Mech Arena Blue Print Drop Rates for Weapons Classes

I'm at about 53k exp.
Missile racks and Stasis 12 have about 30 blueprints each.
Carbine 8 has THREE.
The credit cost is uniform across all items at equal level/rank. The blueprint cost is the only difference.

Items that start at rank 1 need 3 Blueprints for their first upgrade.

Items that start at rank 2 need 6 Blueprints for their first upgrade.

Items that start at rank 3 need 9 Blueprints for their first upgrade.

I don't have any gear that starts at rank 4 or 5, but following the trend, they should be 12 and 15 respectively.

Every level up increases the necessary blueprints by by a percentage of their previous values, from level 1 to 7 in a rank, with some irregularities.


Rank ups reset the new level 1 to a value closer to the level 2-3 blueprint cost at the previous rank, and starts the ramp up cycle over.

All that being said, this goes back to what I was saying about items being above your current rank being either a painful chore to acquire, and an even bigger slog to level up if you skipped ahead by buying it with RM.

Since I'm skipping on light bots until later in the game, specifically because I don't want to waste resources on 4 cost weapons(Light bots need to be rank 5 for 6 cost weapons) I see myself using tournament winnings for the 1000 coins for 100k credits to bring my active items as high as blueprints allow; then buying Prodigy crates for the 24k credits and 243 blueprints until my hangar is maxed for rank 3. Then I'd need A-coins specifically to actually Rank up.

That should come easier through more competent tournament farming. After rank 4 is achieved, it's off to buy Stasis Beam 12/16, the missile racks, Cheetah, and likely Zephyr if it's unlocked. Then it's back to tournament farming to buy whichever I need more of between credits and big crates again.

I guess the take-away from this would be, even if you buy a high rank item with RM to skip ahead, it's nothing more than a tool to make getting resources for THE REST OF your Bots/weapons easier to catch up to said skip-ahead item's rank.

With the outlined progression path I've been following, and detailed above, the Rank 1 and 2 items I leveled and ranked up are now rank 3, with the same amount of pending upgrades as the rank 3 items I own.

It doesn't seem to matter if you take the most efficient purchase/upgrade path as a F2P. Shadow is the only thing I'm missing from my current armory of rank 3 items, all roads lead to the same path. The blueprint system seems to encourage us to diversify. Even if someone stuck with the bare bones most effective hangar one can make in the first couple of weeks, they'd only be a handful of upgrades above me on those bots from where I am with the same playtime, unless they sunk more than the pocket change I've put into the game or did miraculously well in tournament consistently.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

None of the bots are ever useless.

Paragon has more health than Panther, and it's dash can be used for temporary mobility greater than all of the other Heavy bots. It's just not favorable later on because it's neutral while the other bots are playing rock/paper/scissors.

Lancer, Paragon, and MD share the same health pool per rank/level. Making Lancer the chunkiest light bot, on top of having vertical movement. So same deal as Paragon. Jack of all trades, master of none.

RPG 6 at rank 4 is technically a side-grade to Missile rack 6. RPG6 has slightly lower cycle damage, but controlled rockets that travel faster(and are more accurate for it), with a longer unload time for a shorter reload time.

Same deal between Autocannon 4 to Pulse cannon 4. Pulse cannon can deal higher damage up close, but can't hit squat outside of it's optimal range.

Carbine 8 follows that same trend with Pulse 8. Carbine burst fires with more accuracy, while pulse cannon is a bullet hose.

Jug has more base HP than Ares at the same rank/level, but as a trade off to the difference in their shield mechanics and ground speed.

Thermal Lance/ Stasis/ Javelins/ Mortars/ Plasma cannons are utility weapons because they have special functions/modifiers instead of just being the normal point and shoot, which makes them optional to playstyle.

This is why I was getting less than pleasant with Fruno. The game, and progression in it, are actually very balanced, and the few wonky things that do arise are being taken as serious issues with the Community Managers to the Dev team.