Day of the Demons

Day of the Demons is the twelfth mission in Earth Defense Force 2025 and Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair.

Basic Information
OBJECTIVE:

2025: Ravager transport ships are flying over the city. They must intend to drop more aliens on the population. Head out and protect the civilians from attack.

4.1: Ravager transport ships are flying over the city. They must intend to drop more aliens on the population! Head out and protect the civilians from attack.

Storyline
The Tactics Officer starts things off this time with a notification that a Ravager Transport Ship has entered the combat area, with an EDF soldier rather huffily acknowledging this with "So that's the giant insect transport ship!" Another replies with "so that bought all the giant insects here?" and is hopefully talking about the 2017 war rather than showing he has forgotten everything that has happened up to this point.

Some other EDF soldiers panic slightly at the fact that the ship is still dropping giant insects. HQ chimes in to say that it is not necessary to destroy the Transport Ship (which is lucky, because it is also not possible here), and the EDF should kill the enemies on the ground first.

Aurora Situation Report confirms that "a large formation of giant saucers have been confirmed throughout the Earth," and while the rest of the EDF attempt to diagram that sentence, adds that the Ravagers are trying to bury the Earth in giant insects as part of an "explosion strategy" and the EDF has dispatched units to "all locations," which seems like it would result in sending a lot of troops into deserts and oceans.

The Operator confirms a second Transport Ship entering the combat area, and an EDF soldier is taken aback that this Transport Ship is dropping giant insects. Sensing things are getting silly, Ohara starts musing on what the Ravagers' plan actually is, wondering if the Ravagers have decided it is taking too much time for the giant insects to spread out, and rather smugly declaring that they probably can't stand that humanity is stopping them.

A scout unit confirms more Transport Ships on the way. As Storm Team deals with their payload, Ohara chimes in again, and, well...

"From mankind's point of view, the giant insects are just bugs, but from the Ravagers' point of view, it's the other way around. To Ravagers, mankind could just...be a bug, that...gets in the way of spreading giant bugs."

It probably sounded better in his head.

4.1 Changes
The mission now takes place in City 1's plaza rather than City 2's park, and a group of NPC Wing Divers is added to the two sets of NPC Rangers present in the 2025 version. The initial two waves are dropped more densely since the plaza is smaller than the park, and also because they contain twice the number of Ants. The first wave is a little more focused since there are far fewer civilians and most of them unhelpfully spawn right near where Storm Team starts out, making them rather useless as a distraction, but the second is distracted by a group of civilians spawning at the top of the plaza and running towards the start location just in time for the second Transport to unload right on top of them.

The biggest difference is the final wave; rather than being dropped on three sides, it is all dropped in one place, the four transports hovering over the buildings to the left of the plaza. This final wave also has a group of civilians in the top-left corner of the plaza to distract it, meaning the farther half of it is usually kept busy for a while trying to stop these weird humans from following them around.

Enemies
2025:

3 waves of black Ants deployed from Transport Ships, 31, 25, 70

6 x Transport Ship (invincible)

4.1:

3 waves of black Ants deployed from Transport Ships, 62, 50, 70

6 x Transport Ship (invincible)

2025
This mission marks the first time enemies are dropped from moving Transport Ships, and is more or less a dry run for the next mission. The first two waves of ants are dropped in long lines across the park, while the final wave deploys from four Transports at once, two either side of the middle of the park, and then just afterwards two more groups on the far side of the park. The first and second waves are accompanied by civilians, and the second group of civilians is generally still in the park for the third wave.

Two groups of NPC Rangers are present in the park, a little over halfway in and one-third and two-thirds of the way across the park, near the two ends of the large overhead walkway platform in the middle.

The Ants are the only enemy in this mission, and as in The Return the six Transport Ships are invulnerable; shooting their core produces a flame effect as if they are being damaged, but they are not. As a result, the usual Ant-hunting loadout of a close-range or rapid-fire weapon and an explosive weapon is fine here, and the only thing to be wary of is being caught in the middle of the final wave. A Fencer, however, can have a lot of fun in the middle of the group if they have decent health and a defense-boosting area-effect CC Striker weapon. If playing on Hard, they should by this point have the level 15 Vulcan Hammer, which has a ridiculous -80% damage modifier while being swung in 2025 (down to -65% in 4.1).

4.1
This is fundamentally the same mission fought in a more confined space. The EDF teams are less distracting than in the original since they are closer together, and the denser lines of Ants are a fair bit more dangerous than before, though the final wave is actually easier since it all comes from one direction and takes a while to disentangle itself from the buildings and civilians it is dropped into, much like the final wave of 4.1's version of Spreading Disaster (which starts in the same place) did. This huge single group is also much more vulnerable to Air Raider artillery strikes right after it has been set down than the equivalent wave in 2025.