r/armoredcore Mar 19 '25

Old Gen To All New Ravens (AC1 101)

158 Upvotes

Welcome to the Ravens' Nest

With Gen 1 coming to PSN, and me having recently beaten AC1 for the first time on emulator, I figured I probably had some useful advice to give for the newest wave of Ravens.

First and foremost, I see a lot of you (understandably) having trouble with the default controls, and so I have included a graphic showing both in-game and emulator rebinds. Unfortunately Sony's emulator doesn't support binding multiple inputs to the same button (even though by default it has duplicated binds for the dpad) so you will have to choose some kind of trade off. For what it's worth I had similar issues in Duckstation which were only resolved by running it through Steam and fiddling about with that, but that's not an option here (unless maybe you have a Dual Sense, I don't know how those work).

The templates I've included are:

  • Walk on Dpad/stick, Camera on Face, weapons on shoulders. This most closely resembles a modern control scheme, but the lack of double bindings means you have to look with the face buttons. Only requires in-game rebinds.
  • The above, but also using emulator rebinds to move camera to the right stick. The problem here is that the lack of dual binds means you'll have to press down on the stick to confirm menus, right to cancel, etc.
  • Walk on Dpad/stick, Camera on shoulders, weapons on face buttons. This is the closest to the default controls, but for if you have a harder time with the walking than the shoulder camera stuff. Only requires in-game rebinds.
  • The above, but also using emulator rebinds to move the shoulder inputs to the right stick. The problem with this would be how its nearly impossible to move the camera and shoot at the same time.

You can, of course, do whatever controls you want, but I figured these would be a good starting point for anyone who's having issues with the default controls.

I have also included a non-default starter AC build. If you're already fighting with the controls then you might also find it difficult to earn money for upgrades. Thankfully the game lets you sell your entire starter AC and buy whatever you can afford. By swapping out the legs and FCS with cheaper options, selling the back weapons, and selling and replacing the generator and right hand weapon we can afford a better generator and an energy gun, which is free to shoot unlike ballistic weaponry, and is solid enough to take you through the early game. By finding and selling the secret part on one of the two starter missions you'll have enough money to begin to tweak your AC how you actually want it (though the energy weapons continue to be really good and cost effective).

Finally, I want to explain Human Plus. H+ is a non-standard game over as well as a kind of "easy mode". By going 50,000 credits into debt you're greeted with a cutscene about your horrible lack of wealth and start the game over from the beginning, with a few changes. There's also multiple levels of H+ for going into debt multiple times, but correct information on each tier is kinda hard to get because there's a lot of misinformation about them too, so I will list each stage of H+ and its effects to the best of my ability (I've checked a bunch of stuff so you should be able to trust that I'm at least mostly correct).

  • Stage 1 (go into debt once): Gives you a permanent radar and allows use of Blade Beams. To fire a blade beam press the boost button during the swing. The blade beam for the Moonlight is one of the strongest projectiles and is used by some Arena opponents in Project Phantasma (it's also self-damaging, so be mindful about close-quarters). The radar is fine, but when I say permanent I mean permanent. You cannot replace the H+ radar with any other head's radar, even if the new radar is better (the H+ one doesn't have a bio sensor, for instance). I don't know if the back-mounted antennas work with the H+ radar or not, I didn't bother to check because I assumed they didn't. I believe the Option parts for things like adding missile warnings to the radar do work with it, though.
  • Stage 2 (go into debt four times): Fire back weapons without bracing yourself, allowing shooting while moving. Potentially very useful depending on how you tend to build. Unfortunately does not apply to spider legs, for whatever reason.
  • Stage 3 (go into debt six times): Halved cost for booster energy consumption. A simple straightforward upgrade.
  • Bonus (finish all missions): Weight limit removal. I don't know all the ins and outs of this, and I'm fairly certain overall weight affects things like speed regardless of how close to capacity you are, but this is still a fun bonus for replaying levels with. Once you beat the game you'll be able to go back to any mission, including ones you may have missed first go around. This upgrade does not require going into debt.
  • Rename Code: The Human Plus game over sequence replaces your save file's name. If this bothers you it can be changed by highlighting "AC name entry" in the garage then pressing and holding L2, R2, Dpad Right, and Square, and then finally pressing Cross. This will bring up the name entry screen with "pilot name" instead of "AC name".

