Build Up

**Build Up** in *Metal Slug Attack* is the equivalent of *Metal Slug Defense*'s **Customise** menu. Here a player can upgrade their Base and Units as well as setting up their decks for a fight.

## Customize Unit

This menu is dedicated to improving individual Units' Stats. There is a good number of ways of doing so, each with their own requirements and benefits. In this menu units are sorted by several criteria (cannot be changed, but can be filtered by faction):

* Ownership status (whether the player has it unlocked).
* Level.
* Number of skills unlocked ("released").
* Evolution tier.
* HP
* Metal Arena ranking. *(Refer to the section below for more information)*

### Evolution

Units can use up corresponding parts to **Evolve** to the next tier (represented by the frame around a unit's icon: Iron -> Bronze -> Silver -> Gold -> Platinum). Every time a new tier is reached base HP and Attack Damage are multiplied by 1.1 (see the table below), additionally the AP cost is reduced by a constant value (for that unit).

Certain units have a 1.3x multiplier instead of the usual 1.1x:

* Elephant Slug (Battery)
* Christmas Fio
* Deformed Slug Gunner
* Rugname X

Valentine Nadia has a 1.53x multiplier for her first two evolutions, and the usual 1.1x for the two after. Big Shiee does not gain health when evolved at all.

Aside from HP and Attack Damage, some units' Resistance is affected by Evolution:

* Marco (+3)
* Tarma (+4)
* Eri (+2)
* Fio (+2)
* SV-Camel
* Loretta (+10)

A unit starts evolved to a specific tier (stat bonuses included, except AP cost reduction for most units) depending on its **Rarity** (the number of parts needed to unlock it):

 StartingTier

Certain rare units do have their AP costs decreased when unlocked - the initial cost listed in the units' card goes down immediately. Some are:

* Ring Laser Mecha - from 130 to 123.
* Ohumein-Conga (Red) - from 210 to 200.
* Morden Robot - from 140 to 133.

Red Eye is not awarded an AP discount when evolving from Bronze to Silver.

### Equipment

 Items can be put into **Equipment Slots** (cannot be unequipped) for a permanent stat increase that is affected by Skills unlocked and levels of the latter. Items required differ greatly among units, as do corresponding effects. After filling out all 6 equipment slots a skill can be unlocked ( **Released** as the game puts it), providing either special attacks, effects, or a stat increase. Effects from items required by previous skills remain and stack with each new set. The amount of skills unlocked is represented by stars under a unit's icon.

### Status Strengthening

Introduced in Update 4.9.0, players can equip **Status Strengthening Items** to bolster the resistance of their units against debuffs. With each resistances levelled up, they're less frequent of getting inflicted with a debuff (such as the likes of Stuns). Each Evolution levels of the unit adds 2 more levels for the Status Strengthening upgrade, and with a maximum of Lv 10.

Following the Update 4.13.0, certain units can equip HP and ATK enhancement items exclusively. These status strengthening items will significantly boost their HP and attack damage to the upmost levels. Although the increase can be either by multiplier or by percentage.

Introduced by the Update 5.0.0, Ultimate Bosses are able to gain AP reduction once they have reached platinum frame due to their immense AP cost even in platinum frame. Players can spend  and use 15 spare parts of an Ultimate Boss to convert it to a single level AP reduction. Each levels give 0.5% AP reduction with a maximum of 50%.

All Ultimate Bosses require a total of 1500 parts to gain 50% AP reduction bonus. This may take an immense amount of time and effort however.

**Note**: Users must reach Level 25 in order to upgrade the Status Strengthening of their units.

### Skills

**Skills** are the power-up enhancers of every units the game. Unlike *Metal Slug Defense*'s level up. Skills can be found in the units tab on the right side.

Skills in turn can be upgraded for  MSP via **Skill Strengthening** (Called "List of Skills" pre-1.6.0) (not higher than the unit's current  Level past Level 10) and provide with a marginal increase in effectiveness. Costs of each level linearly increase depending on which skill it is:

* Skill 1 -  500.
* Skill 2 -  1,000.
* Skill 3 -  3,000.
* Skill 4 -  5,000.

### Levelling Up

MSP can be spent on **Powering-Up** that increases a unit's Level by 1 (represented by the number under a unit's icon, and not higher than the player's current Level past Level 10) and increases HP and Attack Damage by a constant fraction of the original value, every 10th upgrade adding the double of that fraction:

With most units, every 10th level sees a total HP / Attack Damage increase of 50% of the base, however there are exceptions:

* **R-Shobu Ver. P.M.** - additional 100% of Short (Near) Attack Damage.

* **Sasquatch** - additional 25% Resistance.
* **Nop-03 Sarubia** additional Resistance(+1) for each level.
* **Sho**, **Mizuna**, and **Damian** have their Stats growth reduced to balance out their somewhat high base damage.

### Ranking Unit

This is the list of the Top 200 Units that have won in a Rank Match. Each rank tiers have their own unit rankings with the latest week being calculated.

