1.1 - Hacking: Password protected containers can be found throughout the game, thus Hacking gives the player access to a lot more items (including nanites=money) right from the beginning. Hacking replicators (think of "vending machines" in System Shock 2) also grants access to more useful items, which otherwise wouldn't be accessible on the replicator at all ( - you don't know which items that will be unless a hack is successful).
In addition, hacking helps saving nanites in general: hacked replicators have reduced prices plus players won't have to reset hacking attempts that often (as each reset costs nanites).

Hacking starts the node minigame, which will be explained later on in this guide under "7.0 - The node minigame".

Every skill point invested in hacking decreases the difficulty of the hack node minigame by 10%.

Conclusion: One of the best skills in the whole game with many benefits. Hacking security systems can be ignored though, since shooting a security camera is way more effective and does not require a terminal.


1.2 - Maintenance: Weapons can degrade pretty quickly in System Shock 2. Each attempt of improving its condition requires one Disposable Maintenance Tool which can be found or bought at replicators. The tool's efficiency scales with the player's Maintenance skill level. The condition of a weapon scales from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best. There is no damage scaling with the weapon's condition.

Conclusion: A very important skill throughout the whole game. An average level of the Maintenance skill already increases the Disposable Maintenants Tool's efficiency significantly. Besides that, it also helps saving nanites since you won't have to rely as much on buying tools from replicators.


1.3 - Repair: If a weapon reaches a condition of 0, it is jammed and cannot be used anymore. Repairing a weapon sets it back to a low condition. The required skill in repair varies with each item. You sometimes encounter broken replicators which must be repaired before being able to use them. A failed repair will destroy an item irreparably.

Repairing starts the node minigame, which will be explained later on in this guide under "7.0 - The node minigame".

Every skill point invested in repair decreases the difficulty of the repair node minigame by 10%.

Conclusion:: From all tech skills, this one is the most useless. Reason one: with sufficient maintenance, your weapons will never break. Reason two: if you come across a broken weapon you really want to use (which is not advisable and worth it), you can still use a single-use Auto-Repair Unit. Auto-Repair Units can be found or sometimes bought at replicators.


1.4 - Modify: Ranged weapons can be modified up to level 2 (from a base level of 0), increasing the damage by +10% on level 1 and +25% on level 2. In addition to this, each weapon type gets unique improvements with every level. The skill requirement of Modify increases with each weapon level.

Modifying starts the node minigame, which will be explained later on in this guide under "7.0 - The node minigame".

Every skill point invested in modify decreases the difficulty of the modify node minigame by 10%.


Conclusion: Debatable mid-value skill. Reason one: you will very likely only use 2-3 ranged weapons due to skill requirements and inventory space limitation. Reason two: exploring players can find 7 single use "French-Epstein Devices" during the game, which require no skill in Modify and increase the weapon's level by +1. Reason three: it might be considered to self-modify the weapon(s) of choice only to level 1 (since the level requirement is lower) and use a French-Epstein Device for boosting to level 2 in order to save cyber modules for other skills improvements.
While modifying weapons is a great way of increasing the favorite ranged weapon's potential, maxing this skill out is not advisable for stated reasons.


1.5 - Research: The research skill seems a bit strange at first, but has two very good reasons why it should not be ignored. Reason one: every kind of organic enemy will sooner or later drop an organ, unique to that certain species. Once researched, the player will do +25% damage to that kind of enemy. Researched objects can be thrown away and ignored, the bonus is kept permanently. Reason two: research unlocks three more alien implants usable with a Research skill of 3, 4 and 5. Besides that, there are also three exotic alien weapons which can be used with a Research skill of 3, 4 and 6.

Conclusion: Research is best kept at very low levels (1 or even 0, see "4.0 - Implants") since a skill of 1 is already enough to research any organ for the impressive +25% damage bonus. Increasing the Research skill further is not worth it and unnecessary by following this guide.

2.1 - Standard Weapons (combat skill): This skill covers four weapon types: wrench, pistol, shotgun and assault rifle. It is the best combat skill for every Navy player and often considered to be best combat skill in general.
Reason one: the first three weapons mentioned before can be found pretty early in the game while the last one, the assault rifle, is one of the very best weapons overall. Reason two: pistol, shotgun and assault rifle ammo are the most common types of ammunition throughout the game. Reason three: pistol and assault rifle both share the same and the most flexible ammo types: standard, anti-personnel (against organic enemies) and armor-piercing (against mechanical enemies). Reason four: the wrench is useful against weak enemies to preserve ammo, especially early on in the game. Reason five: Every shotgun hybrid (a very common enemy) drops at least one shotgun shell (loaded in his broken shotgun).

2.2 - Energy Weapons (combat skill) on level 1: Gaining 1 level in Energy Weapons gives the player the ability to use the laser pistol, which can be a nice backup weapon.
Reason one: it can be reloaded (infinitely) at power recharging stations. Reason two: It can be found relatively early in the game.
It deals most damage against mechanical opponents while its damage is reduced against any other type of enemy.

