If you have half an hour of your life spare to watch my YouTube video, you can see everything I'm about to say on there. Otherwise, I'll try to keep this guide concise and readable.


In Ostranauts, character creation works by creating a narrative of either "adventure" events or training to give you starting skills, traits or money.

As their names would suggest, skills denote learned abilities (psychology, mechanical engineering etc) and traits denote natural abilities (genius, lustful etc). Most of these skills, by the way, appear to do nothing at the moment. But that's just the state of the game.

Events and training take a certain years for your character to complete. As a working-class shipbreaker on a small asteroid (Ganymed... not even a NICE planetary body like Ganemyede with its own magnetic field), your health is going to be TERRIBLE. If you keep character creating into your thirties, you will accumulate increasingly terrible health conditions.

A general suggestion:
Money is not worth any risks. Don't do those events. You can wheedle plenty of money with one quick salvage job after stealing everything that isn't nailed down in OKLG and selling it for enough to buy an EVA suit. Don't be a hero and fight people either. If you do something to end up in the brig, you might as well reroll because all it gets you is injuries and lost years and a few criminal friends.

The skills that clearly help the most are:
EVA Ops (not having it leads to massive speed penalty when using eva suit)
Hacking (extremely extremely useful - unlock pda's and doors and certain contextual things)
Mech engineeering (speeds up repair/removal/construction of mech devices ?thrusters etc?)
Elec engineering (speeds up work on conduits and !!nuke reactors!!)
Armed melee (necessary for fighting the only major threat so far - if you don''t have it, you need to hire an npc who does and give them either a katana or spear or laser - it regenerates too fast for bullets)

Moderately useful:
Beautiful and charismatic seem to make people constantly touch you and flirt with you. Dancing and song are options in honeypot gigs that lead to significant boosts in intimacy. I believe leader gives you convo options to reassure people. Genius lets you reassure them with logic, which has slightly different effects. Software engineering speeds up debugging your nav console I think.

Unknown:\
I don't know if piloting does anything. It might make your movements more precise but that could be in my head. Somebody in the Discord said that psychology (1 year training) is worth it but I have yet to see it be used for anything.


Crap: (for now)
I believe combat engineering gives speed to repairing weapons and that's about it. The only way to get it is to train for 3 years and it's totally not worth it.

Stealth, tracking and "intrusion" don't appear to do anything (I think intrusion might make prying with crowbars faster or something?). Same with any of the etiquettes, cooking, forgery, acting, gambling and sensor ops.

Note:
Gambling is the only way to get the special free ship in one risky character creation Adventure event. Whether it's worth it is a matter of taste, but it doesn't appear to do anything in the game itself.

1) During the raid, mess with the sensor for hacking and genius. If you get the event again, bluff for skill at forgery and acting. If you get it a third time, you can hide for stealth.

2) During the shady job, instigate violence for both armed and unarmed melee skill. If you've already done it, backstab them for money or work with cops for honest + street etiquette.

3) Seduce them for dancing (helpful for honeypot gigs), cooking, charismatic, beautiful and (sometimes) oligarch etiquette. If you've already done that, start a riot for folk etiquette (only way to get it). If you've done both, pickpocket for stealth or tracking (sometimes selfish). If you've done all three, get them drunk for song and maybe something else (it's been a while).

4) As I just said, call on a technicality for gambling skill. Next time up, either do the same thing for a little money or risk it all for a small chance to get an amazing ship with no mortgage.

5) Out of control ship: only good options are troubleshoot for piloting + money or jury rig for mechanical engineering. They are the ONLY options that provide those kills, but do mech engineering first (it'll cost you a hundred bucks but it's worth it - it's THREE YEARS to train).

6) The crate: mislabel it for street etiquette and leader. Report to Ayo for business admin and a free gift (lol a ayo-branded t-shirt or maybe a tote bag).

7) The Miura: bribe your boss for oligarch etiquette or report to Ayo for business admin + tchotche as above. Smuggle for friendship with the fence (which you can get through normal conversation during normal gameplay anyway even if they start out an enemy). If you SMASH it to FEEL ALIVE, then you can get strong but probably get a scar as well as a negative trait or two.

THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE
8) Downtime:
Always always ALWAYS do maintenance to get EVA ops. If you don't get EVA ops you may as well reroll because your life as a scrapper will severely suck. And, when you get it a second time, ALWAYS get electrical engineering otherwise it'll take you ages to work on nuclear reactors.

These are the only adventures that will net you those skills.If it doesn't come up a second time, always get training for it before you end your career. If you're lucky enough to get it a third time, do shipspotting for sensor ops (only way to get it, though I I'm pretty sure it does nothing ATM).

No matter what you do: never EVER "cut the crate" or you'll get "severe burns" that cause permanent pain and you apparently can't get rid of it even at the med station.

The above section was about adventures... this section is about the skills and traits that are worth actually training for. The time-to-benefit ratio is a lot lower than adventuring, but some of them are worth it and can't be achieved through adventures.

Micro-G Hypovolemia:
I have to credit Tumskunde's excellent guide for this suggestion. Micro-G hypovolemia is a massive debuff that every character starts out with. Removing it will make your life a lot easier, and it only takes a year.

Unfit/Feeble/Fragile:
Your mileage may vary. Theoretically, you should be able to remove these by using exercise equipment... but I have literally never seen it happen or any progress be made. If you really want a melee character, this may be worth it to you. But keep in mind that you can theoretically remove Feeble and even get Strong or Tough through adventuring (thanks to Tumskunde again). That's the "Instigate Violence" option and "SMASH IT to FEEL ALIVE" and - IIRC - that's about it.

Psychology/Persuasion:
As I mentioned before, I'm not certain that Psychology does anything, but people on the Discord have insisted it does. The only way to get it - iirc - is training. Same goes for persuasion.

Software engineering:
It's a marginally useful skill (I hope), but it only costs a year of training.

NOTHING ELSE:
I'm being a little hyperbolic, but no other traits or skills are worth it, in my opinion. Robotic engineering and civil engineering and construction don't appear to do anything... Combat engineering's benefit seems marginal, at best.