Last full update: 3/23/2012
Last partial update: 3/23/2012
One of the most common newbie questions is "where should I spend my level points". As you can well imagine, there isn't really a "best progression", and it's largely a matter of both what you want to do in the beginning, and what you favor style-wise.
That being said, there *are* some skills that are must-have in many situations, so I'll discuss those, then get into everything you can learn, and when you should consider it. Of course, there are people that this guide just plain doesn't apply to, due to aiming for very unusual build setups, or having a very early focus on something that most players skip until later. Don't be afraid to experiment, especially since you get the free reset.
First, however, are a few major pointers:
-Your first reset is free. Many players intentionally use a build that would suck later, but is good at low level, then simply discard it at 20ish. This is certainly an option, and you may want to consider it.
-With the exception of the 3 commander classes (which you have to pick only 1 of), you CAN learn everything, so generally, it's not a question of *if* you'll learn something, but rather when.
-By 149, you can learn everything but vehicular mining, and once you have a mining base, you'll never vehicle mine again. This requires a bit over 5.5 mil exp, however. It's not an insane amount by any means, but it's definitely not something you'll be achieving in a week either. If you want *everything*, it takes L158.
-If you've already burned your freebie, do NOT pay 50 TB for future resets. The PU that does the same thing costs 20ish.
How leveling and LP works:1. You begin with 9 LP. You initially get 3 LP on level up, but after level 20, receive only 2. There is no maximum level, although eventually, there's nothing to spend the LP on but clones, which are nice to have, but really not terribly important. Most agree that levels beyond 200 are basically pointless - extra clones don't *hurt*, but they simply aren't needed.
2. There is a limit on how many commands you can issue per turn. This starts at a pathetic 2, but you can gain an additional slot every 10th level. There is no slot cap, although you of course eventually reach a point where further slots are unlikely to do anything of value. There may be extremely rare cases where you'll want to issue more than 22 commands in a turn, but generally, 15-20 is plenty, you're usually going to want a hell of a lot less than that, and so again, levels beyond 200 fall under the "not *completely* useless, but not at all necessary" category.
3. 10,050,000 exp is level 200, since you're probably now wondering that.
Don't worry, you'll have the overwhelmingly majority of the stuff loooooooooooooooooooong before then.
4. The first level up takes 500 exp, the second takes 1,000, and the third takes 1,500. This pattern continues forever - it will never curve. To quickly figure out the exp needed to reach a particular level, the formula is previous level * target level * 250. So for instance, for level 10, you need 9 * 10 * 250 = 22,500 exp. After L200, this changes. Levels simply take a fixed 100k exp after that. So 1.5 mil xp = clone if you do decide you want a pile of them.
4. Wulf unlocks at level 2, Esika unlocks at level 6, Konu unlocks at level 10, and all other planets unlock at level 11. You cannot access any of the planets where it is possible to gain FP without being paid.
5. You must be level 70 to create a clone, but realistically, should not be using that option until MUCH later than that.
6. Other than planet unlocks, slot count, and clones, absolutely NOTHING is gained by leveling rather than LP. If you have the LP to learn it, you can learn it.
7. Unpaid accounts have a level cap of 10. You will not lose exp if your subscription expires, and you will retain everything you've earned, but you will not be able to gain additional exp until you pay again. Let us know if you need help getting paid or re-paid, it's MUCH easier than many think. Frizz has removed the level cap, so this is no longer a concern.
8. It can be tempting to stay at level 40 to use Esika, but there's much better opportunities if you move beyond. Likewise, the higher CE caps on the CE-limited planets are nice, but ultimately, you're better off just being stronger.
Your command crewYour command crew is stronger than any normal crew. The normal 1.3 CE multiplier is ignored, you have access to + units, and due to several abilities you can learn on the side, you effectively have far more than 3 merits (even if you technically really only have 3).
Piloting: You begin at Skilled (Yellow) Piloting, and will want to raise this very, VERY soon. Nothing will speed up your leveling more than gaining access to better units, and this is how to do it.
It costs 6 LP, then 9 LP, to gain the final 2 piloting levels.
Gunnery: You likely begin at Skilled. Although this is slightly less important than Piloting, I do recommend boosting it to elite very early on.
Like with Piloting, it costs 6 LP, then 9 LP to boost this.
Merits: Not all merits are available to your commander, but this is generally because you effectively earn these merits by other means. You cannot obtain war hero, because you're already 1 CE and unkillable. You cannot obtain Marksmanship, because the Gifted Gunner ability does the exact same thing. I think those are the only 2 missing. So, which should you take? Here's a discussion of each merit:
---The good choices---
Acti Master - This makes a HUGE difference on Zed, a HUGE difference on nearly all + units, and has value on most units. This is by far one of the most common commander merits.
