Gear, Contracts & the Arsenal

Every expedition begins with a contract from the Captain. It tells you what the run is for — recover treasure, gather resources, retrieve a cylinder, or, on the endgame Portal line, cleanse the corruption — and in exchange it hands your crew its starting weapons, gear, and supplies. The contract is the deal: an objective, a loadout, and a payout. Your party commits to one per run, so agree on the run before someone locks it in.

Here's the part that catches new crews out: the Captain does not give each player their own kit. A contract provides a single pooled arsenal for the whole team. You decide together, before you set off, who carries the firearm, who takes the blade, who runs the lamp, and who packs the bandages. Divide the roles deliberately — a squad where everyone grabbed a gun and no one carried a light is a squad that walks into the dark blind.

Contracts run from Basic through Mid, Advanced, and Legendary, alongside special story and endgame Portal work. Higher tiers issue better starting gear but demand tougher objectives and deeper, more dangerous ground. Match the tier to your crew: take the loadout you can actually use, not the flashiest one on offer.

• Basic — the training-wheel runs; forgiving gear, shallow objectives, ideal for solo and new crews
• Mid & Advanced — the bulk of the game; a real loadout against real pressure
• Legendary — top-tier gear for the hardest standard contracts; bring a full, coordinated squad
• Portal — the endgame 'cleanse the corruption' line, offered across difficulty tiers

Personal inventory is tight and it fills fast — a firearm, a melee weapon, ammunition, a light source, some food, and you're nearly out of room before you've picked anything up. It isn't a fixed number for life: an extra inventory slot is one of the perks the rank ladder unlocks, so your carrying capacity grows as you rank up. Either way, don't load your pack with combat gear alone. Collecting treasure is a collaborative goal — store valuables in the ox-wagon's chest to free your inventory as you find them, rather than trying to carry everything on your back. The wagon also has four quick-access slots on its side for weapons or items you need to reach in a hurry.

• Assign one firearm carrier and let the rest run quiet melee to keep noise down
• Always send at least one light source (lamp or torch) into the party
• Carry healing — bandages and Ammonia Salts earn their slot the moment a fight turns
• Keep a couple of slots empty so you're not dropping treasure for lack of room
• Reserve armour pieces (breastplate, helmet) for whoever takes point in melee