Recruiting companions
Successfully complete the indicated task(s) to recruit the corresponding companion.
Ellie (Groundbreaker): Find Ellie (and her quest) in the medical area of the Groundbreaker, in the Promenade. Talk to her and complete her "Worst Contact" quest to unlock her. Ellie's skill focus are Lie, Engineering, and Medical.
Felix (Groundbreaker): Go to the Groundbreaker Docking Bay to find Felix just outside your ship. He is a space adventurer with no respect for the Board. Talk to him once and leave Groundbreaker to be able to hire him. No quest is required. His skill focus are Sneak, Persuade, and Lockpick.
Nyoka (Monarch): Nyoka can be found at The Yacht Club in Stellar Bay. She is a heavy-drinker armed with an energy LMG. Complete her quest and agree to get her help for your main story quest for her to join you. Nyoka's skill focus are Sneak, Lie, and Medical.
Parvati: Take the elevator in the Edgewater Cannery, and talk to the boss for the "Stranger In A Strange Land" quest to automatically unlock Parvati as an engineer helper. She is an awkward worker with loyalty to Spacer's Choice. Her skill focus are Engineering, Persuade, and Lockpick.
SAM (Unreliable): The robot is in one of the rooms. Examine it after restoring power and taking flight with the Unreliable. You will start "The Cleaning Machine" quest. Find the Acid Steeper through the locked door in the Storage Facility in Roseway. SAM's skill focus are Science, Hack, and Intimidate.
Vicar Max: Talk to Vicar Max in the church in Edgewater to begin his "The Illustrated Manual" quest. Complete the quest to unlock Max. He is interested in new interpretations of "the law". His skill focus are Hack, Science, and Intimidate.
Strategy Tips
You Can Steal Anything And Talk Your Way Out Of Crimes: Stealing is a great way to earn easy money. Lockpicks (Mag-Picks) and Hacking (Cyber Shunts) allow you to access areas you normally cannot reach, and usually there is a good reward waiting. Start with the room in the back of the bar for an easy pick. Try to make sure no one sees you stealing items marked with red. If you are caught, having high speech skills will make escape easier. You will lose some reputation with the company, but you will not have to pay a fine.
Good Starting Armor Or Weapons: Right as you enter the town of Edgewater, look left for a way into the Barber Shop. Go inside, and go to the back room where you will find a dead guard. Just close the door, and you can easily steal from him. If you are lucky, he will have a set of Guard Armor. This is a great starting set, and it increases your Armor rating from 3 to 9. If he does not have the armor, he should at least have a weapon and some ammo to loot.
Get Parvati As Your Companion (And Raid Her House): Talk to the town overseer at the top of the elevator in the Cannery to quickly earn your first companion. Parvati is a helpful shooter with Engineering skills that can solve problems for you. Just by having her with you, you will be able to increase your skills and complete any Engineering challenge checks. You can also raid her house, which is located across the street from the bar. You will know the correct one when you enter the building with the garage and workbench.
Carry And Store More Items: One of the most useful perks to get early is Pack Mule. It instantly gives you a +50kg carry weight bonus. That is a lot if you do not have a strength build. The more stuff you carry, the more potential money you can earn, and the easier it will be to buy what you want later. Alternatively, you can store extra stuff at your ship. Use the containers inside to permanently store extra stuff. If that is not enough space, you can also unlock a perk that allows you to fast travel, even if you are overencumbered.
Instantly Breakdown Weapons And Armor: While looking into a loot container, press Left [Shift] to scrap the selected item, saving you time and inventory space.
Useful Features In Items Menu: There is a sub-menu you can use in your inventory that gives you instant access to a few useful features. For example, the Swap command is hidden in the radial options menu when using any inventory screen. This allows you to swap positions of your primary four weapons. You can move your favorites to the front, or put melee weapons in the rear.
Do Not Buy Weapons: Weapons are expensive when buying them from vendors. It is much better to save your bits for upgrades at the workbench. Use tinker on guns you find in the environment; marauders carry Assault Rifles, Hunting Rifles, Revolvers, Pistols, and Shotguns. They are all good, and there is no reason to buy them from a store. You will eventually get them all just from exploring.