Battlefield Promotion - Only your commander can drive a + unit, and he needs this to do it. If you *ever* want to use a + unit, you'll need this. That being said, I don't recommend taking it before 50ish.
Eagle Eye - You really can't go wrong with more range in those 1v1 battles. The catch of course, is that this does absolutely nothing on listic units.
Zerk - While generally not as good as EE, this DOES work on all weapons, and more damage always helps.
In almost all cases, you're going to want 3 of these 4.
---The niche/medium choices---
Speed Demon - Sure, speed helps, but this tends to be secondary to everything above.
Quick Reflexes - The problem with this one is that it's extremely niche. It's great on dodge units, but almost useless on just about everything else. There's obvious Zed value in having this, but you're definitely giving up usefulness elsewhere if you choose to take it.
Engineer - Although more shields help, they don't help as much as the big 4. Also, the Shield Master ability does the exact same thing without burning a merit slot. (They do add together if you have both, but again, the big 4 are usually better.)
---The bad choices---
Armorer - Your commander generally shouldn't be relying on armor.
Energy Specialist - You should have plenty of regen through command spam.
Packrat - Your commander should not be handling this duty. Leave it to your minions.
Rockhound - There's no way it's worth having a weaker commander for this. If you really like salvaging with your commander, get a Scrappy.
Steady Hand - Upload Terrain Data is your friend. Use it.
---The exception to all of the above---
Sometimes, a player will choose merits purely to be awesome with a specific + unit. There's value in this, but it's going to make you weaker everywhere else, and it costs 15 TB to switch out of it, so I don't recommend doing it on a regular basis, if it all.
Merit costs:
1st = 3 LP
2nd = 6 LP
3rd = 9 LP
My recommendation: Get an E/E command crew with 2 merits by level 20. Have the 3rd merit be BP, but don't take it until 50ish.
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Initial CommandsMost commands are useful, but some have far more value than others. Let's start with the 3 most consider the critical 3 to take before 20.
Aimed Shot - This is a huge help when leveling crews (including yourself before you have elite gunnery!), and because of how the bell curve works, can make a huge difference for 1 cmd. Yes, it's something you try to avoid using due to its drawback, but when you DO need it, it's incredibly useful.
Power Burst - This gives 10 points of shielding for 1 cmd. Yes, it takes 2 turns to do it, but particularly on newbie planets, this is a huge boost, and even late in the game, it can be that small extra boost that helps.
Ammo Drop - Unless you plan on relying EXCLUSIVELY on energy weapons in the beginning, you're going to have units run out of ammo, and at that point, you either have this command, or you have useless weapons until next drop. Note: The supply crates on Tariona have made this far less critical to low levels than it used to be. You'll still need it elsewhere though, so I definitely recommend taking it by 30.
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Major Commands and Abilities:
These are the things that are useful in a huge variety of situations, and as such, you'll want most of this stuff by level 50.
Stuff that raises movement speed:
Whether you're trying to rush an enemy, flee one, outmaneuver one, or simply get from Point A to Point B faster, movement speed commands are a huge help.
Upload Terrain Data: 3 controlled speed can be huge, and this costs only 1 to grant it for 4 turns.
Move Out: +1 max speed may not sounds all that great, but it's spammable, so you can apply it to a whole squadron.
Fall In: +3/+3 speed, albeit with a cooldown.
Stuff that LOWERS movement speed:
Whether you're fleeing an enemy or trying to stop one from doing so, slowing an enemy to a crawl is of obvious value. These are also good for mind games, as your enemy doesn't know when you'll throw them, and thus can't always count on moving as far as he wants to.
False Orders and Mass Confusion are the 2 commands for this.
Stuff that makes you avoid hits:
You're going to get into situations where no amount of damage reduction and shielding is going to save you, but having an insane evasion level will.
Evasive Action: This is a great way to protect a unit, and it's usable on allies too, with a fairly low cooldown.
Wild Manuever: This hurts your accuracy, has a long cooldown, AND only works on your own stuff, but can be an absolute lifesaver, especially when stacked with EA.
Static and Jam Comms: Of course, if it's one particular unit you're trying to avoid, you can simply kill its accuracy rather than raising your evasion. These are also on separate cooldowns, so it's good to have both methods available.
Barriers:
On the flipside of the above, sometimes you're about to take tons of hits, but they're almost all tiny. Throwing up barriers can completely negate some hits, and greatly weaken most. Just be careful... they aren't going to save you from huge energy hits.
