One thing that made it click for me was slowing down a bit, and doing the Dark Souls strategy of just trying to avoid damage for a while. You do feel like you need to rush, but you can actually take your time, explore and take your time. You can always do levels again and you’re only going to earn more credits. It’s fine to do a “death run” and just check out a level. You’ll eventually have more credits than you need.

And yeah if you’re banging your head against a wall on a particular mission the answer may be a different build. At a checkpoint you can swap to one of your other builds or swap a part and try again. No need to restart the entire level (unless there’s needed equipment you haven’t bought yet)

I generally played through slow. It’s good to pick some easy missions like killing the AC Student or a fun boss mission like Operation Wallclimber to try out new builds and earn some credits while you’re at it. If you’re going for combat logs you don’t need to find them all in one run. If the mission is hard, grab the one or two that you can and make it to the checkpoint or finish the mission so you earn them. Then you can do the mission again if there are more combat logs or parts containers to find.

A big thing for me was to get to that point where it just felt cosy and comfy jumping in and moving around.

Like Dark Souls, a lot of the early game equipment is very viable. The pulse blade you get at the start is one of the best melee weapons. Closes the distance, good tracking, damage.

Think about the kind of build you want and the range you want to fight at: tetrapod legs allow you to hover, so you might pair that with missiles to rain down on the battlefield, and you’d need a Fire Control System suitable for long range accuracy.

If you watch a build guide video they’ll explain better.

Do all the training as soon they’re available. There are only 7 and they give you some extra equipment.

Do all the arena fights as soon as they become available every time. They give you “OST” points to upgrade your operating system - mostly passive skills to permanently upgrade damage resistance, damage output for the damage type you use (like I barely used energy weapons so I didn’t bother upgrading them). You can easily reset your OST points for a small cost and will eventually unlock them all.

My typical build is typically a medium weight bipedal or reverse joint build for high mobility, with dual weapons - shotguns if I want to be close range darting in and out, or ludlows or etsujins if I want to stay at medium range strafing around the enemy. Nachtreiher arms for the high firearm specialisation are a favourite.

You can unlock an OST upgrade so you can carry an arm weapon on your back. So I typically have a pulse blade on my left shoulder I can swap to when needed, then a big fuck off cannon like songbirds or stun needle launcher on my right shoulder.

Don’t just fire your big weapons blindly. You’ll stop and get stuck in the animation and punished for it. Instead strafe around. If you hear or see a warning sound for incoming damage then dodge. Typically you want to build up stagger with your hand weapons, but be ready for when you know you’re about to get the stagger so you can position yourself to whack them with the pulse blade then blast them with the stun needle launcher and get out. Or whatever the equivalent may be for whatever build and fighting style you choose.

I typically aim with my right stick. But one thing I didn’t realise embarrassingly late (like I was getting my final S rank) is that in order to use the hard lock system you have to not touch the right stick at all. It’s handy on a boss where there’s a lot of trash stealing your lock on.

Happy to answer more questions.