Hello all. I am new to Spiral Knights as of the other day and I am learning a lot. I see that there are a lot of equipment choices. Rather than worry about what the best equipment in the game is, can anyone suggest a set of equipment I should try to get first? Should I go right for two stars or settle for one star initially? Also am I better off trying to craft it or buy it from a vendor? Thank you.

I noticed that tier 2 on the start party screen is locked for me, i have noob gear but managed to make it to floor 8 where 2 beefy guards said i couldnt go past, this then made me end the party, im guessing i need to have better gear to go to tier 2 places, is this correct?

Few questions from a newb.

1: My friend wants an angelic raiment, where am I going to find the recipe to make this? The wiki doesn't say. I'm assuming I wont just find it in a shop either.

2: I see plenty of recipes in stores, but is it possible to get them as drops from chests/monsters?

3: I started a guild, went to the guild hall...and I see an alchemy bench, but no NPCs. The Wiki says a guild hall should have NPCs too. Is it possible to upgrade the guild hall somehow? More members? Energy? Right now my guild only has 4 members.

Will a Super Blaster made with a level 1 Blaster be worse than a Super Blaster made with a level 10 Blaster in any way?

1) Assuming my searches were correct, this game is browsert / java based? Is that accurate?

2) Also, is there any matchmaking or lobbies or some sort of place to meet up with people to play with?

Any tips you could give to a person thinking about starting up in this game would be welcome.

Thank you kindly.

All right, I keep having to stop at the end of the Tier 1 floors because I don't have any tier-2 gear. Are 2-starred items Tier 2? And if that's true, then are 3-starred items Tier 3? Then what does that make 4- or 5-starred items?

Also, how can I craft all this armor if the materials on the recipe never drop? I've been looking for Beast Scales for a bit and it doesn't seem to me like they're ever going to drop... Same goes for a couple other materials.

So i talked a friend in to join Spiral Knights yesterday for the official launch. when she got in game i tried trading her some of my old 2* equipment but it wouldn't go in to the trade box.
my question is can we trade equipment from character to character?

So i recently did a bid for CEx100 for 1701. When i checked later, the highest bid was 16xx

I'm guessing my bid got bought, but i didn't receive any CE. What happened?

So you get the option to transfer the unique variant on your equipment when you upgrade it, this is optional for some reason, does that mean there is a downside to doing this?

So, I'm liking this game so far, but given that mist energy runs out really quickly and I do not (yet) want to spend actual money on this game, what's my incentive after it runs out?
Is there any way to keep on 'progressing', somehow? Leveling some other way?
Because otherwise I cannot fathom how this game could function without spending cash frequently.