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I made it to 100 invasion kills (the end of unlocks/progression for invasion mode), with a W/L of roughly 100:6. Here is some food for thought, and tips on ruining other player’s days.
What is “Invasion” mode?
Invasion is a new mode added to SE5. Similar to Dark Souls, you drop into another player’s (or coop) game with the goal to make sure they stop having fun. You can check singleplayer vs coop by hitting escape, and counting how many players are present at the bottom-right.
Invasion mode is free to all players, and does not require anything to unlock.
You play as a German soldier, with the ability to (somewhat) customize cosmetics. You begin looking very similar to the average German, but can work your way up to a ghillie suit.
You do not need to play singleplayer or multiplayer to unlock anything for Invasions.
Customizing your Jaeger
Loading screen tips tell you to pick outfits that blend in to the other german infantry, so Karl can’t tell who is AI and who is a player.
♥♥♥♥ that. That’s ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. You’re the only Jaeger sprinting around the map with 3 guns. Your camouflage doesn’t matter and if you follow this guide, Karl won’t see you anyway — he will just wallhack. That is not an exaggeration, Karl can see through walls and his mystic 6th sense tells him what direction you are in at all times.
Always prioritize drip.
Wear your best suit with the biggest medals until you unlock the last 2 outfits.
Choosing Your Weapons
The only real “meat” to this guide.
The only 3 options for the Invader is a dinky French semi-automatic rifle, the chad Gewehr 43, and the thundercucker KAR98K.
But we are going to talk about rifles second, because they don’t matter.
The only weapons you need are submachine guns, and pure zerg energy.
The MP40, Type 100, and Stg 44 are all excellent Karl killers.
The biggest mistake that Karl players make, is that they read “Sniper Elite” and they believe this game is about careful position, creeping about, marksmanship, and precision shooting at long range. They take an SMG with good mid-range performance as a just-in-case, and use their pistol as a suppressed weapon to dink AI.
That’s even dumber than trying to pick an outfit to “blend in with other Germans.”
Your primary weapon is your submachine gun. All three of them are good picks, with the Stg 44 having the most drip and the Type 100 having the most fun.
Prioritize stats in this order: Recoil > Spray Accuracy > Damage > everything else. SE5 is a low HP game, so it’s more important to shoot Karl faster than he can shoot back, than it is to have the biggest stick in the fight.
Choose soft point ammo, and remember to switch to it as soon as the match starts! The inability to penetrate wood or metal helmets does not matter to the Jaeger. Karl doesn’t wear a helmet. And you should always be aiming center mass with the SMG anyway (or the testicles).
If you have to resort to your rifle, bullet speed and bullet drop are the most important factors. Karl is often on the move, and eliminating (or at least minimizing) the amount of speed and distance compensation required will significantly improve your ability to hit him. The semi-auto rifles do less damage than the KAR98K or Karl’s rifles, but they shoot much faster, which provides a similar benefit to that of SMGs: Tacticool LARP snipers aren’t ready for your hail of hate.
I recommend match ammo, and not using a suppressor. Stealth is an important tool to the Jaeger but not in the same way it is to Karl. Mounting a bayonet may save your life if you and Karl accidentally bump into each other while you have the wrong weapon out, but then again you should have had your SMG at the ready.
With the semi-auto rifles, I prioritize damage/range, and then aim stability. With the KAR98K, I prioritize rate of fire, then damage/range and stability. If you fully optimize for damage/range, you will suffer a very slow follow-up shot and extremely slow reloads. Even with a max damage Mauser, this game is incredibly dumb and fatal lung shots will “down” Karl instead of killing him. It is important to get your follow up shot ASAP before he can revive, crawl into cover, and or get saved by a COOP partner.
Soft points look good for the extreme damage, but with rifles you are more likely to be in situations where bushes, fences, and other obstacles need to be penetrated. Armor Piercing bullets are also a compelling option, as you can tag Karl with your binoculars (or scope) and then dome him through walls (seriously this is beyond broken stupid retarded. If you “empty lung,” your automatic bullet drop compensation will even guide your shots through walls, ensuring you blast Karl’s ♥♥♥♥ off through three layers of stone windmills and guarantee he doesn’t complete the achievement he was attempting before you invaded). I have been able to penetrate walls multiple times with Match Bullets, YMMV.
Again, make sure to switch ammo types as soon as a match starts.
