NG+ and background skills

[Emphoise]

I noticed something neat that could be unintended.

After you enter unity and go through the character creation screen, your character gets 1 additional rank in all 3 skills associated to your character background. (for the record, the background can not be changed after entering unity, only traits and appearance).

If you want to min max that behavior, you could NOT invest any skill point in those 3 skills during your playthrough up to NG+3 and have those 3 skills maxed by then. However, that means picking skills that you won't be able to improve in your first universe, so better chose underused stuff.

[jeffy]

the game has infinite universes so it does not matter what you choose.

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by jeffy:

the game has infinite universes so it does not matter what you choose.

What do you mean, did you read my post ?

It does matter what background you chose, each time you go to NG+ the 3 skills associated to that background are increased by 1 rank. (If you already had that skill at rank 4, you get nothing)

Example : Let's say you pick the "bounty hunter background" (start with rank 1 in "piloting", "Targeting control system" and "Boost pack training".

At the end of your initial playthrough on the first universe, let's say your character has :

piloting rank 4,
targeting rank 1,
boost pack training rank 3.

After going to NG+1, it will have :

piloting rank 4,
targeting rank 2,
boost pack training rank 4.

For NO skill point cost.

Each NG+ will increase those skills (until they reach rank 4).

[Emphoise]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

If you want to min/max then yes you need to skip adding those points but honestly there is no level cap so you can theoretically max out every single skill before you even NG+

Sure, but getting those skills for free does represent a ton of XP on the higher levels if you intend to get every skill. Also allows you to skip the challenge grinds.

That makes some underused annoying background skills more attractive.

IE bouncer : boxing - security - fitness. Fitness especially is very tedious to level, but quite useful. Boxing is pretty useless but then you won't have to grind XP at high level to unlock it, and security requires to open a lot of containers if you level it normally.