Energy Shell and Energy Barrier are the 2 commands for this.
Shield Boosters:
Sometimes rather than blocking or dodging hits, you're better off simply soaking them and recharging quickly... and sometimes you have no choice because the other 2 options are on cooldown!
Power Burst - This is one of those great "just a little bit extra" commands.
Power Surge - This is a bit more expensive, and limited to 1 unit per turn, but it's stronger, and doesn't take 2 turns to fully work.
Power Rush - The value of this really depends on the target since it's percentile-based, but on a heavy shield unit, this can be huge. Be warned though, this has a very long cooldown.
Energy Stuff:
The ability to manipulate the cooldowns of energy weapons is huge, whether that's getting that extra 200 damage volley off, or stopping an enemy from doing it to you.
Hotwire: This caused a unit to double charge this turn. This will NOT allow you to fire twice, but does allow longer cooldown weapons to fire far more often.
Power Down: This knocks a charge off the energy weapons on an enemy unit. This WILL stop energy weapons with no cooldown from firing.
What happens if both hit the same unit? The last one to be used applies. If you're in a situation where you're likely to have these opposed commands in play, try to use your command on the very last second of the turn.
Note: I think the "last applies first" thing is no longer true, and PD just always works. I haven't extensively tested it though, as it's mainly on Zed that PD vs HW happens, and there hasn't been much action there lately.
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Everything Else:
*ALMOST* everything is useful, but you're going to have to be around level 150 to learn it all besides vehicular mining, and it's going to take you quite a while to get up there. This means you're going to have to prioritize what you want. There's generally no right or wrong answers, but everything you take early means something else is coming later, so try to set up a build that fits you.
At the same time, don't worry TOO much. You will eventually get all of this stuff, and if you feel you've completely borked your build, there's always the reset option - which keeps getting cheaper because the PU system spawns resets way faster than they get used.
These are listed by category, but they don't always line up neatly in a tree. If you can't find where something is on the trees, don't be afraid to ask in faction chat.
IMPORTANT: These are largely in the order they appear on the skill trees. They are NOT listed by any kind of recommended priority.
Improving Accuracy - Aimed Shot, Fire Mission, and Paint Target are the main 3 for this. Fire Mission is generally the best of the 3, but has a huge-ass cooldown. When trying to hit a dodge unit, you'll probably want at least 2 of these, if not all 3 in play, with an ATL going too.
Improving Damage - There's actually only 2 commands for this, Focused Fire and Overload Fire Control. Focused will always do *something*, but there's often better ways to spend command. Overload is mainly used on missiles (where you're lobbing a crapload of tiny shots with a huge accuracy boost), but is occasionally of value on other stuff too. In general, it's missile-heavy players that tend to aim for these early on.
Reloading - Ammo Drop is critical, but Resupply less so. Resupply is more efficient, cheaper, and frankly, less of a pain in the ass. It can also keep 2 units supplied, in addition to Ammo Drop supplying a 3rd. It's up to you how soon you take these - basically, are you putting yourself in the kinds of situations where ammo is frequently an issue, or not?
Mining - Ewww. Seriously. Mining bases utterly replace vehicular mining, and there's much, MUCH better ways of earning resources than the crappy amount of ore you pull in with vehicles. These skills can have value to players under level 6, but taking ANYTHING in this category will almost certainly have you reaching for the respec button by level 20. I recommend completely ignoring this line of skills.
One extremely important exception to the above: You need Transport Ore to run a mining base or Dom. This costs 0 LP, but you *do* have to select it. Frizz did this to limit newbie confusion. Don't forget to take it, and remember that you need to re-take it if you respec.
Salvage - There can be huge profits in salvage, and this can be useful at basically any level. The catch of course, is that everything you take in this category early is something that could've made you fight better. You'll have to decide what's worth it. A lot of newbies don't realize what's worth using where, so here's a primer:
Basic: Use basic for stuff you kinda, but not really, want. The crappier turrets are a good example of common targets for this. Note that most bandits are NOT worth salvaging, because the value of the unit you recover is lower than the value of the command you burned doing it.
Advanced: Use this for the good stuff - valuable buildings, non-probe pvp kills, recovering your own stuff, etc. Also of note, BOMs and BTMs *ARE* worth salvaging, even if they're bandits.
Mod: The main value of this is that you can recover the rare mods (Tear and BE) from bandits. This is a relatively longterm investment due to the rarity of these mods (1/100 and 1/300), but can definitely pay off for the patient player.
Scavenger: If you're going to be salvaging basically ANYTHING on a regular basis, grab this. It boost all other salvage skills.
