front mission 1 characters

Each pilot has a max skill slot value. if the number of current skills is less than the max skill slot and the hero has more fight exp than the pilot’s requirement to get a skill in a category, a new skill will be offered when gaining a level. The order of choosing skill is Short>Long>Melee. Tanks do not have skill designed for them.

Skill upgrades randomly when activated. As there aren’t enough enemies to fully level up skills, you can use colosseum to train your skills. After getting a new skill, switch to a pair of PIZ3, F-1 TONFAR or SIEGE (you only care about skill activation, not damage), get your best defensive build (the lower accuracy the better), get a high agility CPU with a low rating with the weapon and fight your clone in vs fights. You can find a demonstration at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8MaxaBPEQE.

Lv1 skills suck (e.g. lv1 dual and guide cut your accuracy in half) but lv 4 takes too much time and not worth trying in colosseum. you can exit clone fights at skill level 2 or 3 depending on your patience. A skill cannot be upgraded without activation, therefore if you want to level up Double or Switch, you need the required type of weapons in both hands.The initial build of your wanzers are really deceiving. The higher your skill level, the more likely the skill will activate, thus creating a snowball effect. Getting a head start in the colosseum would be a great help for your journey.

Chance to level up when activated:

  • 1/2000 all skills at lv3

  • 1/100 Stun/Double/Dual at lv2

  • 2/100 Switch, Speed at lv2

  • 3/100 Guide at lv2, Dual, Switch, Speed at lv1

  • 5/100 First at lv2, Stun/Double at lv1

  • 9/100 First, Guide at lv1

Short

Machine gun is just scary in the game, as exp adds damage to each round of attacks and multiple rounds of bullets magnifies the bonus. Even Maury can do decent damage when maxed out on Short exp, which is basically free after you get the secret weapon in mission 15 at the OCU side. Hint you can use Dual to miss intentionally and transfer the weapon between wanzers via the supply truck during a mission. In late game you can send tough enemies back for repair with Dual and Switch quickly and let your weaker teammates deal with the rest.

For the OCU side, the first 5 are the only characters that can learn all Short skills and are good in Short. Prioritize Short for them and equip with machine guns on both hands. If you were able to use them throughout the game then you don’t really need other characters. This is how broken Short is. For the USN side the characters are few and it make less sense to convert other types to Short.

Dual > Switch > Speed (skill slot allowing) Switch > Speed> Dual (skill slot limited)

Dual gives you much more exp now as you can keep destroying every part except the body when they are next to a supply truck for repair. It should be the first Short skill to get for faster training (with certain weapon you get hundreds of exp even when missing intentionally) unless there’s a skill slot shortage. Switch gives 200%, sometimes more damage while Speed gives only 1-3 more bullet - 20%- 60% more damage on a 5X machine gun. Or 33% to 100% more damage on a 3x machine gun. Due to how damage is calculated, you don’t really want a 3x machine gun over a 5x, and forgot single hit weapons like shotguns and flamethrowers, except the secret weapon of course. All Short skills can activate when Switch activation grants another round of attack. The max bullets I get in one turn is 23 bullets. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOnsv1iXWDI)

Skill level and effects:

  • Dual: Aim for a specific body part. Always activate.

    • lv1: accuracy -50%

    • lv2: accuracy -25%

    • lv3 no accuracy penalty

    • lv max: accuracy 100%

  • Switch: Fire with the other hand if it is also a Short weapon.

    • lv1: activates 30% of the time

    • lv2: 50%

    • lv3 80%

    • lv max: 90%

  • Speed: Add rounds to a multiple round Short weapon.

    • lv1 activates 50% of the time. Extra bullets:1

    • lv2: 60% Extra bullets:2

    • lv3 70% Extra bullets:3

    • lv max: 80%. Extra bullets: 3

Short lineup in the order of damage:

OCU characters:

  • Ryuji Sakata: Short specialist, good for not much else. Somehow can learn 2 Melee skills despite being one of the worse Melee in the game.

  • J.J.: Second best Short. also good at Long. Somehow can learn 2 Melee skills despite being the worse Melee in the game. Joins mission 2. Leaves mission 22. Rejoins mission 25

  • Bobby Hopkins: Rare double ace in Short and Long. Can’t learn First does not matters much, but can’t earn Dual and Speed hurts. After mission 11, stop fight after going to military office.

  • Natalie F.Blakewood: Ace Short and OK Long. Joins mission 2. Leaves mission 22. Rejoins mission 25

  • Keith Carabell: Melee placeholder until Yang Meihua joins. Short and OK Long afterwards. Joins mission 2. Leaves mission 22. Rejoins mission 25.

