Shortly after the live demo last May 13th, lots of additional information on Armored Core V was released through the Famitsu site. The details of the article have since been translated and posted by an anonymous poster on popular imageboard 4Chan, and then graciously shared to us by Niji of Armored Core Universe. And now we pass on this information to you.
There are 11 categories for parts, with a total of more than 500 parts featured in the game.
Head:
Contains the FCS, allows the use of scan mode, and affects properties such as lock on ability and scan distance.
Core:
Contains the cockpit and is connected to all of the other parts that make up the AC.
Arms:
Manipulators which control and carry all kinds of weapons. Each arm can hold one weapon, and the shoulders can carry weapons as well (shoulder unit). The shoulder unit has 3 types, not equipped/single shoulder/dual shoulder. (Does not seem to mention Weapon Arms. They may not exist anymore.)
Legs:
Determines the mobility and carrying capacity. How your AC moves around greatly depends on this part. They are separated into 2 legged (light, medium, heavy), reverse joint, quad and tank categories. So, nothing changed there.
Core Parts:
The FCS, which determines the lock distance and speed, boosters which are related to mobility, small-type reconnaissance machines (recon unit), and the generator which provides energy to the machine.
Arm Unit L/R:
All kinds of hand-held weapons, like guns and canons. Many weapon types from the previous series has had their abilities and names changed, as well as new types are in the game.
Shoulder Unit:
Equipped onto the hard point on the shoulder. Missiles and Rocket Launchers are divided into the standard, automatic attack and support types.
Hangar Unit L/R:
An arm unit which hangs off the sholders. This allows you to change your weapons when needed, and allows the player to have 4 arm units at any one time.
Ammo Types:
The damage attributes of the weapons have been separated into 3 types! Unlike the previous series, where there was only the “physical” and “energy” damage types, we now have KE (Kinetic Energy, weapons that use bullets and is related to physical impact of these bullets), CE (Chemical Energy, weapons which utilize chemical reactions to create energy, utilizes chemical cartridges. Possible a fancy way of saying “explosives”) and TE (Thermal Energy, weapons which use optical science to create heat energy. EN damage, basically.)
Autocannon:
A machine cannon composed of many barrels. Can instantly turn enemies to dust with its high fire rate. Cannon-type weapons have a stabilising motion, and the screen will change to first person view. While in this motion they cannot move. Tank-type legs can move while as there is no stabilising motion. The rail cannon uses magnetic force to accelerate a projectile. Since it is a cannon type, there is a stabilizing motion when used. The energy used to fire the shot can be charged, which changes the damage and range of the weapon.
Battle Rifle:
The bazooka has had a name change to battle rifle. Uses CE ammo. Damage decreases with distance, so is best used as a mid-range weapon. (I think there may heve been a transation problem here, because the whole bazooka thing makes no sense. Why call the bazooka a rifle? It’s not anything remotely resembling a rifle.)
Missile:
Missiles have been relocated as shoulder units. Auto-tracking, forward moving and vertical types exist, along with a variety of special movements.
Rocket:
Rockets have been relocated to the shoulder units. Are hard to use as they cannot lock on, but has an explosion effect when it hits something. Contains the ability to fire many shots at once.
Glide Boost ⇒ Boost Charge:
A Glide Boost allows the player to quickly close distance, and with that speed is able to unleash a powerful Boost Charge. The Glide Boost can only be used when landed, and is similar to Overed Boost from the previous games. However, this can be used in all directions. The charge is an attack that’s dependent on weight and speed of the attacking AC (either a kick or a tackle).
Hi-Boost ⇒ Jump ⇒ Boost Drive
Hi-Boosting is a short distance acceleration, used for speedy maneuvers and is similar to Quick Boost from the previous series. Boost Drive is the ability to bound off of a wall after jumping onto it, resulting in a triangle-like motion. Can be used repeatedly. Used other than a technique to gain height, can immediately be changed to a forward leap to allow for tricky movements. After evading an enemy’s attack with the hi-boost and jumping, then using the boost drive to jump off a building to get above and attack the enemy. By combining actions together like this, it opens a world of techniques which can be used.
Drift
When landing, you can choose to glide along the ground. Can also turn the machine while doing so. The same principle as drifting with a car.
Stabilised Shooting (First Person Shooting)
When utilising cannon type weapons, the AC will need to be stabilized. The camera will then change to first person view. While in this position, the AC cannot move, but allows for precision firing. If possible, the leg armor will unfold to provide extra defense.
Hangar Shift (Weapon Shift)
In the previous series, the only way to change arm weapons was to purge the already equipped part. Now you can put weapons onto the shoulder and regularly change between weapons, allowing many ways to attack.
Purge
Purges the weapon. Purging away weapons that you no longer need reduces the weight of your machine and increases its speed.
To recap from last week’s ACV Live Event, for those of us who missed the previous thread:
Garage follows the same style as the previous AC series, but with a full screen free-viewer, can view certain actions in the viewer (walking, boosting, weapon changing)
Shoulder weapons are either single or dual shouldered, which implies that you won’t be able to equip 2 different shoulder weapons
Boosting is now a toggle command instead of a held-down command. (booster on/off instead of holding down for on and releasing for off)
Jumping has its dedicated button
Shoulder missiles won’t fire unless there’s an enemy around, though this might just be limited to the equipped shoulder missile in the demo
The player can switch between battle and scan modes. While in scan mode, the player cannot attack, but gains the ability to detect and view information on enemies within the scan range. The player can also drop recon pods which detect enemies within a certain radius, which then shows up as an outline on the player’s screen, even through buildings. There is no radar in the game.
Hi-Boost, Glide Boost (called Flight Boost in the live show) and Drive Boost were introduced.
In the HUD, the left number in the circle is the AP, right number is the remaining energy in %, and the top left and right quarters of the ring the ammo count, the number appears when the weapon is in use.
In the multiplayer segment, it was confirmed that a team can have up to 20 players, with 5 playing a single match at any one time (4 pilots and 1 operator). Of course, it is possible to have single player teams.
The role of the Operator was introduced. Prior to the mission, the operator can brief the team on attack routes and a mission plan with colored, numbered markers. During the mission, the operator can place markers on the map (whether the players can see these is unknown at the moment, they probably can), view the camera from each of the allied players, as well as enemy players in range of your scan. Teammates in scan mode show a radius on the map for the operator which allows the operator to see incoming enemies, dropped recon pods also have this effect, although the pods time out after a while. The operator can also use a large-area scan with a cooldown anywhere on the map.
The multiplayer is friendly to weak as well as strong players as you can develop strategies which utilize the weak player as a decoy or have them snipe targets while the stronger players on the team fight the enemy.
The strongest team from a region will represent the region on the multiplayer world map, providing a competitive environment.
Overed Weapons are confirmed to be in the game, but different from the initial AC5 teaser movie to include more teamwork aspects.
The game will have a special edition which includes a special ACV headset, the game is stated for an October release date.
The game will soon have a closed beta test consisting of 5000 teams of 2 (10 000 players total) in order to stress test the server, improve the latency between players, quickly test game balance and to improve communication with the community. It is unknown whether this closed beta will be limited to Japan, but it was brought up as a joke in the live show that the developers wanted to turn the game into an “international war,” which implies the game will come out overseas.
Many thanks again to the original anonymous poster of this information, Niji of Armored Core Universe and Griffon of Armored Core Garage.