Mobile Suit Gundam Online (with outdated how-to guide)

[Quattro Bajeena]

Important: Originally this guide comes from Something Awful, then anther site took it and now I did. also a VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE: when updating the game make sure to set your computer's clock to JP time, the game files are time stamped and you WILL be stuck in an update loop if you do not do this. also attached HERE is an applocale program, install it, and when you run the MSGO launcher (unless you're using WTFast) through it text won't appear as ?.







Quicklinks:

--Homepage

--mumble://mumble.msgo-english.info' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>Mumble has been made publicly available at mumble.msgo-english.info with the default port and no password.

--Wiki (very new and heavily under construction)

--Japanese Wiki

--Trailer





What is Mobile Suit Gundam Online?

MSGO is a large scale multiplayer third-person shooter set in the universe of Mobile Suit Gundam Specifically, it?s set during the One Year War(OYW),Suits featured range from ones featured in MSG shows centered around the OYW, along side some MS-Vs (Mobile Suit Variants). At the moment, gameplay is a 51v51 battle of Earth Federation Special Forces vs. the Principality of Zeon with match outcome being determined by combination of capture-and-hold objectives combined with base destruction. It's in the same vein as Mechwarrior online and Hawken, but with a different setting and an interesting commander role similar to the alien commander in Natural Selection.



The good - What?s this game have going for it?

If you?ve been on the internet or watched any 90s Toonami, you?ll somewhat know the Gundam series well, and MSGO provides a great way to live out some kickass giant robot fights inside a familiar universe with the added bonus of wacky Japanese shit thrown in every once and a while. Standard class types of assault/healer/sniper/heavy/tank are in-game, and you?ll even find pilotable battleships with 5 crew slots and damn strong armaments as well as mounted gun emplacements to control.



The real selling point (for me at least) is the Commander mode, allowing a 51st player on each team to take on the role of a famous commander from the series and shape the flow of battle by issuing orders to the players as they see fit. Aside from command issuing (the system is automated nicely and provides great incentives to ensure that players follow your orders), the commander can utilize several powerful abilities to help forces on the ground, such as releasing Minovsky particles to cloud enemy sensors, air strikes to clear the way for mobile suits, and even summoning powerful ace pilots such as Amuro Ray and Char Aznable.



MSGO also has a built-in ranking system that will track player performance in several key areas of gameplay. Rankings are finalized every week(ish) and the top 1000 players (and guilds!) will receive prizes for their efforts. Rise up in the ranks and claim your title as the best eight-year-old girl pilot that you can be!



The bad - What isn?t there yet.

Unfortunately we?re still in beta (beta launched December 19, 2012) so there is a good deal of work to be done in the game. The most glaring thing you?ll notice is the graphics quality - it?s not too good. If you have played Dust 514, I think that?s a pretty good comparison in terms of making you go ?wow, this looks shitty for how good it could be?. mobile suit models look good when viewed in the hangar, but when the battle begins it feels like the resolution reverts to 1024x768 so I would like to think that we?re just waiting for a patch. Or there?s a solution and I just can?t read the Japanese.







One more thing, if it isn?t clear yet, the game is only in Japanese. In fact, the beta is restriced to Japan so there is a small bit of work to play the game and you?ll be using a VPN to play it, but keep reading and you?ll see why MSGO is more than worth the small hassle. Currently two known english groups exist, english is NOT spoken in channel chat, the two groups are, Something Awful's group and 4chan's mecha board group



Give this game a chance, it is really good! It can be frustrating not always being on top of everything that?s going on and having to figure a few parts of the UI out, but the gameplay is very rewarding if you can get past the more obvious issues that will hopefully be ironed out.



Show me fucking screenshots!

Here?s a few, more to come.







Can I pilot my special snowflake RX-78-7 blahblahblah? (What suits are in game currently?)

This section needs to be expanded still. There are currently 17 models on each side, with EFSF having tons of variants on the RGM-79 with a smattering of other units including a few guntanks and an RX-78 EZ-8. Zeon forces get as many Zakus as you can shake a stick at, as well as a few variants on the Dom and Gouf lines.





Remember, this is all in Japanese. Just use Chrome or run it through Google Translate. Don?t miss out on the fun because it?s one more step!



Creating an account

First, you?ll need to create a Bandai-Namco ID, which you?ll use to log in to the game. Follow the steps, check your email, and confirm the account. VERY IMPORTANT - select Japan as your country of residence.

Next, you?ll need to enable your account for beta access by logging in with your new Bandai-Namco ID.

Downloading and installing the launcher and game

Now you can download the game?s launcher and get it installed. Even in japanese, installers have a familiar look and feel, so you?ll be fine without translation. After it?s installed, you?ll want to click the large orange button in order to start the download. It?ll take a few hours to finish.



