Welcome to the world of Deep Sky Derelicts.
A game about going deep in the sky and exploring derelicts. How appropriate.

If you are like me, the game probably drew you in with it's unique take on exploration and turn based party combat.

Also, if you are like me, your first few runs ended in abject failure, your crew torn to shreds somewhere out in the cosmos, forever lost to space and time.

I hope to help those new to the game by outlining some core concepts and ideas.

The contents of this guide reflect my own experience with the game as well as my own thoughts and opinions.
Yours may differ, I'm just trying to provide info to help players along.

Deep Sky Derelicts is a party based game.
At the beginning of a campaign, you choose three crew members to take on the challenges of the galaxy.

There are 6 classes.

Bruiser, Scrapper, Medic, Technician, Leader, and Tracker.

Bruiser

The bruiser is a tank. So far, the bruiser has been my first choice for soaking up damage, and unlike tank classes in many games, to deal lots of damage as well.

The bruiser is well suited to combat, thanks to a high weaponry rating. The provoking strike starting skill allows the bruiser to pull aggro.Damage resistance buffs keep the bruiser alive and well against the toughest opponents.

The bruiser uses a heavy melee weapon. These weapons allow for massive single target damage, and have a variety of attacks to weaken and destabilize your enemies.

Scrapper
The scrapper is an invaluable asset to any party.
Specialized in scavenging, a skilled scrapper can find more loot, earn more money, and conserve energy for the party.

Scrappers can make use of many ranged weapons, and scavenger tools can enhance their utility and offensive options.

Can use power glove weapons.

Medic
The medic feels out of place. Medical cards mainly deal with buffs, debuffs, and restistances. Some medical cards heal with Temporary HP.
Medics find themselves in a tough spot due to the importance of shields and medical costs. Subjects I will cover in more detail further on.

Technician
The technicians job is shield regen during combat. A high tech skill grants bonuses to shield cards, many of which can restore shields for allies and the whole party.

Technicians lack in the defense department. Without bonuses to evasion and damage resistance like other classes, they tend to be squishy.
Make sure your technician has an extra large shield.
Don't be afraid to take on an extra card or two for a good damage resistance mod.
You don't want your tech to die.

Can use energy blades.

Leader
The Leader has a good weaponry skill and a high mental skill.
Mental skill allows the leader to debuff enemies and buff the party.
Outfitted with a nice mental tool, the leader could potentially be quite good.

Tracker
The tracker is more or less a rogue class.
With the highest starting weapon skill, the tracker deals more base damage than any other class.
With evasion and crit bonuses, the tracker can be an agile combatant. Can also unlock a variety of stealth-based skills.

Starting Party
I've had the most success starting with a Bruiser, Scrapper, and Technician.
Giving me a nice mix of regen, damage, and support abilities to keep my party alive and wealthy.

The Codex
The codex can be located in the menu in the upper left of the screen. The codex contains a ton of information about the game, and can be referenced at any time. I don't remember the codex being there when I wrote this guide, but boy I wish it would have been. If you can't find something in this guide, check the codex.

PDA
The PDA is your main interface with your crew and your inventory.

You can check the status of your crew, their loadouts, and their skill trees.
Don't forget to use your skill points! Just click any of the blue skill boxes to add points to it!

The Inventory screen is where you will swap out gear on your crew and store all the loot you've collected. I usually end up filling the whole first page with energy cells and a few Scavenger kits.

The mission log will show you a list of your active quests and their corresponding objectives. Simple enough.

The scanner screen is only available on derelicts and acts as your navigation tool. This screen is where you will move your crew through a derelict and use your scanner to uncover rooms.

Once a party has been chosen, the player will be taken to the Hub Station.

After a conversation with the sub-governor, you will be free to begin exploring.

Initial setup
This part is extremely important, and took me a couple runs to figure out.
At the very beginning, go through your party and unequip all the skills/tools/weapons that you do not need.

This will allow you to shave down your decks, and focus your party roles.

For example, with a starting party of bruiser/scrapper/technician.

I remove the starting tools (maybe not the tech shield tool), the extra weapons (power glove), and any starting ability I don't need.

After removing the extra stuff, I sell it, buy lots of energy, and take all the missions from the bar.

Don't buy anything except for energy, the initial gear at the shop is weak and expensive. You will find better gear out in the derelicts.

Station Hall
This is where you talk to the Governor when you finish location data quests. Every few quests, your map will be updated with new derelicts.

