Cooperative
Outdated. As of UC96 update, there is no coop. Instead, login to get a daily gashacon ticket and play the daily gashacon for your DX/Master ticket. This gashacon has limited items(Eventually you'll get what you want as long as you login daily) and resets weekly.
General Overview
Co-op is a mission mode where you defend a beacon against several waves of Federation or Zeon NPC grunts. As you progress through further waves, you'll encounter tougher enemies as well as heroes.
The main incentive for doing co-op is that you'll get 1 DX Ticket for reaching 1,000,000 score once a week. Other goodies include GP and Master Mechanic Tickets.
Scoring
So how do you reach 1,000,000 score and get the DX Ticket? The key is the Score Multiplier. The multiplier builds up to a max of x5.00 points per kill. The multiplier will reset if anyone in the platoon dies however, so keeping everyone alive is the key to reaching 1,000,000. Emergency homing to switch suits and wrecked suits which were revived by Engineers will not reset the timer. If the x5.00 multiplier is maintained, you can reach 1,000,000 score within 3 waves.
In addition, you'll see containers and enemy bases icons on the minimap.
Deliver the containers to the beacon and destroy the bases to earn Tactical points and additional score.
The trick is to leave 1 enemy alive at the end of a Wave and use that time to deliver containers, destroy bases, and setup recovery pods and anti-air.
Note don't destroy the bases at the beginning of the Wave. This will cause additional enemies to spawn. Wait till the end.
Starting a Co-op Game
If you are trying to reach 1,000,000 score, make sure you Mission select to HARD.
If you don't have enough people to platoon with and decide to start a Public co-op, just set your title as １００万 ＨＡＲＤ ＤＸ.
The language barrier shouldn't be a problem as long as you know what you are doing. I find more often than not that if the japanese players are trying to chat with you, they are most likely asking if you will volunteer to be the Engineer. Occasionally, you'll be kicked by try-hard japanese players who will insist you understand japanese.
You'll need a minimum of 5 people to start the mission.
Platoon Composition
Heavy and artillery types excel at co-op. Just load as many bazookas, grenades, howitzers, and mortars as your mobile suit will hold.
Alternatively, the Zock and Juaggu are Gods of Co-op.
Snipers mines and the explosive sniper rifle are also good choices.
The Engineer makes or breaks a co-op team and a good Engineer will make co-op a breeze.
Setting up your Engineer
Much of the success of the co-op really depends on how knowledgeable the Engineer is.
For co-operative you'll always want one person to have two Engineer suits.
The following is the recommended Engineer setup:
Auxiliary Ammo Module: While not needed to succeed, this module simply makes life so much easier. The module gives you one extra recovery pod and one extra anti-air. Without the module, you'll only have 2 Anti-Air, one to cover the cliff and one to cover the beacon. If one gets destroyed, you'll have to risk switching out your Engineer to place down another anti-air. Worst case scenario is when the anti-air on the cliff is destroyed and NPC mortar fire starts killing everyone. Most co-ops fail this way. The ammo module means you'll always have one extra handy.
Recovery Pod: Type-T is recommended simply so each recovery pod will last longer and you'll have to switch out engineers less.
Anti-Air: Starting from Wave 2, enemy artillery types will start shelling everything that moves. Bring anti-air.
Repair Torch: Type-M is recommended because the emphasis in co-op is on repairing downed suits to keep up the score modifier, rather than repairing suits quickly. You want to make sure you don't run out of ammo while repairing a suit resulting in the wreck self destructing while you are reloading your repair torch.
Positioning
When the mission starts, the entire platoon will spawn at the beacon. Immediately make your way to the top of the cliff and set up by the cave.
From this vantage point, the cliff staircases becomes an easily defend able checkpoint.
1st Wave
Here's the view from the top of the cliff. The enemy will spawn from the north. From there, they will proceed south and attempt to climb up the stairs to attack your group.
Once the enemy has stopped spawning and their numbers dwindle, make sure you keep one or two enemies alive to give yourselves time to destroy bases, deliver containers, and give your Engineers time to set up for the next wave. Note destroying the bases too early will cause additional waves of enemies to spawn. Try to avoid this.
If everything goes well and nobody dies, the 1st wave should net you 200k~250k points.
2nd Wave
Two things change in the second wave. Enemy artillery will start spawning and start shelling both your beacon and your position. The enemies will also start spawning in different locations and attack you from three different directions. As usual, keep a few enemies alive at the end to give yourselves time to deliver containers and destroy bases. If everything goes well, you should have around 700k~750k points.
Make sure the Engineer places anti-air on both the beacon and the cliff.
3rd Wave
In addition to everything that happens in the 2nd wave, snipers will also spawn on the cliffs with irradiation beam sniper rifles. These snipers do huge amounts of damage so take care to eliminate them as soon as they spawn. The snipers spawn on the west cliff, the east cliff, and directly above the cave. At the end of the wave, two heroes will spawn and proceed towards the beacon. These can be taken down either with guerrilla tactics or a well-timed defense and attack buff. You should be able to reach 1000k points before the heroes spawn.
Tactical Points and Buffs
During the Mission, you can press G to bring up the Relief Goods menu. Here, you can spend any earned Tactical Points on short duration buffs and other miscellaneous items. The best ones are probably Defense UP for saving someone who is low on armor, Barrier for barricading the beacon, Attack UP for killing heroes, and Decoy Beacon to lure enemies away and make the Waves more manageable.
