This game is overwhelming! Where does a newbie start?

[Tyr]

I'm coming from Super Robot Wars T so I thought this would be similar and in some ways it is, however I'm presented with so many confusing options. there are also some strange things like the tutorial being in the 'gallery' section.

If anyone can give me some tips or advise on any helpful YT videos or guides that would be great.

[Mentally Unstable]

I think it would be better if you list out your questions so that we can answer them as and when we visit the forums.

[Tyr]

Should I create a new character first or just jump into the story mode.

[Jordamine]

What does link attacks do?
What does it mean when an attack has something like "critical" or "link attack" actually mean?
Is it worth developing units?
How do I know what the rewards are for dispatch missions?
Does mobility affect accuracy?
Is there any things to consider when making a team?

Sorry these are some questions that come to mind for me (I'm new too). I'll probably have more later

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by Tyr:

Should I create a new character first or just jump into the story mode.

Just to make sure we are on the right page, this game does not have a "story mode" per se. They have individual campaigns based on the various series but there is no main story connecting them all. You can choose to start with any series. You can even choose to stop one halfway and begin a different one.

As for character creation, it very much depends on how much value you place on role play. A custom character does not have any role in the game. They exist only to serve as pilots and nothing else, they have no plot lines or anything of that sort. Whether you make your own character on not has no effect on any of the story lines(ie gundam series). There are mods that can replace the portrait but they don't replace the character animations(ie the character animations during battle sequences) because they are dependent on the base model you choose for the custom character. Some make an entire squad of their favourite waifus from other animes.

If you are interested in min maxing certain stats, then you may want to create a character with a certain birth date and blood type combo

TLDR: If you have no interest in role play or min maxing particular stats, you can skip making a character and just start the game.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by Jordamine:

What does link attacks do?
What does it mean when an attack has something like "critical" or "link attack" actually mean?
Is it worth developing units?
How do I know what the rewards are for dispatch missions?
Does mobility affect accuracy?
Is there any things to consider when making a team?

Sorry these are some questions that come to mind for me (I'm new too). I'll probably have more later

Critical as its name would suggest means a critical hit resulting in more damage than usual. So if an attack hits for 1400, a critical results in a figure(eg 1800) higher than that.

As for link attack, have a look at the following thread, it has been explained in detail:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/728530/discussions/0/1746765743927130509/


Development: Yes, it's not only worth it, it's essential. Developing is your main source of getting new MS/MA designs. By developing them, the new unit it turns into is registered to your production list which in turn enables you to produce the unit directly in future if you have the money. However, you may not always want to develop straight away since it results in a level one unit again. Some times, a higher level suit is more useful than a new one. You will have to make that judgement call. But ultimately, you will have to develop to gain more designs to produce.

Mobility: Yes, it affects accuracy as well as evasion. But do note that your pilot stats have a big part to play as well. The character stats have explanations scrolling across the screen at the bottom in the training screen so you will know what each does.

Considerations when making a team:

1)Do note the environment the mission is taking place in. Eg. If it is in space, you must deploy units that can operate in space.

2)Note the ability(eg restore health/energy each turn) of the pilot you place in the master position since it will affect the group as a whole.

3)Bring a mix of units with various attack types. In some missions, there are enemies that have particularly strong defense against certain attack types. Eg, shield reduces beam damage by a lot.

Other considerations will come later once you have more experience and have figured out what sort of playstyle(ie meta) interest you the most.

[Mentally Unstable]

The following guide is an excellent primer to the game, newcomers should take a look at it. It goes into detail about many aspects. The author deserves a big kudos

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2019432677

[Jordamine]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

Originally posted by Jordamine:

What does link attacks do?
What does it mean when an attack has something like "critical" or "link attack" actually mean?
Is it worth developing units?
How do I know what the rewards are for dispatch missions?
Does mobility affect accuracy?
Is there any things to consider when making a team?

Sorry these are some questions that come to mind for me (I'm new too). I'll probably have more later

Critical as its name would suggest means a critical hit resulting in more damage than usual. So if an attack hits for 1400, a critical results in a figure(eg 1800) higher than that.

As for link attack, have a look at the following thread, it has been explained in detail:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/728530/discussions/0/1746765743927130509/


Development: Yes, it's not only worth it, it's essential. Developing is your main source of getting new MS/MA designs. By developing them, the new unit it turns into is registered to your production list which in turn enables you to produce the unit directly in future if you have the money. However, you may not always want to develop straight away since it results in a level one unit again. Some times, a higher level suit is more useful than a new one. You will have to make that judgement call. But ultimately, you will have to develop to gain more designs to produce.

Mobility: Yes, it affects accuracy as well as evasion. But do note that your pilot stats have a big part to play as well. The character stats have explanations scrolling across the screen at the bottom in the training screen so you will know what each does.

Considerations when making a team:

1)Do note the environment the mission is taking place in. Eg. If it is in space, you must deploy units that can operate in space.

2)Note the ability(eg restore health/energy each turn) of the pilot you place in the master position since it will affect the group as a whole.

3)Bring a mix of units with various attack types. In some missions, there are enemies that have particularly strong defense against certain attack types. Eg, shield reduces beam damage by a lot.

