C H A P T E R O V E R V I E W (3)

Learn about terminals, gun customization, and money-making tricks in Resonance of Fate Chapter Overview 3. Get tips for early game progression.

By the end of Chapter 1, you should have 74 Hunter Points and levels at least 5 or 6 for everyone. Adding 3 or 4 levels for one gun each is the bare minimum. This is a good time to change weapons, as you'll need the increase in weight that higher levels produce to add more parts to your guns. Everyone will have to use both MG and HG at a later point in the game.

Everything is in darkness, meaning the encounter rate will be higher when you step outside the city. As soon as you leave Sweet Home, an Elderly Man gives instructions about using Terminals (a type of interactive object) and donates 4 ENERGY HEX Turquoise and 50 METAL-COATED ROUNDS. The shop will make these rounds (to use against machine enemies) as well as Hollow-Pointed Rounds. Head for the Guild to pick up three quests, two of which give gun parts.

Terminal Time

You will have seen Terminals already and maybe even unlocked one or two, but with plain hexes (items used to interact with Terminals) you cannot trigger a terminal effect. You have to use a coloured hex with a terminal to produce an effect. If the terminal has no colour to start with, the only way to do this is to place an Energy Station (of the colour you prefer) nearby, and then link the same coloured hexes to the terminal. To manage that, you'd need quite a number of that colour hex, both to exchange for the Energy Station and to add enough to charge up the terminal.

Each terminal has a number that indicates the amount of energy required before the effect will be activated. If you link two terminals together, you'd need hexes that give the total of both those terminals. For example, a terminal with 0/40 added to one with 0/30 would need 0/70. If you activate a terminal with 30/30 and then add more hexes to connect to the 0/40 terminal but don't have enough to add up to 70, you'll lose the effect from the first one because you've changed the requirement.

The effects of terminals vary, but they apply to every connected hex and to every battle, so enemies benefit from the effects as well as the team. You don't have to activate them all, and it's best to pick and choose the ones that will give you an advantage over the enemies. Things like increased drop rate only help you and not enemies; increased fire damage will help you in an area where enemies use ice attacks.

Much More than a Rookie

Before attempting the story mission to the Power Station, add more parts to your guns. With the additional levels, you'll find that you can add more weight and that means piling on the better scopes and barrels.

Pay to scrap items dropped from enemies in the last chapter, like the Scrapped Eater TAR1 and Busted Oil Drum, to get more Scrap Iron (and other items) to make parts. If you're running low on cash, then make the Compact Scope beta for 3000 Rubies and sell it for 4100! You won't have lots of Scrap Iron at the moment, so just do this once or twice. Later, you will have a plentiful supply of the components and can abuse this money-making trick as much as you like.

The SMG can have two Top Sights with additional sights added above those, and this will increase your charge speed. Make Compact Scopes (you will have one as a reward for a mission if you do this first) and add these to this gun. The B-N84 can't take as many scopes as the other two guns since it only has one slot for a scope; you can compensate for this a bit by equipping the High Barrel or by adding two sub-barrels to the HG Expander Barrel.

You will only have one High Barrel for now and cannot make another until you obtain the component, which isn't available just yet, so this will give that gun the same total CS as the High Barrel but by a different route! Sub-barrels won't be wasted as you can use these to make another part later on.

If you find that Leanne can't equip a case as well as a customized gun because of her lower weight allowance, then un-equip the First Aid Kit. You don't need this unless you're inside a dungeon.

Bollards!

The way to the Hughes Power Station is blocked with striped bollards (obstacles), and you have to engage and defeat the enemies in one of these hexes in order to clear the path. This is quite common from now on, but you only ever have to clear away enough of them to reach your destination, and the bollards will be gone by the next chapter.