Basil’s Factory

This is where you’ll upgrade your team’s weapons and secondaries as well as upgrading the mana engine of their unique weapons.

R&D

As the name implies, this option is where you can purchase available upgrades of your guns, launchers, and grenades. It is quite important to always get the upgraded version to get the best damage and effect available to you at the moment. The upgrades will become available as you progress with the story, with upgrade cost rise over time. Once a weapon or grenade has been upgraded, the team will automatically use the latest version of the weapon or grenade. Later on as well, you’ll gain access to a wider array of weapons and grenades. It will be a good idea to set individual different guns and grenades to your characters to increase their flexibility in the field.

Upgrade

This feature allows you to “feed” ragnite crystals to your team’s individual weapons to increase their performance. Regular upgrading of weapons is strongly recommended since it’s the only way to increase a character’s offensive prowess and access to higher-ranked spells later on.

Each weapon has its own skill map represented by interconnected nodes or orbs. The available skill orbs are fixed but more skill orbs can be added when your team’s weapons are upgraded by Basil as part of the story. Each skill orb has a required amount of EXP that when filled up, unlocks the orb’s corresponding skill permanently and lights up the connecting orbs. You can only level up activated orbs; since orbs activate only when connecting orbs are unlocked/activated, you’ll have no choice but to unlock skills in succession.

The only way to give skill orbs EXP is by “feeding” ragnite crystals to it. The amount of EXP gained will depend on the fodder ragnite crystal’s quality. Ragnite crystals used this way is permanently gone so be careful not to use up rare, powerful ragnite crystals you can’t equip yet due to elemental rank restrictions.

For example, a default rank 1 ragnite crystal with no special effects is worth 10 EXP while a rank 8 ragnite with special effects can be worth 25 EXP above. The amount of EXP required by the skill orbs also vary depending on the skill. Low rank skills can be unlocked for at least 25 EXP while higher end skills may take up to 320 EXP. To maximize the used ragnites, always calculate the individual exp they give. Also, one important rule of thumb is avoid wasting high-rank ragnites if ever you’ll come short by 10 or so EXP to unlock the skills. Remember that you can buy basic ragnites from the Promenade merchant for 240 each.

If you have multiple ragnites of the same rank, always check their stats and additional effects. It’s not uncommon to encounter an identical spell that’s two ranks apart with the lower-ranked one having more effects compared to a “vanilla” high-ranked one with only a few base points higher. In that case, always opt for the ones with additional effects. A good example is having an offensive spell with lower base damage rating but has 2-3 effects rather than a higher ranked version of the spell that’s higher by 5-10 points base damage with no effect.

When upgrading your team’s skills, always prioritize the skills that will increase their elemental compatibility ranks. This will allow them to equip higher-ranked ragnite crystals that you’ll normally get as you progress in high level Missions. Once done, you can then consider increasing the stats or skills that the character will use often. For example, increasing the Healing Alchemy skill of sappers as early as you can will make them even more efficient healers while increasing the Atk of your shocktroopers will make them even more effective in decimating enemy numbers while on the offensive.