So lost..

I'm so clueless. After the tutorial mission, it just dumps you intown, and I have no clue what to do. I ended up wandering through some area killing Manimo's, then kept wandering into some area, then got lost. Couldn't find my way back to town, so I just made a new account. I've been having fun translating the builds on geocities.geoadax.jp/5th/ trying to make one, but the translated names make no sense, and I can't find certain parts :<
Unfortunately google translator sucks, so finding parts names is hard.

Melée seems really hard, as my poor Sword Wing Mod hit air more than anything. Like in CB, is there any build that's used, or is it basically missiles spam fest. When your bot levels, do you select cartridges or something :
Anyways, what exactly should you do once you get in town? ;c

The first thing you wanna do is hit f9 and get familiar. M.C means mission center and that's where you can do the tutorial missions.

You rank up by doing missions, get drops by killing things outside missions, and get good drops by running dungeons.

To get "carts", you may only have a maximum of 2 on any bot, and they're called Tuning parts. You get a bunch in the beta. Leveling up increases the stats of the parts on that bot (hence there's a "level 1" and "level 30" stat list on every part); the stats on that bot's parts are based off your level. And yes, you can just switch the BD and turn it into something else with the same level.

Replacing/adding parts decrease the bot's current EXP by a bit. Removing parts don't decrease EXP, and adding/replacing/removing weapons don't decrease EXP either.

The max level you can get on any bot is 30 at the moment.

Also, press tab like you do in CB to see which port takes you where.

Be careful of "Sudden Missions" when out on the field, though I don't think you'll be caught up in one.

Oh and, do check out the robo shop in every town (including the ones you have to manually travel to), Some of them have very good/interesting bots.

(P.S: Melee works a lot differently and it tends to suck compared to gunning)

Thanks, and for some more questions: Aside from melée sucking, are there really any specific builds for missions, like in CB Haku, or is it basically whatever goes pyewpyew the best. Since theres no fire all feature that I've found , atleast, is there any reason to spam your bot with as many weapons at as possible? Everyone seems to use giant bulking gunboats, are smaller bots suckish? I made a bot consisting of a whole bunch of Tempole BD's for lulz

Depends on the mission required, my Aquila with Gatling gun/Crimrose with Longsword+Machinegun was great for steamrolling enemies in the Poyeen Mission roster.... but over to Planet Gernia where the missions focus on destroying specific targets in the time limit, and Aquila fitted with a Missile Launcher/Ghost Raider with a Laser work better, especially the latter against flying enemies [like those damn VULTURES].

Also the HP count on the L bots is pretty nice. 3k+ on the aforementioned Aquila.

sturbanger BD = EXP farm machine