Aliens: Dark Descent – Beginners Guide, Tips, and Tricks

The release of Aliens: Dark Descent has been met with positive acclaim as players aim to get their adventures going. While it is still early days, there has been a lot of information for players to get going.

This will include details about maps, combat, weapons, and resources. The following guide will help players prepare for Aliens: Dark Descent and what they can do best to survive for long. 

Aliens: Dark Descent – Beginners Guides, Tips, and Tricks

The secondary weapons must be reloaded, but players will not need ammunition. Once you are under 80% capacity, all the marines will be reloaded if you hit R. A lot of XP will be got through finishing objectives, events, and getting kills of bosses like Crusher, queen, and Praetorian.

Players can fix the power loader for a single tool completely. When you see “kill that bastard,” it means that specific targets will be focused to be defeated.

A neat trick for players is they can drag and drop the flamethrower so it gets wider and fills up the complete streets. You can incur stress through being found out and by hunts or wounds, including enemies in the squad’s motion sensor.

Perks that are resourceful will give you fully new mags, and that will save you time. Additionally, you will be rewarded in stacks for every team member. 

Aliens - Dark Descent - resources

Otago and keeping the crew

Players should not get a doctor for a soldier who is tired and within the medbay; they will be rested as they recover, that is, if you are going to the next day anyway, in which case you should use up any doctor fees you have. Putting in a tired marine is not all bad news, as it just gives them a bravery debuff of -10, meaning they will have to do more shelter protection or take pills.

Once the mission ends, they will be exhausted, but they will recover and return to work the next day; it stops you from deploying consecutive times with the same guys on the same day.

Since it reduces the number of headache-inducing mechanics, I am going for the characteristics that prevent them from becoming exhausted, remediate their trauma, and eliminate undesirable traits.

You do not have to place a marine in the psych ward for just one point of trauma as psychiatry removes two pips per day until, once more, you have a spot free, and you will progress throughout the day.

The developers themselves have said that the “marines receive 0 to 3 Trauma Points at the end of a run, depending on the highest level of stress they experienced. ”

Players can select the back button and open Promote again if they do not like the promotion offers given to their marine. The two options should have been rerolled.

Aliens - Dark Descent - maps

Maps are consistent

Since everything is persistent, even if you leave your sentries back because you had to go out of the map, you can always come back to retrieve them later. The same is true for a room you have passed by, but you need not carry a smart trait of a hacker or marine.

You can return to this room when you like, but I do not unless there are still many rooms or buildings we have not visited before because wasting a full day on one medkit, one tool, and one or two rounds of ammunition is not worth it.

Weapons and their upgrades

Every class will receive at level 2, and the revolver can deal up to 3 damage per hit instead of 1, while the damage rolls are 1-3. If your RNG is terrible, you’ll have to reload more often than with a general pistol; however, if your RNG is good and you also have a point or two in accuracy, the revolver is an excellent weapon to bring out most of the time

People will get the Smart Gun out of memory and love, but the real help is within the class upgrades that come with it. You can use it as a makeshift turret (your marine will use it as its secondary weapon) and improve the suppression cone’s slowdown.

The sniper for the recon, with a silencer upgrade on the recon itself, is, in my opinion, an essential weapon because it enables you to effectively eliminate troublesome patrols without warning anyone or anything, including enemies right next to the target.

With the heavy pulse rifle, while you get bigger magazines, which means more ammo per reload and better ammo efficiency, you lose the marine’s power to throw grenades.

If you give all the players in your squad the heavy pulse, but have a couple with the normal pulse, you have grenades if you lose the marine with the grenadier skills. Mines help hide escape routes and for defense, including ahead of your sentries, but they can get enemies’ attention due to the explosion. They also do not cause team damage or cause you to be sighted.

The RPG is difficult to control because you must lead the target, so you must either have great timing or have them charge at you. However, it inflicts three to four times as much damage as a standard grenade, making it essential if you play on high health difficulties or frequently engage in medium or high aggression.

Aliens - Dark Descent - monsters

Managing resources

You do not need to get resources, as all places have resources. Every map I have completed yet has had a minimum of one turret or gives them if you are heading into a few. You’ll find many resources on the map because they’re huge, and every time you arrive at a location, it starts peacefully, giving you plenty of time to loot and fill your bags.

