This guide will go over the basics of Surface Mode 1.0, including some tips and tricks for new players in case they missed the most important aspects of this game mode.
Keyboard shorcuts
The game does not have support for a lot of keybinds, but remember you can select a squad by pressing its designated number on the keyboard.
Squad building
Once you get to Sector 01 of the surface reclamation, the game greets you with squad building. There are a couple notes, you should keep in mind, while building your squads.
Skills with similar effects (same icon) do not stack
You can easily determine which skills are active by looking if their icons are lighted up:
Raptures are grouped by element
Raptures you encounter in the wild have consistent element in their own region. The whole Sector 01 is filled with wind element raptures. You can take advantage of it by including Fire element nikkes in your squad, and avoiding Iron.
Sector 02, however, spans several such regions, with an occupation area each. It starts on Fire element, and goes through Water and Electric.
Always check which element code you’re encountering to avoid fighting into the strong element. Here’s a table for all current sectors available in the 1.0 beta:
Sector 01
Sector 02
Sector 03
Sector 04
Region A
Region A
Region B
Region C
Region A
Region B
Region C
Region A
Region B
Region C
Strong
Weak
Specialized skills are only active during their specified game segment
The game in surface 1.0 is separated into two segments: exploration and combat areas. There are 3 distinct skill groups available to players:
Strike skills specialized for exploration (skills for fighting radial enemies in the wild, Enhanced Vision and High-Speed Mobility in non-combat areas)
Special ops and support skills for combat areas
Free skills, applying universally both to radial enemy encounters and combat areas
Universal skills, although active in both types of content and having an ability to work alongside specialized ones, have a major drawback of being significantly weaker to counter-balance those advantages.
NIKKE main game stats affect their surface performance
When adding characters to your squads, make sure they are, at the very least, added to your sync device so you have higher chances of surviving and killing your enemies.
When we have a clear picture on what percentage character stats increase based on rarity, level and other factors, we’ll add it here.
There are several types of squads you can build:
Squad specialized at fighting radial enemies - raptures you encounter in the wild.
You don’t have that many options when building such a squad.
Try to include one Range Extension nikke: extra range not only allows you to start firefight one step earlier, but also to seldom avoid fighting several raptures at once.
Add Defense Reduction and Damage Boost nikkes to shorten your combat time and, as a result, reduce damage you take from each encounter.
Some Emergency Recovery will help you sustain your vanguard squad longer.
The final spot can either go to strike HP Boost, or a universal copy of either of aforementioned skills.
If you can take advantage of Strong Element Enhancement, do so.
A subtype of Strike Squad, focusing on exploration.
Squad built on the foundation of Strike Squad, by replacing sustain skills with High-Speed Mobility and Enhanced Vision.
It was announced as indispensable during the anniversary livestream, but with the amount of raptures blocking your path every couple steps, it’s mostly useless.
With Range Extension it can still fulfill the fire support role for your Strike Squad.
Squad formed for combat area encounters, including point defenses and boss battles.
Damage Boost, Defense Reduction and Bonus Attack skills are bread and butter to increase your damage and avoid being overwhelmed by enemies.
For difficult battles (and to save up on repairs) try to include leftover Recovery Support in as many squads as you can, while grouping them up whenever possible.
Skills like HP Boost, Mobile Safety Enhancement or Emergency Recovery will help with surviving long enough to clear the encounter.
If you’re using a Calling Signal Generator to help with base defense encounter, include a Shield Enhancement nikke in your every squad.
If you can take advantage of Strong Element Enhancement, do so.
A supporting squad, trading off personal firepower for buffing allied Special Ops Squads squads in the vicinity.
The boost you get out of such a squad may not seem strong at a first glance, but once you get to 3+ squad battles, supporter squad will shine through.
Recovery Support paired with Recovery Support Level Increase will drastically reduce the difficulty and hospital bills with staggering amounts of unconditional healing.
Range Extension Support will increase your Special Ops firing range, reducing both the incoming damage and required movement micromanagement during occupation battles.
Support Range Increase will boost areas of all your squad auras, further simplifying the deployment.
You can fill out remaining slots with damage and fire rate boost buffs, or pick Special Ops skills, if you’re going for double Supporter Squad.
Recovery
To recover your nikkes health, you need to retreat back to the main base or any occupied territory with Hospital built, and start recovering process by interacting with the Hospital building.
You can recover nikkes both separately and as a whole squad. No matter the option you choose, the recovery will incur both a resource cost and a time delay.
Recovering nikkes as a squad blocks out one squad you could use, while drastically reducing the recovery time as a counter-balance.
Cancelling the recovery process at any point will completely reset the recovery process, while refunding the resource cost.
Crafting
Used to start an occupation battle.
Used as a distraction to draw rapture fire during “recapture” occupation battles.
You can build one in advance, and combine them with Shield Enhancement nikke skill for a greater effect.
Can be considered useless for current beta.
Used to restore power to an Optical Camouflage Generator.
An installed Optical Camouflage Generator will be active for exactly one week, and needs to be recharged in that timeframe.
Failure to do so will result in a need to defend the territory in an occupation battle.
A tool for repairing Calling Signal Generator durability.
Used to open the gateway to the next sector.
Before installing it, prepare for a defensive battle.
Puzzles
Surface includes some puzzles which, for the most part, are pretty simple, but if you are lazy and want quick solutions, here are the puzzles from the ones that might be easily missed on each Sector.
Step on pressure plates in order, hinted by flowers around them.
Use two squads. Step on pressure plates, corresponding hour and minute hands at 08:00.
Use two squads. Step on pressure plates with same greenery as the example in the middle.
Step on tiles in order, hinted by flowers on them.
