Right After Starting - Tips for New Players

This article was translated into English by AI from the Korean version. View original (Korean)

Overview

A summary of things new players should watch out for early in the game.

Terms

Term	Meaning
Core Dust	Currency used to raise the Outpost's Synchro Level
T4-T9 gear	The Nikke gear system. It starts at T4, and in the end you modify and use Manufacturer Gear from among T9
Manufacturer Gear	Gear for Nikkes of a specific manufacturer. T9 Manufacturer Gear can be modified and bound to a Nikke of that manufacturer
Gear Modification	The system that binds T9 Manufacturer Gear to a Nikke of that manufacturer
Collection Item	An item bound to a Nikke to boost her performance
Maintenance Kit	Material for enhancing Collection Items. Obtainable from Solo Raid, Dispatch rewards, and more
Standard Recruit	Recruit tickets used for standard recruitment

Details

Gear leveling only matters for T9 Manufacturer Gear

Nikkes have T4-T9 gear, but the gear you actually keep using is T9, specifically Manufacturer Gear.

T9 Manufacturer Gear can be equipped on a Nikke of that manufacturer, enhanced to level 5, then modified and bound to her.

Other gear (T4-T8 gear, or T9 non-manufacturer gear) will eventually be replaced, so there is no need to invest gear enhancement materials in it.
It is best to level up only T9 Manufacturer Gear.

Do not open Core Dust boxes right away

Some items, like Core Dust boxes and Battle Data boxes, have an orange clock icon in the upper right.

In many games this icon means a time-limited item, so players often use them right away without checking.

But in NIKKE, the orange clock icon does not mean
"must be used within n hours" but rather
"instantly grants the currency you would earn by idling for n hours."

This amount scales with Outpost level, and Outpost level rises with stage progress.

So using the boxes after progressing further through stages gets you more currency.

Rather than using them right away early on, it is better to use them when your stage progress stalls.

Collection Items are scarcer than you think

Early on, lots of Collection Items are handed out through newbie missions, so it is easy to equip them on any Nikke.

But as you actually play, even R Collection Items run short early on, and SR Collection Items remain scarce well into the game.

So early on, do not equip Collection Items on just any Nikke; invest mainly in the Nikkes you use most.

Slapping on SR Collection Items directly is a loss

If you enhance an R Collection Item to stage 15 and then swap to an SR Collection Item, it immediately becomes SR5.

The path R0 → R15 → swap to SR5 → enhance to SR15
costs fewer materials on average than enhancing SR0 → SR15 directly.

In other words, enhancing an R Collection Item first and then swapping is more efficient than equipping an SR one right away.

That said, the actual difference is only a few dozen beginner Maintenance Kits, so you can ignore it without hurting your progress.

Only do the Alice Diary quests up to the 70 Standard Recruit reward

After progressing to a certain point, the "Alice Diary" missions unlock.

Completing 70 of these missions gives you 70 Standard Recruit tickets, so it is worth progressing up to that point.

However, some missions demand excessive investment from new players, so focus on the easy ones.

Also, rewards beyond 70 are poor value for the investment, so there is no need to push them as a new player.