Mercenary Lair
The Lair is where you will collect new contracts to complete for various rewards.
You can also hire new mercs for the squad if you lose one or if you want to swap them out.

Med Bay
The med bay is where you will heal your squad in exchange for credits.
Wealthy is healthy. I try to hold onto extra cash all the time in case I need extra healing in between runs.

Research Workshop
The workshop has various upgrades you can purchase.
I recommend an early increase to the energy reserve and reduction in energy costs.
I reduce my energy cost before getting scanner upgrades to offset their increased costs for scans.

Pawn Shop
This is the store, where you will buy energy and various goods, and where you will sell most of what you find in your travels.
Early on the gear isn't very good in the shop, and later on you can find a better item here and there.

So you want to be a galactic citizen?

That citizenship is no use to you dead.

Deep Sky Derelicts is a game about survival.
Many decisions must be made to keep your squad alive, and many challenges await.

Early in the game, enemies are fairly weak, and derelicts are small.
Take advantage of this. Fight every encounter, and explore all the rooms.
An early emphasis on xp and loot will serve you well into the later parts of the game.

Don't be afraid to return to the ship. Sell your loot, recharge your energy, and heal. Maybe get some upgrades.
If an encounter is too tough, retreat. Live to fight another day.

Higher level maps contain traps and blocked areas. Bring along some scavenger kits to save energy and hassle on these obstacles.

Health
I've probably talked about this a few times already, but health costs money.
If a mercs health is zero, they die.
A merc can be ressurected at 1 hp for a fee, the rest of their HP must be paid for.
Healing might be the highest expense in the game.
Losing health is unavoidable, do your best not to lose too much.

Shields
Shields are the single most important aspect of survival.
I recommend outfitting the squad with the most advanced, beefy shields possible.
Especially shields with party regen cards.

Shields restore after every battle.

As the game progresses, combats get longer and more intense, keeping shields high is the only way to survive, and protect your precious health pools. When a mercs shields are at 0, they are almost dead.

Technicians get bonuses to shield cards, making them a perfect fit for this role.
Taking the Shield Specialist role at lvl4 allows for further upgrades to shields for the party.

Money

Yeah, money is in the survival section.
Without money, you will die. You will run out of energy, and won't be able to revive your squaddies when they go down. It's a good idea to hang onto around 1000cc at any time. In case you need to retreat to the hub prematurely.

Here are some tips to make more money.

Bring a scrapper along. They have skills to get more loot and money.

Sell everything you don't need.
If you can't use a piece of loot right away, you can always use the money.

Search every room, collect all the loot.

Quests

Along your journey you will encounter many quests. Most of these quests will be collected in the bar at the main hub, but several side quest encounters will appear among the derelicts.

Be sure to read all of the dialogue, I made the mistake of skipping dialogue and missing important quest information early on. One particular quest will have you memorizing a series of answers for a 'quiz' so to speak. If you don't read the dialogue, you will have to return to the quest giver to read it all over a gain, wasting valuable time and energy.

Quests are a great source of xp and income and should be completed.

Each derelict has a main quest associated with it, which leads to finding coordinates for the mothership. Once this quest is complete, the derelict can be considered finished.

Energy

Energy is another big part of the game.
It's a resource which is spent on actions.
Movement, combat, scanning, and quest events require energy.

There are many upgrades to help offset the energy costs of the game.
A good scrapper helps, too.

It's relatively easy to manage, but a pain in the rear when it gets low.

Early on, your funds will be low, so I recommend buying as much energy as you can as often as possible.
Always have a stash of energy modules.
At least if you go broke, you'll be able to explore and find more loot.

I restock on energy first thing after every expedition, after healing.
So, I guess that's second thing.

There are data consoles scattered throughout the derelicts that will refill your energy for free.
If you find one with a full reserve, wait to use it. The energy doesn't recharge.
These consoles can also scan the area, and open locked areas of the map.

The Scanner

The scanner reveals the map. It shows you new rooms, encounters, traps, blockages, objectives, etc.
The scanner can be upgraded to reveal more tiles, at greater cost.
I upgrade energy cost reduction and energy item recovery before the scanner, to offset this cost.

Be mindful of how you use the scanner.
It's sometimes best to walk through the map one square at a time.
As a rule, I use the scanner to uncover 5 or more rooms at a time. 5 rooms is 50 energy by default, and so is one scan.

The scanner stays around ~50 energy cost, which adds up fast.

