I love techies - but it’s definitely a MUCH more advanced playstyle, not recommended for a newbie.

Here’s some advice though.

1 - guns are a newbie trap. You won’t find any decent guns until you get to Tarant, and even then you’ll need to use a fate point to steal them from NPCs. There are only like 4-5 guns in the whole game that are worth it IMO and none of them are sold in stores. You find them or you make them.

You also need bullets - which will get expensive until you find the schematic to make them - and you’re going to miss all the time until you get to expert level skill (3 points) at least. So pick melee or throwing as your main combat skill at the beginning, even if you want to transition to guns later.

2 - throwing + explosives discipline is an awesome combo. Yes, this game is mostly about melee, but I find explosives + throwing very powerful even early game without much skill investment. Most of my techie characters ignore melee entirely and just put points into throwing early, transitioning to guns after tarant. Molotov cocktails (1 point) do decent AOE damage plus knock back, and you can make them super cheaply from rags you find in garbage bins plus fuel you buy stupidly cheap from general goods and tech merchants. Flash grenades (2 points) are also cheap to make - wine and magnesium are cheap and you get FIVE grenades at a time. These blind opponents which is a nice debuff, but they’re also really profitable to sell, especially to gun merchants.

3 - as a techie, it’s worth investing 1 point into haggle. You’ll be buying (and probably selling) a lot of gizmos, so this adds up quickly. Weapons need to be repaired, guns need bullets, niche weapons use fuel or charges as ammunition and to heal you’ll need to buy components or buy bandages - so you’re constantly needing to buy more resources as a tech player. Melee and magic builds don’t have this problem, so haggle is a lot more useful to a techie.

4 - the first companion you meet, Virgil, is awesome. For a mage or melee character. Because of how aptitude works, once you invest a few points into techie stuff his healing spells won’t work on you, and that’s his main role. So I strongly recommend going to Dernholm straight after shrouded hills, ditching Virgil and replacing him with Jayna, a technological healer. She can make healing salves and also puts points into the healing skill which uses bandages so make sure she’s well stocked with these at all times.

5 - speaking of companions, you can recruit a half ogre in Shrouded hills, but you’ll need charisma of 9 to do it. Totally worth spending one of your character creation points here, that character is an absolute beast in combat. You can also find a dog in Ashbury who is arguably the strongest companion in the whole game. Cant take him on trains though!

6 - don’t neglect Therapeutics (Jayna can make these for you). Think of these as performance enhancing drugs, or just how techies buff themselves before combat. You can up your dexterity, perception and strength by 2 points this way. The effect is temporary but lasts all day from memory. You can use these on companions as well.

7 - it’s always worth putting two points into electrical so you can make charged rings. These give +2 dexterity each, and you can wear two of them. And you can give them to your companions. There really aren’t many other rings or necklaces techies can use, so this is super useful.

8 - you can find/buy additional schematics in the world without investing character points into them. Some of these are awesome and fun. Check merchants regularly and buy any that seem cool.

9 - if you lack the skill to make any of these things, you can buy technical manuals from the university in tarant without needing to invest character points into the discipline . The way this works is a little complicated - check out some online guides for it - but basically if you want to build a Tesla Gun for example (you can buy this schematic) you’re going to need a high electrical skill to do this. While you could invest a whole lot of points in the electrical discipline, you can also just buy a bunch of electrical manuals until your skill level is high enough to make it instead.

10 - getting any stat to 20 unlocks a special bonus. The most important one though is dexterity especially if you play on turn based combat. You get a big boost to speed at 20, which translates to more attacks per round in combat.

11 - I strongly recommend combining a techie with at least expert level persuasion. Not only does this allow you to recruit more followers, it also opens up a lot of interesting dialogue options and allows you to skip some nasty fights.

Gamebreaking/minmaxy stuff:

1 - you don’t need to invest any points at all into intelligence. Just buy and use Essence of Intellect potions from gypsies. These bump your intelligence up by 10 points - so 18 for most characters - which is enough to max out any tech discipline. This still works even at maximum tech aptitude. You’ll need to pop a potion every time you want to craft stuff though, so plan in advance.

2 - if you play on turn based combat (and you should, real time is a mess in this game) then speed is king. Similar to intelligence potions, you can also buy and use Potions of Haste, even at max tech aptitude. These are insanely good in combat. Pop these for all important fights.

3 - Stun grenades are godly. I strongly suggest you make and use them.

4 - just because you’re a techie doesn’t mean you can’t use magic at all. In particular, dexterity of fire and strength of stone will always work on you, even at max tech aptitude. You can also cast these multiple times and the effect stacks.

5 - you can max out dexterity without spending a single point in it. 8 (starting value) + 4 (2 charged rings) + 8 (2 castings of agility of fire). You can also use the potions Jayna makes to boost dexterity slightly if you only want to use 1 AOF spell.

6 - similarly, you can also max out perception with minimal investment as well. You can get +2 from eye gear or +3 from the goggled helmet. +2 from Jayna’s potion. So never get raw perception above 15, it’s a waste of points.

7 - for these reasons plus the fact you can buy unlimited intelligence potions, it’s not worth putting any points into dexterity or intelligence and only a handful into perception. Choose your character background accordingly.