Good, you can take out that milepod douche above mount m'gando for me.
So I finished Mia's affinity quest, gave me the feeling of resolution to the game.
Pretty much done everything except that tyrant above Mt. Mgando.
I commit my notes to the deep.
Here they are for people who come after.
I only started this late into the game so it only covers those Gather missions.
I restarted playing this 2 days ago. I had an affinity mission going of which I had no recollection, so I just followed the follow ball around untill it was complete. After that I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had met all requirements to start story mission chapter 6. Locking story missions behind discovery rates was an asinine move and completely killed whatever flow the game had for me. But now I'm back, and I need your help! And with your, I mean GG and Iga, as I think they're the only ones who played much of the game.
So fill me back in please:
- is there anything more to the combat than timing the use of your arts to correspond with your teammates' cries?
- what's the point of overdrive? Is it just to completely spam all your arts, or is there some strategy to it?
- I still remember most of the mining stuff, but do I need to 'cash in' on my miranium somehow? I seem to recall something like that, but I can't find anything about it in the manual.
- how important is it to constantly switch your party member's gear? Honnestly, there's so much of it that I'd rather just not bother as it's too overwhelming.
I'm still very much enjoying just travelling everywhere on foot and taking in the sites.
Who the hell plused this? 
I need answers dammit!
SupremeAC said:
- is there anything more to the combat than timing the use of your arts to correspond with your teammates' cries?
It's more about changing and upgrading your arts and changing weapons/arts. As well as upgrading your skills. It's all there in the options. Choose the right arts and you can pick moves that complement the team better. Some arts are more powerful and give you combos etc. And of course having the right colour types of arts means you can loop together attacks.
But the combat isn't exactly hard except for some bosses and even then when you lose a few times the game gives you the option to face them at an easier difficulty level.
SupremeAC said:
- what's the point of overdrive? Is it just to completely spam all your arts, or is there some strategy to it?
Nope.
SupremeAC said:
- I still remember most of the mining stuff, but do I need to 'cash in' on my miranium somehow? I seem to recall something like that, but I can't find anything about it in the manual.
You can only hold a certain amount of miranium at any one time, so you need to offload it so you can earn more or its just sitting there doing nothing and not growing. You can store more by putting up storage probes but I wouldn't mess about with probes that much till you have uncovered most of the map on any one area. You use the Miranium to give to people on specific missions in NLA.
But the biggest use for it is spending it on the console on armoury alley to use it like EXP to boost the weapons companies there. When these weapons companies level up thanks to your miranium donations you get access to new and better weapons/armour and skells.
SupremeAC said:
- how important is it to constantly switch your party member's gear? Honnestly, there's so much of it that I'd rather just not bother as it's too overwhelming.
Depends if you want to do the weapons tester missions. You have to use the specific weapon on the specific mission.
Switching weapons and armour can bring about huge benefits, in doing damage and taking less damage. But it's not a hard game so you don't have to do it regularly, if at all. There is a way on the gear page, by pressing a button, it brings up a menu where you can can just hit (select strongest gear) and it does it automatically for you and isn't any trouble at all. I can't remember what button to press, think it's either start or select then choose from the menu.
Thanks GG, much obliged. I cant be bothered with optimizing my whole team's arts at the moment, perhaps later. Up to this point I've just been uncovering the weapon class skill tree. I'm a bit undewhelmed by how little room for customization there seems to be. It's like every weapon class only has just enough arts available to fill up all the slots. Although I've seen that it's possible to unlock extra arts by doing certain missions...
As for the mining, I enjoy setting up links between mining sites. At least this part of the game has a nice and cluncky meny in the map overlay.
I'll go looking for a way to automatically choose the strongest gear. I can't be bothered to sift through it all on my own, but if the game can do it for me, I see no reason to not do it.
SupremeAC said:Up to this point I've just been uncovering the weapon class skill tree. I'm a bit undewhelmed by how little room for customization there seems to be.
You get different skills and arts when you change weapons. The point of the weapons class tree is that choosing and mastering certain paths allows you to use different kinds of weapons. For instance I had to work on the path of my skill tree (as easy as selecting it and battling a lot) before I could use lances. Then when I chose a lance, I had to switch up my arts and skills. Some of them are really helpful like doing 10-20% more damage on some enemy types.
As for your arts, you have to upgrade them with your battle points via the menu system before you can use some of them, which is why it may seem like you are limited in arts initially till you level some up so they become useable.
I just checked for you.
press Start > Party > ground gear then press X which brings up the menu.
Select strongest gear. Do this for each character.
Thanks GG. Turns out my team was, for the most part, already decked out in their strongest attire. Which is kind of disappointing considering the insane amount of gear you collect just by battling indigenous.
I'm currently at the point where I'll get my first skell. I did all the lisence missions, but quit just before laying eyes on it for the first time. Ooh, the tension! Here's hoping I'll find time to play some more soon.
If you ever change your class (so you can use different weapons) remember you have to reset your skills/arts.
I think when you change weapons you have to reset your arts too. Or upgrade them or something.
The most important thing to have is money. Because you want to buy multiple skells and better/the best skells. There is a diagram somewhere in this thread which I posted which shows how to do your layout.
Once you have a couple/3 skells use the cave just north of NLA to level up a low level 4th character - you add to your team to build affinity so you can do their affinity missions and also to level them up fast.
Another good tip is to add at least 2 green colour arts for your main character or skell.