After the game has installed, you?ll need to patch to the latest version, so click the orange button again and click OK at the prompt. It?ll take another while, just let it run.







Now you?re ready to play, but hold on just one moment. Create a shortcut on the desktop and then right-click the shortcut and add ?./data? after the GundamOnline.exe in the path (the first line). Now if you try and launch the game, you won?t be able to log in. The game is region-locked, so you?ll have to connect through a VPN.



Getting and configuring the VPN

Yes, this part is annoying. We don?t want to game through a VPN, but we?ll put up with it in the meantime. The game works well even with the slightly higher latency (you?ll be connecting to Japanese servers either way, so expect high ping). There is THREE recognized VPNs used to play this game one free (but utter garbage in latency), and two you have to pay to use, both have a different pay model. The free VPN is VPN gate, enjoy 1000ms Latency though. The first "have to pay" VPN is WTFast, which comes with a free 30 day trial, payment model is monthly fee (standard and premium pckages are 5USD and 10 USD respectively). The second, and most preferred VPN is mudfish, payment model is "pay for bandwidth used" you credit your mudfish account and it deducts from that, credited 3 bucks to my account back in early june of 2013, just recently dipped below 2 bucks





How to configure for mudfish





Launching the game, login, server selection

Starting the ?Gundam? profile we created will start the launcher. Once the launcher is opened, ignore is and open the shortcut we created earlier and you should be at the login screen.



Log in with your Bandai-Namco ID and you should be presented with a server login screen. Currently there are two servers, Francessca and Shangri-La. we are playing on Francessca.



Now you?ll be at the character selection screen, where you can make an EFSF or Zeon pilot (we are Zeon).



Following the menu, select your kawaii hairstyles and name your character, then watch a fun little cutscene. At the end you?ll be presented with a two-button dialogue, which is asking if you want to do a movement tutorial. Which brings us to our first Japan Protip: YES and NO buttons. You?ll be prompted yes/no often, and just remember that the button with one symbol that looks like 69ing Ls is yes and the one with two sets of 69ing Ls is cancel.



No matter what you choose, when done with it you?ll have a brief series of button clicks to work your way through a tutorial covering the basics of the UI. Just click the glowing buttons and it?ll stop soon enough. Now you?re ready to fight!







Main menu overview

From the main menu, you?ll notice two primary areas. First, there is a bar at the top of the game that persists across every menu before you?re actually fighting. Click the buttons to jump to the corresponding area of the interface Mousing over each icon will give you shortcuts to each of the submenus, and I?ll provide translations for the important ones shortly. Aside from the menu at the top, you?ll have several large buttons in the center of the screen. You will have the option to queue for a battle, enter the mobile suit hanger, go shopping, or play through the tutorials.



From here, you?ll be able to queue for a 50v50 battle by selecting ?Massive vs?. There are currently two other gametypes that are not yet implemented - a smaller scale ?limited vs?  (I can only assume it?s the same game but with less players) and a ?Mission? where teams of six players can live out famous battles from the One Year War (for Zeon, this will include a lot of ?what if we won? instead of just getting exploded by Amuro).

You will also see a to 10 list of the best players in each of the respective sections of scoring. More information can be found in the Rankings section of this post.



Select ?Massive VS?and we?ll get to inspect our current deck, see the map that we?ll be playing on, and select how we want to queue. Sortie means you are queueing alone and Platoon will allow you to form or join a group of up to 6 players. As far as I can tell, there is no downside to getting in a Platoon and you will still fight grouped and ungrouped players, but you?ll receive bonuses for your squadmates? performance as well so you?ll have ribbons (currency for unlocks) raining down on you like candy. If you are not playing in a platoon, you are doing it very wrong and should stop.

If you selected Sortie like a dumbshit, you?ll just need to click the big ass ?reservation? button to enter the queue. I don?t know what the smaller button does.The gauge at the bottom indicates the current faction split in the queue, which will explain your high/low wait times.





If you selected Platoon like a good player, you?ll have to pick a platoon. You can join a public platoon or create your own.  From the platoon screen, find a platoon with an open spot and preferably currently in the queue. There are colored indicators to by each platoon that indicates if they are sitting in the lobby (blue), currently in queue (yellow, and this means you get to jump everyone else in queue, like they saved a spot for you), and currently in battle (red, you?ll just be sitting in the lobby waiting for them to exit the game).



Select a platoon, join it, and you?ll be in the platoon waiting screen. There is no ?ready? button, you just have to wait for the platoon leader to queue you. Don?t wait long, some leaders just AFK and leave their platoon open to join, I don?t know why.



Either way you join, you will now be stuck in the queue. This can get over 1000 players long at primetime, so always be queued for a game. If the button next to the queue is orange, you are still waiting and will leave queue if you click the button. While you wait, you can use all of the game functions like the mobile suit hanger, shop, gashapon, guild and mail, etc. Do all your in-game chores while you queue.