  • Alder Weiss: Better train as Short because of the Melee surplus in the game. Starts with Stun. Can’t learn Speed. I prefer to learn Dual and Switch instead of Guide or other Melee skills as anyone with the two Short skills can disarm an enemy in one turn. After mission 5, talk in bar, then move to city Menasa, talk in bar, then fight in colosseum.

  • Yang Yeehin: Late to join the party and have to play catchup. Worth the training though. Can’t learn First, Dual or Switch. Joins mission 14.

  • Peewie Richburg Jr.: No other weapons. Supply truck is too important to send to the front line. If money is not an issue (colosseum fight income) then train after battle is decided with the help of flash grenades/acid. if you have to throw a chaff on him you are in trouble. In the original SNES ROM somehow can learn Speed LV3, probably a bug as it cannot be activated and is removed in later releases. Joins mission 6.

  • Yang Meihua: : Melee placeholder until Gregorio joins. Short afterwards. Best at Melee, but better convert to Short as in this game Short rules. She comes with double, leaving only 2 open skill slots. Her Long damage is the lowest in the game, may not be a good idea to aim for the guide skill. Joins mission 4, talk in military office, then talk & fight in colosseum. Leaves mission 14. Rejoins after mission 14.

  • Lloyd Clive: Although an average Short, learning skills early means more damage in early game. Get surpassed in damage output when specialists learnt their skills though.

  • Gentz Weizer: Another Lloyd if not for the serious shortage of skill slots. Starts with Stun and only 2 skill slots. Joins mission 23

  • Porunga: A tank that wants to be attacker… and good at neither. Can’t learn Dual or Switch. Joins with Bobby.

  • Frederick Lancaster: Gain skills very slowly (especially for Melee). Good bait for enemy missilers though. Short is the worse talent for him, and he has the worst Short damage in the game, but he can learn 2 Short skills which is better than some ace Shorts (I am looking at you Bobby). Besides his Melee and Long are just slightly better. With Short so overpowered in the game, even the worst Short in the game gets a nod over Melee or Long. Can’t learn Stun or Dual. Joins mission 3. Leaves mission 20. Opponent mission 22. Rejoins after mission 22.

  • Maury Odonnell : A weak version of Frederick but a useful backup tank for splits. Can’t learn Speed. Joins after mission 9, Leaves mission 10. Rejoins after mission 10

USN characters:

  • Gina Davies: A Short specialist like Ryuji in OCU, comes with Guide. Cannot learn Stun or First. Joins mission 12. Leaves mission 18 and returns mission 20.

  • Johnny Sandars (or Johnny Sanders): A nice Short. Leaves mission 18 and returns mission 19.

  • Kevin Greenfield: Almost identical to Lloyd in OCU, he is also average, flexible and acquire skills fast.

Long

Missiles makes up the Short range deficit. Can also weaken enemy before finishing up with Short specialists. The only skill can be learnt in this category is Guide. Similar to Dual you can farm exp by aiming for arms and legs when the target is next to a supply truck for repair. Like Short weapons, the damage bonus from exp is per hit, which means a 3x missile is better than a 1x in late game. In other games you may not want to send artillery units to the front line, but in this one they got decent Short output due to Short being unbalanced in the game with the help of a secret weapon (many consider it cheating) and they can get Short skills.

Guide: Aim for a specific body part. Always activate unless bugged.

  • lv1: accuracy -50%

  • lv2: accuracy -25%

  • lv3 no accuracy penalty

  • lv max: accuracy 100% bug:90% activation at Lv Last and hasn’t been patched with so many platform ports, leading me to think it might be intentional now.

Long lineup in the order of damage

OCU characters:

  • Paul C. Grieber: The best Long in the game. Also double as Short because free talent slots. Frederick level Short though. Can’t learn First, Double or Speed. Talk in bar after mission 5

  • Hans Goldwin: Second best Long in the game. Also double as Short because free talent slots. Frederick level Short though. Joins after mission 8.

  • Bobby Hopkins: Good missiler and Short, too bad not much Short skills

  • Yang Yeehin: Good missiler and Short, too bad not much Short skills

  • Natalie F.Blakewood,Keith Carabell and J.J. Above average Long.

  • Lloyd Clive and Gentz Weizer: Average Long.

USN characters:

  • Howard Wong: The only good long at the USN side. He’s at Hans level, not Paul’s. Cannot learn Dual or Switch (yikes). Joins mission 4.

  • Kevin Greenfield: he will be an average Long if at the OCU side, but here he is the second best.

Melee

Melee has high accuracy and damage, but no aiming skill like dual or guide so they waste a lot of exp by destroying the body first, robbing you the chance of supply truck exp farming. Besides, you need some combinations of smoke bomb + First + some luck on Stun/Double to avoid being seriously wounded by counterattacks in late game. And that missiles hurt. Throw some chaff on them when closing to enemy. Due to how hard Melee gets in late game, it would be best to farm Melee exp in early game. just remember don’t pick up Melee skills unless the skill slot allows one after Short/Long. That said, if you can’t farm exp due to time limits or if you need to defend someone, Melee does have advantage by destroying the body first.

