I could really use some pointers here; the initial advice was pretty great, but I still have no clue what to do aside from buy a ranged weapon and a space suit. My personal stats are in the red, I have a purple glowing body icon on my hud, my guy has a red frowning angry face, WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN--
Angry face means morale is low, from losing battles and dying alot. Eat Chocolate Bars and win battles to raise it, usually eating at a bistro or something will raise it too. Personal stats in the red is because of your reduced morale. I don't know what the purple body icon is, but it apparently doesn't do anything.
Anyway, buy a cheap space suit to start off, like a Pilot Suit, you won't need a ranged weapon yet. Go to the Cavalier's Club on the map and talk to the person it tells you to talk to. Then you'll get a randomly assigned quest as the first 'main story' quest.
When you get that, just walk around town, ask for rumors, and such. If someone says something like 'Joe says he needs help defeating some raiders' you can press m to open your messenger and Check Rumors, or Check Memos which lets you see your current missions. Shift + T also lets you type in anyone's name to instantly call them as long as they're on the same Spinner as you.
Basically, get some easy quests from rumors to improve your skills, call the quest giver back when you're done to get your reward. Since the main quests are randomized each time, I can't really tell you how to finish the first one you get since it'll be different for everyone.
- Spaceports always have a Ticket Agent (to go to other Spinners), a Restaurant (to raise your hunger cheaply), and usually 1-2 mecha repair shops to repair and restock your suit. Find out what's what in the spaceport ASAP.
- After every mission, restock and repair your mech at the spaceport and go to the Restaurant. If you're hungry, there'll be an option to buy food.
- If at the end of the battle, you find new mecha/mecha parts in your inventory by pressing Shift + H (the Field HQ), you can strip them for parts or just sell them to an engineer by going to Sell Mecha -> Sell Mecha Inventory.
- If your SP or MP get too low, Shift + Z is the hotkey to rest for 1 in-game hour, which regenerates SP and MP, and slowly regenerates HP.
-Press Shift + L to raise your skills and check how much EXP you have. Learning new skills eventually puts an 'EXP Penalty' on you, which increases the EXP needed to improve your current skills. Just focus on improving the combat-based skill for starters. Shift + C also lets you do this via Do Training, and gives you some other options about your character.
Edit: I found a heavy duty engine ice wind in an old asteroid mine. I think I just bugged the game out because I was tasked to find this guy, and after subduing him, I agreed to get the person who sent me to get him off of his back but when I talked to the originator, I saw no option to tell her off.
Yeah, I actually did that my first time around too. You need to get a bit of money first, then you can pay off the originator to forget about it.
Edit edit edit:
Edit Edit: Ok, I got a mission from the story guy to stop some jerks from attacking a target; I find some woman who I beat in a duel (rocket hammer woo) and she agreed to send her gang to help me. I was told they were at the 'exterior' of the station I'm on yet when I flew around space, nothing was out there. What's up with that? Also, the station was rocked as the guy with the unpronounceable name destroyed his target
Alot of times, you're not given an actual coordinate in the Exterior of a Spinner, which basically means search freakin' everywhere until a message comes up saying 'You have been attacked!' which is always related to the main story. Other times, you WILL get coordinates and you can just go to it and press > like normal missions.