Ah, the Mechanic. Responsible for keeping the submarine's machines in working order, you'll have a place in any crew that dives in alien waters. You could be forgiven for thinking that your only role is being a wrench monkey and keeping the engine & pumps running. When you sign up as a Mechanic, you are signing up to be a parent. The submarine and all the others inside of it are your babies, and it is your job to create the tools needed to care for your children and help them thrive in the underwater playground. Let's take a look at the Mechanic's parenting toolset.

There are four types of quality that items can be found in - Regular, Good, Excellent, and Masterwork. Good items are denoted by a green border and typically have a 10% bonus to whatever their main function is (tools repair faster, oxygen tanks hold more oxygen, etc). Excellent items have a white border with a 20% bonus, while masterwork items have a purple border with a 30% bonus. Anyone can craft good and excellent quality items as long as they meet the item's crafting requirements or have a skill level of at least 100 in the skill needed to make the item, respectively. However, specific talents are needed to make masterwork items. The mechanic gets the ability to make the most masterwork items of any class, including tools, explosives, and oxygen/fuel tanks.

It is very easy to upgrade an item to a better quality. Regardless of quality, items will deconstruct into the same material and take the same material to fabricate. Just deconstruct whatever your current tool is, take the output and set it into the fabricator, then make the same item again. Bam, it's now the quality of whatever your skill level allows. When you hit a new quality threshold, take it upon yourself to run around the sub and upgrade whatever you can, putting the upgraded tools back where you found them when finished. It'll be a pleasant surprise for the crew and the better their tools are, the more efficient they are.

The Machinist tree is based around the time-honored method of improving your children - hitting them until they work better. You take these skills not out of hate for your submarine, but out of love. The main ability here, Tinkerer, quite literally gives you the ability to give parts of the submarine an attitude adjustment.

Technician Mechanics can be either angry, aggressive parents or loving, caring parents who can kiss and make any submarine boo-boos go away with the latest in repair technology. Security will hopefully be angry and aggressive enough to where you can focus on giving your submarine TLC, but hey, you can do what you want. I'm not your boss.

The Pioneer tree for parents who want to leave the kids at home and have adult nights of busting some heads or scavenging for materials. These skills are for mechanics who want to leave the sub and gather supplies, explore wrecks, and take a more hands-on approach to threats than just playing defensively.

There are a few different ways you can start your mechanical journey. Grabbing Safety First is a good choice, allowing you to pull double duty with electrical repairs after a bit. After that, Tinkerer is a great next step as it'll give you something to do in your downtime. Getting Scrounger early if your crew takes on a lot of sub wreck missions is also handy since you'll start getting a stockpile of scrap which will help you down the line when your crew is ready to make higher tier items with alien materials.

Overall, I recommend putting most skill points into the Machinist tree first to improve your deconstructor output (you'll end up with a LOT of crap to deconstruct) as well as your Tinkering ability, but don't get Let It Drain early since it has limited usefulness. Switch to the Technician tree if you're playing defensively/passively, and the Pioneer tree if you prefer to go on expeditions or security needs some help dealing with threats to the sub.

You typically won't need the masterwork/item quality boosts too early, since you'll need maximum skill level to really get the most out of them and the early biomes aren't super dangerous.

Alright, master mechanic, lets see what you can do as a maximum level parent.

-You can boost the effectiveness of pumps, weapons, and the engine to incredible levels while being able to repair them quickly if they're damaged by your tinkering or enemies.

-Create masterwork tools to help you and your kids take care of the submarine better, letting anyone repair things faster. You're the only class that can reach the masterwork level of quality for a lot of items!

-Make some of the deadliest explosives possible, ruining the day of any sealife that crosses your sub or security officer once you've outfitted them with masterwork explosives.

-Become able to create rare alien materials that are used in higher level recipes for both you and the crew, all from random scrap you found in a wreck. If you were always fascinated by Tony Stark making his first Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of random crap, here's your chance to replicate his success.

-Use the Handheld Status Monitor to see how the sub is doing via no matter where you are, making you the first responder for most breaches and earning the respect of the crew for keeping things in an immaculate state of repair.

When someone needs equipment, they come to you. When there's extensive damage to the sub, you're the one the crew calls out for. You'll definitely be kept busy, but hey - you'll be responsible for helping your kids succeed and watching them grow, and what more could a proud parent want?

A guide to the Assistant class: https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2698460522