Pity,watch dog won't let me see it (or what little of it is there) so I guess 1 thing I won't learn about gearhead is how on earth you make robots,or lot's of other things I would like to know,if the wiki is revived then I guess I'm not viewing it. Wondering if anyone would consider me a loony if I make a gearhead questions thread
Double post, but let it be known that I would have no issues with a gearhead questions thread, as it's certainly one of the more dense roguelikes out there!
Some notes for starting out for anyone new (Gearhead 1, Gearhead 2 is an entirely different beast in a lot of ways, but some of this will still be relevant):
In the starting village, you can find both an old phone and a mine on the outskirts, on one of the floors of that mine (I found it on the fourth, but it could be anywhere? I'm unsure), you can find a mining drill, which is an amazing personal scale melee weapon, and on the final floor (fifth), you can find a mining robot which handily deals with starting mecha scale combat! Mostly because the strongarms early enemies like to use are more of armored exoskeleton sort of things rather then legit giant robots, so you have a nice size advantage on them, but still!
Use skills! Notably repair skills, even though you have to buy materials to repair with, it's more cost effective (I think?) to repair your mech/gear/body yourself, and I'm pretty sure it gives you more exp to spend on skills/stats, which is important, because at least early on, the game likes drip feeding you exp, sooo having another source is always great. It may also give you points towards getting a new stat upgrade chance? I'm unsure where the "upgrade stat" option comes from on the menu, I just know it showed up shortly after I started using reflex based skills, and it happened to be a reflex stat up.
Personal scale gear is totally worth investing in. It's comparatively cheap to mecha gear, and some decent gear can make anything without a gun trivial (and even some gun wielders), free exp. I use melee, but I'd imagine ranged works fine too.
You will be perpetually unhappy. I'm not sure how to fix that, but it doesn't seem to effect much anyway. I do recall from asking a few questions ages ago on the forums that stuff like chocolate bars will improve your mood, but it didn't seem to do much for mine. Can't hurt anyway, the stuff is dirt cheap. This may be due to my character's low charm? Like, I'm happy, I talk to people, it goes poorly, I get unhappy maybe? It seemed like it was more due to all the fighting I was doing on personal scale.
Survival is worth investing in (at least for me). Using it on dead animals will sometimes get you a pelt (which you conveniently sell on the spot), or meat which can be eaten, and is a handy "on the fly" source of food. It's not major, but it's nice. While we're on animals, if you try to grab stuff from corpses, you'll get loot from humans, and money from animals and humans. Large sums from humans, single digits from even multiple animals.
Annnd finally another free mech in the starting town is at the mech fighting... place. Look around a bit and ask the arena manager for a rental mech. You'll have to pass a test, which requires some knowledge in mecha piloting, fighting, and artillery, but more robots is more good.