The following contains biased ideals of how to go about starting from scratch. Please stay in your seat and keep your body in the ride at all times. Do not throw plants unless authorized to do so.

To save yourself from getting 1*, skip to a 2* weapon(s) you plan to max out eventually; most new users go for Calibur/Brandish for a sword, an Alchemer (they actually go for Autogun for the consecutive fire, most usually ragequit guns if they do this) for a gun, or Blast for a bomb. Only wimps buy a pack of CE to trade in for 5* equipment because they are too lazy to build it themselves. Most people go with Cobalt or Wolver for 2* armors at this point, check the Wiki for what you want. Keep in mind you will be investing in the equipment. Do not go for something awful just because you like the appearance unless you are able to avoid being hit easily. Since you are most likely in T1 at this point, getting hit is not a significant issue. Cobalt and Wolver are fairly practical against Snarbolax, which can be repeated for funds to make your 2* equipment. If you do the missions you should get a free Cobalt set and inevitably free recipes to max it out. If you want to invest in it, you may as well; you get all the recipes for free anyway. The Cobalt weapons all do normal damage (Leviathan, Valiance, Nitronome) and are commendable for common use. The sword charge attack lets you spin, potentially hitting a target thrice. The gun is basically the Proto gun with more damage, except with slight knockback when it gets 5*. The bomb causes enemies to be flung away from the epicenter upon detonation, causing the screens of you and your teammates to shake in a bright flash. Be wary when planting Blast series bombs. All bombs must use the charge to attack, no exceptions or whining. That means you. The majority of players primarily use swords. Most guns require competency in strafing, excluding Autogun and Magnus series. Those ones are "special".

At this point you have been doing your missions and now have access to the Snarbolax mission to spam it at your leisure. If you plan to primarily use swords, continue running Snarbolax to accumulate tokens for the shield to replace your Cobalt one. The Cobalt set is nice, but the Wolver line gives you sword buffs. Compare your necessities and interests in your own opinion; choose whatever you want. I am not going to babysit you forever. You invest in what you want to get. I am not going to change your diaper because you are not wearing one. If you want to be able to take slightly more damage continue with Cobalt, if you want to do more damage go with Wolver and the Snarbolax shield. Continue spamming the Snarbolax mission until you have enough to upgrade your equipment to 3*. Before doing so, consider which upgrade would yield the greater result; would you get more from upgrading your armor or weapon(s) first? With some equipment the difference is a little more damage, with others it completely changes their mechanics. If I were peeking over your shoulder I would be able to give advice. Assuming you are still using Cobalt/Wolver and primarily sword(s) for your weapons, you are probably using a Calibur and/or Brandish with a gun. If you are using a Brandish and plan to upgrade it to Combuster/Glacius/Voltedge (fire, ice, and shock, respectively), get the shadow Alchemer or use the Cobalt gun. If you are using a Brandish and plan to make it an Acheron, go with one of the element damage Alchemers or the Cobalt gun. Alchemer and Blaster series guns are fairly easy to use. If you are using a Calibur you can use any sidearm you want, Calibur always does normal damage on all upgrades. Problem, damage type dependent weapons?

If you want to do T2 when you get all 2* equipment you can (you are able to go, but I am not one to judge your ability therein), but be wary of difficulty; in T1 enemies are very simple and slow paced. Each tier is more difficult than the previous. Technically each tier is two stratums, one before and after the Basil floor. Mission difficulties show a floor to connect to the template for the Clockworks. Check the Wiki for details.

If anyone cares I can post more later, if anyone wants to know what happens if they run off and do something not generic I will be "happy to oblige". I will definitely not be planning revenge against you for making me type more.

There is no TL;DR when it comes to making a guide for new players. Did you learn how to walk by your parents saying "son/daughter, stand up and walk"?

Did you really just necro-bump a failed notion of a freeplay guide that never got revised into anything useful? Why, oh Vog, why!
Honestly, this topic is a waste of time. I don't have links handy, but still, there's much better advice to be found clicking pretty much any random topic in The Arsenal and nothing worth reading in here. (unfortunately likely including this post, since by the time anyone reads this far it's too late to warn them not to waste their time, but perhaps... just perhaps... the next person coming along 9 months later will read this and decide NOT to necro-post and bump back to the top of the forum a completely worthless subject.)

Instead of buying stuff from AH, and worrying about the price of buying recipes, you should just go get the cobalt helm, armor, calibur, blast bomb/blast gun and the defender lines. You can never go wrong with normal weapons.

Now that wasn't so hard, was it? I'm guessing YOU will need a guide instead of telling players what to do in Spiral knights

Normal weapons aren't strong vs anything, but nothing is strong vs. normal, either. But if you carry 2 special damage types, you can be strong vs. 4 monster types and be able to deal nuetral damage vs. 2 monster types. For an example, if you had a shadowtech and a prismatach alchemer, you could use the shadowtech for gremlins and slimes, and use the prismatech against constructs and undead.

And I agree with Batabii on the fact that the cobalt line isn'y as good as most other armor sets.

If u look at the exchange cr to ce, the cost for 100 ce is ranging from 5,000-6,000 cr. 5*items cost 800 ce and 2,000 cr plus the cost for the recept would be like about 10,000 cr if u get it from the AH. Do the math.

Uh...have you ever crafted a 5* item...? *cough* 800ce+5k cr+25kcr *cough*

The thread had not been posted in for several months straight. It was dead. It also had minimal amounts of useful information in it. Quite a few of the people who originally posted have now left the game completely, although I know for a fact Lugui is still around posting epic walls of text with interesting things in them.
You then raised the thread from the dead again by posting in it, hence the 'necromancy'.

You are now mildly wiser. Please don't do it again.