This is an in-depth guide to the first hour or so of gameplay so that new players can get a good start in Sunless Skies.
Greetings, Delicious Friend[ | ]
You start your adventure at the Blue Kingdom Transit Relay in The Reach. Travel along the path, pick up some fuel floating around, and soon you will arrive at the Wreck of the Ozymandias.
Because the first crew to be gained are so cheap, you should choose the options that risk crew members rather than hull. Lead your party along the outside hull. Pick up the 4 supplies, the 15 Hull points and the Cotterell & Hathersage 'Jerusalem' cannon and the Diffident Bat. Press on to the engine room and send your crew on ahead. If you succeed at the hearts check you will get 2 additional fuel, otherwise you will lose a few crew.
Continue south and fight the Reach Marauder that lurks past the destructible terrain, using the cannon you scavenged earlier. Once defeated, loot the marauder for some Sovereigns and Hull points. Some marauders may also drop the Reclaimed Marauder Mangonel, which is a fantastic early-game weapon. Murder every marauder you see until you get one. You will also encounter a Sky-Maddened Captain and be given the choice between bringing them aboard or simply ending their misery. Bring the poor sod aboard, as it does not cast you anything and if you can transport them to Magdalene's House of Small Comfort, you will earn Experience, lose Terror and gain a Vision of the Heavens.
After the fight, New Winchester should be very close by. When you dock, character creation will begin.
Creating your First Captain[ | ]
Your first choice is of primary and secondary Origin Facets, which will provide +15 and +7 to 2 skills. Many backgrounds also unlock unique choices in particular storylets. In particular, Priest has interactions with various high terror events, Academic lets you impress the scientists at the nature preserve, and Zailor gets you unique references to Sunless Sea, the previous game.
As far as skills are concerned, your initial selection is only mildly important. Your later choices will have a much bigger influence over your stats than your initial setup. There are skill rolls all over the place, but there is no 'right' answer - the game will respond to your choices. Many advanced ship modules also require a minimum level.
Mirrors may be marginally the most useful at the start of the game as some useful cannons (Caminus Yards 'Grimalkin' and the Cotterell & Hathersage 'Vala') require it. Also, high Mirrors increases the hull you can repair by salvaging wrecks.
Iron is sort of useless except that some smuggling mods require 50+. So it complements Veils very well if you are intending to smuggle (though this is a mid to late game feature). Other than that it unlocks a few plating options, but good plating isn't available until late in the game so Irons is relatively limited in terms of usefulness.
Hearts is useful for various crew modules and getting it to 75 lets you use The Wrath of Heaven which is arguably the best weapon in the game. There are also some very high-stakes, demanding late-game skill checks that depend on Hearts - so it's not a bad choice to focus on building it through the whole game.
Finally, Veils unlocks most of the cargo increasing modules which is very important. Additionally, veils checks are common when smuggling cargo through transit relays - if you are set on a life of crime, go for high Veils, alongside. Smuggling can be amazingly profitable but it isn't possible with a very new Captain.
You also get to choose your Ambition, which is your intended end goal. There are three options to choose from; Fame, Wealth and the Truth. The Truth ambition is not recommended for beginners so that leaves us with Fame and Wealth.
Fame requires you to collect many different possessions, items and stories ranging from the common and mundane to the absurdly rare and legendary and use them to compose a masterpiece book that will secure your place in history forever and thus retire in fame and glory. While you sometimes need these possessions for other things, spending them on your ambition rarely results in bottlenecking your progression.
Wealth, on the other hand, is simply about accumulating vast wealth and using it to buy an opulent estate, expand your property and finally introduce yourself to high society in a glorious ceremony and then retire in obscene wealth and opulence. This ambition is very straightforward in that it simply involves amassing a huge amount of Sovereigns, but it costs extreme amounts of money to progress.
Between these two ambitions, there's not really much contest. Fame encourages you to interact with many of the fascinating stories in the game. Wealth encourages you to go space trucking. Choose Fame for your first captain.
New Winchester and your First Prospect[ | ]
Now back to New Winchester! You get a mysterious Black Box and are deposited at Wolvesey Station. If you immediately hire on more crew, you can snag the Turncoat’s crew, which will fill you up to full crew members for a mere 10 sovereigns. Crew members usually cost about 25 sovereigns each so this is a great deal.