The only exception to this would be a medkit or one sentry, a medkit in case you are attacked before you find the first few, and a sentry because they get refilled without any cost if you bring them back to the Otago, so it’s free bullets when you have to shoot anyway. This will enable you to carry more stuff with you back to the Otago and get more supplies for missions.

ALSO READ:  Destiny 2: How To Get Planck's Stride And God Roll

You need not carry a lot of ammo. You want ammo on the map because you might have to make a second or third trip, and those new squads might also need ammo. Try to limit yourself to 6-8 mags in reserve.

This is where the generic ammo pouches upgrade comes in very handy because it starts you off with one extra mag instead of just increasing capacity, as the description would suggest, reducing the need to consume ammo on the map.

Secondary weapons (pistol, revolver, and SMG) do not eat up ammo; however, you must reload them frequently if you use the reload perk or trait. If that person is not facing a lot of enemies, using their secondary weapon could be a great way to protect ammo!

Make use of your command points because they can help you out in a lot of different situations and keep your ammunition.

  • A group approaching through your narrow doorway? Put a pool of napalm in it to force them to walk through fire instead of only your bullets.
  • A runner in front of you? Shotgun the scumbag, and you won’t have to worry about your marine losing its arm.
  • A boss that has not reached the melee range? Take advantage of this chance to fire a grenade at it and deal significant damage.

Command points are a resource that can be used indefinitely; I make an effort always to have one point left in case of unpleasant surprises; for instance, I rarely deploy sensors until I am at least three command points higher.

Be cautious of using tools to haven door hacking and welding because I don’t want to waste them on doors that Xenos will break through in ten seconds.

If you have reached your maximum and get more med boxes, but your team has just taken 1-2 dmg, it’s probably better to have a few pills unless you’re going to shelter and rest soon. I keep medkits for when marines drop to 2-3 healthy and if a single or particular marine is close to 100% stress or went over it, causing others also to gain more stress.

Although, at first, it is rare, the research builds up quickly as you kill more enemies and bosses, such as Crusher 4 and Queen 8, which are prized more and give you drops.

Most of them are “Okay,” but I’d steer clear of the pheromone mine because you would like mine to defeat what is approaching you, not anything that might be nearby and see it. On the other hand, the hive tranq and pheromones are good because they decrease the difficulty by one.

Strategies for combat

If you notice them approaching you, players should be ready to move away and build a defensive perimeter or try to avoid the hunt. However, this will also hurt you because you will already be stressing out your marines and being powerful toward the enemy.

Therefore, what you ought to be doing is altering your mindset. Even though it is initially unpleasant, you should think of yourself as incapable of being noticed during this time and use it to push through areas where you would prefer not to be spotted.

  • The only exception to the preceding rule is when you get into a new level of aggression when you receive a wave that will come toward you after a 30-second timer.
  • Set one marine on countering fire upon being fired and establish a defensive position with one chokepoint or long sightlines during this time.
  • You can begin preparing for the aggression level waves by keeping motion sensors throughout the map, particularly at spawn points.

These sensors will remain there even if you leave the map and return, allowing you to monitor where enemies are spawning and, more importantly, where the aggression wave is coming from so you know which way to cover.

If you let the room on the side of your main path only, one of its doors unlocked instead of both, you have a good room you can visit and stay for safety and relaxation or take up a defensive position with a chokepoint.

The reason is that welded doors will be struck and broken, whereas locked doors will be deemed walls you can unlock when needed.

Remember that your ARC is more than just transport; if you have motion trackers all over the compound and see a patrol coming, get the ARC to the closest ARC point, and it will explore before they get to you.

Players wanting to get within a building should leave the ARC covering the entrance so they don’t get enemies from the back.

Keep a motion tracker close to each ARC point to detonate them and draw attention to that area and kill them with the ARC. This is especially useful if there are bosses on the map that are not looking for you but that you want to eliminate.

If you don’t want to go through the phase of being hunted or don’t think you can handle the additional stress, such as running for an elevator to a different floor to stop and end the hunt, you can build a shelter and rest.

Thus, that is all the information players need regarding the starting tips and tricks for Aliens: Dark Descent players. You will steadily be able to gain more insight into the game as the days go, and there is a lot to discover for players as well. 


Last Updated on June 28, 2023

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top