Wondering if it's necessary to complete the whole previous tier to unlock a certain gate and remove the fee or can you just jump in one depth prior and still unlock the gate? *edit*(given you meet all the requires to advance as well).
For example you want to unlock a gate for t2 so you jump in a game at 7 complete the depth would that count?
Yes it counts, and its a good thing to do. I think a lot of people don't care so much about unlocking gate access because it seems like a small fee but if you run gates a lot in a week, its worth it.
So if you have a friend/guild on d7, jump in on it! That's 10 energy (~500 cr), to save yourself money for 8 days. If you run that gate more than 3 times in tier 2, you already made up for it. And its not a total loss even without that because any d7 level of tier 1 is fairly profitable (about 700-1000 crowns, maybe more).