When the queue finally pops, you will have one minute to finish what you?re doing and join the game lobby. Click the blue button to proceed to the lobby.





At the game lobby, you can sit around and watch everyone yelling OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!!! for another 60 seconds as the lobby fills. If you?re really goddamn lucky, you will see the commander button turn blue, giving you a chance to play commander for the game. I have no idea if it?s first-come, based on rank seniority (don?t think so), previous command experience, or the current orientation of the Emperor's wispy pubic hair.





Finally, you?ll load the game and be presented with the mobile suit selection. Pick the mobile suit you want to play and then click the larger blue button to select a spawn location. The smaller blue button will allow you to use a consumable item to provide some sort of boost (xp, money, armor, bullets, respawn time, etc) for more info, see the ITEMS section later on.







After selecting a mobile suit, choose a spawn location from the map. Zeon is red, EFSF is blue. You can spawn at your base, any captured point, player-controlled battleships (you can spawn in a gunner turret if it?s open or you?ll just hotdrop from the ship itself), or landing craft that the commander can drop (basically immobile spawn beacons). If it is the first spawn of the match, you can see the number of players on your team spawning at each point, so you can select the least/most populated one, based on your playstyle. Wait until the respawn timer elapses and then watch a brief movie about you jumping out of a plane.







Important section, read me

Congratulations, you made it into the game proper! Now you?re completely lost and about to be sliced in half by a beam saber! Your battles will often be hectic arenas with tons of your teammates swarming around you, exploding mobile suits on all sides, and some guy is chasing you with their swords, but once you understand the flow of battle you?ll see order amongst the chaos.



The objective of each match is to reduce the enemy score to 0 before they do the same to you. Games last a maximum of 20 minutes, so if time elapses the team with the most points wins. Score is tracked at the top of the screen, with each of the smaller health bars making up one large health bar (the big bar has to be depleted 3x to win. I think this varies based on the number of bases a map has (1-3), but ). Points can never be increased and can be decreased a number of ways:

[*:e1cnakae]Destroying enemy players

[*:e1cnakae]Capturing and holding points (uncertain if this is true, please verify)

[*:e1cnakae]Attacking the core of the enemy base[/list]

So what should you actually be doing in-game? Your commander (if they don?t suck) will be assigning objectives to different groups of players, and your current objective will show up on the right-hand side of the screen and as a marker in the game world, colored based on what you?re supposed to do (red = attack, blue = defend). Usually you will want to head to your objective as quickly as possible, as you will increase your score by working to achieve commander-provided objectives (more on score shortly). If you run into enemies on the way, slaughter them. Try to stick close to several other players, as a mobile suit on its own can be defeated quite easily. Sometimes the objectives will be to capture a point, other times to siege an enemy base, and rarely you?ll get an order to protect a summoning beacon that?s calling in a dropship for support.Base defense is a pretty boring task when you?re not actively repelling anyone, so I will tend to ignore those orders, but ignoring orders is usually inadvisable.



As you move around the game world, you will occasionally come across a container containing ?tactics? points which you can pick up and carry to any nearby friendly structure.



Turning in a canister will add tactics points to your team stash, which the commander can spend to deploy powerful abilities and items. You will get a green icon on your map where the game thinks you should turn it in at, but I?ve found it sometimes misses closer drop-off points, so YMMV on following the markers.



Maneuvering

All mobile suits (and guntanks, even) have jump jets equipped. You can use them to either boost rapidly across the map (think sprinting) with spacebar, or you can use them to gain a pretty shitty amount of elevation with shift. You will able to rise about half your height, so don?t expect to go flying. Your boost gauge is indicated at the bottom of the screen and will recharge fairly quickly UNLESS YOU DEPLETE IT, then it recharges at something like half speed. Drain it to the very end then touch solid ground and let it recharge for 2-3 seconds and burst again. Work your way on to the tops of buildings and then fly from building to building and rain death on enemy suits. Buildings are an awesome way to surprise motherfuckers, use them!



Aside from using the high ground to attack your foes, pay attention to the low ground as well. Most maps feature an underground section with openings scattered across the map. Find your way underground for a rapid, semi-safe route across the battlefield, and if you work your way beneath a point you can capture it from underground! This is an often overlooked feature. Your mobile suit is also submersible and can sneak around underwater, but keep in mind that you?ll suffer a movement penalty if your mobile suit is not amphibious (more on this later).



Minimap

You have a minimap in the upper-right corner of the screen, which is invaluable for tracking all of the things happening on the battlefield. Pressing M will give you a  fullscreen view and V will change the minimap to only display your immediate area, at higher zoom. Enemies will show up when detected by players, deployable radar, or commander aerial sweeps, so keep an eye out for sneaky guys coming up behind you. The minimap will also indicate containers that you can pick up for points as well as your current objective.