If the Incautious Driver is here, you should recruit them for a mere 20 sovereigns. If they aren’t here, you can pick them up at Traitor's Woods later.
Explore the city, and talk to the folks at the Promise of Days until you learn that you should buy 3 Sacks of Verdant Seeds from Port Avon and deliver them to Magdalene's. This is important because your journal will now tell you what direction these places are in. The map is randomized for each lineage, so use those directions to get to places.
Snag all the prospects available in the bazaar, make sure you have at least 4 fuel and supplies, and head off towards Port Avon. Head in the generally correct direction and brutally murder any marauders or Tackety Scouts you encounter along the way. Use them to repair your hull if you got hit, and otherwise collect random cargo. Maybe don’t tro to pick a fight with any Enduring Dreadnoughts you come across unless they’ve already been damaged in fights with some tacketies. Once you get about 1/3rd of the way to the edge of the map, start using your scout to look for the port.
When you arrive at Port Avon, buy your seeds at the Bazaar and replenish to 4 fuel and supplies. Be sure to write a Port Report and pick up the Short-Sighted Cryptozoologist. She’ll want to go to one of Traitor’s Wood, Hybras or Lustrum. Set sail for Magdalene's, its also about half the way to the edge of the map.
Magdalene’s is your favorite port. This is an excellent place to reduce terror and nightmares and you’ll be using their services often. Upon arrival, sell your seeds using the Prospect (you did select it in New Winchester, RIGHT?!) Replenish to just enough fuel and supplies to get back to New Winchester and buy whatever bargain is available there, keeping in mind that you possibly can’t carry the entire thing because you picked up so much sweet loot along the way. Head back to New Winchester.
Near the main port of New Winchester are 2 Platforms, Victory Hall and Company House. Deliver your 2 Port Reports to one of these locations. Victory Hall belongs to the Tacketies, and will reward you with Savage Secrets and Otherworldly Artefacts for your trouble. Company House is ran by the Stovepipes and will reward you with Salon-Stewed Gossip and Ministry-Stamped Permits. All of these are useful, so choose the team you like. Regardless, you’ll earn 200 sovereigns for your efforts. Dock at New Winchester.
Upon returning to New Winchester, some clerk will be there to enable the bank for you. Now you can store cargo here for use later. Claim any new prospects and see if you have any cargo to fill them. If not, sell all your excess stuff. Keep 1 Bronzewood and 1 Gourd of Chorister Nectar if you happen to have those. Usually you’ll want to amass cargo in your bank so that you can fill prospects, but at the moment money is more valuable than not money.
Exploring The Reach[ | ]
From here you should use your journal and prospects to find new ports, go there, buy bargains, collect Port Reports, and generally murder your way across the skies. Try to keep at least 1000 sovereigns available at any given time so that you can easily buy bargains that you come across. You will soon start being able to fill prospects from the stuff stored in your bank, and money will start being less elusive. If you happen to find a Transit Relay out by Hybras, don’t jump through it. It breaks afterwards and will strand you in Eleutheria which is not a very nice place to be at low levels.
Port Prosper, in particular, contains a very lucrative storylet. When traveling there, be sure to pick up the Fastidious Inspector from New Winchester, and bring along 1 Bronzewood and 1 Nectar. Delivering the inspector to Port Prosper will reward you with money fuel and supplies, and the crew working on The Albert Clock will request bronzewood and nectar which you just so happen to have. Combined, these two questlets are worth more than 1000 sovereigns.
Furthermore, The Parsimonious Chairman will let you start collecting nameplates from all those Tacketies you are slaughtering and pay you 25 sovereigns and a little something extra for each. Sweet Jane in Lustrum will pay you 50 sovereigns for each dreadnought nameplate you give her. You should do both.
You should soon have enough money to begin collecting officers for your locomotive. Each has an entertaining story line, and adds valuable bonuses to your skills. You can collect:
- Incognito Princess from New Winchester or Port Prosper.
- Fortunate Navigator from Lustrum.
- Fatalistic Signalman from one of the 4 Signal Boxes in The Reach.
- Repentant Devil from Port Avon.
