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                                       GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS
                                         FRONT MISSION 3
                                           Version-1.1
                                          Authors-Necro
                           ===========================================

Author Note's
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Hey,the game is getting harder,damn I have alot of hard time going through the
mission!!I have just getting on the stage where our team of hero have gone back
to Japan.I hope you like this guide.What the hell with battle simulator
Fukushima ,they are damn HARD!!But I managed to win it in 15 rounds.For all the
hard work I do,all I got was 900 price money....Taal Base could give more than
that.Well,I've been slowing down on FM3 because I was
managing my registration for a university.I'll be doing Creative Multimedia
course for obtaining degree.Last year I've been doing this stupid wasting
Information Technology course.I knew my heart was not with that.Well,that's
all.Enjoy the game!!

P.s-Malaysian gamers out there,mail me.Come and support our own Malaysian PSX
site......www.Darkstation.com

Yours truly,
Necro


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                                   NEWLY UPDATED AT 6 MAY 2000.

1.1-Some spelling errors,added the FAQ column,Suggestion column,some part on
counter attack,add some stupid        lines to make it easier to read.Actually
this is no major update.Some info on battle simulator(Section         Number 5)


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                             ***THE BEGINNERS GUIDE TO FRONT MISSION 3***

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Number One-
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*Customizing Wanzers*
Parts Selection
Ok,you have lots of parts from the body to the backpack.But how much can you
combine to fulfilled your hunger for destruction?Always check the remaining
weight number because the more weight you have the better weapon you can put on.
From my experienced less weight parts such as body have less HP than a heavier
one.Sometimes it's hard to fully customized your wanzer to it's maximum
potential.To make it clear,if you want to put three weapon on your wanzer,you
must have at least 200+ remaining weight.But the problem is the parts that is
lighter tend to be easier to be broken because of its average HP.

So you must choose between firepower or HP or maybe an all rounder.Make sure
your wanzer have some remaining weight to make it easier for you to upgrade
their weapon .Better weapon takes more weight.

I have tried a lot of combination to get a wanzer with four weapon attached to
it.Until now I haven't found any.Someone who have pleased mail me.I have been
playing the game a lot and one things that I discovered is it's better to catch
some wanzers,they give you better parts with less weight,high HP and most of
them have been upgraded.

What I hate is,to have the best equipped wanzer,you have to sometimes sacrifice
the looks of the wanzer.I hate it when you have to use an ugly looking body with
a weird leg.They looked really ugly.Who wants ugly wanzer right?Everybody
wanting a cool looking wanzer who could burn down a town.One of the ugliest one
is the Mingtian
body and leg.It's so ugly!But you always can get the best firepower if you use
it.So choose between look and HP.I would choose looks.It just give me the
spirits.

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Number Two
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*Weapon Selection*
Now you have your own customized wanzer but if it have high HP and no weapon
loaded,it just felt not good.Choosing weapon is a matter of life and death.If
you take 2 full melee character and two others an all rounder,meaning have melee
in one hand and a distance weapon in the other,but you are fighting and all
powerful
team of wanzers with shotguns and machine guns those two melee figters are gonna
be toast.This is how it done.

Melee Attack
Shot Range punch attack.
They are good against Missile Equipped wanzer.Missile needs some range to shot
so when they are near to an enemy,they will have to use the desperate attack The
Hardblow.Some of them do carry shotguns but if you are lucky,your punches will
land on the launcher equipped hand.If the level are high,most melee attack will
destroy a part of a wanzer.When a Missiler loses their missile launcher and they
didn't have a gun they are just like little ant under your footstomp.Beware with
them until you have destroyed both arms,damaged parts with below 80 HP can be
broken by a Hardblow attack.
Melee attack also great against Grenade Launchers.Melee attack also have high
accuracy so that means it is great for a fast mission that that have time limit.
One hit to the body is enough to kill a wanzer but you won't get the EXP for the
other parts.

Range Attack
Machine Gun,Shotgun
There are good.The weapon choices is good but sometimes they are just not that
good with no great accuracy.Battle skills such as Zoom(1,2,3),ROF UP(1,2,3) and
the average Hit or Miss is a great addition to the power of the weapon.
Because they are range weapon they are good against Melee Fighter.
Some weapon such as Odin,Kodo,Chongdu damaged all parts of the enemy wanzer.
Weapon such as Mingda and DGS 25 damaged random parts of the wanzer.Choose for
yourself which one do you like.

Missile,Grenades
Missile are great for a one hit to random parts.It range cover a lot of area and
that means you can hit enemies that you are away from.Remember that it only
attack one parts of a wanzer and sometimes attack the pilot with the PilotDMG
Skill.Enemies that are well hidden are sometimes hard to get even with 87%
accuracy.If you miss,lots of AP will be depleted and this means you cannot
counter back.Use it carefully.It takes one turn to reload the missile after full
usage and in Front Mission 3 a turn is important.One mistake,it's lethal.

