An article submitted for GAME! magazine August 2009 Issue, under Hinge Inquirer Publications.
Delving Deep into Natha
A Rookie’s Guide in playing Exteel
By Melissa Silvestre
After introducing Exteel’s overview on our May issue, we now came up with a guide that would help new players or rookies to get through the game.
As we all know, Exteel is a game of persistency wherein you pawn other Mechanaughts to rise through the ranks. There are no quests or missions to complete in order to level up because it is a shooter game, so we would just supply you with tips that could get you up and running.
WEAPONRY
It is normal for beginners to wonder what type of weapons to choose when playing the game in real time, away from the tutorial mode. Though each stage will teach you how to use each armament appropriately, it’s still not that easy to apply when you’re in a room filled with players more experienced than you are. First, think of what kind of combatant you want your Mech to be, as there is a wide array of weapons to choose from.
Once you’ve already decided, pick a set of weapons you’ve acquired upon finishing the tutorial modes. Veterans of the game suggest that new players should accustom themselves first with the tutorial weapons. These are good for fighting newbies and amateur players alike, because their Mechanaughts are still not that enhanced compared to the higher levels. It is best to use them until Level 10 before upgrading to a better set of weaponry which can be bought by Credits or iCoins.
Weapons consist of four categories:
Melee series - Swords and Spears.
Range series - SMG, Shotguns and Rifles.
Siege series - Cannons.
Rocket series - Rockets.
Weapon EXP is earned per hit. Which means that when you slash with a sword, you will gain Melee EXP. Same goes when shooting using a rifle for Range EXP. Obtaining weapon experience allows you to unlock certain abilities like damage increase, fire rate increase, etc.
PILOT POINTS
This is one of the things that players shouldn’t disregard. Increasing your stats will help you get your A game on the battlefield.
Pilot points have five categories which are the HP, ENERGY, SPEED, SCAN and MARKSMANSHIP.
The HP stat is the maximum health of your Mech.
The Energy is used for switching weapons, using boosters and jumping. These are advisable to upgrade for heavy weight Mechs because they consume more energy than other Mechs.
The Movement Speed increases the Mech’s pace when walking and using boosters.
The Scan is to increase one’s radar so you could easily detect where the enemies are in the map.
The Marksmanship increases one’s aim and also adds bonus to make critical hits when using melee weapons.
The question now, is which attribute should you raise first? It has always been believed that Marksmanship is always the first pilot stat to max, because it would increase your chances of getting critical hits when using Melee and the probability to hit when using a Ranged weapon.
Next is the HP stat, because the longer you survive in the battlefield, the better. Followed by Energy, Movement Speed and then Scan Range. So why leave out scan? Because it’s not that difficult to locate the enemies in the map, which proves this attribute to be the least useful in game. So you might as well allocate your pilot points to stats in which you would use, like the first four.
EQUIPMENT
There are three types of builds for Mechanaughts: the Heavy, the Standard, and the Light type. In order to help you choose what type of build to go for, let’s briefly discuss the PROs and CONs of each.
Heavy Mechs are the beefy ones, they have good Defense because they’re colossal and they have a higher HP compared to others. But because of their massiveness, it causes their speed to slow down and they consume a lot of energy when boosting, switching weapons or jumping.
The Standard type is the average. It’s pretty well balanced because it doesn’t tread along the extremes of the heavy and the speed type. It doesn’t have any specialization in particular, like a tougher defense or a faster Mech.
The Light type is also called the Speed type. They consume less energy but have a bad defense and most light Mech parts have low HP.
But keep in mind that there’s no bias in withstanding damage. Whatever type of build you may choose, they all receive the same amount of injury.
SKILL POINTS Skills are the next best thing to traditional shooting and slashing because it allows you to deal greater damage. The number of skills you can equip is dependent on your helm’s MPU or Mechanaught Processing Unit and weapon specifications.
There are two types of skills, the Single Target and the Area of Effect. It is best for rookies to try out the latter. Because aiming for a skill can be a pretty rough task, you have to lock on an enemy until the reticle turns red before you can hit them. While the AoE just needs to be activated in order to deal damage to those who are near you.
So how do you use skills? Every skill has a specific Skill Point or SP requirement which you accumulate when hitting or getting hit. When you get the SP requirement for a particular skill, the once grayish icon will be saturated; a sign which means that the skill is ready to be used in combat.
BATTLING TECHNIQUES
The basic battling techniques are the usual shoot and kill for guns and the hack and slash for swords. The advanced techniques are dragooning, sniping, stunner and support.
Sniping is the art of using siege weapons such as cannons, whereas dragooning is the skill in which you jump and attack the enemy in mid-air using a spear. Support is when you use Mecha Healers to help allies in battle.
TIPS
One thing that rookies have to know is the fastest way to gain experience- and that is by playing the Last Stand mode. The Last Stand is the only mode in which you could fight with AIs, where players fight as a team against a horde of drones. They appear in large groups and are set to capture your aerogates.
The best weapon to use is the Rocket Launcher, because it has splash damage and you could just blast the drone in groups instead of locking on each of them one by one. It’s better to defend the gate from within the circle and kill the enemies that are stepping on the blue spot first. Because when the enemies step in, the aerogate’s life will be damaged. Remember that the less damage your base has, the more points you will get.
A typical Last Stand mode usually comprises a team with 8 players. There are usually 6 defenders, equipped with rocket launchers who guard the base; a hunter, whose job is to look for saboteurs scattered around the map, and a base destroyer who have cannon and melee weapons equipped.
But technically, those are just suggestions and the game still lies on the team’s own technique. Try not to get killed or at least lessen your deaths because it would decrease the amount of points you will get. The game ends when the time is up or when you lose a gate to the enemy drones.
These are just a few tips that could help you progress through the game. Remember that the skill needed can be acquired through practice and don’t depend too much on your weapons or equipments.
Acknowledgements:
Hellios
Coffee 
Sunohara Youhei - a comic relief, who almost always get disciplined by others due to his antics. Also a delinquent, he is the only student with a higher absence rate than Tomoya. He and Tomoya are known as the "Dirty Pair" in school. 
Fujibayashi Kyou - is an aggressive girl who is good in cooking. She is the older twin sister of Ryou and is the class representative of her class. She throws dictionaries towards anyone she’s infuriated with.
Fujibayashi Ryou - is Tomoya's classmate and also a class representative. She is enthusiastic about fortune telling, but her predictions aren’t really accurate. 
Ichinose Kotomi - A very quiet girl. She is in the top ten for every subject throughout the whole country and wants to play the violin, though she’s not any good at it. 
