So this has been a multi-year project that I've been just casually working on. It's just how I enjoy playing the game. It's only recently that I started watching pannenkoek2012's videos on Super Mario 64 with 0 and 0.5 A presses and all the glitches and cloning tricks he highlights that I decided I should make a post about what I've been doing, and all the bugs I've encountered in the game's progression system that no normal player would ever encounter.

Backstory
I play a lot of games in a way where I dawdle around midgame and hang around with new players teaching them the ropes. At that point I know enough about the bulk of the game that people will be playing, while still keeping out of the stale grindy meta and therefore leaving it as some sort of mystery in my mind. Spiral Knights was no exception and before long after I started in late 2011, I had made myself a Guild called "Cobalt Squires" which I was using as my base of operations. I had made a second account, a knight called "Zeroxyl" to hang around in the Rescue Camp and chat to people, and play with the training mission with them. I made quite a few friends there.

Some people there were on computers also used by other family members to play the game, so they often had no way to complete the "Crossing the Chasm" mission to reach Haven because their brother or whatnot had already used up all that IP's Mist Energy. I noticed that you could "flag" (change a career-related variable on a character's profile) Haven hometown instead of Rescue Camp hometown (the place where you start when you log in) by simply visiting Haven. This could be done by joining a friend in Haven (a very unlikely scenario) or, as I learned...

The Guild Hall Portal
The front door of the Guild Hall says "Haven" now doesn't it? I learned you could join (or create) a guild, enter it through your Social menu, and then casually walk out the front door, and presto! You're in Haven without needing to complete the Tutorial missions. I knew of this trick for quite a while, but I tried to avoid using it personally as it was a one-way trip, and I didn't want to leave the Rescue Camp. (I lost Zeroxyl a few times by clicking on friends and accidentally hitting "join" instead of "tell" and had to recreate her)

Getting Equipment
One day, I met a knight named "Dimple". He was a recruiter for some guild, Time whatsits or something, can't remember now, and he was kitted in 2 Star Wolver gear. I thought "well isn't that interesting" and we talked whenever I saw him. He had gear mailed to him from his main knight, 2 star gear being cheap and not really a big loss to mail to an account that will never use it. But there I decided to also attempt to get some fancy gear on Zeroxyl. I could do one better though. In the old Guild Hall design, there was an alchemy machine. I mailed over recipes and ended up crafting on her Fused Demo Helm, Boosted Plate Mail, Heavy Plate Shield and an Avenger. It was a lot cheaper crafting with her because that way I didn't need to pay some ludicrous unbind fee.

Later on I met a representative (probably a joke character) from Echoes of Silence. It was a character in full Ancient Plate. I thought it was pretty funny at the time. I also met a character... Magci or Mercuri or something to do with metal... who told me it was his goal to reach 5 star from Rescue Camp. I was in awe, I thought that was an ridiculously ambituous goal and I wished him luck.

Invites to the Clockworks
Something I also figured out was that anyone, anywhere, can be invited to join a party. (unless that party is locked or restricted, of course) I used this occaisionally to enter the Arcade clockworks from the Rescue Camp, when friends I had added had made it to Haven and decided to invite me. Zeroxyl was the first knight on which I got an Almirian Token! Granted I didn't do that much in the fight but my revive skills (I used to pride myself on being the fastest responder to a death, without taking any damage. Thanks Touhou.) helped me survive the entire fight.

With Zeroxyl's mixed 3 and 4 star gear, I was even able to "flag" Tier 2 access by talking to the Guardian by the Moorcroft Manor forcefield (the old way in which you unlocked new tier access is by talking with him with the minimum requirements for that tier equipped) although I was still unable to start parties as the console for that was in The Arcade (There was no mission interface with the M key back then)

I tested all my methods with alt knights so that I wouldn't mess up Zeroxyl's Rescue Camp state (thankfully I never did after getting her good gear, I was very careful.

The Introduction of Missions
So Missions came out, and that changed a lot of things. Firstly, it meant that there were a LOT more flags. It changed some things so that simply joining someone in Haven wouldn't immediately set you to having Haven as your hometown, like it used to. So you could join someone in Haven from the rescue camp, and bounce back to the Rescue Camp once you logged off (Alternativel you could "Return to Rescue Camp" from the ESC menu) This meant that the Guild Hall Portal was more practical for me, but no longer such for new knights who just wanted to skip the tutorial.

The Fall of Zeroxyl
Something I didn't mind doing was doing just the Rescue Camp missions. They changed a few times over the course of the game - the talking mission when you first walk in, the side mission you can do etc - there once was a 0-energy repeatable mission that gave you a couple crowns and allowed you to test the proto bomb. The amount of times they changed who gave you that proto bomb over the course of Spiral Knights' lifetime, yeesh. Launch day of the Missions. I decided to do "The Ancient Generator" with Zeroxyl. Couldn't be so bad, right? It's not like I was going to Haven, I wasn't Crossing the Chasm or anything. But that's when I messed up. The instances of the Rescue Camp where it's sunset, and the instance where it's night, I discovered are TWO different instnaces. You get to the night version by completing The Ancient Generator, since that powers up all the Knight's defenses so they can survive the knight. And there's no way to go back. This really upset me because when you first enter the Rescue Camp, you enter the sunset version, and that's where people can have problems with finding the mission interface and whatnot. I decided it was time to make a new rescue camp Knight.