Scanning becomes more important over time, as the maps increase in complexity.
Revealing traps and effect zones allows for safe route planning.
And highlighted enemies can be seen, and therefore avoided if necessary.

The scanner can also be used to scan an area surrounding a cell, by choosing 'scan by location'. It costs 68 energy, and only cells within the scan range can be chosen as targets.

Generators
Generators are items that provide bonuses within a certain range of their location.
In any room on a derelict a generator can be placed to provide it's bonus, just use it in your inventory.

Combat happens in turns.
Each turn every combatant plays a car in order of Initiative.
Pay attention to the combat order in the bottom right, initiative values may change over the course of battle.

During combat, each merc can play cards from their deck. Starting with 4 cards, and drawing a card every turn.

Units play cards equal to their action points. Most of the time, they can play a single card. Energize effects can increase this number.

Basic Strategy

While enemy types and abilities vary, it is usually best to target the strongest enemies first.
Enemies with higher health and shields tend to have stronger attacks and more powerful support skills than lower health enemies.
I have yet to find an exception to this.

Battles get longer as the game progresses, don't give a tough enemy 20 turns to kill your whole party.

Also, make sure to keep your shields up.

Some cards only work on one type of enemy, don't bring these cards along.
Try to use attacks that affect everything.

You might feel weak early in the game.

Around level 5 enemies start getting a lot stronger, and your equipment and weapons may not be at the same level. The battles will feel longer for a couple derelicts, but keep taking upgrades when you find them and eventually it evens back out.
Retreat if necessary.

Weapons
Weapons come in many forms. And my only real advice is to find big ones.
One problem with weapons is that they add lots of cards to a mercs deck.
A weapon may have good stats, but add one to many attack cards and offset a good balance.
Especially once mods come into play.

I like to have melee and ranged in my party, some enemy abilities affect one or the other.

Spread weapons (shotguns)
While AOE damage is nice, spread weapons split their total damage across all the enemies they hit. The spread is calculated even if only one enemy is present.
That being said, various mods alter the spread percentage, and offer extra damage.
Spread weapons will hit stealthed targets, if they are adjacent to the primary target.

shields
I think I covered shields pretty well, just to recap. Find big shields. Try to pick shields with ally or party regen.

Tools
Tools come in many categories and typically enhance related abilities.
(Mental tools enhance mental cards/abilities, etc.)
Most tools add cards to the deck, and can be used to further specialize your mercs.

Does every merc need a tool? No, but the right mental tool can make a a bruiser into a strong tank. And the right scavenger tool can help a Scrapper increase your earnings.

Keeping balanced decks is a tricky ordeal, and so it's hard to use tools on all mercs at all times, but they can come in handy.

mods
Every piece of equipment has two slots for mods.
Mods affect various stats of weapons and tools, and many come with cards.
Flat rate bonuses to the right stats can make or break a build, but so can deck balance.
Like with all equipment, mods are tricky because of this.

If only equipment cards could be toggled like skill cards.

Decks are the set of cards available to your mercs.
Cards are granted by skills, equipment, and mods.

Like with most deckbuilding games, a small, focused deck is often preferrable to a larger, generalized deck.

Try using the items and skills which give you cards that synergize. And keep your decks varied, so you have more options.
I have found that splitting up cards by role is helpful.
A tracker or bruiser may want a lot of attacks, but a technician should focus on shield regen.

Due to rng it can be hard to make a simple, focused deck.
Many weapons add three or more attack cards at a time, for example.
Shield cores, tools, and mods have cards attached as well.

Sometimes a good piece of loot will ruin the balance of a deck.
So choose loot accordingly.

Maybe extra crit damage sounds great for your tracker, but two extra aimed shots mean less frequent utility skills.

- On hardcore mode, there is a bug which can break your game. On the third level or so, a derelict may not generate the location data event. You won't be able to continue the quest without that data.

I believe it is limited to hardcore mode, because I haven't been able to recreate it in normal.
That being said, this game is meant to be played as a rogue-like so I don't reload any saves.


- Don't sell drudger stingers at first. There is a mission for collecting them, and they are scarce after the first couple derelicts. They are not marked as a quest item until the mission is taken, so be careful about autoselling junk.

-Sometimes a party will feel weak for a derelict or two. Pick your battles wisely. As your skills and gear improve, you will be able to push through. Remember you can always return to the hub to collect yourself.

- Wealthy means healthy

-I'll keep updating this guide as I play and learn more about the game. Please let me know if this guide helps you enjoy the game. Have fun out there in the deep sky!