry more of them, and they are more powerful.

What Charge to Use?
It depends! Frag deals up-front damage to vehicles and infantry (including you!), incendiary sets the ground on fire for a period, EMP stops sprinting and boosting, and so on.

As an example, a typical anti-infantry grenade might have an EMP and incendiary charge, while a more general-purpose grenade might have a frag and EMP charge. Double smoke grenades are also very useful for covering movements across open terrain, or for disorienting and confusing enemies in indoor areas.

Again: what you should use depends on your playstyle. If you're going to be wearing heavy armour and sitting behind a shield, you might not need a medical kit, but an ammo box would keep you in the fight longer. Turrets might be useful for enclosed spaces, but aren't as good in very open areas, while shields are best for defense.

The multiwrench is an item only able to be equipped in the sidearm slot. It has several uses:

• To revive friendlies (look for people lying down and crying out for a medic).
  
• To clear status effects (shock, fire, acid) from friendlies. Try not to run into an acid cloud though, or you'll get corroded too!
  
• To heal the armour, not health, of friendly infantry; useful for keeping them alive when under fire or taking heat damage.
  
• To repair vehicles if they have sustained damage.
  
• To repair capital ship components.

I recommend you equip it on all of your loadouts, unless you're going for a triple-revolver build (it's pretty fun!) or will never be with your team (ie. a sniper). Do use it though - revive downed players, repair friendly vehicles, repair friendly infantry if they're under fire or on fire, and repair your capital ship components in space, too.

The multiwrench is also able to destroy hackspikes extremely quickly, so can be useful in a pinch.

These loadouts are for when you just want to have fun. Are they the most effective? Probably not. Are they unorthodox? You bet. Will the enemy see them coming? Absolutely not!

Stretching the concept of a 'loadout' to its absolute limit, playing as a scavenger means you'll be starting with just a knife and grenades. Fallen comrades and foes will be your only means of acquiring a weapon.

Components


Strategy

• Scavenge weapons from dead soldiers.
  
• Flank and sneak up on enemies with your knife to score your first kill.
  
• Grab a new weapon if you run out of ammunition.
  
• Elemental effects will have reduced duration because of your insulation specs.
  
• Swap to a medium suit for a more agile playstyle.

Reject modernity and return to tradition with high powered, slow firing weapons from the great wars of the past.

Components


Strategy

• Use your speed to your advantage and reposition after each shot.
  
• Take your time to line up shots correctly; let enemies walk into your crosshair and aim for the head.
  
• Keep your revolver loaded.
  
• Don't forget that your grenades can deal lethal damage and pass through shields.

When you're getting pummeled by seemingly invincible gunships and tanks, sometimes the best strategy isn't to try and destroy them, but to make fighting you so annoying that they give up.

Components


Strategy

• Your suit should make you highly resistant to rapid-fire explosive weapons, like rocket launchers, plasma cannons and gunship primary weapons.
  
• Use the best weapons for the job: fire overheats gunship primary weapons and coaxial/secondary machine guns on other vehicles; shock disables boost; corrosive permanently reduces max HP and armour and increases explosive damage on the target.
  
• Only fire at vehicles long enough to apply the desired effect/s, as you won't be able to do much damage to them directly.
  
• Coordinate with your team to slow & disable enemy vehicles where your team can destroy them.
  
• If you think this loadout seems dumb, try playing against it.

These loadouts are designed for very specific situations, so they will excel in their niche, but be caught with their pants down otherwise.

When you need to blast your way through the corridors of an enemy battleship and blow up their core, nothing beats a marine.

Components


Strategy

• Try to apply both shock and incendiary effects to enemies so that they are easier to kill.
  
• Your weapons are light, so keep moving and hipfire when possible.
  
• Detpacks are most effective against core lockout consoles and the core itself, while your weapons won't deal much damage to them.
  
• Detpacks can be used as trip mines when set to proximity mode (X to change fire modes).

Sometimes a gung-ho approach isn't the best strategy. Instead, it can pay to move quickly, hit hard, and turn a battleship into one giant booby trap.

Components


Strategy

• Avoid head-on fights; flank enemies and be sneaky.
  
• Hide detpacks and sentry turrets near high-traffic areas, and lure enemies into them.
  
