Metal Assault Upgrade Shop Guide

Metal Assault Upgrade Shop Guide by Thysiazo

The upgrade shop is a shop that shows up in between rounds in Co-Op mode.

The upgrade shop allows you to make your character stronger for the rest of the current game, whether your team beats all 10 rounds or your entire team fails.

I’ve heard a lot of players ask what they should spend their points on, or what exactly a certain upgrade does, which is why I decided to go ahead and create this guide.

HP 100%

The HP 100% upgrade restores all damage that has been done to your character. This does not increase your maximum HP; it is only a purchase that restores damage already taken.

Before upgrade:
My HP is low. T-T

After upgrade:
My HP is full! ^-^

MP 100%

The MP 100% is identical to the HP 100% upgrade, except for MP instead of HP.

Before upgrade:
My MP is low. ._.

After upgrade:
My MP is full! :3

SSP 10

This upgrade increases the SSP of the character. SSP most likely stands for something to the effect of Special Skill Power.

The amount of SSP a character has can be seen at the bottom-left corner of the screen, based on the coloring of the character’s portrait.

The player’s SSP meter will slowly fill up with the colors green, blue, and red, depending on which level of SSP the player is on.

The player’s SSP meter will fill up if the player kills an enemy, buys some SSP in the upgrade shop, or if the player dies. From a small test, assuming the SSP button gives 10 SSP points, it take 30 SSP points to get green filled up, 10 more SSP points to fill up blue, and 10 more SSP points to fill up red.

Once the player’s portrait is completely filled with a color, the portrait will flash, and the SSP power for that level of upgrade will become available.

Every character has two SSP abilities; one unique ability that only that character has, and an airstrike ability that all of the characters have.

Once the character’s SSP is filled to a certain level, two messages will appear at the bottom of the screen, telling the player that they can either press Ctrl to use their unique ability, or Alt to use their airstrike ability. (See picture above.)

If the player presses Ctrl, their unique ability will instantly activate, lasting for a short amount of time.

If the player presses Alt, a green, blue, or red skull will appear, following the player’s mouse. The player can then click on the area they want to place the skull.

When the player places the skull, the character will go through a short animation in which they can not move, after which an airstrike will happen in the location the skull was placed. (If you die during the airstrike animation, the airstrike will not happen and your SSP will be wasted. And you will probably be very sad. Aww. ._.)

Here are some examples of the airstrike SSP abilities in action, and the differences between them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5efdaD3DS8 – Level 1 SSP ability. (Bombard)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4VtTfVqrpg – Level 2 SSP ability. (Concentrated Fire)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGB6bcqjGsA – Level 3 SSP ability. (Carpet Bomb)

All of the characters also have unique SSP abilities that none of the other characters have. Explanations of their abilities are below:

Marie – Shooting Star
Marie’s sight and reload rate both increase.

Level 1 – Marie’s sight and reload rate increase for 20 seconds.
Level 2 – Marie’s sight and reload rate increase a little more for 25 seconds.
Level 3 – Marie’s sight and reload rate increase even more for 30 seconds.

A video of Shooting Star in action: Marie SSP Example – Shooting Star

Burton – The Rock
Burton’s defense greatly increases, reducing the damage he takes.

Level 1 – Burton’s defense increases for 20 seconds. Damage is reduced to 3/10 of the damage he normally would have taken. (If he was going to take 1000 damage, he will instead take 300.)
Level 2 – Burton’s defense increases for 25 seconds. Damage is reduced to 2/10 of the damage he would have otherwise taken. (If he was going to take 1000 damage, he will instead take 200.)
Level 3 – Burton’s defense increases for 30 seconds. Damage is reduced to 1/10 of the damage he would have taken otherwise. (If he was going to take 1000 damage, he will instead take 100.)

A video of The Rock in action: Burton SSP Example – The Rock

Ai – Hide
Ai becomes hidden for a short time. This lets her become invisible to enemies in PvP and causes bullets and melee attacks to sometimes miss. (Some info taken from diguitinho55’s guide here.)

