Dev edit: THIS GUIDE IS STILL PRETTY UP TO DATE DESPITE A LATER GAME BUILD BECAUSE PROFICIENCIES REMAIN UNCHANGED AS FAR AS I'VE SEEN
ALSO I'M TOO LAZY TO UPDATE THIS MAYBE?

Imagine a world where your guns could be more guns. You could stab things harder. Your shotgun could become a sniper rifle. You take down flying tanks with peashooters and robotic rainbow-spewing tank dogs with a wooden spoon VERY LARGE FISH


Welcome to Mercenary Kings.
Within the world of Mercenary Kings are a thing called Proficencies. These are small challenges you can complete to unlock a passive bonus to your character, each of them with notable use and with their own special place within the game's mechanics. You can do good things without them, but you can do even greater things with them. Whilst not necessary to beat the game, they are incredibly useful to even the most seasoned veterans of the war with CLAW and local jungle fauna. From increasing damage to reducing bullet spread, they cover a wide ensemble of areas that you can benefit from.

So, lets get started.
This is my very first guide so apologies if I do something dumb or innate. We all gotta start from somewhere

First off, we will review where it is you can actually find Proficiencies. I've met several people in my time who didn't even know there was a map button, let alone a whole submenu alongside with it.

But fret not! Hopefully here you will see what it is you must do to perform the ancient ritual of opening the majestic Submenu! To make sure we have absolutely 100% knowledge on how to perform this elegant deed we must first find out what we must do to activate it.

• First, head to the main menu.
  
• Go to Help & Options
  
• There will be an option for mapping
  
• Scroll through it to find the line within the screenshot below

(your bindings may differ from mine)

And that should be all you need to do it. Now we head ingame.
At any point, be it at Camp Crown, Hunting Grounds or even during a mission, open your Submenu.

Opening the Submenu during a mission will NOT pause enemy movement nor the mission timer



There we go. Select Proficiencies. I don't need to write down how, right? Lets take a look at these...

And now we get to it. I'm going to borrow a piece of an old screenshot of mine for this part, for the sake of the guide.



Here is a half-completed Proficiencies menu. At first every option within this list will be unavailable to you, should you have just started. Some of you may have unlocked some by accident or have seen them before but lack the materials to unlock them.
Whilst it looks like there's only 5, there's actually 12 if you scroll down this menu. Not this actual menu, this is just a .png of it. To first starters or people who haven't purchased many parts, every option here will be locked. The only way of course is to check what each Proficiency requires!

However should we look at one of the locked options, CQC....



We see that the game will instruct you on how to unlock it, but not what it will actually do to benefit you. And that'd be why this guide was made. When you unlock a Proficiency, the game will instead display the actual benefits it has towards you. We shall cover that in the next section.

With that out of the way, lets get right to the data. Truth be told I am still testing out the data behind the % boosting ones, but I'll update that now and then. When crafting parts towards these, pay attention to the 'Class Type' information below the preview window in Lawless' vendor menu. When it comes to Elemental parts, it doesn't matter what type it is.

I'll also include a Recommendation for each one on where I feel it shines and why you should use it. But that's just my opinion! You are your own soldier, use what you feel suits you.

• Brute Force: Craft 10 Magnum gun parts.
  Effect: +5% raw damage with guns.
  Your guns will do 5% more damage overall. This is directly added on to your weapon's POW stat, but will not actually be shown in the display for your weapon's stats. Use the test dummy beside Lawless to see how much your gun power changes. A higher base POW will have a larger increase of course. This will not affect your elemental damage.
  Recommendation: A high POW gun will make good use of this, try it on a Magnum or a Shotgun.
  
  
• Chemistry: Craft 30 Elemental Gun parts
  Effect: +10% Elemental damage with guns
  When it says 'elemental gun parts' this means any part that has a latent secondary elemental to it. Live Wire, Firestarter, etc. This does not affect your raw damage but will affect your elemental damage. 200 Electric damage becomes 220 but 200 Raw damage will not become 220.
  Recommendation: If you're a fan of shocking, burning, melting or freezing your foes, or you want to brute force your fire weapon against a mechanical enemy, then maybe this is the boost you need to get that bit of extra punch.
  
