Take no companions: they die too fast and there's a perk in the second tier that grants a HUGE boost if you don’t have any.

Saving: If you fast travel to the ship your game saves where you were. Once you've loaded into the ship just load your most recent save and it'll be where you were standing when you fast traveled.

Skill Points: Prioritize Stealth skills, up to 50, then dialog, tech and finally weapon of choice. I completely ignore defense, melee and leadership in this playthrough.

Weapons: Upgrade them if you like but I hardly used them after leaving the first planet. I pretty much only had my plasma rifle the entire time.

Armour: I had a couple of armour sets that I switched back and forth for stats. Stealth and tech mostly. Then a set with 7 hack from the ministry vending machine.

You the Reader: This guide assumes you know the game well and this isn't your first playthrough. If it is stop right now and play the game properly. This way ruins the story so don't do it.

Step 1: Character Creation. Max out intelligence, perception and temperament. Put your extra points into the stealth tree and the Dialog tree. Not much else matters and even this can be switched up if you like.

Step 2: First stumbles. You’ll be here for a little bit. Do some of the small quests for people in the town and steal as much as you can and hack everything. This is just to grind out some levels and get some xp. By the time I left this area I was around level 5 but I rushed it. If you can get a few levels more than that it may be best. Also there's a plasma rifle in the warehouse down by the landing bay, my weapon of choice.

Step 3: Mr. Thompson. Talk to the boss and get into the geothermal plant. Divert the power from Edgewater, steal the battery and launch the ship.

Step 4: The Boards Seal. Head to the Groundbreaker, talk to everyone the game directs you to, need more xp, maybe even complete some short missions if you feel you can. Once you feel you're done steal the seal from Gladys’s Safe and return it to Udon. Then Tell him all about your crazy professor friend and he’ll grant you a ticket to the capital.

Step 5: Akande has the bits. Skips a lot of missions but head to Byzantium, pick up the shroud on your ship too. Speak to Percival and accept the quest for Akande. Head down to the tunnels below the city and kill your target and take the 2000 bits she has in her pocket. Then complete the mission. This should also give you enough bits to last the rest of the playthrough.

Step 6: Percival’s the key. Once you've done your mission, do the Percival door hack. For those who don’t know, stand on his desk and try to pick pocket him. Then run back to the locked door to the minister’s office. Percival will rush over to you. Position yourself against the wall, just past the locked door, if you're in the right spot, he'll open the door for you skipping a huge portion of the game.

Step 7: The Hope needs some Coffee. Watch the video in the chairman’s office, print an ID card and head down to the ministry building to get the much-needed chemicals for Phineas. Once you get to the building go into the office on the left, hack the computer then read the files. Talk to Caroline on the second floor and she'll get you into the secure area if you lie to her. Then steal the ID credentials from the locked storage room. Head down to the labs and steal yourself some wake up juice.

Step 8: Hope Springs Eternal. Speak to Phineas in his lab and he'll send you off to the Hope. Sneak through the Hope using dialog checks and hacking terminals. Have ADA skip the ship to Terra 2 then head back to the secret lab.

Step 9: Prisons for Suckers. So, the board has taken your friend. Time to break him out. I was level 12 at this point, so if you're above that you'll definitely make it. I didn’t fire a single shot in the entire prison. Use the shroud and sneak through everything. Do not kill Rockwell as I’m pretty sure guards and bullets follow. Then when you get to the screen with Akande just use the persuasion options, don’t be a jerk and she'll surrender and you can skip the boss entirely.

If you have higher numbers than this you will have no issue.