I'm writing this because a lot of people seem to have no clue what points to put where. I see people talk about having skills that make no sense. I'm hoping this will help people understand what they should be doing.

First and foremost, if you want to do well with high-level play, you're going to need to communicate with your team so you can coordinate loadouts. Victory for Metem begins at the hub, You obviously want a pilot with piloting skills, but having a level 17 engineer and a level 17 gunner are even more important if you are in endless. Why? Because at this level each can take a point that allows them to craft ship module upgrades and teir II & III weapon mods respectively. A skilled, coordinated crew with these two elements working together can go on nearly endlessly.

When it comes to flying the ship, you've got a few options, depending on whether or not you have friends, and how much you trust them.

If you are playing with a 4 man crew, you have the freedom to go full pilot, which can look something like this:



The reason I go with boots is to leave the helm freely after initiating a jump to immediately set the next destination, which is a nice quality of life investment to help you out-speed interdictions, though those points can be moved comfortably. I only have one point in void jump charge boost because the drive spools quickly enough on the frigate with the tier 3 engineering buff, but more points here might be useful on the Destroyer, in the event you don't use sync charges. Everything else is pretty straightforward, just taking all the pilot nodes you can.

If you pilot solo and intend to meet people in-game instead, especially if flying the frigate, I highly recommend my Pilotgineer:



This build gives you all of the most important parts of being a pilot, the active shields and shield boosts, and enough movement to cruise at a reasonable speed. You sacrifice buffing your active thrusters in the tree, and the ability to build the Thruster Booster Module, but guaranteeing you have someone capable of upgrading systems can be much more useful, as can buffing the generators.

Ideally you build two generators, buffing one at a time. This will give you about 11 power on the frigate and 13 power on the Destroyer, which is usually very comfortable, but may require you to step away from the pilot seat every 3 1/2 minutes, so just keep an eye on your bars. Don't freak out if there's an over-load here and there, you and/or your crew usually have plenty of time to fix it.

As a gunner you have two options; Kinetic vs Energy. Kinetic guns deal good damage to ships, but have a wide spread, and some require ammo. Energy weapons deal more damage to shields, which kinetic weapons struggle with alone. In theory, it seems like having a blend would work best, to strip shields and deal lots of damage quickly.

In practice, the Shuriken Carronade is an extremely efficient gun, a gunner or two with the right build can bring down almost anything with it. I prefer to have 1-2 Carronades and 1 Recusor, with the "Main" gunner, the one who doesn't leave his seat, sitting on the recusor and taking out priority targets. The basic build for that looks like this:

This is only 20 points, skipping over Kinetic Damage and Steady Aim because those nodes don't benefit the Carronade or Recusor. We also take 4 points in Charged carry so we can recharge our own batteries during our downtime. The remaining 10 points can be spent however you wish. I would recommend going down the engi tree like so:

This gives you 100% of the benefits possible of being a gunner, while garunteeing your team has level 2 buffs. This is one of two classes I main. The only downside is you often get forced into the role of engineer, but it is really nice to make sure your bases are covered.

If you already have a "Main" gunner, someone committed to staying on the ship and shooting stuff you could also build a GunnEVA:



Jetpack run is probably the most useful scav ability, it will reduce the time it takes to clear EVA missions by tons, and the Dash O2 Optimizer and Tank Capacity you need on the way are more than enough.

Last but not least (I guess), the basic kinetic tree would look like this:


The gunner's active on a modded gatling gun is terrifyingly strong, but the short range and dependency on ammo make this playstyle more trouble than it's worth, imho. It does offer one more free skill point, leaving you with 11 to distribute as you please, making it slightly more suited to hybridize with Scav... but that one point doesn't make a huge difference.

First we need to talk about what it means to be an engineer. Being an engineer means you are responsible for making patrols around the engine room. It is your job to make sure the thrusters are charged. It is your job to fix the engine trim (the yellow steaming bits), It is your job to buff the ship. If you do not have 5 points in Lasting Enhancements, to make your buffs longer, or 1 point in Enhancement Regiggering, so you can over-ride other people's tier 1 buffs after they inevitably panic, or 2 in Stronger Enhancements, to make them level 3, then you aren't an engineer, you're just a dude who splashed some green nodes.

The main reason an engineer is useful is to allow the ship to operate with more power than usual. Having two generators means you can take turns buffing one when the second runs out. In the destroyer you can eventually do this with 2 at a time, allowing for quite a bit of power usage. ((Techincally it is often more efficient at the start to have the gunner craft energy efficiency mods, however that takes up a mod slot that could give you more damage.

