Abiotic Factor is a new survival game inspired by the original Half Life, trapping a group of scientists in a facility with strange alien creatures and forcing them to scrounge office supplies and other materials to survive.
When you create your character in Abiotic Factor, you’re forced to choose a starting Job and a set of Traits to define your playstyle and starting skillset. These choices will greatly affect the first few hours of the game, and if you’re playing with a group, they’ll determine your overall role within the squad.
All Abiotic Factor Jobs Explained
There are nine Jobs to choose from in Abiotic Factor.
- Lab Assistant
- Epimedical Bionomicist
- Trans-Kinematic Researcher
- Archotechnic Consultant
- Phytogenic Botanist
- Somatic Gastrologist
- Paratheoretical Physicist
- Defense Analyst
- Summer Intern
Each of these sounds much more complicated than they actually are. If you read the description of a Job, it’ll tell you the suggested role that they should play. They’re essentially classes with different starting skill allocations.
The Lab Assistant, for example, is the stealth class since it gets bonuses to Sprinting and Sneaking at the start of the game. Defense Analyst is the offensive combat class since it gets bonuses to Fortitude, Strength, Blunt Melee, Reloading, and Accuracy. If you’re playing with a group, try to coordinate your Jobs so that your team has specialists in each area.
In general, there are some Jobs that are more useful than others, though. Defense Analyst is the best Job for combat-focused players. If you’re more into base building, then go with Archotechnic Consultant. Solo players should choose Lab Assistant since sneaking past enemies is the best strategy when playing alone.
If you want to have the most control over your character and have the most starting points available for your Trait selection, then Summer Intern provides a blank slate. You’ll miss out on starting bonuses, but you’ll be able to min-max your character more effectively.
Best Traits to Choose in Abiotic Factor
Speaking of starting points, your Trait selection can make or break your character’s build in Abiotic Factor. There are positive and negative Traits to choose from, each with its own associated point cost. You’ll need to choose negatives to offset the buffs you get from positives.
The best overall Traits in Abiotic Factor are Lead Belly, Wrinkly Brained, Gardener, and Inconspicuous. Lead Belly is an incredibly helpful Trait since it lets you drink tainted water without getting sick, greatly increasing the hydration sources available to you in the early stages of the game. Wrinkly Brained gives you a permanent 20% increase to XP gains, which really adds up.
Gardener and Inconspicuous don’t seem nearly as helpful on paper, but their lower point costs make up for that. Gardener lets you level up Agriculture-related skills twice as fast, and it also grants you recipes for basic gardening plots right from the start of the game. Inconspicuous makes you attract enemy attention twice as slowly as others, which is perfect for smaller teams and solo players.
To offset the point costs of these Traits, you’ll need to choose a few negative Traits. The best negative Abiotic Factor Traits are Painfully Obvious, Slow Healer, and Weak Bladder. These don’t affect your character nearly as much as the worst negative Traits like Narcoleptic or Fear of Violence. Of course, you should pick Traits that mesh well with your build (a stealthy player shouldn’t choose Painfully Obvious, for example), so look over the Trait list carefully before making your choices.