Pistols are not a critical area of focus, but consider the possibility that you fat finger and scroll to the wrong weapon. You want to make sure your sidearm is ready!
The Luger maximized for damage and a drum mag is fine. It will kill Karl very quickly while guaranteeing “but muh authentic ww2 shooter” players cry about the abomination you shot them with.
How to Invade
1. Load into game
2. Shoot Karl
3. Simple as
In all seriousness, Invasions can be really fun or really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frustrating. Generally you spawn very, very close to Karl (within 150m), and there will already be “alert” AI around looking for him. But maps like the first level of the game are awkwardly chunked into sections sectioned off by bushes and waist-high walls, so you might be 50m away from Karl on the map and 50km away from Karl in terms of the actual path to navigate to his location. Assuming he does not move before you get there.
It helps to learn the major objectives of each map, and what they look like before/after completion. If you spawn at the big radar device on the first map, for example, look and see if the radar is in tact or destroyed. If it still has patrolling soldiers, or dead bodies. This will tell you if Karl has already done this objective and has (or will) moved on, or if you need to search the immediate area for him.
You should also do your best to learn generally where AI are expected to be, so their presence (or absence) can alert you. On the fortified Chateau map, for example, there is a grain tower/barn with a German sniper; if you tag the sniper with your binoculars, you will know as soon as Karl shoots him – which means Karl is probably about to take up a position in that tower.
You have a powerful “Wake the ♥♥♥♥ up” ability as the sniper jaeger where you order the AI around you to be less brain dead. In addition to spotting Karl faster, they will share triangulation information with you if Karl is spotted or shoots too much. Always assume their triangulation is close, but Karl has moved before you can get there. Always approach suspected Karl positions with a wide berth, circle if possible to attack from a different angle than the AI.
Your grenades and mines probably won’t kill Karl. But grenades can flush him out of cover, and mines can alert you and will scare Karl.
Most Karls kill themself, or get shot by AI, long before you even had a chance to start hunting. With a 100:6 W/L, it still took me 150ish games. Meaning there is close to 1/3 of situations where Karl is a complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moron.
On maps like level 1 or the bombed out city (I don’t know their names, I only invade, I haven’t touched the campaign at all), unfortunately you need to be very mobile as the Jaeger to hunt Karl down. On maps like Chateau or Hitler’s House, there is a large central building with a commanding view in all directions. On these maps, you want to tag AI with your binoculars in each direction around your position, and then wait for an AI to spot Karl or die and alert you where to look. Use mines on stair wells or high traffic hallways to ensure Karl doesn’t creep up on you in your own house.
You have aggressive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scope glint, no matter if you are in doors, behind a window, or in pitch black darkness. While your rifle is a fine way to kill Karl, your binoculars are the better way to look for him. Binoculars will not give away your position but looking through your scope will warn Karls all over France.
Stealth is Karl’s primary tool. Yours is surprise. Karl is focused on creeping around, and has an entire German army to be on the lookout for. You have the freedom to sprint across the map, protected by the finest soldiers of the Vaderland. I mean, you can literally team up with Hitler to kill Karl in this game. He’s the highest ranking Vaderlander there is! Don’t be intimidated when your stalking path goes through a field of dead Germans – remember this means you are somewhere Karl thinks he has already cleared. And Karl is wrong. Step over your brothers and follow their trail right into Karl’s ass. Make him beg Rebellion for a refund because his options are 1) only earn half as much XP 2) get shot in the ♥♥♥♥ by the Jaeger Sniper.
This is a third person game. It feels like dirty cheese, but remember that you can always peak around walls in complete safety. This is critical when searching around objects for Karl. He is probably doing the same thing trying to cheese AI anyway. Before turning a corner or charging an open field, always use your third person to look around first! You can often catch Karls creeping around with a third person spot and an aggressive SMG rush.
How to Survive an Invasion
I played the campaign **after** writing the invasion guide. I lacked some serious information that Karl should know to survive an invasion, and you need to know as an invader:
Check this: https://www.yekbot.com/sniper-elite-5-invasion-tips-for-allied-snipers/
1. Karl has a mystical 6th sense wallhack ability. Not only can this show you through walls the same way Karl can see AI through walls, it will flash a direction on Karl’s radar to find you. Karl has more tools for hunting you down, than you have for hunting him.
