BATTLE SYSTEM

Battles can be initiated by you by targeting an enemy and pressing either the initiate battle button, or selecting an art straightaway. Battles can be initiated by the enemy if you trigger their aggro condition. Or if you drive into a small enough thing in your Skell.

Auto-Attacks

Auto-Attacks(AAs) happen so long as you’re within range of your current weapon’s range. Melee weapons need you to be pretty close, while ranged weapons have varying distances they’re effective up to. Ranged range can be increased with a skill from Astral Crusader, and with a certain Weapon Device. AAs restore a certain amount of TP per hit, depending on your weapon’s stats. Melee AAs can also apply a variety of debuffs by using certain devices/affixes.

AA Recast varies between weapons, and can be shortened by Weapon Devices and some arts/skills. However, the AAs won’t happen faster than the attacking animations themselves can happen, so the minimum AA Recast is essentially your weapon’s attack animation length. (I think)Each melee weapon type has at least two AA animations. Ranged weapons have magazines that determine the number of shots they’ll do before reloading(the Recast downtime). Rates of fire seem to differ between all types, so the same mag size probably doesn’t mean the same ‘dps’.

AA damage varies due to ‘randomness’, but its range is determined by the following formula:

AtkPow is your character’s relevant Attack stat. The suffixbonus is a bonus applied if your weapon has a specific suffix(details are still kind of iffy, need to test more): regular weapons get 1.1; kai and magnifico get 1.2; grey weapons with no enhance slots get just 1. WepAtk and WepStability are based on your equipped weapon’s stats. The additivemultipliers are the sum of multipliers applied from skills(and probably some auras) with + signs(haven’t actually tested any of these yet, so they might apply at different points, but that’s where the arts ones go)

(should add stuff about critical hits)

(haven’t really tested accuracy stuff, but I guess that would go here)

Arts

Arts are selected from your arts palette in battle, and must Recast afterwards before you’re able to use them again. The same range restrictions apply from AAs, but some arts with AoE effects seem to be less strict about it.

Once an art is Recast, a second gauge will begin to fill if you have the weapon associated with that art currently equipped, called a Doublecast. Doublecast effects vary between arts, but their types are: extra damage; increased aura/buff/debuff levels; gain TP per hit; extra art uses. A further third gauge(Triplecast) is available during Overdrive, but it doesn’t require your current weapon to match the art’s weapon for it to begin filling.

Art damage is fairly similar to AA damage, with the following changes:

Here, ArtMult is the multiplier listed in the arts menu, and is applied to the stat associated with the weapon being used(need to check, some ranged say they’re melee). One difference from AAs is if the art is a Tension(TP) art, AtkPow is replaced by your Potential stat instead. The additivemultipliers come from conditional bonuses for the art, race-killer devices, soul voices(and probably skills, but again, there’s evidence they might factor into weird places).

(maybe Soul Voice section?)

(need stuff for Skells probably)

(and I guess FrontierNet/Nav probe stuff)