Salvage Expert: Knocking 1 off the command cost of all salvage actions can be quite profitable in the long run.
Recycling: The idea is that it's basically free resources. The problem is that it is isn't a lot of them, and it costs a metric asston of LP to get the stronger version of it. Generally, Mod Salvage is the better investment.
Making enemies take more damage (or lose parts)
Generally, these are more useful than +damage, especially in PvP. The general +damage ones are the most useful, although +damage to armor helps against the BA series and stuff like brawlers. Critical Flaw is the oddball skill in this tree. It usually sucks, but has obvious value against wall units.
EMPing
This can be a big help in pvp to take a target down faster, and is occasionally useful on bandits as well when you really want to make sure you kill one THIS turn. Shield failure can be very powerful in pvp (and yes, on buildings), but beware it's insane cooldown.
+Shields
Although not as powerful as dodging or barriering in most cases, boosting regen can be an excellant way to keep a unit alive, and as there's several skills for it, with (mostly) small cooldowns or none at all, this is a great line of skills to have. This is everything with "Power" in its name that doesn't end in "Down".
Barriers
These are great for reducing hits, especially missiles, which tend to rain in a lot of tiny, hard to dodge hits.
Hotwire and Power Down
These are critical pvp skills, but can be quite useful when fighting bandits as well... especially on Aldus.
-Accuracy (Static and Jam Comms)
While it's usually better to raise the evasion of the target than lower the accuracy of the attacker, in 1v1, these are effectively the same, and of course, you can do this while the other is cooling. I don't recommend taking these if you don't have EA/WM yet, but they're a great complement to it.
+Movement
Upload, Move In, and Fall Out, are all VERY useful in a huge variety of situations.
+Evasion
Evasive Action and Wild Manuever are very important life saving skills
Army Expansion
These 2 skills raise the army cap from 50->55->60. It's unlikely you'll want these early on, but if you start playing with huge armies, these can give you that bit of an extra edge.
Command Crew Boosters
There's several ways to boost your command crew, scattered throughout the ability trees
Armorer - Duplicates a merit, although shields are generally more important. Still, this helps make you stronger.
Shield Master - This is a big one... it's a substanial shield boost that doesn't use a mod slot, doesn't use a var, and is completely passive
The Gunner Stuff - At 14 total points, this is a substanial LP investment, but you gain a full gunnery level beyond max AND duplicate the Marksmanship merit. You probably won't want this too early due to its cost, but it's a huge help later on.
Lightning Reflexes - This mainly comes into play when piloting evasion units, but will cause the occasional extra miss on normal stuff too. It's not reliable, but it does help. Most wait until at least mid level to grab this.
Grease Monkey - Armor regeneration (even if it's rather slow) can save you from needing a dropship.
Seasoned Mechanic - This boosts your armor regen to 4, and also lets you do field repairs on entire stacks. Of course, it's a very slow repair, so most don't take this until at least mid level.
+Trade Slots
I honestly don't even know what the cap is, and almost no one hits it on any regular kind of basis. In the unlikely event that you need this before being VERY high level, you'll know.
Builder Stuff
This is Tinkerer and everything under it. Half of the tree is dedicated to speeding up construction, either through lowering the build time or raising how many slots you have. The other half is dedicated to building vehicles with more slots. The second half is only useful if you have a LOT of strux, so keep this in mind.
Base Stuff
Treasurer is absolutely critical to mining bases, and of decent value to drag bases as well. The rest of the tree doesn't get used terribly often, but can give your bases that bit of extra damage they sometimes need. How heavily to invest in this depends on how often you use bases. Then again, after getting treasurer, it's only 4 points to finish the tree up, so... meh.
Miscellaneous Abilities
Charisma - This is widely regarded to be the worst ability in the game.
Survivalist - This, on the other hand, can greatly reduce the ressurection bill, which can get fairly huge in army combat. The revival PUs have made this FAR less important than it once was, but it's still a useful thing to have.
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Commander Classes
There are 3 commander classes you can take. Be warned, fully unlocking a class takes
60 LP, so it's definitely not something a low level player should be looking at, at all. While there's no official minimum level, I generally do not recommend taking Ao1 or SG before level 60 or TFC before level 90.
There's no wrong answer here. Your class choice reflects your style as a player. Choose what fits you best. Remember, it's not a final decision, you can always reset if you decide you want a different class. It costs TB every time though, so try not to do it constantly.
I'm not going to go into a big discussion of the classes, mainly because by the time you're high enough to be taking one, you'll already know what you want and why, and will be beyond the player skill level that this guide is aimed at.
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Need further help?Don't be afraid to ask.
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