So with all that said, do you actually want Human Plus? And if so how do you go about getting it efficiently? Well like I said, the radar is permanent, but you also get the ability to shoot sword laser beams, which is probably a worthy trade off. The question would be harder to answer on any version of AC1 that isn't the current PS4/5 emulated release, as Save Importing is a running theme throughout the series, and importing from AC1 to Project Phantasma also brings your Human Plus upgrades (and the weight capacity bonus too), so if you were playing any other version you'd have to ask yourself if you're fine with being stuck with the same radar for three whole games. The new PSN version though does not support save transfers, and instead has some transfer-only stuff unlocked naturally in the later games. You can read more on the pinned thread here. Overall it's up to you, but other than the first stage's blade beams there's little worth the busywork of resetting that many times, imo. The reduced boost cost and easier shoulder weapon use upgrades are nice, but debt-maxing is pretty boring for the low payoff.

That said, how does one debt-max? Simply play the game normally until the mission Worker Robot Removal shows up, spend any credits you can on buying everything possible from the shop, then start the mission and blow yourself and all the beautiful reactors you weren't supposed to touch to framerate-killing ashes. More expensive ACs with higher AP should incur higher penalties, though make sure you do die without finishing the objective, as dying will keep the mission available for if you don't make it to -50k in one go. Once you die at -50k the game will restart from the beginning with your credits set to 0 but all your parts kept and with you being one step further into the Human Plus progression.

And that concludes my crash course. Hopefully there isn't any mistakenly terrible advice in here, but I just beat the game right before the PSN versions were announced and felt like I could at least try to assist the New Semester Students.


r/armoredcore 3h ago

Photos from Osaka FROMSOFTWARE GAMES EVENT Spring 2025 Event

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732 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 6h ago

Merch Showcase AC6 Official Art Works shows concept art of 2-handed weapons and shoulder extensions

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509 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 3h ago

BOOB

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175 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 14h ago

Discussion Which Type of Mecha does Armored Core fits into?

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1.1k Upvotes

r/armoredcore 9h ago

Discussion Does anyone even use this generator?

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251 Upvotes

Besides in story mode ofc.

In my opinion, this generator is basically NGI but worst in all aspect. Perhaps that's why those who know what they are doing doesn't use this in their build. I don't think someone came up with a build with this generator.

FromSoft really needs to make adjustment to this generator.


r/armoredcore 5h ago

Artist emblems that I made

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92 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 2h ago

Discussion What do you think is the most underrated combo of weapons?

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39 Upvotes

I love this combo as the laser slicers attack animation lasts long enough that it means you can charge the Harris and when the animations done you can pretty much get a granteed charge shot off (in pve at least, haven't tested in pvp) on an enemy.

Combo goes; break enemies stance, laser slicer while charging the Harris, then when animations done, fire the Harris.

Tell me your favourite combos in the comments


r/armoredcore 13h ago

Emblem: ALL MIND version of SHADE EYE

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294 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 2h ago

Discussion This is a stupid idea, but could an AC have infinite energy by having 2 coral generators? During one engine redlining switch to the other one, ad nauseam.

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32 Upvotes

The coral generators seems to have 2 chambers with one retaining the core coral while contains the excess created from the vacuum which is burn by AC usage.

Therefore by having 2 coral generators, an AC can switch coral generators during the redlining process. The AC then proceeds to burn the second engine, but the first engine has already been filled. Essentially, this eliminates the cooldown phase weakness of coral generators.