The units' rankings are being determined by how overwhelming they are in battle, performance, or how often they are being used by the players in a rank match.

### Customize Deck

Players are given 3 decks to organise battle groups with. Up to 10 units can be in one deck at a time, plus a unit for hire (for MSP) provided by one of the Guild members (if the player is in a guild) that is selected before a mission. If a deck if made with units exclusively from a single faction, they all receive a +10% HP bonus.

More decks can be bought with medals; this is typically not recommended as the medals can be used for other purposes.

## Customize Bases

Players can upgrade various stats that affect their effectiveness as a whole, regardless of deck composition. Every upgrade thread cannot exceed the player's Level (past Level 10) and costs progressively more to move up.

### Sortie Level

Increases Sortie Point storage capacity by 2 with every upgrade (stacks with capacity bonus from the player's Level). Useful for players that cannot spend accumulating SPs in time before they exceed storage capacity.

### Base Level

Increases your base's Health Points - if it's destroyed, you lose.

 10
 20
 30
 40
 50

Updates to the game have increased these stats over time:

 2.10.0 ~ 3.15.0
 3.16.0 ~ 4.14.0
 4.15.0 ~ 4.23.0
 5.0.0 ~ Current

### Development Speed Level

Increases speed at which the player generates APs in combat. It is an extremely important upgrade when battling, as it will increase the speed of how fast your base will generate AP, which in turn will determine how fast you can deploy units. The player starts at normal AP production speed (based on their AP production level). There are 12 upgrades, with each upgrade increasing your AP production by 50%, which stacks up to 600% of your AP production level.

#### Optimal AP Usage

The table below describe the optimal usage of the AP Level for sending the first unit as early as possible with a base of 20 AP/s.

* **Time to Next Level:** the minimum amount of time needed to upgrade to the next AP level without any AP variation.
* **Total Time to Current Level:** the minimum amount of time needed to reach the current AP level from the start of the battle without any AP variation.
* **Optimal Unit AP Cost**: optimal AP cost for sending the first unit.
* **Optimal Time**: time taken to send the first unit.

### Hangar Level

Increases how many APs the player can store while in combat. The player starts off with an initial limit which is based on how developed their Hangar Level is. This also stacks with the AP production upgrade in a battle, so the higher your hangar level is, the more AP you can store at any given time. Each on-site upgrade increases the max amount of APs you can hold at any given time by 50% of your Hangar Level. There are 12 of these upgrades, at that level, players can store up to 600% of what their Hangar Level can hold at level 1. Prior to the 1.6.0 patch, the maximum amount of AP that could be stored was 9,999.

### Production Speed Level

Fairly important in battles, as increased production levels means a unit can be quickly redeployed again after being sent out to battle.

### Destruction Bonus Level

Increases the amount of AP that is gained when killing enemy units. Important in prolonged battles.

### MSP Gain Level

Improves MSP rewards gained from completing missions. It starts with a multiplier of 1.0 at level 1 and each upgrade increases the multiplier by 0.1. MSP rewards determined by completion rank (how fast a level is beaten) are not affected.

 50 | 5.9

### Supports

These supports can be used all over the game's multiple modes.

#### Metal Slug Attack Level

Increases strength of the charging self-destructing SV-001 command power. [**Super Metal Slug Attack** x3 effect to be reflected.]

The player may send a SV-001 careening to the enemy lines, exploding upon impact on an enemy unit (including itself, should the enemy use it and both land on each other) or blocker. At level 50, it deals damage up to 69.4% of the enemy unit(s) max health as damage or at least 54,000 damage. Units struck by the SV-001 while suffering from the effects of armor break will be instantly killed regardless of health.

The SV-001 can instantly kill some units (e.g miners) without exploding. Units killed this way do not stop the SV-001 until it hits a proper target or hits up to ten of these units in a row.

If the SV-001 hits the enemy base it, deals 14,385 damage.

**Minimun damage to unit:** *4,000 + 1,000 × LEVEL*

**Unit's max health as damage (in percentage):** *40 + 0.6 × LEVEL*

**Damage to base:** *(1,332 × (LEVEL + 4)) / 5*

#### Metal Slug Charge Level

This determines how fast the player may send Metal Slug supports.

#### Recovery Charge Level

Speeds up recharge of recovery. When activated, it will heals all of the player's units to full, resets their production time (if not under production lock) so they may be immediately deployed again, and applies stun, poison, knockback and silence immunity, even if some these debuffs are not being used by the enemy.

#### Reload Charge Level

When used, it will immediately recharge all unit's special attack bars regardless if they are filled or not. Often used with units that are utilised for their special attacks.

## Laboratory

*Main article: Laboratory*
First introduced in 4.0.0, the **Laboratory** is unlocked at Level 20. As it name implies, players can use the Laboratory to freely create a deck to test any units, customizing their levels, evolution frames, skills, etc. against an another computer-controlled units which the player can also customize at their own preferences.