Grenades is an average type weapon.It gives the enemies less damage than a
machine gun but remember it's an area attack.Having a Grenade Launcher in your
team sometimes gives advantages but for me it's not that useful.Enemies don't
always grouped up together,they scrambled.Imagine having 4 enemies in one great
place to put a grenade on but there was Ryogo besides one of them.You don't want
to hurt your your friends rights?Enemies are different.They don't have our
commitment for friendship.They will even bomb their friends when they want to
and they do it often.Grenade also have low accuracy level.

Well,always have at least 2 missilers in your team.A grenade equipped could be
handy .Have everyone with at least a Melee Fist,range weapon and additional
Projectile weapon(missile) if you can put one.Try to get all
characters with three weapon with them.You will have an all rounder team with
good attacking power,strong defensive and great projectile attack.This is a good
lineup against any enemies team.

Until you get at least Type 13 grenade launcher,grenade usage won't give you
many advantages if you compare it to missile.But in Stage 35+ grenade will
always come in handy when there are too many enemies.It damages all parts,giving
it major damage.This will give a big advantage for you when fighting a large
group of enemies.

An Example
==========
The stage where Jose is on foot and you have to choose 3 more members to fight 2
Wulong members and some DHZ soldiers.I don't count the mission stage but this is
after the death of Ran Long father.Human soldiers can be wipeout with 2 shot of
grenade and you can concentrate attacking the Wulong members.But,Rebecca have
also a grenade launcher.Attacking with grenade will make her part HP weak and
aother character can finished her off.Then 3 more Wulong members come in after
killing at any one either Rudolph or Rebecca.I was stucked in this stage,but
after two retry I finally got the hang of it.Figuring out how to kill them fast
I put 2 wanzers with grenade and the other one with missile.They are easy
compared to my first and second try where I had only one grenade launcher and
two missilers.

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Number Three
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*Tactics On Battle*

You must know your opponent weapon.Check their status and know their weaknesses.

Attacking
You must know from where to attack them.When you are in a higher place than them
(on a crate etc.)you will have better accuracy.Attacking a melee wanzer without
range weapon (just MK10/MK12 fist),you would want to attack them from some
distances.This will make sure it won't counter attack.

Battling in FM3 is more like Final Fantasy Tactics but there are some
differences.In FFT,when you attack from behind the enemy the damaged would
increased.But in FM3,it doesn't give any advantages.The enemies would still be
facing you when you are attacking.If Square put this strategy in the game I
think it would be harder and more tactics would be needed when
attacking.Attacking from long range with grenade and missile would give your
team more advantages.

This is what I mean...
When attacking-

-Wanzer Type-                       -Strong Against-
Melee Fighter                       Missile Wanzer
Range attacking Wanzer              Melee wanzer
Projectile attacking wanzer         Melee wanzer and range attacking wanzer

Defense
Actually there are no specific strategy when defense.It is all about luck.But I
realized that a hiding wanzer (behind something such as crate or tower) is more
likely to miss a missile attack.Battle skill such as Iniative would be alot of
help when you counter attacking.

Counter Attack
Try to counter when you can.Counter attack would lead to a great win but it is
just a matter of luck on who's turn first when counter attacking.I don't know
how to make my wanzer counter attack first before being attack without using
Iniative.Mail me if you know how.

But it is actually like this from what I have found out..
_________________________________________________________

CA=Counter Attack

Shotgun,mechine gun and rifle attack will attack first whenever being attack by
melee weapon.Missile cannot be CA.Shotgun against shotgun,whose turn attacking
will go out first,this also apply to mechine gun,rifle and melee weapon..Look
out for balanced of AP left because CA will take a lot of AP .



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Number Four
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*Backpack Selection*

Damn it why did Square made this game so hard to squeezed the full potential of
a wanzer.Don't laugh when you see the topic.This is very important.I'm not sure
how I can explained this but I'll try because choosing the right backpack is one
important step in customizing weapon,trust me.

Initially there are 2 types of backpack,one that have slot to put Item in and
the other one is no item slot but you will gain more remaining weight and more
power.So you will think what's the matter,right?

Think again,you have setup your wanzer with all parts without weapon.You have
190+ remaining weight(RW).So you try to put in a fist,shotgun and a Yunsheng
that you just bought.Now when you trying to put in the Yunsheng the RW is -
3,what will you do.So, you check the parts again and you realized "Hey I can
gain more RW with this cool looking backpack.That's cool."Looking at the menu
you realized you "cannot" put in ANY item to restore parts HP Damn,you was just
jumping with joy until you realized it.But you will think,hey I could have more
Power in my wanzer,this is great!But without recovery item, after 4 or 5 turns
I'm sure at least only 2 wanzer can attack  ,one is gone and the other one is
just useless.Luckily the game is not that hard,only some battles are hard until
stage 35+ where easy is no more...I mean it ^_^

Because of this try to balanced out the team such as two wanzers with recovery
item and two more with better firepower.The disadvantages is you will have to
waste some turns healing parts and these will sure give the edge to the
opponents.One more things is the risk is high if the enemies attacks the Item
Equipped wanzer.

