Levels and Advanced Battleframes
tl;dr: Every battleframe levels on its own from 1 to 45. You start with one Accord frame, pick one of its two advanced frames at level 20 and keep leveling that one. Everything you earn at level 45 goes into Elite Ranks, which is also the way to get further frames without paying for them.
Coming from an older version? Before update 1.6 every character had all five Accord battleframes from the start, and each of them could be leveled to 40. Now you start with one, and an Accord frame ends at level 20, where it turns into an advanced frame.
How Leveling Works
Experience isn't tied to your character, but to the battleframe you're wearing while you earn it. Pretty much everything hands out XP: kills, ARES jobs and missions, campaign missions, operations, bounties, dynamic events and since update 1.6 also PvP matches. Changing the frame at a Battleframe Station means you continue at whatever level that other frame has.
When you create a character, you pick one of the five Accord battleframes and that's the only one you own at first. Since you can have multiple characters on one account, trying out another archetype doesn't require you to commit to it. It's still possible to unlock all fifteen frames on a single character though, it just takes a while.
The First 20 Levels
The Accord frames exist to teach you the archetype. The slots of the frame open up one after another, so you don't have to deal with three abilities, an ultimate and perks in your first five minutes.
| Level | What You Get |
|---|---|
| 3 | First ability slot |
| 4 | Medical System slot |
| 6 | Second ability slot |
| 9 | Third ability slot |
| 10 | Ultimate ability (HKM) slot, first perk and first perk point |
| 12 | Operation High Tide |
| 15 | Second perk |
| 20 | Advanced battleframe, two more perks |
| 25 | Two perks |
| 30 | Advanced perk |
| 35 | Advanced perk |
| 40 | Master perk |
| 45 | Master perk, level cap, Elite Ranks |
From level 10 on, every level also grants one perk point, which adds up to 36 points at level 45. What to do with them is covered in the perks guide.
Level 20: the Advanced Battlelab
At level 20 your frame stops earning experience. Yes, really, the bar doesn't move anymore until you've done the mission you get at that point. It sends you to the testing facility at Trans-Hub Command, where you can try out both advanced frames of your archetype. Once you've picked one and leave the facility, your Accord frame turns into that advanced frame and you continue from 20 to 45.
As such Accord frames don't exist above level 20 and advanced frames don't exist below it. You keep the perks you've unlocked so far, and the abilities of the Accord frame stay available to the advanced one.
| Level 1 to 20 | Level 20 to 45 | Or |
|---|---|---|
 Accord Assault |
 Omnidyne-M Tigerclaw |
 Astrek Firecat |
 Accord Dreadnaught |
 Omnidyne-M Mammoth |
 Astrek Rhino |
 Accord Engineer |
 Omnidyne-M Bastion |
 Astrek Electron |
 Accord Recon |
 Omnidyne-M Nighthawk |
 Astrek Raptor |
 Accord Biotech |
 Omnidyne-M Dragonfly |
 Astrek Recluse |
What the individual frames are about is described on the battleframe pages. Note that the choice isn't final in the sense that the other frame is lost. You can still get it later, see below.
Experience per Level
The numbers are taken from the static database of the 1962 client and match what the live servers handed out: a level 45 frame in a capture from November 2016 has a lifetime XP of exactly 130'080'000. The experience bar starts at zero with every level, so the first column is what the bar asks for.
| Level | XP to the Next Level | Total XP | Level | XP to the Next Level | Total XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3'000 | 3'000 | 23 | 1'101'000 | 6'634'000 |
| 2 | 6'000 | 9'000 | 24 | 1'269'000 | 7'903'000 |
| 3 | 9'000 | 18'000 | 25 | 1'459'000 | 9'362'000 |
| 4 | 13'000 | 31'000 | 26 | 1'673'000 | 11'035'000 |
| 5 | 17'000 | 48'000 | 27 | 1'913'000 | 12'948'000 |
| 6 | 22'000 | 70'000 | 28 | 2'183'000 | 15'131'000 |
| 7 | 27'000 | 97'000 | 29 | 2'486'000 | 17'617'000 |
| 8 | 33'000 | 130'000 | 30 | 2'827'000 | 20'444'000 |
| 9 | 39'000 | 169'000 | 31 | 3'208'000 | 23'652'000 |
| 10 | 53'000 | 222'000 | 32 | 3'635'000 | 27'287'000 |
| 11 | 87'000 | 309'000 | 33 | 4'113'000 | 31'400'000 |
| 12 | 142'000 | 451'000 | 34 | 4'648'000 | 36'048'000 |
| 13 | 189'000 | 640'000 | 35 | 5'247'000 | 41'295'000 |
| 14 | 238'000 | 878'000 | 36 | 5'916'000 | 47'211'000 |
| 15 | 295'000 | 1'173'000 | 37 | 6'662'000 | 53'873'000 |
| 16 | 358'000 | 1'531'000 | 38 | 7'496'000 | 61'369'000 |
| 17 | 428'000 | 1'959'000 | 39 | 8'426'000 | 69'795'000 |
| 18 | 509'000 | 2'468'000 | 40 | 9'464'000 | 79'259'000 |
| 19 | 599'000 | 3'067'000 | 41 | 10'621'000 | 89'880'000 |
| 20 | 702'000 | 3'769'000 | 42 | 11'910'000 | 101'790'000 |
| 21 | 813'000 | 4'582'000 | 43 | 13'346'000 | 115'136'000 |
| 22 | 951'000 | 5'533'000 | 44 | 14'944'000 | 130'080'000 |
The curve is pretty flat up to level 10, then it takes off. The last level alone, from 44 to 45, costs nearly 15 million XP, which is more than the first 27 levels together.
Keep in mind that the level cap was 40 with update 1.6 and got raised to 45 with update 1.7. The database already has the rows up to level 50, which was the announced next step, but the game never got there.
Getting More Battleframes
- Level a frame to 45 and collect Elite Ranks. Battleframes are among the rare rewards, and every tenth rank offers rare rewards only.
- Buy the frame with Red Beans.
- Create another character and start with a different Accord frame.
A frame unlocked through Elite Ranks or Red Beans can be used in PvE and PvP, and it starts at the level its kind starts at: an Accord frame at level 1, an advanced frame at level 20.