Character and crew

When you start the game, you create your main character. Depending on your starting options, you will either begin on the **Dauntless** with a temporary pre-defined crew or in the **Aznari Ruins** where several main characters will join your crew for a short time.

## Character stats and progression

When you start a new game, you are prompted to enter a Universe Seed. This numeric value is used to create a custom **universe** and can be set every time you start a new game. You can also choose to start on the **Dauntless** or skip the start of the game and begin in the **Aznari ruins** - bringing you closer to retrieving your first Star **Ship**.

After the **universe** is generated, you will be taken to the character creation screen. This is your main character and you will progress through the game as the leader of your crew of mercenaries. At the start of the game, you will have several pre-assigned crew members during the Prologue. The prologue introduces you to the **back story** of the game, basic game mechanics and gives you an opportunity to start the game with a few nice bits of loot. Once you enter space and travel to the Achmedius Trade Station, you will be able to recruit mercenaries that can be kitted out with **gear** and progressed using the same stats and skills as your primary character.

For mercenaries and yourself, combat is the primary means of gaining levels in the game. Faction missions, discovery locations, and combat are almost unlimited as there are thousands of faction agents located through the universe. You will also discover planetary facilities that may need your help, an infinite dungeon located in Achmedius, cave systems , and hostile stations that all reward credits and **gear** for your squad. The game uses a classless progression system. This means that you gain skills by using your equipped items. You develop any weapon skill by equipping a weapon and using that weapon over time.

### Level Up

Whenever crew members gain a level they recieve 10 health points and are allocated 5 STAT points to assign to various **stats**. Furthermore, when reaching level 40, the character gains 2 AP, i.e. at level 40 a character has 10 AP at the start of each combat and can have up to 12 AP, when he/she has 2 or more AP left from the last turn.

* **Strength**: Strength contributes heavily to melee weapon damage, affecting one hand, two hand and fist damage. Strength also applies a bonus to damage of Big Guns and a fixed bonus per point to your maximum hit points.
* **Agility**: Agility defines your ability to use melee weapons. It affects one hand, two hand, hand to hand combat damage and your turn order initiative in combat. Agility determines your skill at dodging melee attacks!
* **Dexterity**: Dexterity affects many skills. It contributes to damage for all weapon types, both ranged and melee. It also affects your ability to hack computers and devices, craft complex items and repair objects. It has an effect on initiative which determines your turn order in combat.
* **Endurance**: Adding points to endurance will apply a bonus to your hit points. The bonus is a fixed value per point applied regardless of level. Endurance defines your ability to withstand the rigors of combat and is ideal for front line melee characters.
* **Charisma**: Charisma allows you to strike better bargains with merchants (see **trading** for details), develop relationships with factions quickly and may open up alternate opportunities as you explore the universe. You also gain a bonus to leadership which raises your initiative.
* **Perception**: Perception contributes to damage with ranged weapons. It increases your maximum range, chance to hit your enemy and provides a bonus to your chance to score a critical hit. Perception may allow you to see things that are hidden.
* **Intelligence**: Intelligence increases the speed at which you learn skills. It also affects your initiative which determines your turn order in combat. High intelligence may allow you to focus your psychic energies, releasing hidden inner powers.

In previous versions of the game, progressing to the next level required a total of five skill points represented as orange marks on the "Next Level" progress bar and a full bar of experience. Skill points can come from any combat or support skill (first aid, salvaging, hacking, crafting and first aid). However, this has been deactivated, but might come back as an option later.

Right now the level cap is level 60 and all skills progress to level 100. Future updates will uncap progression.

### Skills and perks

There are 19 unique skill lines in Stellar Tactics. Nine combat skills, five general skill categories and 5 space skills. Each of these progress over time with use. For example, as you **mine** asteroids, you gain mining experience which increases the amount of **ore** you are able to mine over time.

#### Combat Skills

* Rifles
* Shotguns
* Pistols
* SMGs
* 1 Hand Melee
* 2 Hand Melee
* Pugilism
* Explosives
* Big Guns

#### General Skills

* Crafting
* Hacking
* First Aid
* Repair
* Salvaging

#### Space Skills

* Piloting
* Weaponry
* Electronics
* Targeting
* Mining

As you gain experience, **perks** become available at various tiers - level 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. Perks are not permanent selections. They are designed to be used/changed at any time based on current circumstances and provide bonuses and effects to various skills. A few examples include:

* Additional damage
* Applying status effect bonuses
* Modifying resistances
* The ability to heal status effects.
* Finding better equipment in hacked lockers and chests.
* And more...

You can select available perks by selecting the skill in the character screen (hotkey: C) and then selecting a perk for each skill tier. Furthermore, each tier of a combat skill increases the level of the **special attacks** for that skill.

## Equipment and inventory

### Inventory and equipped items

As you explore the **universe** you will come across tons of loot. Your primary **inventory** is shared between crew members making it easy to equip your squad with the latest, best **equipment**. The best equipment is either **crafted** or purchased from **faction** agents, however, Legendary and Epic items do drop from enemies and can be found in chests and lockers across the universe.

The general inventory has enough room for 55 items. However, you also have a "**stash**" that can hold another 200 items that is available wherever you travel. The game is extremely loot intensive so the extra room can be very helpful. Regardless, if you are running out of space, you can always salvage items into component parts for the crafting system to free up some room.