This part,I leave it up to you to decide.To play it safe or choosing a hard way.

But I recommend to get a Wanzer with 3 weapon and a Item Enabled backpack,it's
hard to get but not impossible.
In the next update I will show you some example on best equipped wanzer.

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Number Five
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Training Your Wanzer and Pilot(and also collecting money)

I can only post up this info..Wait for next update!

-To earn more money,use the Taal Base Simulator.They give you 1050 or 1200 if
you win.
-Gaining quick weapon level,use the Fukushima Simulator(You can have it after
about 40 mission,I think).The   enemies are tough,really tough I mean.But they
you a lot of EXP and gaining a level or two is quite fast   compared to the not
so hard battle (Taal Base,The Bridge).The trick is to quit after 2 or 3
rounds,if you    can't win it.The EXP you earn is a lot and you will keep all
the battle skills if you learn any.Make sure you  can survive until you can
quit.Just shoot them and you can level up your weapon in no time.
-In battle simulator,kill all enemies.Don't leave them surrendered.This will
lower your income.In simulator you  cannot captured an enemies wanzer.


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-Other-
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-Always catch some wanzers for good stock and money.Selling wanzer is an
important way of having a good amount of cash.Great parts can also be gotten and
some of them are much better than your own parts.

-Train hard using the simulator using battle mode.Don't use test mode because in
battle modes,you will gain experienced and keep all the battle skills that you
have learned.This is also a good way to earn cash if you desperate for
money.Killing enemies in here is much better because if you win the battle
because of the enemies surrendered,you will received less money than it should
be.

-Timing your kill  is crucial if you want to level up your weapon and
character.Try to kill them with all their parts destroyed (not damaged).This
will greatly reward you with a lot of experience.Choose the weak weapon when
killing,this will improved it's strength and skill.

-Check mail always.It contains passwords to authorized websites and other
stories related things.

-Upgrade often and when you afford it.It will help you through the game
better,have better accuracy,better defence and higher evade rate.Evade rate
plays and important parts in this game.

-Group atttack on one enemies is much better than one on one with them.Don't
feel ashamed to use this tactics.Don't feel to heroic to go into the enemies
territory alone and you will end up weaponless or worst
dead.Having minus one enemies is better than having fully loaded enemies with
medium HP.

-Try to give the enemies the no weapon and legs condition.Then gang up on other
wanzer that are not cripple.
Save your turn and don't waste a turn to kill a wanzer with no weapon when there
are one more that have no
broken parts but with low HP.Kill them off first because they still can inflict
major damage even their hand HP is only 1.

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Suggestion.
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Battle Tactics
I got an e mail from Justin.
He tell about a great tactics that have it pro's and cons.
Thanks Justin.Send me more on it so we could discussed it.

His tactic...

The fatal Four Way Attack.(I sort of thinking about the match in Wrestlemania)

   It is like this....



                       P
                     P E P
                       P

               P=Player Wanzer
               E=Enemy Wanzer,Vehicle

Attacking like this for me I think would give you some advantages but major
problem.

The Advantages
==============
You can finished up one enemy easily and fast.The enemy will have less men and
their fire power will be reduced.It will speed up the battle if you can make
that formation in every turn then attack.

The Disadvantages
=================
You will be needing a lot of room and spaces to make that formation.Because of
that you will be easily opened to enemies attack because they will have clear
aim (high accuracy) of hitting you.

Beware of grenades.Grouping up on one area will give a huge advantages to
enemies if they have grenade launcher.Grenade hit hard and give some major damn
great damage to you.From my experienced,I only used Fire-Defence Mode (The Red
F) ONCE when I lost because of two damn grenade launching vehicles.If you want
to try this tactics kill the grenade launcher first.

Another problem is this will make your missile useless against the enemy you
surrounded.

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F.A.Q Section
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Okay,this is a new column.Send in your letter to [email protected]
any question,suggestion or critics.I would like to learn from others who are
experts in making a game guide.


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Acknowledgements
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God     - for letting me breath again.
Justin  - for info on the 'fatal four way attack'(I give that name)
Gamefaqs- they post my guide in my first try.Hey,thanks a lot!


Copyright Info
==============
FM3 is a copyright of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and Square EA.

This guide is made by me,for those who want to post it on their website,mail me
first.Keep it original ok?
Print it if you want but don't sell it.I heard about many shoppers printing
guides from Gamefaqs.com then selling it to make easy money.That's cheating
man!!

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