  
• CQC: Craft 50 Knives
  Effect: +20% damage with knives
  Good for the melee types, or if you just want a nice bit of self defense. This 20% bonus seems to stack with the Kage mod. Does not apply to elemental knife damage as expected. Also even though it says 'knives' this applies to any melee weapon.
  Recommendation: If you're using a large melee such as the Violence Blade, then apply 2 Kage mods with this for some serious hurt that can outshine even some guns.
  
  
• Elemental CQC: Craft 20 Elemental Knives
  Effect: +20% Elemental damage with knives
  Honestly this is pretty self explanatory, it's a good chunk of boosted damage when you rely on type weaknesses. Also even though it says 'knives' this applies to any melee weapon.
  Recommendation: This Proficiency will work wonders with certain mods, and it can actually cause your elemental damage to outshine your raw damage regarding melee.
  
  
• Gun Fu: Craft 15 Handgun Parts
  Effect: +5% accuracy
  This will add 5% to your weapon's ACC rating, which factors how straight your shots fly when you use your gun. Ever wondered why your bullets soar upwards or hit the ground and miss that Patrolman? Low ACC is why.
  Recommendation: Coupled with a powerful (or inaccurate) weapon, this can make up for lack of a Sight, giving you a free bit of extra sharpshooting on top of saving you some equipment weight. I'd personally recommend this on any Machine Gun or Submachine Gun with a low ACC. Heck, why not use it with a Sight anyway? Bump up that ACC and you too could be pulling off some wicked sick 360 noscopes.
  
  
• Medicine: Craft 20 Bionic Mods
  Effect: Nullify 1 Side-effect
  This will negate ONE side-effect from your installed Bionic Mods, so if you wanted to say use Sprinter but didn't want to deal with Defense Down, then this Profiency will help you out. This one will only negate the FIRST side-effect on your list and nothing else, so whatever your first Mod's first side-effect is, that will be nullified.
  Recommendation: If you can't afford the + mods with no side-effects, this is for you. It's also a good way to still earn good money, negating that 'Poor' side-effect from Lucky Penny can help keep the cash flowing.
  
  
• Selective Fire: Craft 20 Assault Rifle parts
  Effect: Your weapons now fire in burst mode, regardless of Class type.
  This can make any weapon fire in a three-shot burst on a single tap of your fire button. This can actually increase your DPS a good deal if you have a high CAP weapon with an already high fire rate.
  Recommendation: Shotguns, Snipers and Magnums benefit heavily from this. Just watch the bullets fly. Works wonders with missile ammo. Useful even on low CAP weaponry! Use it on the Horse.
  NOTE: Be aware that using this Proficiency will negate the fully automatic fire mode that Machine/SMG Receivers are able to do. Wether or not this is a blessing or a curse is up to you.
  
  
• Sniping: Craft 20 Sniper Parts
  Effect: Range +1
  Truth be told this Proficiency Effect could be worded better in-game as it does not give context as to what the '1' means as a unit. However after speaking with developers and testers it is revealed that this will upgrade your gun's RNG stat by 1. Short becomes Medium, Medium becomes Long, Long becomes Extra.
  Recommendation: Can't get close enough to use your shotgun well? Do your Magnum rounds fall short? Want a bit more range so your guns can kill that enemy gunning for you? Then pick this.
  
  
• Speedloading: Craft 20 Shotgun parts
  Effect: All reloads are 20% faster
  Congratulations! Your can-do attitude and perky demeanor have proven that even that clunky minigun can be fitted to muscle memory. Every weapon will reload 1/5th faster, and this even applies to botched reloads. However this CAN make landing a perfect reload difficult on guns with a fast reload speed. Better yet, this stacks with Speed Loader mods!
  Flash Loader? Thats not available yet in the public builds...yet. Shame on you if you...acquired it~
  Recommendation: The slower your weapon reloads, the better this is going to be. Even middle-tier reload speed guns get a notable increase. And from what I've seen and heard, reloading faster is what stops that damn Hopper or Snail bumping into you because you were too busy reloading your gun to fire at it.
  