Enter Mr-Hex
Mr-Hex (later Hex-Chan) was my Missions launch day knight, and the start of my quest to abolish the use of missions, for a lot of reasons I won't go into here. One of the Primary reasons I didn't like the way they shoehorned players into the game in a linear path when the Arcade used to be so free and open. So Mr-Hex was going to be my "Mission Free" knight. I joined a guild. Not Cobalt Squires, by then I had closed the project. I was still helping newer players but it wasn't a full-time ordeal like it once was. I don't recall which it was but I got into it by wandering around Haven with the aforementioned guild portal trick. Under the guise of a new player (masquerading as a weaker character and having people underestimate you is quite fun because you can really identify who the jerks are when they start mistreating their fellow player just because they have better gear than you) I took up the path of the Troika. I had a frost gun I used for some time (even when I had 4-star Khovorod) because of needing to hit switches at a distance and the freeze was nice for setting turrets up.

The thing about Mr-Hex is I earned most of the crown for his weapons on that knight (where Zeroxyl had the stuff mailed to her) which was an achievement for me, personally.

Rescue Camp UVs
When the new missions came out, like all the early missions in Haven, Rescue Camp reward equipment came with UVs. There was nothing that great, among a Punch Gun and Hatchet there was a Vitasuit with Freeze Med, a Cyclops Cap with Fire Med, and a Proto Bomb with CTR High. People who were already in Haven though decided this was worth complaining about, and thus Three Rings stripped all Rescue Camp mission of their UVs, and provided the items on the Featured Sales for a few days.

Cobalt Equipment
When Boost was around, taking care of energy purchase interactions, Kozma used to sell Cobalt recipes. Blaster, Calibur, Cobalt Armor and Helm, Defender, and Blast Bomb (but not any of their sidegrades) could all be purchased from Kozma. The recipes did not occur in Basil's recipe circulation. (except Blast Bombs for some reason) With the addition of missions, Boost was soon removed from the game (I started shouting this out in Haven when I read the upcoming patch notes and it snowballed into a huge farewell party XD dear god the lag...) and Kozma took his role. This meant that there were no more tradeable cobalt recipes being brought into the game, something I didn't find out until a year or two later, when I went to go make my Heater Shield. I had to craft a 3* Defender on a Knight I owned with the recipes, traded it to a friend so they could heat it then craft it to 4* Defender, and then they unbound it and traded it back so I could make it into a Heater Shield. It might have been cheaper if I could locate someone with the tradeable recipes but by then they were practically a collector's item that no-one knew was a collector's item. I couldn't make Cobalt Armor easily so Almirian Crusader armor seemed like it was out of the question as being a little to pricey. (I also wanted a Valiance, q.q)

Joining Missions
There was a change I didn't notice about the Arcade, but figured out later. You originally could join people in the Arcade, provided you had Haven access. Due to some complaints about low-geared players turning up in people's FSC runs, this was eventually changed so that you could only join people in the Arcade if you had Tier clearance for the tier they are in. (Although invites still overrided this)

Missions however, anyone on your friends or guild list could join. They wouldn't gain completion for that mission unless it was unlocked for them, but they could still play with you. This is how I played on Mr-Hex in my guild a lot (as well as asking people to invite me to the arcade runs). It was really relationship building, knowing I had to rely on other people to play the game, and helped encourage me to be a more friendly person so I would be invited to future runs. It drove me to be active in my guild's community to keep it alive, and making it to Officer in Hydra was a momentus moment for me.

The Equipment Restriction
In 2013, when these were announced to be implemented, I crapped myself. I thought I would be locked to using the same equipment forever since I wouldn't be able to change my gear, because then I'd never get it back on again. I made a tonne of loadouts incase that could bypass the restriction through a loophole, and I rushed through a Shadow Lair to get my much-desired Heavenly Iron Armor. (By now I was full 5 star - if you had told me in early 2012 would have reached this, I would not have believed you. I got my beloved Sudaruska in January, and by then I believed I had mastered it)

The patch came out on July 30th, 2013, with the following notes:
"Any equipment bound before this patch will become your new current equip limit. For example. A knight who had only completed missions through Rank 3 but had 4 star gear equipped will be able to equip gear 4 star and below until achieving Rank 8."

From now on, no new knights would ever reach 5 star from Rescue Camp. I tread more carefully than ever to ensure that Mr-Hex's Rescue Camp status was preserved, even though I was tempted later on...