In the PS port and later you can get a secret weapon that increases melee exp just like the secret weapon in the SNES version. This makes training melees much less painful.

Due to the requirement of activation in order to leveling up skills, it does not make sense to train hybrid Melee/Short as every character can learn at least one skill in Double or Switch except Peewie.

Double > First > Stun

You can stun with flash grenade which has a 1-4 range (can be further extended by backpacks). There aren’t enough enemies worth stunning anyway, better guard their attacks for agility exp. Not to mention Stun is often wasted by Double activation. First gives Melee units a higher attack priority, but does not really matter unless the counterattacking arm or body gets destroyed in a single turn. Due to how hard Melee gets in late game, I don’t recommend you train Roid or Kevin as Melee.

  • Stun: Disable enemy with Melee weapon for up to 3 turns.

    • lv1: activates 40% of the time

    • lv2: 60%

    • lv3 80%

    • lv max: 90%

  • Double: Hit with the other hand if it is also a Melee weapon. Can also activate multiple times.

    • lv1: activates 40% of the time

    • lv2: 60%

    • lv3 80%

    • lv max: 90%

  • First: Attack first (normally Melee act later than Short and Long)

    • lv1: activates 40% of the time

    • lv2: 60%

    • lv3 80%

    • lv max: 90%

Melee lineup in the order of damage:

OCU characters:

  • Gregorio Maias: Best Melee in the game, not good for much else. Starts with Stun. Can’t learn Short or Long skills. Skills start at lv2. After mission 8, fight in colosseum, joins after victory

  • Ralph Dian: Second best Melee in the game. Starts with Stun and Double. No First hurts. After mission 16, fight in colosseum.

  • Yang Meihua: Convert to Short after Gregorio joins. If the above 2 can do Short, then they will also be converted. Too bad they don’t have much protentional in Short skills like Yang.

  • Keith Carabell: Melee placeholder until Yang Meihua joins. Can get Double early but that’s all he can learn in Melee. His portrait is kind of deceiving. He’s better in Short and Long.

USN characters:

  • Matthew D. Lorenzo: A nice Melee but more talented than Yang Meihua in OCU in Short skills. Leaves mission 18 and returns mission 19.

  • Kevin Greenfield, Halle Fiennes, Howard Wong and Ghetta Cedric: Average Melee.

Agility

Tanks are not that necessary because Melee usually don’t carry Short or Long weapon so they can get defensive parts without worrying much about engine overload. Agility exp is the hardest to get in this game, though, and hero level formula uses exp from all categories, so everyone needs agility exp. Don’t bother counterattacking in the game, just guard in the enemy turn. Also you can clear the map except enemy supply trucks and guard against their attacks to farm agility exp.

The agility exp you get by guarding is scaled to the level at the beginning of the battle, thus if you build agility exp earlier, you will get a snowball effect. The first mission has no lose condition and enemy damage is low, perfect time to build agility.

Tank lineup in the order of guarding defense:

OCU characters:

  • Frederick Lancaster: Insane agility growth rate

  • Maury Odonnell: Useful tank in the stage that Frederick joins the enemy and when you need to split.

  • Porunga: In the last stage everyone can join the fight so you may want to train him a little. Somehow he has 5 skill slots, but can only learn skill 3 times. Probably an oversight for the designer.

USN characters:

  • Halle Fiennes: Ideally would take the role of Peewie in the OCU side. Cannot learn First or Dual. Joins mission 4.

  • Ghetta Cedric: Ideally would take the role of Frederick in the OCU side. Cannot learn Switch or Speed. Comes with Stun.

Issue with truck exp farming

Enemies do get exp and level up for taking your shots and destroying parts. Start training on your weakest ones (except maybe Peewie, who’s only good against armless or stunned wanzers and trucks) then go with stronger ones. It is best to keep multiple enemies alive (e.g. move away from enemy supply truck and make them walk to you in turns after repair) so you spread out enemy exp gain.

Characters

Tp=Type M=Melee, S=Short, L=Long, A=Agility G=Generic, T=Tank,SS=Skill Slots

Number in the skill column denotes the exp requirement to obtain a new skill. Once the exp requirement is met, the character can choose one of the skills available to the character in the exp category on the next level up bonus screen, unless the skill slots are full or you hacked too many skills in the category.

