Building your Character

 
Welcome colonists! 
 
I’ll get right to it; this is a guide for making a character capable of succeeding pretty much every skill check in chapter one, if you manage your skills well. By the end of this guide, this character will have at least 3 in every skill, excepting weapon skills, with certain skills at four or five. The skills will likely be higher once you’ve blown through all the content in the chapter. 
 
This character is also very well suited for a solo playthrough. 
 
Please note this character will not be the best at combat. Your Initative will be middle of the road and you won’t max out on AP, but I’m hoping implant upgrades will make up for that somewhat down the line. You will have a lot of health though, and training combat skills will be quick. 
 

Character Creation

 
The absolutely most essential thing to make this build work is the feat MASTERMIND. 
 
 
This bad boy is what makes it all possible; 50% increased skill learning rate is ridiculously powerful and it’s more than enough to make up for skill deficiencies due to low stats at the beginning. The extra feat every third level, starting at level two, is a nice bonus. 
 
So, INTELLIGENCE has to be maxed out, which gives you a 30% experience gain bonus, as well as a total of four tagged skills. The second crucial stat is CONSTITUTION, why? Because it gives you implant slots, and implants give you stats. You raise that stat to a solid nine, netting you 6 implant slots (the last slot you can get with one of those extra feats you get every third level from MASTERMIND). Unless you’re really into melee characters, but why would you be when shotguns exist, leave STRENGTH at four, and unless you’re making a solo character, get CHARISMA to six for two follower slots (the last one you get with the squad leader implant later). 
 
Split the last three points between PERCEPTION and DEXTERITY (I usually put DEX at six just for more AP but whatever floats your boat). 
 
In the end you should have something like this: 
 
 
 
You might say “Wow, bet your accuracy is kinda bad with those stats,” and you’d be right! But that won’t matter because you won’t be fighting for a long while. 
 

Skills

 
Alright, this is where being prescient pays off, because some skills you can raise from one to two by simply talking to people (usually paying them) and some you can’t, so we have to spend our points strategically. 
 
You’ll have four points to spend, but three of them will be crucial; CRITICAL STRIKE, SNEAK and COMPUTERS. The last point you can spend as you wish, but if you put it into a weapon skill, I will cry. I would recommend ELECTRONICS, just because it saves you some backtracking. (If you’re a real min-maxer, you might want to put it in either PERSUASION or STREETWISE and tag it, then focusing on it during gameplay and you might get it to five.) 
 
For your tagged skills, the number one priority is tagging LOCKPICK. You will run into level five lockpicking challenges, and having it tagged goes a long way. Secondly, tag COMPUTERS. While there’s no level five checks in chapter one, this will help dealing with the level fours. The other two are free, but once again, if you pick a weapon skill, I will cry. I would recommend putting one into any of the combat skills, and one into a speech skill; PERSUASION or STREETWISE are good options. (If you want both CRITICAL STRIKE and ARMOR as a tagged skill, it would be better to start out picking CRIT, because you’ll get learning in it way before ARMOR.) 
 
That should leave your skills looking like this: 
 
 
 

Into the Pit

 
Alright, now you’ve made your character and it’s time to get in-game. I’ll try to be as vague as possible while still giving you the steps you need to do to train your stats, so as not to spoil everything. This part of the guide will cover a couple of missions and some things related to exploration. 
 

Loading in

 
Once you’ve started the game, pick whatever primary weapon you want (you won’t use it) but make sure to grab a knife. 
 

Main Street

 
Go talk to Xavier, who’s hanging out right outside your container, and get him to teach you lockpicking for 200 credits. 
 
Now normally you’d get 40 learning points from this, but thanks to having LOCKPICK as a tagged skill, and MASTERMIND, you get a lot more. 
 
The math is such: 
40+20(mastermind)+40(tagged) = 100 
Now, when the skill is tagged, MASTERMIND doesn’t add all that much, but for our non-tagged skills, it adds up. 
 