Fighting

I don?t have much additional to say about actually fighting other mobile suits. Lock on using the RMB to give a bit of autoaim, though I?ve found it to be pretty shitty and free aim is just as good. Most all mobile suits have shields, which will absorb a finite about of damage and then break. When firing at an enemy, a blue flash indicates a normal hit, purple indicates a block, red indicates a headshot (can damage the pilot camera), and gold indicates a back shot (less armor in the back).



Melee weapons are available to the assault classes and are usually one-hit kills on many mobile suits, and any hit will knock down the enemy and leave them open for some good fuck-you-up action. Lock on to an enemy and boost at them when at close range, then attack with a melee weapon while boosting and you?ll do a lunge attack, leaving you vulnerable for a moment after but causing massive damage to anything in your swing arc. More on weapons later



If you find yourself damaged in combat, look for a support-type player to heal you. You can also heal up at portable healing/ammo stations (TF2 dispensers) that supports can drop, as well as supply ships that the commander can call for. .



Oh yes, you will sometimes run into enemy ace pilots, which are famous characters from the series piloting their iconic mobile suits with a large picture over their heads. They are AI controlled and cannot be healed, but they can capture points and absolutely wipe the floor with any player. Attack them in numbers and you?ll earn a very good score just from connecting shots.







You will also sometimes find controllable gun emplacements (if destroyed, they can be healed by players) scattered around the map. Jump atop one and press F to take control of the gun. These babies do massive damage and have a large explosion on impact, so use it in good health!







Notifications

You?re going to be spammed with notifications constantly while playing MSGO. Everything has a voice emote attached to it and the battle itself will alert you to aid and incoming fire with annoying beeps and whistles. You?ll get pop-in notifications when an objective updates or something important is happening. Most of them can be ignored but a few you?ll want to watch out for. When something has locked you and is firing an explosive weapon (or an explosive is going off nearby) you will hear a loud whistle-beep and see a popup with exclamation points. If you see it, boost in a straight line away. You?ll also receive a notification when you?re being healed that looks like (/). . Healing guns have to aim just like anything else,and they have a short range, so try to stay fairly still when being healed.



Luckily, the language barrier can be worked past with the voice commands that are in-game. You can send voice commands to nearby allies (like the radio commands in counter-strike) that ask for healing, ammo, assistance, and of course, shouts ?SIEG ZEON?. Bring up the command list with Q and use mousewheel+clicking to select what you want. Different commands can be assigned to the bar from the menu, but I haven?t gotten around to figuring out what any of them are. The pictures should be fairly self-explanitory and will appear over your head in-game. This is super helpful when following a friendly support mech, as you can just shout ?heal me? at him. Use the voice commands! USE THEM!



Scoring and the End of Round

Okay, so your first game was absolute shit. Don?t worry, it?ll be over in 20 minutes at the most. Once the game ends, you?ll be presented with the most valuable thing - your score! Check the scoreboard any time by hitting tab. You earn points in the game from carrying out different tasks, although the points themselves do little aside from rank you amongst your teammates (commanders do not get ranked and you are not compared against the other team). A list of point values for tasks will follow this paragraph.







You will be rewarded a varying amount of PP (player XP), GP (earned currency). Guild PP (XP for the guild), and items, based on a combination of win/lose, number of points earned, and relative position amongst your teammates. Ranking up is mostly cosmetic and provides the following benefits (assuming you begin at rank 0):

[*:e1cnakae]+20 weight units added to maximum deck size for each rank.

[*:e1cnakae]Rank 4 = up to ***

[*:e1cnakae]Rank 8 = up to **** and no * rarity items will appear at the rewards screen.

[*:e1cnakae]Rank 12 = up to *****

[*:e1cnakae]Rank 15 = up to ******[/list]

Important side note: after rank 7, you can receive negative PP each round, so you have to do well in order to rank higher.







After seeing the point/money rewards, it?s time to claim some items! Based on performance, you?ll get to select a number of items from a 3x5 grid (click on each one or click the blue button to autopick them). You can win parts for mobile suits and weapons, paint and decal kits, tickets for mechanics (upgrades/crafting) and gashapon (better items), and even a blueprint for a new suit (or one you already have). You?ll only earn about 500-800GP per game, so you can just sell items you don?t want to make up for it.







Map bonuses

At the beginning of each round, you may sometimes notice a boost appearing in gold. These are rare little bonuses that increase your GP, PP, or the number of items received at the end of the round, in addition to any boosts that you might trigger yourself









From the hangar you can change deck layout, equip and upgrade weapons, upgrade your mobile suits, and craft new mobile suits. Entering the hangar will land you at this screen, showing your current deck. A deck is just the word for the four suits in your lineup.







