I believe it's random from the pool of 'Unlocked' characters. Meaning once you satisfy the requirement to unlock them (e.g. Reach Lv X, Clear Stage Y), you have a chance to get the girl from chests.
Regarding Faction Wars (for those who, like me, aren't from pre-launch) :
- It seems best to always join Eastern Coalition, almost everyone is there I think.
- Wars reset weekly at which point you can choose a different faction to join
- You can have at most 17 tickets per war without paying (13 from regen within 7 weeks + 4 from stacking from the previous war)
- There doesn't seem to be much (if any) difference in the difficulty comparing Normal and Hard, reward-wise I'm not sure.
- Squad members can be injured from Faction War. HOWEVER, you can still use injured squad members in Faction War.
My advice with Squad Members (just my noob-opinion though) :
- If you're < Lv 10 you might want to upgrade based on XP per Cred.
XP per cred is based on Rarity (Higher rarity = more xp per cred)
and level (Higher level = less xp per cred)
- Having lieutenant + sergeant with 'Tank Airdrop' seems best. You're normally outnumbered tank-wise and there's only 1 mission (I can't remember which, but you only have 4 fighters) where they're not so useful. Keep them at level 2 though as, past that, it's a random chance of what they will give :
Sergeant/Lieutenant 'Tank-Drop'
Rank 1 = Light / Medium Tank
Rank 2 = Medium / Heavy Tank
Rank 3 = Rank 1 Light or Medium / Medium or Heavy Tank
Rank 4 = ? / Rank 2 Medium or Heavy Tank
Rank 5 = ?
Apart from that, I'm not really sure what to spend Crystals on, or if the ATK/DEF/Level Atk buff does anything in the game. I think crystals would be best on Energy (since new missions give packs as well and multiplayer-packs are crap) or Recovery (Don't really recommend it but I can understand doing so, especially if your commander gets injured early on since getting a 2nd commander is quite awhile away).