That way whenever you use them as part of a combo when a team member calls out, it will heal them or the entire team a bit.
Well, I just piloted a skell for the first time yesterday evening. It really changes the game. The viewpoint is much farther away, meaning it's easier to navigate some of the more dense area's I'd get lost in on foot, and it's also so much faster that it renders fast travelling, which I only used sparsely, obsolete. I'm also able to take on enemies quite a bit above my rank now with ease, although I'm still conservative in who I fight as I don't want to trash my skell. I have enough funds to buy skells for my full party, but for some reason I can't buy any at the moment. I haven't bought any extra weapons or gear for my skell just yet, as I'm not sure if I should go blowing my money on an entry level model.
As for the battles, I'm completely lost in what's going on, with the fuel continuesly ticking down, the binds, and most confusingly, the in-cockpit views that appear seemingly ad random, without me knowing what to do when they do appear. I'm loving it.
Oh yeah, I haven't met the requirements for the next story mission yet. 
Stupid system. I don't enjoy aimlessly traversing the overworld on some asanine fetch sidequest. Just let me get on with the story.
PS: I changed up the colour scheme of my skell, because I'm artsy like that. It's now lime green with purple highlights.
I put like 35 hours into this game before I stopped....now I don't know if I should go back to it or wait to see if it indeed gets ported to Switch. I never quite made it into the mechs.
edgecrusher said:I put like 35 hours into this game before I stopped....now I don't know if I should go back to it or wait to see if it indeed gets ported to Switch. I never quite made it into the mechs.
Yeah, I was about at the same point as you were. It's a very complex game, with a lot of systems to keep a tab on, so I was uncertain if I could even go back to it. But I tried nontheless, and I must say I'm enjoying myself. Getting the mech turned out to be more exciting than I'd have thought it to be. As for all the complexities, I'm very good at just ignoring those. I just hope that not indulging in them won't come back to bite me in the ass later on in the game. I'm banking on my own years of experience playing games and GG here, who said it's not a difficult game.
Anyhow, even if they port it to Switch, would you be willing to sit through those first 30+ hours again? Not me, that's why I decided to jump back in, even considering my lack of game time these days.
I don't know...lol
There's been a few RPG's over the years I've stopped too far into and then never went back. I usually like to restart just to remember what is going on and to get the pacing down. I find jumping back into the middle of a big game is kind of like waking up at a hard rock concert. I need the build up.
edgecrusher said:I put like 35 hours into this game before I stopped....now I don't know if I should go back to it or wait to see if it indeed gets ported to Switch. I never quite made it into the mechs.
Gee Gods man.
Never made it to Skells? Get back yo it. If it is on Switch, there's no word on it yet and it will only have a resolution bump.
SupremeAC said:Well, I just piloted a skell for the first time yesterday evening. It really changes the game.
Wait till you can make it fly. 
SupremeAC said:As for the battles, I'm completely lost in what's going on, with the fuel continuesly ticking down, the binds, and most confusingly, the in-cockpit views that appear seemingly ad random, without me knowing what to do when they do appear. I'm loving it.
Oh yeah, I haven't met the requirements for the next story mission yet.
The story is a tiny fraction of the game, like 15% of it. Just move on the map to each hexagon and place probes, that's pretty much all you have to do to make the requirement. Or you could try the affinity missions.
Save before getting into big battles with enemies using your skell. You can often get into battles where you are overpowered and your skell trashed. So I would save before taking on a big enemy then just quite and reload if you die.
Skell combat is easy. Binds just hold the enemy in place, while your team attacks, means the enemy are temporarily unable to inflict damage on you. Cockpit view means you can use arts freely with no cooldown or fuel draining effects.
Like with your party combat, selecting your weapons and gear is more important than knowing what to do in battle. Just buy the gear which inflicts the most damage but also learn what attacks will topple or stun your opponents and load those onto your skell.
Your fuel only runs down while flying in exploration, driving doesn't run it down and it auto recharges when not flying/battling.
Fuel does run down during combat but never to the point where you will find it a problem unless you are taking on enemy after enemy relentlessly.
The huge stags are the hardest to beat at your skell level.
SupremeAC said:Yeah, I was about at the same point as you were. It's a very complex game, with a lot of systems to keep a tab on, so I was uncertain if I could even go back to it. But I tried nontheless, and I must say I'm enjoying myself. Getting the mech turned out to be more exciting than I'd have thought it to be. As for all the complexities, I'm very good at just ignoring those.
All the systems sound complicated and you think they are initially. But they are actually pretty simple and easy to use once you wrap your head around them. And honestly you can pretty much get by ignoring most of them unless there is a specific requirement like storing a certain level of miranium.
Mechs make the game a lot easier, especially multiple mechs and better mechs. It doesn't matter what your party members level is, just buy them a good mech and that's what counts in battle. Which is why money is more important - getting your probe layout done right will help enormously.
edgecrusher said:I don't know...lol
There's been a few RPG's over the years I've stopped too far into and then never went back. I usually like to restart just to remember what is going on and to get the pacing down. I find jumping back into the middle of a big game is kind of like waking up at a hard rock concert. I need the build up.
This game is so easy to jump back into. I wouldn't have played it otherwise. I'm not hugely into RPGs at all.
This game was easier than Xeno Wii for me. Just jump in your mech and explore. Also your mech, turns NLA into like a platform game. You can do giant leaps up on top of buildings and fly about exploring. There are even floating islands you can fly too.
Use miranium at your HQs console to top up your fuel level BTW.