Select a mobile suit from the screen above and you'll be placed in the hangar view:











Types

MSGO has the standard class archetypes of:

[*:e1cnakae]Assault - Standard frontline all-around mobile suit, only class with melee weapons.

[*:e1cnakae]Heavy]- Totes rockets and bazookas, fucks shit up.

[*:e1cnakae]Sniper  - Long-distance combat is the forte of this mobile suit, and their mines can prevent enemies from sneaking up from behind.

[*:e1cnakae]Support  - The healer of the bunch and the reaper of points, play a support if you want to score high. They have access to not just their handheld healing unit but also a deployable field unit that can repair nearby suits and replenish ammo.

[*:e1cnakae]Shelling  - Long-range artillery, these can either be slow-ass guntanks or more mobile guncannons, they have the ability to pull up a map and launch shells at a targeted area.[/list]



Mobile Suit Attributes

Mobile suits will have a large attribute pane that lists a great deal of information about it, half of which is actually useful. Luckily, all mobile suits have the same six stats (not values, but they all have armor/boost/etc) so learning that uppper-left is armor for your assault is good because it's also armor for your heavy. Depending on whether you're in the hangar view or inspecting the stats on an upgrade page the orientation of the image might change, but the order of the stats will remain.



The top portion of the MS stats page is basic information about the MS.

[*:e1cnakae]The cost of a mobile suit is the value it adds to your deck, which is the rightmost value on your deck page (xxx / xxx). Your value will go up as you equip beefier armaments and you'll get +20 to your maximum deck size as you level up.

[*:e1cnakae]Time is the time (in seconds) that your mobile suit will take to become available to play again once defeated. Use a respawn boost (item you can buy/win) to reduce this time during a match.

[*:e1cnakae]Shield (go figure) indicates if you have a shield (shield customization/removal is coming next patch).

[*:e1cnakae]The carry icon will either have an X or not, indicating whether you can carry an item (tactics canister, X means you can't)

[*:e1cnakae]The optimal terrain indicator tells you what type of terrain will not impair your movement speed.

[*:e1cnakae]Energy is the MS 'hull integrity' and you must spend GP to repair it when the bar depletes (rentals can't be repaired and break when depleted).[/list]



Below, we can see the important stuff - upgradable core stats. The top green bar will start 00/10, 00/20, 00/30 and represents the number of upgrades your MS can have. Golden blueprint suits can go up to 30 upgrades and thus have inherently higher potential for being awesome.



From top to bottom (if it's in a 3x2 grid, the first 3 stats are in the left column and the remaining are in the right) we have:

[*:e1cnakae]Armor - HP

[*:e1cnakae]Movement speed - Movement speed and boost speed (two for one, yay!)

[*:e1cnakae]Boost capacity - how long you can sustain boosting

[*:e1cnakae]Boost charge - amount of boost recovered over time

[*:e1cnakae]Load capacity - maximum weight of equipped items

[*:e1cnakae]Emergency homing time -pressing Z will let you fast travel to a spawn point, and increasing this attribute will let you get there faster

[/list]



Special Attribute

When creating a mobile suit, one of several attributes will be randomly assigned. It's a bit hard to work out what you have if it prints the characters, but here's a chart nonetheless:





Crafting Mobile Suits

Rented suits will only get you so far and if you really want to stay competitive, you'll need to craft a deck of your own built mobile suits. Building a mobile suit will give you two benefits: A) you will receive one of three characteristics unique to your MS, and B) you will roll for either a success or critical success when you craft, providing a bonus to your six base aircraft stats (for more on stats, see the previous section on MS).



To create a mobile suit, enter the hanger by clicking on the customize button from the main menu, then select the 'create MS' button.







You will be presented with a list of mobile suits you have blueprints for, and you can use the tabs at the top of the window to select a specific class (e.g. assault). Select a blueprint to see the parts required for crafting. You will notice that some blueprints may be golden. Golden BPs are upgraded versions of the regular MS of the BP type and will have: 30 total upgrades instead of 20, their random attribute begins at lv3 instead of lv1, and they have access to a weapon that their basic MS does not (nothing overpowered, just another MS' weapon selection).







The blue button at the top right will bring up a 'quick info' card that lets you view the weapons the MS can equip, to decide if it's shit or not. Each MS will require a certain quantity of each of the six MS crafting item types, with the rarity level being somewhat indicative of the overall power of the suit. You can buy any items you don't have by clicking the button next to each item (you get a confirmation dialogue, don't worry). Click the blue button once you have all the necessary components.







Usiing a golden ticket will give you a substantially higher chance to critically succeed when creating your MS, which will give it a higher bonus to all six stats. Silver tickets can still crit, but less often. Select the ticket you wish you use and click the blue button to begin crafting.







