New Player Briefing

This New Player Briefing goes over some basic tidbits of information about how the game works. You can also get some information in the starting out guide.

Parties and Exploring Levels

• When loot such as crowns and hearts drop, they drop for everyone in the party. Everyone gets their own copy of the loot so it isn't possible to steal loot from your teammates..
• Heat is collected during a level, but only gained after clearing it by activating the elevator at the end.
• Everything that is not heat or a Mineral is gained as soon as it is collected.
• Each player receives a free Emergency Revive per depth. Additional revives require a Spark of Life.
• Every player begins a depth with a minimum of 3 health bars. If your Emergency Revive from the previous depth was unused, you will start the depth with full health.
• If someone is defeated and everyone else gets on the lift to the next level, the lift goes down, the defeated person doesn't gain any heat, and will automatically use their Emergency Revive to resurrect at the beginning of the next depth.
• A knight can use a Spark of Life to revive a defeated party member. To grant a Spark to someone in the party, click on their portrait and choose the option 'Revive using a Spark of Life'.
• If someone is defeated and everyone else steps onto the party button, the defeated person will be automatically warped to the party button. The same is true of players experiencing connection issues.
• More crowns and heat drop on harder difficulties and in deeper levels of a tier, so for example the first 4 depths of tier 3 give much less crowns and heat compared to the last 5 depths.
• If everyone in a party is dead, the party will get kicked back to Haven after a few minutes if nobody revives.

Bonuses and Equipment

• Equipment can be unbound for a fee by Vise.
• Equipment can be bought from vendors, other players, or crafted. Crafting requires a learned recipe, materials and crowns.
• Bound items can be sold directly to any of the Strangers in the Bazaar.
• Crafting an item using one that is already bound to you will result in another bound item.
• Equipment levels up to level 10 maximum, except for trinkets which are complete at level 1.
• Heating an item requires you to use the Forge between levels.
• Leveling up equipment raises their stats up to the limit of the dark blue shadowed area of the stat bars.
• Heat is divided evenly among all the equipment that needs to be leveled.
• Weapons get charge time reduction bonuses at levels 5 and 10.
• Armors get +1 health at levels 5 and 10.
• Each time you craft, there is a chance of getting up to three unique variants (UV) of an item, with a random bonus; offensive for weapons, defensive for armor.
• The UV is displayed in yellow with an orb, and can be transferred to the higher level version of the same item when crafting.
• Bonuses are additive, not multiplicative. Bonuses can be negative. See Bonus for numbers and addition examples.
• Weapons can have offensive bonuses. Armor can have defense and/or offensive bonuses.
• Offensive bonuses are percentual. They cap at a maximum.
• Attack speed increase value for swords has a hard cap, which mostly affects the cutter/spur line.
• Defensive bonuses are static.
• Weapons get stronger depending on the depth you are in and their star rating. At the last depth of tier 2 a 3* weapon will be dealing full damage, while a 5* weapon will not.
• Armors health bonus lessens when not wearing them on lower tiers. So for example a 5* armor will give less health than expected in tier 2 or 1, but a 3* armor will still give the max health it states in tier 3.

Progress

• Playing Tier 2 requires having each of at least 2 star rated armor/helm/shield/weapon equipped and talking to Barrus in the Hall of Heroes.
• Playing Tier 3 requires having each of at least 4 star rated armor/helm/shield/weapon equipped and talking to Barrus in the Hall of Heroes.
• After you have access to Tier 2 or 3, you can start a party at Moorcroft/Emberlight, or join parties in those tier depths.

Energy

• Energy can be purchased from other players in the Energy Depot market tab with crowns, or with real money from Three Rings.

Gates

• A stratum determines which levels will appear in a given segment of the gate.
• A stratum goes from the start of a tier to a terminal, or from a terminal to the end of the tier.
• There are two type of levels; premade levels always have the same design, and randomly generated levels are made from different premade sections joined together.

Haven

• There are many instances of Haven, you can switch between them by clicking the button with three lines.

Troubleshooting

• Check this sticky first: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/48
• Additional information can be found in the Frequently Asked Questions.

See Also

• List of commonly used abbreviations

Other links

• Deutscher Artikel: Einführung für neue Spieler
• Artículo en español: Información para nuevos jugadores
• Article en français: Informations pour Nouveaux Joueurs

Tutorials & Guides
Starting Out | New Player Briefing | User interface | Useful Links
Bombing Guide | Gunslinger Guide | Swordmaster Guide
Shieldbearer Guide
Hybrid Guide