Unique Melee Weapon: One early side-quest you can do is found in Constable Reyes' office. Talk to her, and she will send you to hunt three bandits outside of town. The Blad On Stik 2H melee weapon is carried by one of the three bandits, inside the Marauder hideout. It is northwest of Edgewater, just west of the Botanical Labs.
Use Stealth And Hunting Rifles: Enemies do not get alerted if you get an instant kill, even if it is with a loud weapon. When you are stalking a marauder camp, you can kill an enemy with a headshot without alerting the entire camp. Just wait for nearby enemies to lose their alert level.
Repair Weapons And Armor With Parts (Or Bits At The General Store): Break down weapons and armor to recover parts. Weapon and armor parts are valuable resources that allow you to repair your broken weapons and armor without spending money. You can choose to repair your gear for parts, but first make sure to check if your items are actually experiencing any negative effects. Some gear does not start losing power until it is pretty worn. If you are out of scrap, you can always visit the town vendor and spend bits to repair your gear.
Look For Pristine Weapons And Armor: Pristine weapons and armor are marked with a diamond symbol. They are not better than standard weapons and armor, but they are worth twice as many bits to vendors. Pristine weapons and armor are extremely rare, but keep an eye out for them. Do not breakdown these random weapons and armor for scrap. Save them for selling.
Upgrade Science To 20+ To Unlock Tinker At Workbenches: If you have 20+ Science skill, you can start tinkering. For 50 bits at the start, you can upgrade weapons and armor to make them more powerful or provide extra defense.
Upgrade To 20+ Handgun/40+ Melee To Unlock TTD Effects: While TTD is active, shoot legs to slow/stop, shoot arms to lower attack, and shoot the head to stun. You will see yellow lightning at the effected spot. You can even shoot humans in the crotch for the "Weaken" status effect. Move your aiming reticule over each part to see what status effect will occur.
Upgrade Dodge To 20+ To Unlock Leap To Reach Hidden Loot: Upgrade Dodge to 20+ to unlock the ability to leap forward, even while jumping. This allows you to jump much further than normal, and you will be able to reach platforming puzzle loot. For example, there is a crashed derelict ship just north of Edgewater with two crates you can only reach with the leap skill.
Find New Locations Around Edgewater For XP: Explore early in the game to earn easy XP and find unique areas, tough enemies (like mega creatures), and rare loot.
Check All Tabs When Modifying Weapons And Armor: At any workbench, you can apply powerful mods. Next to each weapon and armor, there are white dots. Those are mod slots, and if you do not check every tab when modding, you may miss out on powerful upgrades. Many early armor suits have four mod slots -- so make sure to scroll through all four. Use the triggers consoles to see everything you can apply.
Get A Second Companion: Go to the local church in Edgewater to find a strange companion. This guy will only become available after you have repaired your ship, but if you finish all the steps of his heretical quest, he will join you onboard the Unreliable.
After Leaving The First Area, Equip Two Companions And Select Perks Geared For Survivability: Your companions become a lot more useful after leaving the first area. When they level up, select perks to make them tougher —- more HP, armor, etc. It is recommended to bring both of them, and equip them with the best possible armor. You will be surprised by how much easier it is with your companions around.
Infinite Auto-Saves Anywhere On Supernova: You can only fast travel to the Unreliable (ship) on the Supernova difficulty, and auto-saves are extremely limited. You can only save (or auto-save) in your ship. There is a way around this system. When you fast travel to your ship, an auto-save will be generated at the spot where you just traveled from. Load your new auto-save file after traveling. Since you cannot fast travel anywhere else, this is a great way to generate saves anywhere on the map.
Change AI Behavior To Keep Companions Alive: Go to the settings, and scroll over to your party members to alter their AI behavior. You can order them to be more passive, stay further away from fights, and only use ranged weapons. Make them play defensively since if they die, they are permanently dead. At the start of the game, this is a pretty big deal. Later in the game, once you have good armor and weapons for your teammates, it is not quite so bad.
Special Ignorant Dialogue: Set your Intelligence to very low at the character creation screen to get unique dialogue options that indicate how dumb your character is. If you are playing on the Supernova difficulty, this can actually happen temporarily.
Increase carry weight...