Every crew member has multiple equipment slots:

* Personal Shields - Personal shields absorb damage of varying types (kinetic, thermal, electromagnetic, explosive and toxic).
* Helmet - Base AC and up to three additional STAT bonuses depending on the quality
* Armor - Base AC and up to three additional STAT bonuses depending on the quality
* Gloves - Base AC and up to three additional STAT bonuses depending on the quality
* Boots - Base AC and up to three additional STAT bonuses depending on the quality
* Three device slots for things like a **hacking tool**, **translocator**, and a **life sign tracking device**.

All equipment can be found in varying quality tiers - Basic, Exceptional, Rare, Legendary and Epic with each tier being of higher quality than the last.

### Weapons

Every crew member has a primary and secondary weapon slot. There are indicative of a main weapon and a side-arm.

All **weapons** allow up to three mods of varying qualities to be equipped. Generally mod slots are only available on higher quality weapons. Higher quality mods can have up to two modifiers (damage, stat bonuses etc.)

* **Primary weapon slot**
	+ Rifles
	+ Beam rifles (various beam types)
	+ Shotguns
	+ Heavy weapons: Mini-gun, Plasma streamer, Rocket launcher, and Flame thrower
	+ Two hand pierce
	+ Two hand slash
	+ Two hand blunt
	+ Fists
* **Secondary weapon slot**
	+ Pistols
	+ Beam pistols (various beam types)
	+ Sub-machine guns
	+ One hand pierce
	+ One hand slash
	+ One hand blunt
	+ Fists
	+ **Psionic Amplifier**
* **Ranged weapon mods**
	+ Scopes
	+ Grips
	+ Trigger groups
	+ Magazine expansions
	+ Nano augments
	+ Barrels
* **Melee weapon mods**
	+ Hafts
	+ Vibro mods
	+ Nano augments

#### Weapon Mods

Weapons with **mod** slots display a mod "box" or boxes when the weapon is equipped under "Weapon Mod Slots" in the equipment UI. You can also see mod slots when you rollover items in your inventory and stash. Weapons can have up to three mod slots at higher quality tiers.

* Just drag any mod for that weapon type to one of the slots

* Some mods are weapon specific

* Pistols and SMG's share mods so you can equip pistol mods on SMG's

* You can remove a mod from your equipped weapons by shift-clicking the mod in the Weapon Mod Slots area of the equipment UI. The mod will be moved to your inventory.

* You cannot equip more than one mod type in any one weapon.

#### Weapon damage

In Stellar Tactics, weapon damage is primarily defined by your skill level. That is, your level of skill in a specific weapon class type. Damage is also affected by:

1. **Stats** (DEX, STR, AGI etc)
2. Weapon Level
3. Equipped **mod bonuses**
4. Equipped armor stat bonuses
5. **Perk** selection

Damage by weapon level and tier does modify weapon damage slightly, however, the skill level of the crew member wielding the weapon and their selections from the list above provide the primary min/max damage in combat.

## Finding crew members

Mercenaries can be found on stations all over the universe. You can find them in the bunk area of most stations and by looking for a "yellow" dot on the radar. Mercenaries scale to your crews level so they can be useful for upgrading your ship's crew overtime. The starting system, Achmedius has four mercenaries to help you fill out your initial crew. Just speak with characters hanging out around the bar and in the bunk area of the Trade Station.

When you encounter a potential crew member, speak with them and they will show you their current level and skills. as well as the one time cost for hiring them. Once hired, they will show up in your crew manager and you can bring them with you on ground missions or set them up as dedicated ship crew and assign them to a station (piloting, targeting, weaponry or electronics.) Over time they will gain skill both in ground combat and when exploring the universe in your ship. You can equip mercenaries with gear like any other crew member by dragging weapons, armor, and mods to their corresponding slots.

### The crew manager

The Crew Manager becomes available after the completion of the "Travel to Achmedius Trade Port" mission. From that point forward you are able to recruit new crew members. You can access the crew manager by pressing the J key. The crew manager can be accessed in space or on the ground. You can only assign ground crew to the Ground Team Roster while in space.

The crew manager is separated into three panels. Your crew roster on the left selected team member information in the middle and the assignment panel on the right. You can have a total of 10 crew members at any time.

* Selecting a crew member in the left list displays important stat and skill information for review in the center pane of the crew manager.
* You can assign, replace and remove crew members by dragging them from the left crew list to the right team rosters.
* You can remove crew members by dragging them from the active roster to the crew list on the left. This allows you to solo ground missions or limit the number of crew members you have in your active ground team.
* Your ship and ground crew members can be separate. That is, you can have dedicated ground and space crew or you can mix and match team members from both rosters.
* You cannot replace your main character. He/she is dedicated to the first slot in the ground team roster and will always be a member of your ground team.
* You must have at least one crew member assigned to your space crew roster.
* You can dismiss a crew member by selecting the crew member in the left crew list. Dismissing a crew member is permanent. You will be prompted when dismissing a crew member and notified that dismissal is permanent. I recommend removing any gear equipped on that crew member before dismissing them.
* Setting station assignments in the ship UI [K] will re-arrange your ship crew. It does not affect your current ground team roster. Those changes will be reflected in the crew manager.