Other considerations will come later once you have more experience and have figured out what sort of playstyle(ie meta) interest you the most.

Alright thanks for the info. I'll look into the guide as well, I assumed it was for more advanced players

[meiam]

The game is pretty easy, especially the early chapter, so feel free to start anywhere (maybe except the iron blood orphan chapter).

Dunno how familiar you are with gundam story, but in general they follow a certain pattern where at the start of the story the gundam are incredibly powerful and face mostly weak grunt, then at some point the enemy get better suits and then the main characters suffer a setback before coming back with even better suits to take. This mean most story have a near flat difficulty curve for the first few chapters and then a big jump in difficulty mid point. While the guest character (main character from the story) will also have a big increase in strenght around the same time, your personal unit won't. What this mean is that its better to do a few chapter in a series and then around mid point to jump to another series and do this until you've progressed most of them to the half point. On top of that you want to upgrade your warship before you reach the end of a series so that you can take more unit in a battle at once, this cost quite a lot (buy a space one before an ground one, since most late mission are in space).

For specific:

Wing start the easiest, but imo finish amongst the hardest due to the enemy you're going to fight having a really annoying ability.

Seed doesn't have a big difficulty bumb, if anything it start is harder than other in some way because the initial suit the guest character start in is quite weak/annoying. But the enemy never get a big buff in the suit they use so its pretty easy by the end. I'd avoid seed destiny until you have better suits since the grunt you face are pretty beefy (since seed + seed destiny have a long run time the power creep is pretty strong), plus you'll have to deal with Shin which is a not worth it.

00 start pretty easy too but has a good difficulty bumb once the enemy get their new suits. But then they replace those by, imo, weaker suits so its not very hard by the end.

Iron blood orphan is annoying because beam weapon are pretty much useless for most of it, really limiting the suits you can take.

The side story mostly follow the same pattern as their main series counter part.

For early game, I'd recommend buying one or two suits from IBO so you can use them to avoid beam damage using support defense (spinner rodi is very cheap and perfectly reasonable). Don't get attached to the character you start with, they're not very good and are more or less placeholder until you can start recruiting better one.

[Doresh]

Some of the starter ones can be worth keeping if you've leveled them enough, but especially the crew members tend to not be particularly good at their main stat.

Wing and IBO can definitely be the more annoying campaigns if your unit roster isn't diverse enough to adapt to their main gimmick (later Wing missions are full of units that heavily resist ranged attacks, IBO features energy resistance on almost every unit).

All but the grunt 00 units are very nice to have, as they function in any terrain, come with built-in EN regeneration (especially handy early on for warship groups were you probably want more effective means of EN recovery besides sending units back into the ship), and their defensive ability can make them effectively immune against cannon fodder.

[Ciecieji]

Develop as follows:
Tornado gundam (you start with some and can get more of these from 'mock battle') => Phoenix Zero => 0 Gundam => 0 Gundam Combat Unit GN Particle Condenser Type => 00 Gundam => 00 XN Raiser => 00 QAN[T] => 00 QAN[T] Full Saber.

[Doresh]

The vanilla 00 QAN[T] (and the 00 Raiser Final Battle Type) are also valid choices, as one of their "attacks" is a huge AoE team heal.

[The Tree of Woe]

I haven't dug too far in so far - Wing has more powerful enemies, but Seed has battles where the battle objective will suddenly shift and it's easy to get caught out of position and risk losing the whole thing no matter how hard you were crushing it up until that point.

'Guest' units, which is to say the ones that feature in the scenario will fill something called a 'Get' meter as you make kills with them. When you complete a 'Get' meter you'll then be able to commission that suit. You start with some suits already and you can begin the Wing missions with them but you'll want to trade up soon. Unlocking a suit will also unlock the character who pilots that suit (though it doesn't work the other way around).

All the Wing suits and Pilots are really good and worth getting. Unlocking the first set of Gundams will allow you to trade up to the 'Kai' upgrades and then to the Endless Waltz set really easily.

Deathscythe - Melee gundam. As you trade up Deathscythes get more and more tightly focused on Melee, but as a trade-off for this the suit's stealth cloak means that a certain percentage of the time an enemy attack on the suit will automatically fail and be wasted (I don't have an exact percentage on this but with the Deathscythe Hell EW it's pretty frequent)

Sandrock - Another melee suit. Kai upgrade gains a ranged attack, Sandrock EW goes right back down to close range. Tanky/support suit, goes well with its pilot Quatre, who's the best Leader out of the Gundam Wing pilots.

Heavyarms - Pure ranged punishment, it's all about the Dakka. Sheds its close combat to go totally ranged as you trade up. Even Heavyarms EW's point-blank attack is a ranged attack (also one of the coolest-looking attacks in the game IMO). Put some effort into upgrading its Energy, because it tends to use up juice fast, especially if it's not part of a Raiding group. It's like somebody stuck a Gundam head on a Macross suit, and probably my favorite Gundam period.