Level 1 – Ai becomes hidden for 20 seconds. Firing a weapon, throwing a grenade, or jumping will cause Ai to become visible during the action. Bullets and melee attacks can sometimes miss.
Level 2 – Ai becomes hidden for 25 seconds. Firing a weapon or throwing a grenade will cause her to become temporarily visible. She will stay hidden while jumping at this level or level 3. Bullets and melee attacks can sometimes miss.
Level 3 – Ai becomes hidden for 30 seconds. Firing a weapon or throwing a grenade will cause her to become temporarily visible. Bullets and melee attacks can sometimes miss.

A video of Hide in action: Ai SSP Example – Hide

Carl – Speed Star
Carl’s running speed will increase temporarily.

Level 1 – Carl’s speed increases for 20 seconds.
Level 2 – Carl’s speed increases a little more for 30 seconds.
Level 3 – Carl’s speed increases even more for 40 seconds.

A video of Speed Star in action: Carl SSP Example – Speed Star

Attack+

The Attack+ upgrade increases the amount of damage the player can do.

Based off of tests in Death Escape, each level appears to increase the damage the player does by 4% of the damage the player did the previous level. As you can see from a quick test:

The first two columns show the actual hits done with a rifle as a normal hit or a headshot.
The third column shows what upgrade level the Attack+ was at.
The last two columns show what the damage should be if there was an exact 4% damage increase from the last level.

The numbers are only very slightly off, meaning there is probably a slightly different formula in place, as my numbers calculated numbers were rounded down, so they most likely weren’t different just due to a rounding issue.

I also did tests with the rocket launcher and sniper rifle; the results were exactly the same, with damage increasing by 4% from the previous level.

Defense+

The Defense+ upgrade increases the player’s defense, decreasing the amount of damage the player takes.

I wasn’t able to find any kind of formula for how the damage decrease worked. I did a small test for the defense upgrade using zombies from Death Escape on round 2:

(Oops. x.x “Defense Taken” should be “Damage Taken.”)

At first I tried upgrading defense to see what I could make from the results.

Then I tried taking off all of my armor to see if I could get better results. When I did that, however, the defense upgrade ended up not reducing any damage at all.

This means that the defense upgrade probably directly increases the defense of the player’s armor by some percent.

RapidFire+

The RapidFire+ upgrade both increases a weapon’s fire rate, such as the time it takes to use all 30 bullets in a rifle, and the time it takes to reload the weapon.

Speed+

The Speed+ upgrade increases a player’s running speed. Not a whole lot more to say here, except the difference in running speed does get noticeable fairly quickly.

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Points

At some point in time you’ve probably noticed that, in the top right corner, there are two sets of numbers next to all of the player’s names, a yellow set on the left and a white set on the right.

I’ve heard quite a few players ask what the yellow and white numbers mean, so I thought I’d go ahead and explain them.

The yellow numbers on the left indicate how many upgrade points a player has available to spend while the white numbers just show how many total points the player has gotten over the game.

There are two ways a player can earn points during a game; all players will earn 10 points after the completion of any round, and players will earn points individually every time that player kills a zombie.

The breakdown seems to be something like:

Rotten/Fast/Spitter Zombie – 1 Point
Fatso Zombie – 2 Points
Red Zombie – 18 Points
Humans in Cave of Chaos/Great Escape – 1 Point

The white points are usually much more important than the yellow ones.

The white points show how well a player is doing in a game and determines the player’s placing for that round.

When a player is in first place, the player will temporarily have a crown floating above their name and become sparkly.

Also, if the team manages to win the game, players will receive a ranking bonus based on what the player’s rank was and how many people were in the game for the reward boxes at the end of a Co-Op game. (If there are 16 people in a game, first place will get a +16 bonus, second place will get a +15 bonus, and so on; if there are 8 people, first place will get a +8 bonus, second place will get a +7 bonus, etc.)

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Power Ups/Items

Power Ups in Co-Op are usually pretty straightforward, but I thought I’d go ahead and make a section about them anyway.
<–Powerups! :D

Whenever a player kills an enemy in Co-Op, there’s a chance the enemy will drop one of many items. The items an enemy will drop are basically just one of three types: a power up, an ammo box, or a mystery box.

