Starting scenarios

Your starting scenario decides what the Mentor set you up with, and so which trade you can start making money from. The demo lets you start three scenarios plus the hardcore Rock Bottom. The other specializations are not playable in the demo, so this wiki leaves them out for now.

Scenario	You start with	Good to know
Apprentice	More starting Credits, a Storage Bay, and a stock of household goods and food	Recommended for new players
Water Merchant	The water trading manual, water testing and purification equipment, and extra water containers	The demo’s featured trade
Rat Wrangler	An animal cage, rats and food	Raising rats for meat
Rock Bottom	Nothing but the store	Extreme challenge mode

Starting perks

Notes per scenario

Apprentice

No specialization caught your interest during training, so you spent less setting up the store. The game recommends it for new players.

Water Merchant

Clean water is scarce on the station. You begin with the testing and purification kit; see Water purification and Happy water. Joe Wild sells more water services (Water Trading, Gutterflow On Tap and Rustwater On Tap), and Dr. Jackson sells the water trading guide.

Rat Wrangler

To the Mentor’s annoyance, you learned to raise rats for meat. See Raising rats and Animals & breeding. The scenario was hidden in the first playtest builds and made visible in patch 48.3.12.

Rock Bottom

The Mentor only negotiated your lease: you start with the store and nothing else. Losing to the “Augmented” ending (too many missed augs) only happens in Hard Mode.

Starting perks

Starting perks are not available on your first run. Update 049 added two perks designed for challenge runs:

• Known Snitch: customers from the wanted poster never visit your store, and you start with −10 reputation with the Revolution and the Black Market.
• Degenerative Osteoarthritis: scavenging at the Dumping Grounds works normally for the first week. After that you lose one maximum attempt every week, and once you are below 3 you can no longer scavenge; a normal shopkeeper has 5 a day. You start with 2 extra topical bandages.

Sources: the game’s NewGame, MainMenu and PerkTable localization tables and code (PlayerStore.LIMITED_BUILD_START_TYPES, MainMenuUIController, StartingPerk, StartingPerkList), demo build 049-Rev3-L; patch notes 48.3.10, 48.3.12 and update 049.