You'll either see a success



or a critical success



then you can view the finished MS. Congratulations!



Upgrading MS

Mobile suits can be upgraded up to 30 times, based on the green number on each MS stat page. Gold MS get 30 unlocks, so aim for them! Each upgrade will add a certain amount of points to one of the six core stats, at the cost of one type of MS part and a mechanic ticket. From the hangar view of a mobile suit, select the second of six blue buttons on the left to enter the upgrade view.







In the upgrade view you will have six stats to select from, and choosing a stat will display the parts needed (with a button to buy if needed). When you have the requisite items, you will be able to select a silver or gold mechanic ticket to increase your chance of critically upgrading the stat. Click the blue button to process the upgrade. If you need to clear the upgrades for some reason, the red button will do so.



Each stat can only be upgraded a maximu amount so using golden tickets will just let you upgrade more stats to the max (by maxxing out one stat faster). The limits are (in % of base stat):

[*:e1cnakae]Armor, speed, boost cap, boost charge - 115%

[*:e1cnakae]Load capacity - 130%

[*:e1cnakae]Emergency homing - 140%-150% of max, depending on MS type[/list]



Upgrading Characteristics



Characteristic upgrades are accessed through the third of six blue buttons when viewing a MS in the hangar. You use blueprints of the same type as a crafted MS to add XP to its characteristic, with +50xp granted for each silver BP and +100xp for each gold. The BP is consumed in the process.







Simply select the BP you wish to use and press the solitary blue button to add the XP to your characteristic level. XP needed to level is 100 to reach lv2, 200 for lv3, 400 for lv4, 900 for lv5. For information on each characteristic and its level bonuses, see the characteristics section.



Decks

You get a bonus based on the 4 types of mobile suits you have equipped. Most combinations have a deck bonus if split evenly of 2 of one type and 2 of another, but 3+1 gives no bonuses. I find the best bonus to be four different suit types, but YMMV.









Types

Clicking weapon selection will allow the selection of a primary, secondary, and tertiary weapon/item to be equipped on the mobile suit. Not all mobile suits can use all types of weapons, and the weapons are unlocked PER SPECIFIC BUILT SUIT. The following weapons are available:

[*:e1cnakae]Assault rifle

[*:e1cnakae]Charged beam rifle

[*:e1cnakae]Shotgun

[*:e1cnakae]Bazooka

[*:e1cnakae]Missile launcher

[*:e1cnakae]Mortar

[*:e1cnakae]Sniper (beam and shot types)

[*:e1cnakae]Melee weapons (four types)

[*:e1cnakae]Shield

[*:e1cnakae]Grenades (explosive and EM which act like flashbangs)

[*:e1cnakae]Mines

[*:e1cnakae]Repair tool

[*:e1cnakae]Deployable repair station

[*:e1cnakae]Deployable radar

[*:e1cnakae]Some sort of a 'spotting' tool that looks like a camera. Waste of a slot.[/list]



Weapon Attributes

Most weapons have six attributes, but a few have a shorter list and mess with the order, so these are a little harder to "just remember". Each stat will have a green and blue bar next to it.



The blue bar is the base stat for the given weapon/item, and if you have another one selected to compare with, you'll get red and green arrows indicating which stat is better on which weapon.



The green values (initially +0) represent the number of points that are added to the stat from the upgrades you put in to the waepon, hence statring at nil. You can upgrade a weapon a certain number of times, specified at the top of each weapon (so choose upgrades wisely). More on upgrading later.



Each weapon will also have a purple bar (sometimes blank) that indicates what type of firing it uses - fullauto, semiauto, 3 shot burst, and irradiation (constant beam dealing damage over time).



Assault rifle, beam rifle, shotgun (no max range), bazooka, missile launcher

[*:e1cnakae]Damage - Damage dealt

[*:e1cnakae]Accuracy - Bullets land closer to the crosshair center

[*:e1cnakae]Rate of fire - obvious

[*:e1cnakae]Max range - Distance bullets travel

[*:e1cnakae]Reload - obvious

[*:e1cnakae]Lock-on - Better tracking when locked on[/list]





Sniper

[*:e1cnakae]Damage - Damage dealt

[*:e1cnakae]Range - Max range of the rifle

[*:e1cnakae]Reload - reload time[/list]





Mortar

Note that the shelling mobile suits have two mortars - the secondary mortar does not have the XXX stat.

[*:e1cnakae]Damage - Damage dealt

[*:e1cnakae]Range - Max range of shells

[*:e1cnakae]Reload - reload time

[*:e1cnakae]Explosion radius - range of splash damage[/list]





Melee (Pro tip: boost forward at a locked-on enemy and you will do a slash attack for double damage)

[*:e1cnakae]Power - Damage dealt

[*:e1cnakae]Lock-on - Tracking when locked[/list]



Note that there are four types of melee weapons that most MS have access to (gold variants have more and some special types have other items like claws).

