Request Satellites

For satellite strikes in Earth Defense Force 2025 and Earth Defense Force 4.1: The Shadow of New Despair, see Nothung

Request Satellites is a category of Air Raider support strike in Earth Defense Force 5, encompassing three main categories of attack: the Bulge Laser, Spritefall and Spritefall Shooting Mode β. Unlike in the previous two games, it is unclear if all strikes are provided by the same satellite, particularly since the Bulge Laser and Spritefall attack cues are voiced by different characters.

Description
All strikes in this category use a Guide Kit marker, which features a 4x zoom mode as its alt-fire for precise targeting.

For unclear reasons, in multiplayer all weapons in this category disregard the difficulty-based friendly fire damage modifier, instead always dealing 100% of their normal damage.

Calls for Support
Stats in the tables below reflect the maximum upgraded stats of the strike in question. In the context of these tables, "Acquire" is the speed at which the Guide Kit initially locks on, and "Delay" the amount of time between a lock-on being achieved and the strike actually initiating.

Bulge Laser
The Bulge Laser serves as the equivalent of the previous games' Satellite Blaster, firing a prolonged beam of energy that can be redirected by using the Guide Kit after it has been initiated, or left in position by ceasing to use the Kit. New for EDF 5 is it has switched to a timer-based reload rather than using Reload Credits.

Spritefall
Much like Nothung's version in the previous games, Spritefall is an area-of-effect attack similar to the Request Artillery Units strikes and cannon strikes from DE 202, much less focused than the Bulge Laser but well-suited to suppression of multiple targets and blocking off areas of the map.

Spritefall has been substantially buffed compared to the previous game, with the Reload Credit requirement cut by almost two-thirds for even the highest-level variant, Spritefall A's damage almost doubled, and B's increased by around 50%. In addition, the levels of these variants have been cut drastically, from 22, 54 and 76 to 8, 22 and 40, meaning they are far more powerful relative to when they can be unlocked and when they are allowed in multiplayer.

In addition, four new high-level variants have been added. While Spritefall A to C are simply linear upgrades (though due to improved effect radius Spritefall C becomes slightly less focused), the new variants each have their own quirks which mean they are suited to specific scenarios. Spritefall R has a slight per-shot damage downgrade from C but a 50% increase in shots fired, Spritefall Power Mode the highest damage, both per-shot and for the whole attack, but a slightly decreased shot count, Spritefall Maximum is a slight downgrade in stat terms (including firing only 60 shots, resulting in it only doing slightly more damage overall than Spritefall C) with the main benefit being a vastly boosted rate of fire for the beams to the point the entire attack takes only three seconds, and Spritefall Destroy has mediocre per-shot power but fires 160 shots, making it the second most damaging strike and allowing it to block off an area for a significant amount of time. Later variants do tend to have effect areas too large to reliably destroy point targets like Teleport Anchors on higher difficulties: some of the high-end versions can kill a Big Anchor up to Hardest, but no variant is powerful enough to reliably pull this off on Inferno.

All Spritefall strikes have a maxed-out targeting range of 1,260 metres.

Spritefall Shooting Mode β
This new satellite strike variant fires a single high-powered beam at the designated target. It functions in a very similar manner to how 150mm Cannon strikes from Whale did in the previous game, with a splash damage radius that is quite significant, Reload Credit-based reloading with a very low cost, and a single shot per reload. The per-shot cost can be as little as 77 Credits (where a single basic Ant is worth 60), and landing a shot with the weapon often reloads it instantly.

Like the regular Spritefall, Shooting Mode β shots descend vertically and can penetrate multiple enemies, but not anything that counts as solid terrain or a building. It is thus particularly effective against enemies such as Type 2 Drones which have a tendency to stack up vertically.

Trivia

 * Assuming Spritefall is in a geosynchronous orbit, Spritefall Shooting Mode β3's landing speed means its laser can fire light that travels faster than light.