• Ambush enemies around corners with the SGZ for extreme damage.
  
• Use your suit's dodge ability (tap your jump key while moving left, right, or backwards) to confuse enemies and dart into cover.
  
• You can sprint while firing your SMG – use this to close the distance for an SGZ shot or to back out of a fight.
  
• Survive! You are trying to be a nuisance and tie up enemy resources, not to single-handedly blow up the ship.

When the enemy is having a party you aren't invited to, help them to liven the mood a bit with some fireworks. After all, you've got plenty to spare.

Components


Strategy

• You are playing a fire-support loadout, so even though you have heavy armour, try to avoid getting shot too much.
  
• If the enemy is hiding behind shields, use shock rockets to disable them; otherwise, use smoke rockets to cover your teams' advance. Smoke works best when it is closer to the enemy – the goal is to disorient them and conceal your team.
  
• When you have a clear line of fire, throw as many grenades as possible (unless you really don't need to) so that you do as much damage as possible.
  
• Throw your grenades so that they cover a wide area and set as much of it on fire as possible.
  
• Set the MNL to sticky or bouncy mode depending on the geometry of the location you are assaulting.
  
• Once you have thrown/launched enough grenades, use your machine gun to clear any remaining enemies and cut off their reinforcements.

These are loadouts that do not fit into any other category or would have exceeded the character limit.

A light, agile loadout that moves with the speed and silence of an owl but strikes with the power of a falcon.

Components


Strategy

• Keep moving and don't peek the same angle twice.
  
• Fire your carbine in short bursts and then reposition to confuse enemies.
  
• Your carbine's incendiary rounds will overheat enemy machine guns.
  
• The SGZ deals some of the highest damage in the game. Sneak up on enemies or peek around a corner, fire, and then instantly retreat to reload. Enemies with automatic weapons won't be able to deal as much damage to you as you can to them.
  
• If the enemy is hiding around a corner or behind a shield, throw a grenade to deal high damage and force them out, or to cover your entrance.

For when you've given up on being useful to your team and just want to sit back, relax, and be a mild annoyance until someone bothers to shoot back at you.

Components


Strategy

• It is very difficult to contribute well as a sniper.
  
• Aim for high priority targets, such as: human players (who will not have (AI) prefixes), commanders (marked with a star icon), and squad leaders (marked with a chevron icon).
  
• Shoot enemies that are standing still first, as it will be easier to land headshots.
  
• Use your SMG or carbine to finish off enemies or for close-quarters combat.
  
• Look at your points score at the end of the round and you'll see what I mean about snipers not contributing much. Try to only have a few players sniping on your team.

These loadouts are named using a common format: AA-BBB-C, where AA is its primary weapon (AR = assault rifle, MG = machinegun), BBB is its targets (INF = infantry, AV = anti vehicle, AA = anti air) and C is its role (A = attack, D = defense). Images will show the attack variants for both factions.

A general loadout for fighting infantry battles, with a focus on close quarters combat.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip a shield generator in the new slot, swap the 2x sight and flamer on the rifle for a 4x sight and underbarrel shield, and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge.


Strategy

• Use the right weapon for the right situation: rifle for medium to long ranges (switching to single/burst modes if necessary), shotgun for close quarters, and the flamer or grenades for groups of enemies.
  
• If playing as the Antareans, note that your shotgun can overheat.
  
• Duck in and out of cover to take advantage of your fast armour regeneration time.
  
• Use the hardpoint ammo to shoot through thin walls and windows.
  
• Shock grenades will disable shields if they explode close enough.

A heavy loadout that can take a beating and engage infantry at any range.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip two shield generators (one in the additional slot and one replacing the munitions pack), and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge.


Strategy

• This loadout is selfish in that it trades the multiwrench for a backup SMG, meaning that you won't be able to revive your comrades or repair friendly vehicles, armour, or ship components.
  
• Although you have a sniper rifle, you aren't a sniper. Use the rifle to engage targets at long range when you must, or to deal large amounts of damage quickly to stationary targets with a headshot.
  
• Use the SMG to cover for your machine gun when it overheats (ie. if you get set on fire) or runs out of ammo. The incendiary rounds will overheat your opponents' machine guns as well as some other weapons.