The four types (in order) are:

[*:e1cnakae]Standard - double slash attack

[*:e1cnakae]T model - triple slash attack

[*:e1cnakae]Lightweight - less rigidity after doing a dash attack, lighter weight, faster swing

[*:e1cnakae]D model - high power and larger swing, but longer immobile period after a swing[/list]



Grenades, mines

[*:e1cnakae]Damage - Damage dealt

[*:e1cnakae]Reload - reload time

[*:e1cnakae]Explosion - range of splash damage[/list]





Repair tool

[*:e1cnakae]Repair - HP repaired per point of ammo spent

[*:e1cnakae]Range - Range of your repair ability

[*:e1cnakae]Reload - reload speed

[*:e1cnakae]Lock-on - better tracking when locked[/list]





Radar

[*:e1cnakae]Range - Max range enemies can be detected

[*:e1cnakae]Battery - Duration radar will last[/list]





Repair station

[*:e1cnakae]HP - HP the dispenser has (they are really weak)

[*:e1cnakae]Battery - How long it'll last once deployed[/list]







Unlocking and Upgrading Weapons

Upgrading your Mobile Suit is half the battle, and upgrading your weapons is the other half. Each MS will have 1-3 different weapons to choose from for each weapon slot, and each weapon will have a good deal of variants of each individual weapon (variants will all have different distibution of stats like trding damage for higher clip size and more accuracy).



From the mobile suit view in the hangar, click the first button in the list to enter the weapon selection screen. Weapons will have one of four icons - nothing (unlocked and unequipped), E (unlocked and equipped), an orange lock (locked), and a blue lock (available to unlock).



Weapons have a largely linear unlock pattern, and if you can't unlock a weapon it will have a red warning very prominently displayed over the stats and indicate what must be crafted first. Sometimes you can skip ahead, so look at each weapon so see what you can work on. Select a weapon to see the requisite components, using the blue button to purchase missing items. Some high tier weapons require ribbons earned from using other weapons of the same type.







Once all items are acquired, a purple button will appear on the botton-left side of the screen. Press the button to pay the posted amount and unlock the weapon for this particular mobile suit.







Equip the newly unlocked weapon with the green button appearing to the bottom left of the weapon menu.







Once a weapon is unlocked, it can be upgraded 10 times for the base cost of the weapon (no ribbons). Purchase the requisite components and press the blue button to enter the upgrade screen.







You will be presented with a list of the available stats to upgrade (see the section on stats), click a stat to select it and then choose if you wish to use a silver or golden mechanic ticket. As with mobile suits, golden tickets have a higher chance of critting, and criticals give you more points in the given stat. Click the blue button to commit the upgrade or the orange button to cancel.







Make an upgrade you regret? Select an upgraded weapon and click the red button to clear all upgrades. Be careful.







NOTE: each stat can only be upgraded to a certain limit. Those limits are (in % of base stat)

[*:e1cnakae]Power/healing - 110%

[*:e1cnakae]Precision - unknown (110%?)

[*:e1cnakae]Max range - 110%

[*:e1cnakae]Rate of fire - 110%

[*:e1cnakae]Reload speed - varies based on weapon

[*:e1cnakae]Lock-on - 120%

[*:e1cnakae]Explosion radius - 120%

[*:e1cnakae]Battery/radar distance/dispenser hp - unknown[/list]



Ground/Water means the MS is optimized for that type of environment. Movespeed penalties apply for being in a different zone. I have no idea what 'woo' is, possibly space? Cost = the weight it adds to your deck, respawn time should be obvious, carry items is whether you can pick up containers, everything else should be obvious as well. Emergency homing is just a value and the larger it gets the faster you can fast travel by pressing Z.

















Types of items and parts

There are two main categories of things in the game - items and parts. Parts are used in the creation and upgrade of mobile suits and weapons, while items are used to give you special bonuses.

Parts

[*:e1cnakae]Mobile suit materials - Ranging in ratity from one star (*) to six stars (******), these are required for either crafting or upgrading suits. Higher rarity items are used in better mobile suits. They have a buy price beginning at 500GP and increasing 250GP each star, and sell prices beginning at 250GP and increasing 125GP each star. There are several different types of mobile suit materials with different icons, each corresponding to a different mech system.

[*:e1cnakae]Weapon materials - Also rated with stars, these components serve the same function as mobile suit components, but for weapons. They have a base cost of 240GP and increase 120GP each star and sell for 120GP + 60GP per star.

[*:e1cnakae]Blueprints - Used to develop a suit of the type specified in the blueprint or upgrade a suit of the same type, these can?t currently be bought and only drop from the end of the game rewards or the gashapon. Some blueprints are upgraded versions of existing models and have a golden color to them, which indicates that they have a higher skill level cap (+10) and higher base stats than their base models.