  
• Trigger Mastery: Craft 20 Submachine Gun parts
  Effect: Rate of Fire +1
  More dakka? You damn right more dakka. This will increase your gun's RPS stat by 1. Which means bullets fly out more often. Not sure if a CLAW member can drown in shell casings but we can sure as hell find out.
  Recommendation: Any high CAP fully automatic gun can benefit most from this. Minigun especially. Watch the screen FILL with bullets. Shotgun ammo with a Machine Gun/SMG Receiver with this can get pretty crazy. Of course the downside is you will be reloading earlier, of course.
  
  
• Weightlifting: Craft 20 Machine Gun parts
  Effect: -3kg Weight
  This removes 3kg from your Equipment weight (Submenu > Status) total, which can affect your movement speed. Weight is what makes you go from jogging marathon man to trundling bounder. Weight is what affects jump height, air mobility, movement speed and fall speed. Lighter is faster.
  Recommendation: Any heavy equipment, or your secondary items such as Adrenaline Shots and C4 can be negated from your inventory somewhat with this. -3kg is more notable than you would think.
  
  
• Storage:Craft 30 ammo types.
  Effect: Increase Gun CAP by 5.
  This will put 5 more bullets into your weapon for free, no matter what weapon. This will not affect your stats in any shape or form. Unlike magazines which can affect your POW, these 5 free bullets will not hamper your stats. 5 more bullets for no penalty!
  Recommendation: This Proficency is designed for low CAP weapons, it can be used on whatever you like but it will feel much more useful and handy with a low CAP. 5+5 is 10 but 180+5 is 185. Trust me, low CAP is better than high CAP on this one. I won't force you to use it only on low CAPs though. That is your choice.

Alright, first off, FAQs!
Nobody has actually asked me these but I feel they would be at some point.

• What if I want to not use any of these?
  There's a 'none' option at the top. In previous builds you couldn't unequip Profiencies and had to select another to make your current one stop.
  
  
• Do my Proficiencies help other people?
  No they do not, the Proficiency you equip will only benefit you.
  
  
• Why can I only equip one at a time!?
  That would be overpowered. You can however change them at any time.
  
  
• Where do I find this material? I need more gun parts!
  There's a very wonderful guide made by Osirin that has an incredibly extensive Mercenary Kings data collection on maps, drops and their rarity and locations of rare materials within the maps themselves. Also its a good read for stats and such. The only issue so far is that it has not been updated since Update r6510 and does not cover any mission beyond Captain, nor the current weaponry included in updates after it. Hopefully someone updates it or makes a new one.
  
  However bear in mind that it will contain spoilers if you wanted to avoid them.
  That guide is here and I hope it helps. If it doesn't then I'd suggest a Discussion thread and asking some community members. But generally any material not included here is most likely going to be in the Major rank missions. We all know how strenuous it was to wait for the Major missions to be added. Finally we have Violence King weaponry.
  
  
• You forgot to mention the Achievement you get for unlocking all of these!
  Not a question but I know I did. With the fact a pop-up happens and the Achievements themselves stating that you need to unlock all Proficiencies I felt this wasn't necessary.
  
  
• If I wanted to add something to this, could I?
  If you want, sure. Just add me and lemme know what it is and I'll include you in the credits and update my info. I ain't gonna do that if it's already been included of course.
  
  
• I heard that buying and selling the same weapon part/bionic mod/ammo/knife over and over until I unlock the Proficiency is possible, is it?
  Sadly, yes. It's possible. This is considered an exploit currently. But honestly with the latest update to Build r7574, there is easily enough parts of each type for you to earn these Proficiencies legitimately. Be a real King and do that stuff right man, it's more fun that way.

Any other questions? Can just ask in the comments or add me or something.

I tend to not wrap some things up very well so here is some CREDITS because I COULDN'T DO THIS WITHOUT THE HELP OF SOME LOVELY PEOPLE.

Jive Soul Bro gave me a hand with some data regarding Proficiency requirements!
coolboy also helped with some Proficiency information! Did some number checks too.
Fishfreeek did some help with Proficiency info as well, namely ones i hadn't unlocked.
xJoLL notified me the Storage Proficiency requirement was changed.