Overview
All the info and tips i can think of to help new players engage this wonderful series. Please let me know if you think other useful tips should be added 🙂
Basic Info
The game may seem a little complex at first, but I assure you that once you gain a grasp on how to achieve what you desire everything will be natural to you.
Let’s start with the basics:
- In this game units have PERMADEATH. While pilot will survive being destroyed you will permanently lose your MS if it gets destroyed.
- During missions you have 10 slots in which to quicksave.. use them to go back from bad situations. The game also autosave each turn.
- Any pilot can use any MS
- Any MS/Pilot can be deploy in any series, the only limitation being terrains
- For a ship/MS to be deployed in a map it MUST be able run in that map environment (space or air, tipically)
- The ship that you get at the start of the game can contain only 1 squad, but by doing one of the available dispatches you can acquire an item that let you unlock the 2nd squad slot. I recommend that you do that asap, as more slot means more units on the battlefield (obviously)
- Raids are a new type of squadron, the main difference from the ship being that the units can regain HP/EN while roaming on the map. If 2 units of the raid end the turn near each other they will regain HP and a little EN, otherwise (if a unit ends the turn with no raid ally nearby) they will regain 30% of EN
- Whenever a unit kills an enemy they get to act again, up to 2 times (you get 3 attacks in total)
- Whenever a unit dodge,hits or kills an enemy it gains morale. After specific thresholds they reach what is called “High Tension”, after which if it continues to gain morale it reaches “Super High Tension”.
- During High Tension all attacks are critics, while during Super High Tension all attacks deal “super critics”. There are certain attacks only usable during (Super) High Tension.
- If a unit gets hit during Super High Tension it will switch back to a normal state when the battle ends. The same happens if it misses an attack.
- Sometimes when you encounter enemy ships they will deploy additional MS when you get near them. If you destroy the ship those same MS will have a white flag on them.. it means that if your ship gets near them the “capture” command will appear. It is a free action that let you capture them, being able to dismantle (aka sell) them ore use them, according to your wishes.
- You can change the battle music for each pilot you own (it only depends on them, not on the MS). You can also import your own mp3 files to use as battle music!
- The game auto-saves ONLY when sendind dispatches (or getting dispatch results). It is advisable to always manually save.
- The guest/map units are generally strong, but aside from the GET bar there’s no reason to let them kill things.. you’ll want that precious exp given to your units 🙂
- Buying early unit is not a waste of money… you can still evolve them into far better units or send them into dispatch missions.
- Units sortied from a ship can get back into it for a full HP/EN refill.
Squad Strengthening
- Be mindful that pilot stats matter A LOT. A ranged MS should be piloted by someone proficient in long rage, same with melee (you can check a MS “type” by looking at its attacks.. the icons will tell you the type of each attack, so that you know if a MS has more ranged or melee attacks). “Funnel type” weapons (or “awaken” weapons” use the “Awaken” statistic). I recommend to balance your credits spending between new units and pilots, as you need good pilots just as you need good MS.
- When a MS levels up you receive points to spend in its stats, ranging from attacks to HP, EN and speed (this is VERY important at higher difficulties, as it affects both dodging and hitting capabilities).
- When a Pilot levels up he/she automatically gains stats increases. You can also spend credits to increase his/her stats.
- Each pilot has innate abilities and skills, and learn new skills as he/she levels up. Abilities are dropped by specific enemies (those with a yellow dot on them), the higher the difficulty the higher the ability level dropped by the enemy.
- MS whose size is greater than M will occupy more slots inside your ship. This hovever will NOT matter for the Master slot, which can host a big MS while still occupying only one slot (use this feature at your advantage 😉 )
- Lots of pilots have more than one version of themselves. Usually the last versions are stronger than the previous ones, but also have more difficult/complex requirements to complete their respective quest.
Pilot Stats
- Ranged -> Increases accuracy and (by a little) damage of ranged weapons
- Melee -> Increases accuracy and (by a little) damage of melee weapons
- Awaken -> Increases accuracy and damage of awaken weapons
- Reaction -> increases dodge and hit accuracy
- Defense -> decreases damage taken
- Command -> Affects Group/Master/Leader Area
- Charisma -> Affects EXP gained by the ship group members when pilot is in the “Guest” slot of the ship
Acquiring Units
This game is full of ways in which the player can gain new units. Here are all the means you have to do so.
Filling guest unit GET gauge
In each stage there are “guest” units, units (both MS and ships) that belongs to the events you’re playing. Whenever one of these units get a kill the GET gauge will fill itself; when the bar is completely filled you will unlock that unit for developmen (you still need to pay credits for the development).
Of important note the fact that the GET gauge is shared across multiple stages/missions, so you can fill it at your own pace.
Design
With this option you can “combine” the design of 2 MS to unlock a third one (you do not lose the combined units). Not all MS can be combined, and multiple combinations result in the same design. As per the GET gauge you still need to pay credits do build the designed MS.
Capture
When you encounter enemy ships they sometimes will deploy additional MS when you get near them. If you destroy the ship those same MS will have a white flag on them.. it means that if your ship gets near them the “capture” command will appear. It is a free action that let you capture them and use or sell them after the mission ends (through the “manage captures” menu action).