[*:e1cnakae]Cosmetics - Paint cainsters (look like guns) and decal sheets (checkerboards) can be purchased from the shop to enable you to paint your suit and apply a decal, currently limited to just a few presets. Buy/sell prices need to be added here.[/list]

Items

[*:e1cnakae]Mechanic tickets - You consume one of these when crafting a MS or upgrading a weapon/stat. Silver tickets are bought with GP and golden tickets are bought with BC. Each upgrade can critically succeed (providing a bigger bonus) and at later points can fail. Golden tickets are just higher succes rates. Silver tickets are buyable for 500GP and sellable for 250, while golden tickets can be bought for 200BC and sold for 3500GP.

[*:e1cnakae]Gashapon tickets - Allow you one press of the gashapon button, which can give :burger:fabulous prizes. Golden tickets enter the DX gashapon, with better prizes. Silver tickets can be bought for 3000GP and golden tickets for 300GP.

[*:e1cnakae]Boosts - provide a bonus for one game, depending on the boost used. Available boosts are: PP (+30%), GP (2x), end of round items (+1), decrease of respawn time, or an increase in either ammo/armor/boost recharge/max boost. The boosts can all be bought for 50BC each and the mobile suit boosts can also be bought for 1050GP. All boosts sell for 525GP.[/list]

Selling/Renting mobile suits

Several mobile suits are available for rental in the shop for 17500GP each. They have upgraded items and stats but limited charges before expiring. Good to test out a type. You can sell mobile suits that you no longer want for 4200+ GP, depending on the suit.



Gashapon

The gashapon (childrens? toy vending machine named for the ?gasha? noise made when inserting a coin and the ?pon? noise made from receiving a prize) is MSGO?s way of giving you a way to gamble. A turn at the gashapon can be bought for one ticket (silver for regular, gold for DX) and 11 pulls costs 10 tickets. Each round at the gashapon involves pushing a button and receiving a reward, hopefully a golden blueprint for a super-rare mobile suit!

This section needs to be expanded a bit







As you play MGSO your performance will be tracked under a variety of categories. Each week (currently resetting Wednesdays at 03:00gmt) rankings will be tabulated and prizes will be awarded to the top 1000 players in each category. The leaderboard is accessible from the icon that looks like a trophy from any menu in the game. Rankings are tracked for the following categories:

[*:e1cnakae]Total - Aggregate score for the week

[*:e1cnakae]High Score - Sum of the top 10 scores earned in a match (your best 10 games of the week)

[*:e1cnakae]Commander - Total commander points earned for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Assault - Total points earned as assault for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Heavy - Total points earned as heavy for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Support - Total points earned as support for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Shelling - Total points earned as shelling for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Sniper - Total points earned as sniper for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Guild - Total guild PP earned for the week

[*:e1cnakae]Event - Score in whatever event is currently active on the server (not always visible)[/list]

In addition, the victories of each faction is tracked and reported at the end of the week to determine which side has won (Zeon of EFSF).







Rewards can be earned for multiple categories, so try to rank up in multiple areas. Rewards for the varying positions on the leaderboard (except for guild and faction) are as follows:

[*:e1cnakae]1st place - 3x Master (golden) mechanic tickets

[*:e1cnakae]2nd place - 2x Master (golden) mechanic tickets

[*:e1cnakae]3rd place - 1x Master (golden) mechanic ticket

[*:e1cnakae]4-10th place - 5x Gashapon tickets

[*:e1cnakae]11-100th place - 4x Gashapon tickets

[*:e1cnakae]101-300th place - 3x Gashapon tickets

[*:e1cnakae]301-500th place - 2x Gashapon tickets

[*:e1cnakae]501-1000th place - 1x Gashapon ticket[/list]



Guild ranking will give all members in the guild rewards based on the guild rank:

[*:e1cnakae]1st place - 15,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]2nd place - 15,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]3rd place - 12,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]4-10th place - 8,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]11-100th place - 6,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]101-300th place - 4,500GP

[*:e1cnakae]301-500th place - 3,000GP

[*:e1cnakae]501-1000th place - 1,500GP[/list]



Finally, every player will receive a reward based upon their faction's victory or defeat for the week. The faction that wins will earn master mechanic ticket(s) and the losing faction will win GP, with the amounts of each being determed by player performance.



below is the guild/clan screen, you probably won't ever use this

[Ryusei]

No way in hell this glowing toaster of mine could run it, not to mention the lag. But here's a video for the people interested who can play it:

[Quattro Bajeena]

No way in hell this glowing toaster of mine could run it, not to mention the lag. But here's a video for the people interested who can play it:

sailor otaku gives commentary, I put an acguy into space

original trailer