- Amiable Vagabond from Polymer & Plenty's
- Incautious Driver from New Winchester or Traitor’s Wood.
- The Rat Brigade from Port Avon, Lustrum or Titania.
- Inadvisably Big Dog from Port Prosper.
- Blemmigan Voyager from Port Avon.
And So On[ | ]
New Winchester sells the Additional Cargo Bay module for 500 sovereigns which should probably be your first purchase. As soon as you can get the 25 mirrors required for the Caminus Yards 'Grimalkin', you should buy that for 550. It is a huge upgrade to the Jerusalem. A different option is to luckily acquire 2 Reclaimed Marauder Mangonel. Delay the offhand shot half a second so that it doesn’t overheat you, and you can slam 3 fireballs point blank into some poor unsuspecting Tackety or Marauder and destroy them before they turn around. It doesn’t work on dreadnoughts or Scrive-Spinsters though, so watch out.
After buying a Wit & Vinegar Winch & Pulley for 1160, you should consider upgrading your locomotive to a Pellinore-Class Trader for 3500. Combined this should give you enough cargo space that you don’t much have to worry about it. Once you are so equipped, consider traveling to Albion via the Transit Relay near Port Prosper. It costs Ministry-Stamped Permits to travel, which can be acquired by delivering Port Reports to Company House. The Pellinore's higher carge capacity allows you to take advantage of several bargains and prospects simultaneously, allowing you to earn a pretty penny in the process by ferrying cargo and trading.
Alternatively, you could decide to upgrade your locomotive to a Parsival-Class Courser for 2000. It is cheaper than the Pellinore, though it has less cargo space. However, it has a Large Weapon slot, which allows you to mount some very nasty weapons on to it, like the Portsmouth House 'Albertine Candle' or the Portsmouth House 'Jubilee' , to name just two of them, which deal higher damage than Small Weapons and allows you to much more readily deal with Sky-Beasts. You could even install a mining array and/or a canning station on your locomotive for good measure and then use them to extract resources from mining sky-rocks and Supplies from defeated Sky-Beasts. These Sky-Beasts respawn quite quickly so you can more easily take them out with your large gun and stock up on dropped loot. When pillaging them for treasure they often drop a Cache of Curiosities, which gives various useful and beneficial items. Since you can alternate between mining resources and looting defeated enemies for treasure, you can conceivably farm Sky-Beasts for quite some time without having to return to port, then sell the proceedings for Sovereigns when you finally do return. As an example; if you use your mining array to mine a sky-rock, you will get a Barrel of Unseasoned Hours but may also spawn a Cantankeri or a Tackety Scout. If so, you can use your Large Weapon to defeat it and then either use your canning station on the Cantankeri to gain a unit of Supplies as well or loot the Tackety Scout for a Cache of Curiosities, for double the haul overall. Just be careful out there and make sure to dodge any incoming fire and try not to ge hit, as the Parsival is a bit on the fragile side of things as far as Locomotives go.
From here, the (sunless) skies are the limit! Consider saving up for an Altani-Class Outrider, which you can buy from the Eagle’s Empyrean in Eleutheria (as you can modify it to obtain the highest possible cargo capacity in the game), or beginning a career in smuggling. Be sure to visit the Clockwork Sun in Albion, because it is really amazingly cool. There’s a few more officers to collect from Albion and Eleutheria, and if you are going the hearts route, be sure to prioritise acquiring The Wrath of Heaven, which you can mount on to the Parsival, or any other Locomotive that has a Large Weapon slot.
But above all, stay delicious.
In order to travel between regions, you need to use Transit Relays. However, the one between Albion and Eleutheria starts out as broken so you need to repair it.
If you choose to become a smuggler, see Guide: Smuggling. Beware the Revenue Men, who are stationed at every Transit Relay! Make sure you have enough Hidden Compartments to conceal all contraband!
Confused about rebuilding Titania? See: Guide: Rebuilding Titania.
Go get THE BEST WEAPON IN THE GAME.
Confused about Amber Alchemy? The Alchemy of Amber.
Hate the Blue Kingdom? Read the Guide for Blue Kingdom Status.
Ready to take the plunge? Guide for Ambition: The Truth.