Running out of ammo while fighting in The First Descendant is common and annoying. It seems no matter how you modify your guns, you’ll find yourself being chased by Vulgus as you try to reach the nearest teleportation point. If this is something that has happened to you, find out what to do when you run out of ammo right here!
How to avoid running out of ammo in The First Descendant
If you’re running around doing a lot of battlefield missions or taking on bosses, you’ll experience the pain of running out of ammo and having the “Not Enough Rounds” popup flashing at you.
Unless you’re playing a mission solo, there’s little reason to waste your ammo by panicking or simply shooting at your enemy without thinking strategically. Boss enemies have weak points that you can hit to deal significantly more damage.
You might think that taking three guns with high-powered shots will help you complete the mission, but the truth is that purple shots are rarely dropped by enemies. This means you’ll have to run to a Support Droid or hope you can find an ammo cache before your Descendant bites the dust.
If you see red items that look like ammo on the floor, those are for HP. Blue is for MP.
What is the best ammo setup?
When thinking about which guns to bring on a mission, consider choosing at least one with white circles, one with orange or green, and one with purple if you really need to include a high-powered weapon. Personally, I avoid carrying guns with purple shots because they run out much faster.
The best setup is one gun with white rounds, one with green rounds, and one with orange rounds. By choosing this setup, you will be able to easily reload your bullets from enemy drops.
Understanding how ammo works in The First Descendant
Here’s a quick table showing which guns use each type of ammo:
| Type of gun | Ammunition required |
| Handguns, Machine Guns, Machine Guns, and Assault Rifles | Blank ammunition (general rounds) |
| Hand Cannons and Scout Rifles | Green ammo (percussion rounds) |
| Tactical Rifles and Beam Rifles | Orange ammo (special rounds) |
| Shotguns, Snipers, and Launchers | Purple ammo (high powered rounds) |
It is important to know that the color shown on the weapons in your inventory does not represent the ammo it needs. You can see the type of ammo required by hovering over the weapon and looking for the bullet symbols to the right of the popup box.
The color shown around the top of each gun’s case is the gun’s rarity. Purple is rare, blue is standard.
Where to get more ammo in The First Descendant
Ammo runs out during combat, and there’s nowhere to buy it so you have a spare stock of bullets.
Here are the few places where you can find more ammo:
- Pick it up from enemy drops during missions.
- Get it from Support Droids during missions.
- Recharge from Support Droids near teleportation points.
Other features that affect your ammo usage in The First Descendant
Weapon modifications
It is important to understand that there are no weapon mods that reduce the number of bullets you use or increase how much you have of one ammo.
However, there are modifications that increase the attack power of your gun. This should, in theory, mean you’ll use less ammo when completing missions. Of course, if you’re the type of player who just aims and shoots without considering ammo, it won’t matter much.
Not that pointing and shooting is a bad thing, I do it when I play because I’m not typically a FPS (First-Person Shooter) or TPS (Third-Person Shooter) player. It’s not my main genre, I just enjoy running with my friends and completing missions. If you’re not aware, The First Descendant is a TPS game, compared to say… Overwatch, which is an FPS game.
Weapons Proficiency Rating
Weapon Proficiency is a leveling system for all your guns in The First Descendant. It tracks how much experience you have accumulated with each of your weapons.
Each weapon in First Descendant has a Weapon Skill rating that you can increase as you play. All weapons start with a Skill Class of 0, and the maximum Skill Level ends at level 40. You’ll notice that all weapons with the same name share their Skill Level, so you won’t need to level up two separate Nightmare Hounds. Scout Rifles, for example.
To increase your Weapon Skill, you just need to have the weapon equipped to one of your three weapon slots and use it during battles. You can level up your Weapon Skill along with your Origin Level quite easily. Look at the Kingston Albion Resource Defense mission, which is a wave-by-wave enemy encounter mission.
Your choice of Successor
Enzo is the only A successor that can improve your ammo usage in the game. When you play as him, you will benefit from having more ammo for yourself and for all the team members who work with you.
As you can see from the screenshot above, Enzo’s Passive Skill offers between 10% and 20% extra ammo for your weapons (depending on the type of shots they use). You will also earn an additional 4% for each Alliance or Squad member you play with.
If ammo is your biggest concern, Enzo should be the successor you aim to unlock.
Now that you know more about ammo in the game – because it tells you absolutely nothing about them when you’re a new player – you should be able to get to the end of a fight with ammo to spare.
Want to read more Pro Game Guides for The First Descendant? Try our guide on How to fix Caliber not showing in The First Descendant or How to unlock all trophies in The First Descendant.