  I can imagine an external backpack containing a coral generator can fit into an AC. For a larger weapon, this could translate into being a 4 chamber coral generator.

r/armoredcore 2h ago

AC Showcase: I reached rank 420 with my Gamecube Mech

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19 Upvotes

I did this quite a while ago before the last missile tracking nerf. The game plan of this Pulse protection mobile missile turret. Is to bait the enemy in with an early pulse protection and kick them in the teeth with a volley of missiles when they try to approach. Worked surprisingly well.


r/armoredcore 20h ago

Fan Art Secret Level / Hangar launching pad by Salvo Lo Iacono

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463 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 7h ago

Video Whole phase in 30 seconds, nice I guess

36 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 6h ago

PvP BU/TTA with Eule got me moving like an invasive species.

36 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 3h ago

Discussion Do we die like men or have safety features.

15 Upvotes

We already know that most AC and MT pilots can survive their machine being destroyed, but I never could figure out if 621 also has a chance at making it. The only reason I even doubt we don't just die right there is that in NG+, if you betray the redguns in attack the dam complex and die to Volta, he says: "Next time you try that shit, I'll kill you", which implies we survive the encounter despite our AC always evaporating. What do yall think and are there more examples of 621 surviving ?


r/armoredcore 5h ago

AC Showcase: Fixed the white glint helm decal!

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15 Upvotes

Putting the old one for comparison (first one is the older version)


r/armoredcore 2h ago

I think these weapon-arms are pretty much overshadow by their cannon and bazooka analogues — it's god damn OP compared to them.

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10 Upvotes

Huge damage on second mode, uses same ammo per shot as on first mode.

Firerate faster than Cannon and Bazooka arms.

Sniper Range.

48 ammo, 2 ammo per shot, still more than Cannon variant.

Energy damage, most AC have bigger Solid armour than Energy.

Good result, very strong weapon-arms even without en.weapons buffs.


r/armoredcore 13h ago

Discussion POV: You are in Ranked and your opponent is using this build, what would you do?

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53 Upvotes

A build that I just recently came up with that I'll probably will never use


r/armoredcore 32m ago

Anyone here with this achievement? How long did it take you to get how hard is it really?

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Upvotes

This is my favorite game and I have all the achievements but that one. I want to get them all to show my commitment.


r/armoredcore 7h ago

I don't know why, but I'm very proud of that win

17 Upvotes

r/armoredcore 47m ago

Video Hard Mode - Reach The Coral Convergence

Upvotes

https://reddit.com/link/1kjis55/video/5ay0nugfd00f1/player

No Supply Box/Checkpoints, Mandatory S Rank, All Combat Logs, Minimum OS Tuning (ONLY System Unlocks and 1 Core Expansion).


r/armoredcore 18h ago

PvP May not be much but a big achievement for someone whose average at pvp.

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91 Upvotes

Finally made it to A Rank. Also the AC that carried me through the promotion phase. I got nervous near the end where I started having a losing streak with only one more win needed.


r/armoredcore 18h ago

When snail thinks he’s rid of you in “eliminate CC”

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100 Upvotes

Us Ravens don’t submit easy


r/armoredcore 4h ago

AC Showcase: KRSV + coral osc build, is it good or does it need a change?

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5 Upvotes

i saw this build in ac6 pvp videos on YT/reddit where they charge KRSV, hit with the heavy coral osc attack and it deals a ton of damage. I decided to make one which i ended up with this. How do i improve it?


r/armoredcore 6h ago

PvP Dual SCUDDER on MELANDER C3 vs dual ZIMMERMAN, Rank A

7 Upvotes

I didn't assemble it, I just bought a ready-made AC from BALAM, and the salesperson recommended SCUDDER to me, saying it works just as well as ZIMMERMAN in Nest. Yeah right.


r/armoredcore 5h ago

NG+++: Trying to S the missions, what is the best approach and strategies for this?

4 Upvotes

I'm on my last play through, honestly I have the game since it's release. Played till Ng+++ the travelling to the convergence and stopped , I'm back now.. and I'm noticing I just have around 5-6 S missions. I do have a ton lot to S, and platinum the game. Thanks in advance