2. “Armor Piercing” ammo is actually disgusting. You can shoot through entire buildings on Spy Academy, for example. Empty lung will even tell you when you have a wallbang lined up, regardless of whether the Hunter is tagged.
3. Karl’s pickup weapons are even more disgusting. The MG can hold 100 rounds and kill in 3. The flare gun can damage players through walls with inescapable artillery.
4. Karl has a functionally unlimited supply of traps.
If you want to unlock the cosmetics for Invader kills, all you need is some free time and a save game. Karl can clear 90% of the AI on a map, and then set about setting as many teller mines as he wants. What I recommend:
1. Find a vantage point with a nearby phone, or a tight space with a phone. This could include the phones under the radar tower in mission 1, the concrete bunker towers in the mission with the underground hospital, or anything similar.
2. Place 2 teller mines, 1 mine with TNT, or 1 “nonlethal” mine with TNT, at doorways, stair cases, ladders, and high-traffic hallways. Obviously if you can tuck these traps around corners they are more likely to work, but the trick here is to pick an environment where the hunter is sprinting or trying to use their 3rd person camera to find you around corners. Not an environment where they are moving carefully and looking at the floor. For bonus points, you can pickup and drop dead Germans on top of your mines to conceal them.
3. You always want a tandem explosion. A single mine will only wound the invader, not kill them. A lot of invaders are bitchass ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ babies and will ALT+F4 the second they get hurt, so you need to guarantee a kill. If you need more explosives, you can always search Germans or loot other parts of the map and come back.
4. I recommend the KAR98K spec’d for damage and distance with soft point rounds, but no matter what weapons you bring, remember the invader has more health than any normal German. AP ammo for wallbangs is hilarious (and can even save you if the German gets downed behind an obstacle) but I want to maximize the odds that a chest shot will kill in 1.
5. Make sure your weapons are set to the right ammo types (ie not nonlethal ammo), and grab an MG or PTR or your weapon of choice with full ammo.
6. Save the game in front of a telephone.
When you load that save, you will probably be invaded immediately. Call the phone right away, so the invader is told precisely where you are. Then wait for them to come sprinting towards you right into some TNT – or reposition, and bait them into a spot where you can snipe them. Remember that you can activate your 6th sense at any time to know what direction they are approaching your trap from, which will help you guess if they are coming straight to you or trying to find a sniper perch. Either way, you should be at a complete information advantage and ready to blast them one way or the other.
A good demonstration of this idea is available on Spy Academy. Progress through the mission as normal until you break into the Operation Kraken meeting room, at the very top of the cathedral. Clear out the AI, then set about leaving traps on each stair case. You can put your mines/TNT at the doorways, on the stairs themselves, whatever makes you happy. Then save your game at the topmost phone on the map (same floor as the Kraken meeting).
If your M1A1 thompson is spec’d for a high rate of fire, good recoil, and a 100 round drum (why would you spec it for anything else), you are nearly guaranteed to kill your invader. They will spawn in the building below you, and the invader is forced to rush up a staircase to try to hunt you down. With your 6th sense, you will always be able to tell which stairs or which hallway they are using, so even if your traps fail, you can come around a corner prefiring that Chicago Typewriter.
Rinse, repeat.
Other tools for Karl to consider:
1. Leave AI alerted, but alive. When the Invader spawns, they will immediately know which AI are hunting for you, but they won’t know if those AI were alerted 5 minutes or 5 hours ago. This can severely delay their hunt/get them looking in the wrong direction.
2. Get an alarm going in a part of the map that your vantage point can see. Similar to alert AI, this is to bait the hunter into searching the wrong part of the map.
3. The hunter might look like other Germans, but he’s the only enemy sprinting around the map or crouching when all of the AI are on normal mode. Normal AI also don’t quickly spin around, or come to a sudden stop at every corner (to use their 3rd person camera to search). TBH this is the only part I really like about Invasions from the player’s perspective: It’s like a low grade social deduction game.
4. Seriously, just use your mines and TNT. In my premade save games for getting Invasion kills, I have mines set up everywhere. Not just to defend my hiding place, I have mines set up at all of the obvious sniper perches that can shoot at my hiding place. I have led hunters on 30 minute goose chases just for them to step on mines I forgot I placed.
5. The bottoms and tops of ladders are the best places for traps, as well as for ambushing the invader. Generally straight hallways are a bad place for traps, but at corners/bends the invader is less likely to see your trap.