Development
You surely have noticed that in the game Units and Pilots have separate levels. For units these are especially important, as they allow them to “evolve” (just like in pokemon games) into different forms.
Each MS has different evolution paths which can lead to different results, and each form has a minimum level requirement.
This is the main way to obtain new Units, and (aside from capture) the cheapest one.
Exchange
Using this option you can exchange a MS whose level is at minimum 2. As the MS level rise you’ll get better deals, but it will get you lots of levels to be offered an even decent value for the exchange.
Still it’s sometimes worth to look at what the game offer to you for your well levelled MS.
This method wont add the new MS to the production list.
Dispatch Missions
Sometimes dispatch missions offer a MS as an additional reward for completion.
Quests
Some of the Units (in some cases even very strong units) are unlocked by completing specific quests. As always you’ll only unlock the schematics, and you’ll still need to buy it with credits.
Acquiring Pilots
All the pilots are unlocked through quests (once unlocked they must be scouted, aka buyed with credits from the scouting menu).
Lots of these quests just require you to fill their respective MS GET gauge while others are a little more complex.
Still everything can be found in the quest menu.
Evolution Tips
I’ll be adding more tips in this section as I find more info or discover interesting stuff.
- Evolve the Phoenix Gundam to its “Full Power” form asap, since the Full Power form will then be able to evolve into the main gundams of the main series of the game.
- Before evolving a MS into a new form you can check the new form details, including weapons, innate abilities and even which will be its future evolutions when levelled (even though it’s very likely that those will be obscured, it’s still a hint at what you could be getting next).
- Don’t sleep on the gallery function, as it can give you precious hints at what you need to obtain a specific MS.
Farming tips
Money + Exp (requires some preparations) – Credits to Benazaurio for pointing it out
Follow this video guide (it’s in japanese but it’s easy to undestand what to do):
Basically you use the Warship Link attack to have all the suits in the ship group gain exp.
If you do this in the Gundam 00 Movie stage 1 at “extra” difficulty you can level stargazer gundams to at least level 8, evolving them into strike freedom gundams and selling them.
Basically you do the following:
- Fill all of your ship unit slots with stargazer gundams (buy them from the shop)
- Using the method shown do Gundam 00 Movie stage 1 at “extra” difficulty killing enemies with Warship Link attacks
- Evolve all the Stargazers into Strike Freedom and sell them
- Rinse, repeat until you’re comfortable
It’s easier done if you have a member with the skill Exp boost beta (+50% exp) and a member with the skill which increases attack by 200 (or even better, 300)%. In the video these pilots are shown, so you can scout those same if you don’t already have those skills in your team.
I also suggest buying the ptolemaios kai 2 (just fill it’s GET gauge in this same mission) as it’s by far the best ship from what I’ve seen.
Dispatch Mission cooldown booster
These are always useful, as each of them lower the dispatch mission time by 30 minutes.
You can easily get 6 of them by doing IBO: Gekko first mission at extra difficulty (and playing the mission start + challenge).
If you do every challenge + mission start you’ll gain 6 boosters at the and. The mission is also very short.
Money farming
For money it depends on your units strength. The higher the difficulty the more the money you’ll get.
These are the most used stages to farm for money (at extra difficulty they give the most):
- Iron Blooded Orphans 1 (easily done even at extra, if you have units with strong non-beam attacks)
- Gundam 00 awakening of the trailblazer 1 (beware that when surrounded by 4 ELS the unit will take 5000 unavoidable damage)
- Gundam 00 awakening of the trailblazer 3 (only if you have lots of strong units that can one-shot the ELS with 10k HP.. if you get hit by them and they survive the battle they will morph into strong units)
Exp farming
Some useful info about exp gaining:
- Always use Ship Group, as in those you receive bonus exp based on the “Charisma” of the “Guest” pilot inside the ship (even if outside the ship area).
- The stronger your unit (it’s not just a matter of levels, the mods equipped on it are also calculated to determine it’s actual strength) the lesser the exp gained by it.
- Gundam Seed Astray stage 3 is a great grinding sage as you have plenty of easy to destroy wreckage that gives decent EXP (thanks to Ridden0079 for this suggestion)
As far as goes for the exp farming I’ve successfully used this method:
- Go to Iron Blooded Orphans: Gekko 1 at extra difficulty
- Do the “mission start” and complete its challenge (VERY easy to do)
- Sortie a mix of at least decent units along with the units you want to level up… let them have most of the kills
- At the and of the mission you’ll receive 6 dispatch boosters.. as soon as you have 10 of them move all the units/pilots that you want to level up into a raid team, and send them into the 5 hours daily and using 10 boosters(there’s also a better mission unlocked as you progress into the game, which still requires 5 hours, gives the same amount of exp but rewards you also with units, augments and boosters)
- Immediately profit the huge exp. Remember, the lesser the units that you send the more will be the received EXP at the end of the mission.
- Repeat this all over again.
It’s highly probable that this is not the best method, but it allow you to gain exp fairly quickly along with a good sum of money.