15=D+, 20=C, 25=C+, 30=B, 35=B+, 40=A,45=A+, 50=S, 55=S+

characters

Name

Eng. Name

Tp

M

S

L

A

Melee

Short

Long

SS

ロイド・クライブ

Lloyd Clive

G

B

B

B

B

700, 1900, 3500

2000, 5000, 7000

1500

5

坂田竜二

Ryuji Sakata

S

D+

S+

C+

C

1000, 2300

2500, 5500, 8500

2000

5

ナタリー・F・ブレイクウッド

Natalie F.Blakewood

S/L

C+

A

B+

C

1000, 2200

3100, 5000, 7000

1900

5

キース・カラベル

Keith Carabell

S/L

B

A

B+

D+

1200

2000, 5000, 7000

2500

5

ジョイナス・ジェリアスカ

J.J.

S

D

A+

B+

D

2000, 3600

2000, 5000, 7000

2500

5

フレデリック・ランカスター

Frederick Lancaster

T

C+

C

C+

S+

3000, 9000

5000, 7000

6000

4

楊美花, ヤン・メイファ

Yang Meihua

M/S

A+

B+

D+

C+

1800, 2800

3000, 5000, 7000

2200

3

ポール・C・グリバー

Paul C. Grieber

L

C

C

S+

C+

3000

3000, 5000

1500

5

アルダー・ワイス

Alder Weiss

M/S

A

A

C+

D+

1500

4000, 7000

1700

3

ピウィー・リッチバーグ Jr.

Peewie Richburg Jr.

S/T

D+

B+

D+

B+

2000

1

ハンス・ゴルドウィン

Hans Goldwin

L

C+

C

A+

B

2900, 5900, 7900

900

3

グレゴリオ・マイアス

Gregorio Maias

M

S+

C+

D+

C+

1800, 3000

3

モーリー・オドネル

Maury Odonnell

T

C+

C

C

A

1200, 5500

4000, 6000

4

ボビー・ホプキンス

Bobby Hopkins

S/L

C

A

A

C

1300

2000

1500

3

ポルンガ

Porunga

T

B

B

C+

B+

900, 2200

3000

5

楊一清, ヤン・イーヒン

Yang Yeehin

S/L

C+

A

B+

C

2000, 3500

4000

2000

4

ラルフ・ダイアン

Ralph Dian

M

A+

B+

C+

D+

2000

3

ゲンツ・ヴィーザー

Gentz Weizer

G

B

B

B

B

3000

2500

2

ケビン・グリーンフィールド

Kevin Greenfield

G

B

B

B

B

1000, 2200, 3500

1800, 4800, 7000

2000

5

ジョニー・サンダース

Johnny Sandars

S

C+

A+

C+

C

1100, 2300, 3800

1600, 4500, 6500

2000

5

マシュー・D・ロレンツィオ

Matthew D. Lorenzo

M/S

A+

B+

C+

C

700, 1900, 3500

2100, 5100, 8000

2000

5

ハル・ファインズ

Halle Fiennes

T

B

C+

C+

A

1000, 2200

3100, 5000

1900

4

ハワード・ウォン

Howard Wong

L

B

C

A+

D+

800, 2000

3500

1500

4

ジーナ

Gina Davies

S

D+

S+

C

C

3000

4800, 6500

3000

3

ゲッタ・セドリック

Ghetta Cedric

T

B

C

C

B

2200, 3500

5000

3000

3

Useful Part and weapon Codes for SNES

  • 7ECF1463 Zenith V Body

  • 7ECFB163 Valiant Body

  • 7ED00863 Sakata Helicopter Leg

  • 7ECFFF63 Gavel Leg

  • 7ED01463 королд II 8x10 machine gun right arm

  • 7ED01563 Zenith V-SP Left Arm

  • 7ED01663 Zenith V-SP Right Arm

  • 7ED0C663 Harpoon Bolt

  • 7ED0CE63 WS-14B shield +27

  • 7ED0DE63 Dragon Hand fast Melee exp

  • 7ED0E663 Albatross 3x34 Missile

  • 7ED04263 Ziege fast Short exp

  • 7ED12A63 Karen Device BD-6KR 98/97/99/99

  • 7ED0F763 Bag Worm 4/2/90/10

  • 7ED19263 MKP OPJ7EH 8x25 machine gun (left hand only)

  • 7ED04663 Artassaut 3x13 machine gun

  • 7ED0BE63 PIZ-3 1x10 missile

  • 7ED02A63 Siege 5x2 machine gun

  • 7ED02663 F-1 Tonfar 1x13 Melee

  • 7ED08063 FV-24B 5x20 machine gun

  • 7ED4130F Peewie Melee

  • 7ED41427 Peewie Melee

  • 7ED4150F Peewie Short

  • 7ED41627 Peewie Short

  • 7ED4170F Peewie Long

  • 7ED41827 Peewie Long

  • 7ED4190F Peewie Agility

  • 7ED41A27 Peewie Agility

  • 7ED41B17 Peewie Skill 1

  • 7ED41C09 Peewie Skill 2

  • 7ED40E05 Peewie skill slot