Talking to Xavier should have leveled LOCKPICK to two, enabling you to open the locked chest to the northeast of your current position, which will raise your LOCKPICK to three already. Now go north to the locked door next to the large purple sign for ‘Church of the Elect’ and open it. Inside you’ll find Jia, who wants you to steal something for her. Agree to do it and she will raise your STEAL to two. 
 
Go inside the church to pick up a mission (we won’t do it in this guide, I’ll leave it to you, but you might as well pick it up). 
 
Now that STEAL is at level two, go talk to the armor and gun vendor to the southwest, and steal from them, raising STEAL to level three. Go to Abe‘s general store and steal from him as well, but don’t talk to Evans yet. 
 
Head down to the medbay and talk to Sarah, steal from her too, before asking her to teach you how to extract implants and accept her mission. This will get BIOTECH to two. Don’t do her mission ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ yet, because to get the best reward, the Squad Commander implant, you’ll have to fight a whole bunch of guys. 
 
Go Southwest and talk to your buddy, Tanner, and accept his mission. Talk to Jack and accept his mission as well. Then go due south to the ‘Power Station’ and talk to Zeke, who has two missions for you. If you chose ELECTRONICS two, you can pass a skill check here, if not, you can pass it later. Directly south of the power station is a locked room, with a LOCKPICK three or COMPUTERS two check. It doesn’t matter which one you choose, but if you pick the lock you’ll get to LOCKPICK four without having left the pit. Loot everything inside, and get some ELECTRONICS learning by salvaging the module. 
 

Camptown

 
Now you’ll want to go to Camptown to the northeast. 
 
Once inside, unlock the container directly opposite the ‘Old Earth Emporium’ for free loot. Go talk to the storekeeper and steal from him and grab the job from Earl (we won’t do it in this guide), before heading up the stairs to the ‘Engine Fuel’bar, where you’ll steal from Samson for Jia’s mission. 
 
Then head down to ‘Boone’s Moonshine’ and talk to Boone, who will give you a mission to get something from Hydroponics. This mission offers money or a training token upon completion; always pick the token. 
 

The Outskirts

 
Now we go level our lockpicking in The Outskirts. To the very north is a level three locked container, which has a level two computers check inside. This check will get COMPUTERS to three if you used COMPUTERS at the power station. You can’t do the last computers check to lower the force field yet. 
 
To the south is a locked level two container with a level four locked box inside; if you got into the power station by lockpicking, you’ll be able to loot the box, finding a powerful revolver inside, but if not, you’ll come back to it soon. 
 

Outer Gate

 
Head to the outer gate and down the elevator, but before leaving for the next area, go to the control room to the south and unlock the door with an ELECTRONICS check and unlock the cabinet inside. Now you can go back for the gun in the level four locked box, if you didn’t already have LOCKPICK four. 
 

Armory

 
Now we’re checking out the armory. First go southwest and check out the boxes, before heading back up north to the control room. Moving the box requires passing a ELECTRONICS two and COMPUTERS three check, which you should be able to do. Using the crane to move the box will get you to ELECTRONICS three. If you didn’t pick ELECTRONICS at character creation, you’ll have to wait a little bit. 
 
You can remove the implant from the body inside the room blocked by the boxes, and doing so will increase BIOTECH to three. You can go back to the medbay at main street and insert it immediately if you want. 
 
Then proceed through the gap to the south and choose to SNEAK past. Now you can either sneak to the northwest, or use the panel on the wall next to the door to scare the frogs away for some loot with an ELECTRONICS two check. Pass the ELECTRONICS and LOCKPICK checks in the next room, as well as the module for some ELECTRONICS learning. 
 
You can now pass through the vent to the south, but don’t go fighting the frogs in the next room over just yet. Sneak through the room with the scavengers instead for SNEAK learning. 
 