A loadout designed to counter ground vehicles while remaining versatile enough to fight infantry.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip a shield generator in the new slot, swap one of the suit repair specs for a shock spec, swap the 2x sight and flamer on the rifle for a 4x sight and underbarrel shield, and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge.


Strategy

• The C30i cannon fires explosive shells that detonate on proximity to enemies. Use this to fire at enemy vehicles even when they are behind cover.
  
• In a pinch, the C30i can be used to quickly destroy an enemy hackspike.
  
• You'll be slowed down quite a bit when holding or reloading the C30i, so make sure that you are behind or close to cover when you use it.
  
• Antarean vehicles will be able to deploy a drone that destroys C30i projectiles. Wait for the drone to expire before reengaging.
  
• If you're using the fragmentation detpacks, throw them on enemy vehicles and detonate for massive damage.

A heavy loadout with heavy weapons to match.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip two shield generators (one in the additional slot and one replacing the munitions pack), and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge.


Strategy

• The C30i can hit enemy vehicles behind cover with its explosive shells.
  
• Your SMG can overheat some vehicle weapons, like gunship primary weapons, the Basta's plasma cannon, and any coaxial/secondary machine guns, LSP weapons, or plasma cannons. Use this to make vehicles less dangerous.
  
• The occupants of light vehicles (Silverback and Hare) can be shot while in the vehicle. If you're able to, use your machine gun or SMG to kill the driver, and then destroy the vehicle.

A loudout designed to be more resistant to the weapons used by gunships that carries a more potent anti-air weapon.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip a shield generator in the new slot, swap the 2x sight and flamer on the rifle for a 4x sight and underbarrel shield, and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge.


Strategy

• While your armour will take less damage from gunship weapons due to the dual shock specs, it will take longer to regenerate. Find cover and heal up before exposing yourself again.
  
• If playing as the Antareans, the MLI can lock on and be fired without using the sight. Doing so will greatly increase your mobility while firing.
  
• Flick your aim upwards just before you fire the MLI to fire the missiles over cover.
  
• It can be a good idea to start charging up the RID before a gunship is going to come into view, so that you can fire quickly and get back behind cover.
  
• Be aware that charging the RID will display a red laser in the direction of the gun to all players.
  
• You'll need to work with your squad and team to take down a gunship. If someone has shock ammo, get them to shoot at the gunship, as the shock effect disables boost when triggered.

The heaviest loadout with the heaviest weapons. Slow but deadly.

Components

For the defensive version, swap the assault spec for support and equip two shield generators (one in the additional slot and one replacing the munitions pack), and swap the grenades for detpacks with a fragmentation charge. Antareans will need to drop the holster spec on their knife.


Strategy

• Use your SMG to disable the primary weapon of gunships.
  
• Consider charging up the RID before a gunship is visible, but remember that it will fire when fully charged if there is a target or not.
  
• If defending, position your shield generators out of the direct line of sight of gunships, like behind a wall, corner or some other form of cover.

Those are my loadouts! Hopefully some of them are useful to you in your conquests.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or found any errors, please let me know with a comment below and I'll do my best to get back to you in a timely fashion.

Thanks for reading!

Changelog:

• 23/11/2018 Multitool section now mentions that it removes the EMP effect from friendly units; re-wrote the section on commandeering AI vehicles; fixed some minor errors
  
• 2/02/2019 Added note on upcoming new version
  
• 30/06/2019 Changed note on upcoming new version. It's still in progress, but it's likely to stay that way for a while
  
• 25/07/2019 Again changed note on upcoming new version to reflect dated nature of guide
  
• Updated conclusion
  
• 27/11/2019 FINALLY updated the guide to reflect my current loadouts and the current stage of the game! New version is here!
  
• 2/12/2019 Fixed markup error
  
• 1/01/2020 While the year is new, this guide is no longer new; updated title and description
  
• 2/02/2020 Fixed markup error
  
• 5/05/2020 Fixed a few typos and added note saying that the guide is not current
  
• 9/11/2020 (dd/mm/yyyy, not American...) Revamped the guide to match the current version of the game & my current loadouts. There's more loadouts, less waffle, and I've finally purged the word "multitool" from my vocabulary. Multiwrench FTW!
  
• 14/11/2020 Resolved a contradiction.