A new player looking for help

[Sforza]

• I see two stats on the radiator: Cooling and Forced Cooling. What is the difference between the two?
  
• Is the AI Capacity Stat on the head unit just how well the AI will run? Useless if I play manual?
  
• The controls say Triangle is for for switching between right arm and right shoulder. What about the left side?
  
• How do different radars function? How necessary are the various features and radars in general?

One last thing. There are so many different parts, I'm a little lost on which to pick first. Any suggestions on order of part application?

I'll try to answer a few of your questions this time

I think it'll be more helpful to have an in game sample HUD, so:


Cooling: The vertical bar on the left side of the screen. When you use energy, the bar goes down. It goes back up on its own when you stop. How fast it goes up; that's the cooling rate.

Forced cooling: On the bottom part of the energy bar, there's a red part. This part tends to recharge much faster. That's because the part signifies where emergency cooling comes in.

Radar: On the upper right side of the HUD, there's a radar circle. The better your radar stat is, the quicker the updates will be on enemy location. If your stat is low, expect the radar updates to be slower. Imagine playing an FPS (first person shooter) at 5 FPS (frames per second) compared to 25 FPS. It's like that. I generally ignore the radar stat. As long as there is one, it's fine. Doesn't matter if it updates slowly.

I'm not too familiar with the controls anymore, as I haven't played Formula Front in a really long time.

Construction preferences: Normally I start with the weapons I want, then I decide if I want the unit to be a biped, hover or quad. Afterwards, I decide on the speed I want and the armor/defense values.

So for me, it's hand weapons -> core -> legs -> booster/radiator -> arms/head -> everything else. I normally go for heavily armored bipeds with a powerful hand weapon combination (no blades though), with less emphasis on back weapons (unless they're quads or tanks). My style is heavily influenced by Lord Leperman's designs

This is only personal preference! AC players generally have very different design biases, so I'm interested in what other members here have to say as well. Sorry I can't help with the controls question.