Everspace 2 offers players a myriad of different methods for enhancing their ship and strengthening their build. This includes crafting, upgrading, and replacing ship components to improve their ship's capabilities. Another method players can use to improve their capabilities is the game's perk system, which offers a variety of benefits to players who engage with it.
Everspace 2's perks can be separated into two broad categories: Adam/Hero Perks, and Companion Perks. The former are unlocked in a fairly traditional manner, familiar to players who've played RPGs before, unlocking as the player increases in level. Companion Perks, on the other hand, instead rely on players gathering the correct items and resources and delivering them to a companion character, which then unlocks the relevant perk. This guide will cover the first of these two Perk types.
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Adam/Hero Perks
These perks are unlocked every 5 levels until level 25, and each level threshold offers several choices of perk. These can be swapped out for any of the other choices whenever the player docks their ship, allowing for flexible build modification based on the player's current needs.
Level 5
At level 5 players can access the perks Exit Strategy, Close Call, and Defensive Massacre. All three of these perks offer players a defensive advantage.
Exit Strategy reduces damage taken while boosting by 25%, and since players will usually be boosting when evading incoming attacks this can be very helpful.
Close Call provides an emergency invincibility shield when the ship would take lethal damage, which lasts 10 seconds and can only trigger once before players need to dock the ship to renew it. This can help out in the early-game and/or when dealing with sudden unexpected attacks that could otherwise prove devastating.
Defensive Massacre triggers the ship's shield recharge whenever an enemy is killed, allowing players to refresh their shields and renew their defenses after taking out an enemy. Since players will usually be fighting large groups of foes, this can be a tremendous boon to their survivability.
All three can be useful when dealing with tougher fights, but Exit Strategy and Defensive Massacre tend to be more consistently useful than Close Call due to not needing to be refreshed at a dock between uses.
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Level 10
At level 10 players gain three perk options related to their devices, special ship gadgets that grant them powerful abilities on a cooldown.
Percussive Maintenance causes incoming attacks that hit the ship's armor or hull (but not the shield) to gain a 10% chance of reducing the cooldown of a random device by 20%. This can be enough to knock a device back online at a critical moment when under attack, and pairs well with the defensive reduction offered by Exit Strategy from level 5.
Downtime Warrior reduces the energy usage of weapons by 15% for each device currently on cooldown, encouraging players to use their devices readily and often to gain maximum benefit. Since devices can have lengthy cooldowns, this buff can prove incredibly useful in longer fights where greater firepower is needed.
Play It Safe causes all devices to add 4 charges of "Reactive Armor" when activated. These charges last 5 seconds, and each charge will negate the damage caused by one attack impact. This can be an excellent source of extra defensive power, especially when paired with defensively useful gadgets like the Front Shield Generator or Temporal Nano Recompensator. With good timing it can be used to completely nullify powerful incoming attacks.
Depending on player preferences in combat, all three of these perks can be a fantastic choice.
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Level 15
The level 15 Perks are all about improving the ship's offensive capabilities in different ways.
Excessive Force boosts primary weapon energy damage by 30% while the shield is fully charged, encouraging players to dodge skillfully and rewarding them with a considerable damage boost.
Crit Happens adds a 30% chance for critical hits to cause an explosive impact that hits the target and nearby enemies for 50% of the critical hit's damage. This adds some potent AOE damage to critical strikes, helping players to clear out groups of enemies.
Relentless provides a 20% buff to weapon energy capacity for each warfare device installed, allowing players with a warfare device-focused loadout to extend the amount of time they can keep their weapons firing. This allows players to make more use of some of the more energy intensive weapons, or fire less intensive weapons for long periods of time without needing to switch.
Of the three, Excessive Force requires players to avoid taking hits at all costs if they want to benefit from it, which can be difficult in the target-rich environment offered by many of the game's combat encounters. Crit Happens and Relentless tend to be more consistently useful to the average player, though players confident in their dodging ability should give Excessive Force a try anyway.
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Level 20
At level 20 players gain access to perks involving their ship's Ultimate.
Ulterior Motive boosts ULT energy generation while the shield is depleted, helping players to charge up their Ultimate when in a tough situation.
Unyielding Assault causes ULT Activation to also repair 50% of the ship's armor and remove all debuffs, allowing players to use their ULT as a panic button in dire situations to turn things around.
Critical Faculty adds a 30% chance for a critical hit to restore 1% ULT energy, allowing Critical focused builds to get their ULT online more quickly.
All three can be useful depending on build, but Unyielding Assault works best for improving survivability, and Critical Faculty paired with a high crit-rate weapon can be excellent for a more offense focused playstyle. Ulterior Motive can also be a good pick for players who regularly find themselves out of shields in the midst of a firefight.
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Level 25
Level 25's perks are varied in function and capability, catering to several different playstyles.
Retaliation reflects 30% of incoming damage back onto the attacker, serving players with well armored and tanky ships best.
Exploitation increases critical hit chance by 50% against enemies with impaired movement, so players making use of debuffs to leave their opponents immobile can make the best use of it.
Preparation provides a 5% boost to secondary weapon damage each second, capping at 30% and resetting when damage is taken. This allows players to begin fights with tremendous amounts of secondary weapon damage, and keep that damage as long as they can avoid taking a hit.
All three can be incredibly useful when paired with the right build.
Everspace 2 is available for PC, and coming soon to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
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