A common question from new players is "what educations should I go for" and this should hopefully answer that question.
The first thing to note is that educations should complement the way you play.
While some educations are stronger than others, you should focus on the educations you'll use most, even if they are generally considered weaker.
Pink is extra information, green is highly recommended, yellow is optional.
This image shows the acronym used for each field, and the total duration required to get their respective bachelors without mitigations. A total of 347 weeks, or 6 years and 35 weeks. All educations will be referred to by their tag, for example BIO1340: Introduction to Biochemistry, will just be BIO1340.
There are 5 ways to reduce education time, but only 3 I would advise doing.
- First is merits, 2% per level up to 20% I would highly advise putting atleast 7 levels into this as each level saves nearly 2 months across all educations.
- Second is the principle city job perk which gives a permanent 10% education time reduction.
- Third is West Side University stock block, which gives another 10% reduction while you hold 1 million shares.
Between these 3 you can cut off 40% of the time spent in education passively.
- The Book of Carols booster item can be consumed to reduce education time by 6 hours, but considering this is nearly the same cost as an FHC it isn't worth it.
- Lastly there are player companies: Fitness centre, and Hair Salon. Which both provide 30 minutes of education time reduction for 1 job point.
There are 3 catagories of education: introductions, modules, and bachelors. In general the bachelors are what holds the real power but there are a few notable exceptions.
BIO2127, Is easily the most impactful education in the entire game, unlocking blood bags will give you access to the strongest medical items in the game which will be vital in all warring efforts, and can be used to self hospitalise while trading other players.
SPT2440, SPT2450, SPT2460, SPT2470, Each give an additional 1% gym gains in a different stat. While 1% might not sound significant, gym training has an exponential function so this bonus 1% in each stat will actually carry much more weight than you might expect.
HIS2160, +10% damage when using japanese melee weapons & BIO2410, +3% flat crit chance across the board. Two good combat perks, but may not be worth the time investment with good bachelors still to do.
HIS2180, HIS2190, HIS2200, These all allow museum finds to spawn in the city, they spawn very rarely but can be worth a good amount of money if you do find them. These are not worth the investment until you have atleast completed both SPT3510 and PSY3690.
CMT1520, CMT2570, CMT2128, CMT2129, This unlocks access to the cracking crime and provides minor quality of life upgrades, these are not worth doing unless you plan to start cracking in the following month.
PSY2132, CMT2130, CMT2131, These all provide minor quality of life upgrades to the scamming crime, these are not worth doing unless you plan to start scamming in the following month.
Bachelors
There are 2 bachelors that contend for the top spot these are Sports Science and Psychology.
SPT3510, gives an additional 1% to gym trains, in addition to the 1% in each stat from the modules the combined 2% boost will make training considerably faster. Where happy jumps are involved, cheaper too.
Gym bonuses are multiplicative so the actual gain is slightly higher than 2% and will also stack multiplicatively with faction steadfast upgrades.
PSY3690, gives 10% increase to crime experience, and skill progression. This helps to speed up your crimes progression and the crime experience applies across the board including to organised crimes.
I would personally reccomend picking up Sports Science first as it has more useful individual modules. However, if you prefer doing crimes over the gym then psychology is still a fantastic option.
From here the Bachelors perks drop off significantly but there are still some worthy mentions.
CBT3870, unlocks weapon experience, this will slightly increase your weapons damage and accuracy stats up to +10% damage and +2 accuracy at max experience. This will require 2000 hits to go from 0-100 experience in each weapon.
GEN3121, all future education award 10% extra working stats, this isn't particularly important but it gives a noticable boost for all future educations, better to pick up earlier than later.
BIO3420, unlocks the ability to equip and use needles, these give giant +300% to +500% passive stat boosts in each of the 4 battle stats and allows you to effectively fight opponents considerably stronger than yourself.
Unfortunately the remaining bachelors are in the gutter in terms of perks. But there are some dishonourable mentions, these are noob traps to avoid getting pulled into.
BUS3130, and the entirety of the business branch should be avoided early. These educations only affect the director, and you as an employee receive no benefit from having these completed. Additionally new players should avoid running companies, especially start ups. They are an expensive endeavour that typically cost more than they return, and you will be missing out on the fantastic perks of already established companies.
HIS3210, the trading scene is already extremely saturated with people buying and selling items for points. The margins for buying and selling for museum trade in's are quite thin and you will be better off simply buying from frequent fliers and selling to the market, which does not require any education time.