The power ups an enemy drops appear as little circles with a picture in it that shows what the power up does.

In order of the pictures, the power ups are: Attack Increase, Defense Increase, Speed Increase, HP Recover, Ally HP Recover, Ally MP Recover, Infinite Ammo, and Area Stun.

The attack, defense, and speed power ups are temporary power ups that give a player a bonus for about 30 seconds. When a player gets one of these power ups, a small icon will appear near the bottom left corner of the game with a timer that counts down from 300, with 10 on the timer being about 1 second. Once the timer reaches 0, the effect of the bonus will go away.

The attack bonus increases damage done by 50%.
The defense bonus increases defense by 50%.
The speed bonus increases running speed by 20%.

If a player gets two of these power ups in a short period of time, the effects of the power up will stack for the remaining time that the first power up had.

Just as an example, let’s say a player gets an attack power up, and their damage increases from 1000 to 1500. The power up then goes on until the timer is at 150, and we’ll just say that the player gets a second attack power up. If this happens, the timer will go back up to 300, and the player’s damage will increase to 2000 until the timer reaches 150 again, and the old power up’s time runs out. The player will then deal 1500 damage again until the second power up runs out.

The effects will keep stacking with even more power ups, as long as the player can get enough power ups within a short enough time.

-> -> ->

The recovery power ups are pretty straightforward:
The HP Recover will heal any damage the player who grabs this has taken, restoring their HP to 100%. You probably shouldn’t take one of these if your health is almost full, especially if somebody else really needs it.
The Ally HP Recover will heal every player’s HP by 50% of their maximum HP.
The Ally MP Recover will heal every player’s MP by 50% of their maximum MP.

The Infinite Ammo power up will give your player unlimited ammo for 30 seconds. What this actually means is that a player’s ammo will not decrease; if one of your weapons has no ammo while this power up is in effect, you won’t be able to fire the weapon until you have at least 1 bullet to fire. If your weapon can fire, its ammo will not decrease, and your weapon (depending on the type) will not have to reload.

A rifle will be able to continuously fire at its regular speed, never having to reload while this is in effect.
A pistol will be able to continuously fire at its regular speed, never having to reload while this is in effect.
A sniper rifle will have to do its regular reload in between each round fired, but will not have its slightly extended reload every 10 rounds.
A shotgun will have its regular reload in between each round fired, but will not have its extended reload every 7 rounds.
A rocket launcher will not have any reload benefit, as its reload time in between rounds appears to be the same as its reload time once 3 rockets are launched.

An Area Stun will cause all zombies on the map to temporarily stop moving and be unable to attack. Affected zombies will be seen covering their heads, shaking back and forth, and have stars floating above their heads:

Zombies that have not yet come out of a portal will not be affected by an area stun, even if other zombies are still stunned.

Ammo boxes refill a single magazine of bullets for the weapon a player is currently using. If a player is using a rifle that holds 25 bullets before they have to reload, an ammo box will give that player 25 bullets. If a player is using a rifle that holds 35 bullets before they have to reload, an ammo box will give them 35 bullets.

Most Co-Op games have a supply area that you can wait in to restore your ammo, such as the end of a round in Death Escape. These supply areas will, however, only restore your weapons to the amount of ammo they started the Co-Op game with. Because of this, it is very likely that you will run out of ammo at some point, especially in longer rounds in a Co-Op game. This makes ammo boxes very important in that you can keep firing with your weapon of choice, and hold more ammo than you would have started with in the beginning of the round.

A rocket launcher, for example, usually starts with 3 rockets for lower license rocket launchers. Without ammo boxes, rocket launcher will run out of ammo fairly quickly in a Co-Op game. If a player keeps gets ammo boxes with a rocket launcher equipped, that player will be able to hold up to 27 additional rockets at a time, making it much less likely that they’ll have to worry about ammo in the middle of a round.

The mystery box, like its name suggests, is a mystery. The mystery box can give you any random power up that has already been mentioned (it will never have ammo), and can also have a few power downs, temporarily making your character weaker.

The attack power down decreases damage done by [Needs Updating]%.
The defense power down decreases your defense by [Needs Updating]%.
The speed power down decreases your speed by 10%.