Start with the coached Campaign, equip the Thruster earned from Tin Can, upgrade your Buzz Saw when prompted, and learn to Dash away from a committed Rage attack. Build one boss around weapons that want to fight at the same range.
Start with the tutorial route
Your first machine teaches the same loop you will use throughout Boss Lab: assemble, fight, read the result and revise. The opening path takes you through Tin Can, equipping the awarded Thruster, upgrading Buzz Saw and fighting Sawtooth. Keep the tutorial active if you are learning the controls; you can replay it from Settings.
Movement and ordinary attacks happen automatically. Your decisions still matter during the fight: Dash changes position, Overdrive creates an attack window, and Rage is a body-specific ability. The opening fight introduces Dash before the later controls so you can learn one decision at a time.
Give your first boss a clear job
Begin with a body, mobility and at least one weapon. Add a second weapon and useful support while staying below the body’s weight limit. Two weapons with similar reach are easier to reason about than a short saw paired with a long cannon: a machine that closes for the saw can sacrifice the cannon’s preferred spacing.
- Melee: close the gap and keep both weapons working.
- Ranged: check spacing, heat and the opponent’s defense.
- Change one part after a loss so the next result teaches you something.
Read the loss before spending Scrap
Watch whether you lost your mobility, overheated, ran out of battle energy or simply failed to reach the enemy. Each calls for a different fix. More weapon levels cannot solve every range or defense problem.
Continue Campaign to unlock parts, then try Arena when you want to test against published builds. Arena is asynchronous and normalizes attachment levels, so your collection’s mechanics and Brain choices matter more there than a Campaign upgrade advantage.