Your other major role is to flip circuit breakers, allowing you to use even more power. ideally your ship will use 3 guns, with you turning yours on and going into overload when you need to shoot, and turning it back off when the threat is gone and you need to check the trim. Note, going into overload tends to creep people out. Sometimes well-meaning, potatoe-headed gunners will run for the circuits in a panic after the first one trips. You may need to gently discourage this behavior.

Real Talk... The first point in Engineer isn't very good. If you need to run a little faster in the ship, or fix a bunch of broken modules all at once, something has gone terribly wrong. Sometimes you'll have a gunner who likes to EVA. Sometimes you'll just have a ship that can handle 3 guns, which is awesome as long as you don't forget to check on the trim and boosters! This is the engi you should use 90% of the time:



You do 10% less damage than a specialized energy gunner, but have all the range and rate of fire. Get on a Shuriken Carronade and pop your active and you can deal with almost any threat.

There is one other option for you, however. If you have two dedicated gunners, that frees you up to run the EnginEVA:


Engineer main, in my opinion, is the only class that should use the grappling hook. If you want your main job to be EVA, you're still probably a support gunner, and should use that skill node, it is by far the most impactful in the tree. Because the Engineer's first skill node is so bad, the grappling hook can be an improvement when used to speed up EVA quests.

EVAgineer also makes sense, because a grappling hook and magnetic boots make mid-combat repairs possible.... possible but still often unnecessarily risky and ill-advised, as cool as it looks...

Look, I know the hook is cool. It actually is useful to be able to run fast in your jetpack and clear ruins quickly. It's cool if you can fit some of this into your build.

The damage you get from selecting the gunner perk is just better, even if you don't have any other points in gunner... which you should. If you have to do this, go back to the gunner section, and go use the GunnEVA build. All you need is a couple of points to increase the life of your O2 tanks drastically.

You ever run into those guys who are like "I'll be The Gunner" and then you get in game and they're like "Yeah, I'm Scav, like I said," leaving you with the DPS of a wet carrot? You ever highlight a summoner or colletor.... 12 times, while your gunners ignores you, complaining they can't shoot the objective you don't want to do yet, while you watch the loot warp away? You ever have a bad day, and just can't deal with people and talking, and coordinating, and miscommunications that render your carefully tuned loadouts redundant and useless?

I've been there friend. As such, I want to offer two more build options, Option 1:



And Option 2:

These are the builds I use for solo play. To talk about the differences, we need to talk about our ship, the Lone Sentry. The first thing we're going to do is move the generator from the right to the left, and put the B.R.A.I.N. on the left in its place, so your right side has all 3 guns.

In the first build with 17 points in engi, one of the first things you'll want to do is build a second power generator. This way you can alternate buffing them, and have enough power to keep your B.R.A.I.N.s and gravity scoop on. They will take care of small targets, and when you run into something big, you will run back to the gun and turn it on just long enough to deal with the threat.

This is trivial in Missions, but extremely taxing in Endless, since the former requires 8 scrap to build a generator, while the latter requires 20.

Using the second build offers a cheaper, quicker solution in creating a power efficiency mod for 10-15 (I'd recommend saving for the bigger one), offering a much easier early-mid game in endless, but a much more difficult endgame without the ability to upgrade.

After getting power under control, your next priority is to replace the benediction cannon with a shuriken carronade, so you have a weapon that can deal with energy shields. It will take some time getting used to using autopilot and running back and forth, but with some luck in the offered missions, it's very doable.

Both playstyles are very challenging. Both are fun, and capable of getting decently far if you stay on top of things. Neither actually has any points in piloting, but if you want to have a chance out there alone, speed just isn't a luxury you can afford.

Ship : Freedom

Pilot:


Main Gunner:

GunnEVA:


Gungineer:

I'm not great at communicating in the moment, I'm on the autism spectrum, and speaking in general is kinda tough for me. My favorite kind of game is when everybody just kind of knows what their role is and does it. I like to think I'm a good player who knows what he's doing, and wanted to share my method of playing, with the hopes of increasing the number of people who know what they're doing that I run into.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If it helped you please rate it so it can help other people too. Good luck out there!

Also, Devs, if you ever read this, please make brain turrets craftable in singleplayer, and/or add shuriken brains, so I have a chance against shielded enemies.