Skills (Front Mission 1)#
Each pilot has a max skill slot value. if the number of current skills is less than the max skill slot, and the pilot 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 preferably Short>Long>Melee. Tanks do not have skills designed for them.
If you skipped a skill, it will be offered repeatedly until either your level is maxed out (pretty much mean you maxed out all 4 exp categories) or your skill slot is filled. If you hacked in a skill, it would count as learnt naturally when levelling up.
Skill upgrades randomly when activated. As there aren’t enough enemies to fully level up skills in the story, you can use colosseums to train your skills. After getting a new skill, switch to a pair of PIZ3, Raptor, Grave, F-1 TONFAR, RIM-3 Grenade 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.
Level 1 skills suck (e.g. lv1 Duel and Guide cut your accuracy in half). You want to get to level 2 asap. But the last level takes too much time to train and is not worth trying in colosseum fights. 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 builds 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 benefit for your journey.
Chance to level up when activated
0.5% all skills at lv3
1% Stun/Double/Duel at lv2
2% Switch, Speed at lv2
3% Guide at lv2, Duel, Switch, Speed at lv1
5% First at lv2, Stun/Double at lv1
9% First, Guide at lv1
Note even when you cancel Duel or Guide it still counts as an activation.
Short#
Machine gun is just scary in the game, as exp adds damage to each round of attack 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 Duel to miss intentionally and transfer the weapon between wanzers via the supply truck during a mission.
In late games you can send tough enemies back for repair with Duel 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 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 makes less sense to convert other types to Short.
Duel > Switch > Speed (skill slot allowing)
Switch > Speed> Duel (skill slot limited)
Duel gives you much more exp fast 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. And you can intentionally miss by aiming for a damaged part to level your other short skills during the missions when the battle is decided.
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 forget single hit weapons like shotguns and flamethrowers, except the secret weapon of course.
All Short skills can activate when Switch activation, which 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:
Duel: 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
Long#
Missiles make up Short’s range deficit. Can also weaken enemy before finishing up with Short specialists. The only skill that can be learnt in this category is Guide. Like Duel 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 close-range output due to Short being unbalanced in the game with the help of a secret weapon (many consider it cheating) and long range pilots can get at least some Short skills.
Guide always activate before maxed; thus it is easy to train. If you really need to level it fast, you can intentionally miss by aiming for a damaged part in the arena or in the story when the battle is decided.
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 become a feature now.
Melee#
Melee has high accuracy and damage, but no aiming skill like Duel or Guide means wasting a lot of exp. By destroying the body first, you forgo 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 those missiles hurt. Throw some chaff on them when closing to enemy encirclement.
Melee weapons are single hit and benefit less from exp growth compared to multiple hit Short or Long weapons. 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 the advantage of 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 does for Short. This makes training melees much less painful. You can also hack the weapon out using codes in the SNES version.
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 (see later). 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 the attack. Due to how hard Melee gets in late game, I don’t recommend you train Royd 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 acts later than Short and Long)
lv1: activates 40% of the time
lv2: 60%
lv3 80%
lv max: 90%
Agility#
Tanks are not that necessary because Melees 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 pilot 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 (Cancel if prompted for shield if you can). Also, you can clear the map except enemy supply trucks and guard against their attacks to farm agility exp.