2.3 - Heavy Weapons (combat skill) on level 1: Gaining 1 level in Heavy Weapons gives the player the ability to use the grenade launcher, which is one of the few weapons that deals splash/area damage. There are overall 5 different grenade types: fragmentation (standard), proximity (landmine), incendiary (against organic enemies), EMP (against mechanical enemies) and disruption (upgraded version of the fragmentation grenade with increased damage and small blast radius), making it one of the most flexible weapons of the game.


Important - Bonus weapon damage by skill: Every skill level above a weapon's skill requirement increases that weapon's damage by +15%, up to skill level 6. This applies to all weapons and their related skills.

Example: the shotgun requires a Standard Weapons skill of 3. At a skill level of 4, the shotgun will do +15% damage, at level 5 +30%.


2.4 OPTIONAL - Tier One Psionic Discipline "Psychogenic Cyber-Affinity": The game absolutely encourages playing a specialised character, thus this guide purposely ignores psi powers. However, there is one optional exception to this, which might be interesting to some Navy specialists who want to branch out just a bit or feel a bit experimental:

The tier one psi power "Psychogenic Cyber-Affinity" costs 1 psi point to cast and gives you a temporary bonus of +2 Cyber Affinity for 2 minutes.

Pros
• +2 Cyber Affinity means -2 ICE nodes and -10% difficulty when attempting to hack/repair/modify, which is a huge boost, especially in the beginning of the game
• Unlocking tier one psi powers + the skill itself is a low-cost investment in the long run, especially in comparison to the costs of unlocking the higher skill levels (5 and 6) of Cyber Affinity in the conventional way using cybernetic modules
• Psi hypos finally have a purpose
• It does not matter that the boost is temporarily limited to 2 minutes, as you will want to hack/repair/modify in safe moments only anyway

Cons
• You will lose a total of 4 inventory slots: 3 for the psi amp + 1 for psi hypos
• You won't get the extra nanites for recycling the previously useless psi hypos
• Timing is cruicial for getting the most out of this skill, as gaining it late in the game makes it arguably redundant and not cost-effective in terms of the investment of cybernetic modules. You don't need to get this skill as soon as possible and it's absolutely okay if you are still unsure at the beginning, but if you are interested, you should keep this optional part of character creation definitely in your mind and eventually make the decision if you go in this direction or not.

A total of four O/S upgrade stations can be found throughout the game. Each time, the player can choose one out of a total of 16 unique skills. The most interesting ones for a Navy based character are:

3.1 - Sharpshooter
+15% damage to all ranged, non-psionic weapons.
Conclusion: Essential, since this guide focuses on this weapon category.

3.2 - Cybernetically Enhanced
+1 implant slot.
Conclusion: Essential, since implants are in general more useful than most O/S upgrades. Check Section "4.0 Implants" for detailed info.

3.3 - Replicator Expert
-20% discount on all replicator items.
Conclusion: Stacks with the discount gained by hacking a replicator, making it especially interesting to players using replicators often.

3.4 - Pharmo-Friendly
+20% benefit from all hypos.
Conclusion: Usable to some degree, since it enhances every type of hypo by 20%

The player can find 9 different implants. Implants in use degrade their internal energy over time which can be recharged at energy recharger stations. At the beginning of the game, only 1 implant slot is available. See "3.0 - O/S Upgrades" on how to unlock the second implant slot.

4.1 - BrawnBoost Implant (+1 Strengh=+3 inventory slots) - Useful, found very early.

4.2 - LabAssistant Implant (+1 Research) - Very useful, since it grants a research skill of 1 which is enough for the most important research tasks (see "1.5 Research"). Should only be equipped when necessary to keep the implant slot free for better implants.

4.3 - ExperTech Implant (+1 Hack, +1 Modify, +1 Repair) - Very useful since it boosts both hack and modify.

4.4 - EndurBoost Implant (+1 Endurance) - Useless.

4.5 - SwiftBoost Implant (+1 Agility) - Useless.

4.6 - PsiBoost Implant (+1 Psi) - Useless.

4.7 - WormMind Implant (Research skill of 3 required, converts 25% of damge to psi points) - Useful, since Navy players don't have any other use for their psi points and psi hypos. Research level 3 makes it not advisable to use, though, or at least not early.

4.8 - WormBlood Implant (Research skill of 4 required, allows single-use of worm pools for +10 health points effect) - Useful to some extent, since it helps saving hypos. Should only be equipped when necessary to keep the implant slot free for better implants. Research level 4 makes it not advisable to use.

4.9 - WormHeart Implant (Research skill of 5 required, +100% toxin resistance, +1 Hit Point every 30 seconds, causes +100% toxin level when removed from implant slot) - In theory very useful implant but way too high skill requirement. Can be useful in higher difficulty settings since healing becomes more difficult.

Your character has 5 basic statistics. Each stat can be raised to level 6 using cyber modules and even beyond that to level 8 with temporal boosts from implants or psi powers.