Event Items and the Evasive Brinks
Event/Boss tokens and items could be gained just like you would imagine. I got my Stagger Storm by participating in enough Lockdown Matches (lockdown can be entered even in Rescue Camp, something I showed the treasure hunters from Steam back in the day so they could get their snowball achievement) and the rewards could be cashed in at the Guild Hall's Coliseum room. Thank god for the Guild Hall rooms, they helped so much in making this playstyle a lot easier since almost all the game's services could be accessed.

The rest of the event items were pretty straightforward - you got them by being invited to the mission or boss strata, but cashing them in required a trip to Brinks in Haven. The Brinks that are in Subtowns I couldn't access. Remember how Missions changed the way we got tier access with the Hall of Heroes? I couldn't unlock Tier 2 and 3 on Hex-Chan, so whenever I joined or entered those Subtowns, I would always appear on the elevator platform at the very south of the subtown, so the rest of the subtown was blocked off by the barrier.

Zeroxyl could still pass through the barrier in Moorcroft Manor since she had gotten Tier 2 clearance before the system was changed (Tier 2 clearance is a seperate flag to the associated Hall of Heroes, but now they both flag at the same time)

I don't remember exactly when the vial-throw glitch was removed, but I don't recall getting much, if any, use out of it on Mr-Hex. The vial-throw glitch was a hitbox bug in which one person ran directly upwards into the barrier and another would throw a vial upwards at them. The thrown vial would displace the character running into the barrier, often sideways, but sometimes upwards through the barrier. Lots of people used to use this a lot to enter Tier 3 when they only had Tier 2 clearance, for instnace when they were one or two items short of the 4 star set

The Mysterious Alchemy Machine was in Haven too, so I could use the Guild Hall Portal to reach that to craft my Apocrean Obsidian Bomb. I didn't get enough stuff to make any of the Christmas gear though.

It was about a year in to the Mission system that the Guild Hall Portal bug was patched. Now whenever you go through the guild hall door, you re-enter your hometown. I'm not sure if the fix was intentional or accidental, but it seems like the latter. So now I had no way to access Brinks as the guild hall portal was closed, and I was now blocked from entering Haven. Luckily, I had already gotten my Prismatic Cupcake hat before then, but was all hope lost?

Black Kats and Tortodrones
In early 2013, the Kat event occured. I could hunt Black Kats with everyone else, but the problem was I couldn't cash them in. The only place to do that was either in Haven during the event (which I could not access) and at Montague in Moorcroft Manor, behind that blasted tier barrier!. My jimmies were rustled so much, I had considered on multiple occaisions to cash in my Recruit status so I could equip one of those gorgeous hats for myself without paying a gratuitous unbind fee. In the end I caved in to purchasing the 3 star hiss mask of a friend.

In 2014, March of the Tortodrones was introduced. The lobby of this mission had a Mysterious Alchemy Machine! And since it was a mission, I could join it. So I had access to event crafting without needing to set foot in Haven. I was overjoyed that I could upgrade my Hiss Mask with purchased whiskers, and that I could craft the Christmas event items once they came around again. I got the normal Tortodrone gun and shield too - I was a lover of all normal and underused weapons.

Then I found something really cool in 2015. Goddamn expensive, but cool. Apparently if you are below the Moorcroft Barrier when a Book of Dark Rituals is used to summon Margrel, you are automatically teleported to the summoning location. With this I was able to both craft the Hiss Mail (which I later repeated this trick to upgrade it to the gorgeous golden 4 star varient, because the materials are bound) but I could also cash in all those tokens i had been saving up with Brinks, and Montague
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0si43k66tkl3x2b/spiral_2015-07-09_04-10-36.png...

The Final Hurdle
Battle Sprites. Battle Sprites seemed inherently connected to Missions. I was lost for ideas on how to obtain one on a Rescue Camp knight. (Heck, I even submitted a support request to see if that would work, to no avail XD) I had mailed a Siamese Seraphynx to Hex-Chan to test if event Sprites could be opened, but nope, there was the flag still, "can't open until you've done mission An Eternal Friend" or whatever.

However, one day, when I started up the game again after a long time away, I ended up helping a friend through some of the earlier missions. It was then I discovered that Sprite access is temporarily unlocked so that they can LEND you a sprite for the duration of the sprite rescue missions. By opening a sprite box then, you make that flag PERMANENT. I cheered. Out loud.

I couldn't enter the Laboratory since there's a gate that remains closed and an NPC that informs you that you can't come in until you're a higher rank. And I can't join other people in the laboratory because it's a mission instance with a restriction of one player. But there's a copy+paste of the laboratory on the last floor of the mission "The Collector". I can purchase Harnesses and make Pet Food there. (Although there was a bug where if you purchase a Harness before getting your first Battle Sprite, the game sees you already have a Harness and thus doesn't give you the free Normal Harness. I had to file a support request to get the normal harness) So whenever I need pet food missions I just join someone doing The Collector mission.

Conclusion
So I reached 5 star in Rescue Camp. Not only that, but I've managed to play all levels in the game and can access all the equipment, though some of which is a bit more tricky or expensive than others. ^w^