Shenlong/Altron - Where Sandrock tanks and Deathscythe is tricky Shenlong and its upgrades Altron and Altron EW are all about the close range pain. This suit has one job and it's to get in close and take the enemy apart. Its ranged options are pretty cool but as the Gundam upgrades it goes back to focusing on its specialty. Join in with Wufei and yell 'You're WEAK' at the suit you're attacking as the pain train pulls into pound town.

Wing Gundam/Wing Zero: Put Heero in the Wing Zero and point him at the enemy. Watch them evaporate around this MS. Primarily a ranged suit but much like Heero it has no weaknesses and it's just fine to take it in close. Wing Zero and Wing Zero EW have the Zero System installed, which does funny things to a character's morale bar when it's triggered.

Epyon: Sort of the mirror image of Wing Zero, Epyon is another close combat Gundam. Wing had a whole 'thing' about dueling gundams. Fast, tough, gets in close and hits hard. Also has the Zero System installed. Heero is good in this suit too, so is Zechs/Milliardo (they're the two who used it in the series).

Tallgeese I/II/III: An all-round balanced family of MS that's good in any situation and as such any pilot's good in them. There's a fourth Tallgeese but I haven't poked at it yet. I generally stick Milliardo/Zechs or Treize in my Tallgeeses out of habit (they used them during the series).

Mercurius & Vayeate: These two suits are meant to be deployed as a team. Mercurius is a Melee combat/defense-focused suit and Vayeate is a ranged suit. Their upgrades do what the original two suits do, just moreso without trading anything off so you're not losing anything by trading up. I like to put Noin in the Vayeate and a melee-focused pilot in the Mercurius and use them to round out my raiding teams. Keep them close to each other, have them support each other's attacks. On enemy turns, have the Mercurius step in and take hits aimed at the Vayeate since is Planet Defensors will knock most ranged attacks down to a pittance. If they attack the Mercurius counter support with the Vayeate and punish them for their mistake. They're actually a great pair.

I'm sure there's stuff in here I'm missing or stuff I got wrong, this is just my experience playing the game so far, since most people will start with Wing if they don't have a favorite series they want to jump into first.

[Doresh]

Originally posted by The Tree of Woe:

I haven't dug too far in so far - Wing has more powerful enemies, but Seed has battles where the battle objective will suddenly shift and it's easy to get caught out of position and risk losing the whole thing no matter how hard you were crushing it up until that point.

I'd say Wing partially makes up for the stronger enemies with a stronger roster of guest guest units. The Operation Meteor units and their pilots are very strong.
Most Seed missions on the other hand just give you the Impulse, the Archangel and maybe a dinky Mobile Armor.

Besides that, many Wing units can feel a bit weird in that their final EW version is actually more of a downgrade (with the exception of the Wing Zero, Epyon and Heavyarms, who just get more badass) or at the very least a sidegrade (often trading more damage for a more limited weapon selection).
I'd say the worst offender is the Sandrock, who loses a lot of range for little gain. Even its Custom version from the actual show feels a bit weird. Sure, it has much better space performance and gains a range 4 beam SMG, but the loss of the Cross Crusher hurts a lot. In the long term, you're probably better off putting the Sandrock Armadillo from Glory of the Losers (which is essentially the normal Sandrock that can use both the Cross Crusher and the SMG) onto a SFS.

[The Tree of Woe]

I agree with you about the Sandrock EW being a downgrade. Altron EW is more of a side-grade since as you said it's doubling down on close-up hurt in exchange for flexibility. Honestly I think overall Deathscythe Hell EW is a tradeup from Deathscythe Hell - the stealth cloak seems to trigger more frequently and for what you want to do with the Deathscythe - stick it in the thick of the fight and let it troll the enemy while it mops the floor with them - it does a great job.

[gamester512]

Also, my advice for early on is to be careful of the IBO missions, as all IBO MS & Warships (with the exception of the Mobile Workers) have Nanolaminate Armor, which cuts all incoming Beam damage down by 3500 points, and most of the attacks available to your starting MS are Beam attacks. The few exceptions tend to be the shoulder missiles of the Phoenix Zero & Phoenix Zero One, the Arm Gatling of the Tornado Gundam, & the Feather Funnels of the Phoenix Gundam, nearly every other attack available to your starting MS are Beam weapons. Basically, if you are going to use a "blue" attack, it will be severely mitigated by Nanolaminate Armor, but Green & Purple should work just fine. Though IBO missions do usually give you at least 1 reliable guest unit (Mikazuki in the Barbatos for IBO, and Argi in the Astaroth for Gekko), though their Nanolaminate Armor won't really be much help to you in IBO missions since units from IBO (except for, say, the Hashmal) do not use Beam weapons, so their Nanolaminate Armor is mostly pointless when they are on your side, though that also means enemy units with Nanolaminate Armor won't hinder them either.

Though if you have the patience for it, it's actually not a bad idea to "farm" the first IBO Gekko stage until you unlock Argi's Gundam Astaroth, as it's probably one of the best early MS you can get as it has options for both ranged combat (an Anti-Materiel Rifle) and melee combat (it's Combat Knife & Demolition Knife), and like all IBO MS, it has Nanolaminate Armor and is pretty easy to get to a high enough level (9) to unlock it's strongest form, the Gundam Astaroth Origin.