5.1 - Strength: Influences inventory size and melee weapon damage, part of weapon requirements.

Strength is to some extent very important to every Navy player for two reasons. Reason one: +3 inventory slots per level in Strength (up to level 6 with a maxed out inventory of 45 slots). Reason two: from all standard weapons, the best (the assault rifle) requires a Strength level of 2. This level in Strength can be reached very easily (low cyber module cost, implants, training).


5.2 - Endurance: Influences health points, resistance to radiation/toxins and psi burnout damage.

Endurance levels and maxes out the total amount of health points based on the difficulty setting. Since this guide focuses on ranged weapons and there are plenty of hypos countering the effects of toxins and radiation, there is no real reason in leveling Endurance unless you play on higher difficulty settings.


5.3 - Psionics: Influences total amount of psi points, psi ability powers and their duration - Not relevant for this guide.


5.4 - Agility: Influences movement speed, reduces falling damage and weapon kickback.

Useless to level up. The normal movement speed should be sufficient, falling should be avoided anyway and weapon knockback should not be a real problem at all.


5.5 - Cyber Affinity: The most mathy statistic, but also a very important one for the Navy, as it decreases the difficulty for hacking, repairing and modifying significantly.

In detailed numbers, every level of Cyber Affinity decreases the difficulty of all the node minigames (hack/repair/modify) by 5% and reduces the number of bad ICE nodes in a 1:1 ratio (one per level in Cyber Affinity). This not only makes all the node minigames a lot easier, but also makes resetting attempts unnecessary, saving you a lot of nanites over the course of the game. See "7.0 - The node minigame" for more details.

Also, see 2.4 "OPTIONAL - Tier One Psionic Discipline "Psychogenic Cyber-Affinity"" for boosting Cyber Affinity in a (for this guide) unconventional but effective way.

At the beginning of the game, you are given 3 x 3 choices on your Navy career details which will determine your starting skills.

In addition to the choices taken, every Navy character will have +1 additional level in the Standard Weapons skill.

6.1 - Year 1:
A) +1 Hacking, +1 Strength (UNN Lucile, Ship's Ops)
B) +1 Repair, +1 Strength (UNN Lucile, Engineer's Mate)
C) +1 Modify, +1 Strength (UNN Lucile, Military Police)

6.2 - Year 2:
A) +2 Cybernetic Affinity (UNN Carfax, Navigator's Mate)
B) +1 Maintenance, +1 Disposable Maintenance Tool (UNN Pierce, Ordnance Master)
C) +2 Standard Weapons (Laverne Tactical Training School)

6.3 - Year 3:
A) +1 Research (Marie Curie Research Facility)
B) +2 Endurance (Io Survival Training School)
C) +2 Agility (Yamamoto Zero-G Training)

Advisable route: A, C, B = +1 Hacking, +1 Strength, +2 Standard Weapons, +2 Endurance. By following this path, you know how to handle a shotgun right from the beginning of the game.

Another valid way would be to exchange +2 Standard Weapons of Year 2 with +2 Cybernetic Affinity, but since the first hacks in the game are fairly easy and you can find a working shotgun soon in the game, the first advised way is in general the better one. Your choice, cadet.

The node minigame determines the outcome of your attempt to hack, modify or repair an item.

The layout of each node minigame stays the same (two intertwined node rings), while the number of bad "ICE" ("Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics") nodes (red outlined) differ with the corresponding level of skill you have (see details below).

To succeed in this minigame, you simply have to click on a node, have the skill/luck that it will successfully light up and connect a total of 3 lit up nodes in a straight line. Black nodes count as dead.

Beware of red outlined nodes, as it is possible that the minigame is instantly lost with bad results ranging from instantly exploding security containers or permanently broken items.

You can reset the game table at any time by pushing the "RESET" button on the lower right corner of the minigame's interface. Resetting the minigame results in another payment of nanites, the exact cost can be found above the reset button.

A failed attempt usually breaks the object. A failed hack on a security computer or turret sets off the security alarm.

The colour of a connection between two nodes is dependent on the connection's orientation and has no further effect: horizontal connections are blue, vertical connections are orange.



The numbers behind the minigame

For those who are interested in the detailed numbers: every attempt in hacking/repairing/modifying has a base difficulty value (for example: 70%) which directly refers to the probability of successfully interacting with a single (clickable) node.

Every skill point invested in hacking/repair/modify decreases the difficulty by 10% per invested skill point for the corresponding minigame.

Every skill point invested in Cybernetic Affinity decreases the difficulty of all the minigames for hacking/repairing/modifying by 5% and decreases the number of ICE nodes in a 1:1 ratio.

Example: having a hacking skill of 3 and Cyber Affinity of 1 decreases the hack's base difficulty of 70% to 35%. 70% base difficulty - (3*10% hacking) - (1*5% Cyber Affinity) = 35% final difficulty. 1 ICE node is removed for having a Cyber Affinity of 1.

Note that the difficulty can never fall below 15%.

"Salt the fries"