Level 2

 
Take the elevator down, pass the box under the debris (you can come back and get it with a full team later) and sneak into the room with the scavengers. Make sure to have your knife equipped, and sneak around until you reach the guy to the east. Use a takedown to instantly kill him (this is why you want CRITICAL STRIKE at two). Directly north of his position is a level four locked door, which you can open to get to the vault. The rest of the scavengers will be killed by the automated defenses, and you can loot them afterwards, as well as the room through the locked door next to their bodies. This sequence should give you SNEAK three and a level up. 
 
You have two feats to pick, but one of them has to be EDUCATED for that sweet extra tagged skill and bonus experience gain. For your new tagged skill, you can pick whatever you want. 
 
 
If you didn’t take ELECTRONICS two at the beginning, dismantling the monitor next to the vault entrance should give you enough learning to get to ELECTRONICS two, and you can now go do the previous objectives requiring that. 
 

Inside the Armory

 
The reason you’re here is the terminal in the southernmost room of the vault, because it’ll give you a training token. There’s a COMPUTERS check that shouldn’t be an issue; pick the ‘Crisis Intervention’ token. This is how we get our speech skills up. Grab the corpse’s spine on the way out of that room, and go loot the rest of the armory. There’s a COMPUTERS four check blocking us from a stealth gadget, and a LOCKPICK five cabinet with a laser rifle in it, but we’ll come back for it later. (see Hydroponics part of the guide on how to get LOCKPICK five and COMPUTERS four) 
 

Back to the Pit

 
Go back to the Pit, specifically the Emporium in Camptown, and install your token to get all your SPEECH skills to three. Install your new spine while you’re at it. You can now go pick up Evans if you want, but it’s not like you need him. If you manage your SPEECH responses and don’t opt for violence every time the opportunity presents itself, you can easily get both PERSUASION and STREETWISE to four before the chapter is done. Impersonate might lag behind a little. 
 
You can technically close the guide there and continue playing on your own, secure in the knowledge you can pass most checks, but the Hydroponics section will show you how to get two more training tokens, one of which will give you enough learning to get into those last locked areas. 
 
 

Hydroponics

 
Alright, time to take a look around Hydroponics. 
 
First go talk to Carlos and pick up his mission, then take the elevator down to the living quarters. Sneak into the sleeping area and steal their stuff before continuing down to the main floor. There’s nothing for you in the cultivation lab yet. (You can kill the psyker frogs in the Armory or the Hydroponics area for a brain you can give the scientist. This will award you a buff and the option for her to teach COMPUTERS to your character.) 
 
Go northeast once outside, and sneak past the frogs. Go south and use the computer to move the greenhouse unit out of the way. Go east and squeeze through the opening to get the air filtration part for Zeke for a little ELECTRONICS learning. 
 
Continue north, touch the greenhouse unit if you really feel like fighting a frog, continue on if you dont. Pass through the foliage to the northwest; you don’t want to fight the creeper yet. The loot on the corpse in there isn’t great, anyways. Go up the stairs and examine the machine for a fantastic shotgun. It’s so good. 
 
Go inside the tower and repair the elevator panel with an ELECTRONICS three check, after looting the poor schmuck on the floor. In the next room is a corpse next to a ladder, on it is a training token. Proceed down the ladder, pass a COMPUTERS check, take a ride to the next tower, grab the parts for Carlos and return to him. If you ask him if there’s anything else you can do for him, you can pass a PERSUASION three check for an alternate option. 
 

Back to the Pit

 
You can now return to Boone and accept a training token as your reward. Go to the Emporium and install both your new tokens. You should now have COMPUTERS four, which means you can unlock the force field in the Armory and the Outskirts, and LOCKPICK five, which unlocks a cabinet in the Armory. 
 
And that’s it. Go forth and explore, Jack! 
 

Here we come to an end for Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role Playing Game JACK OF ALL TRADES – how to get a versatile (solo) character hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!