This is a tip on how to build a party that can ultimately build and use every technological item in the game. You should have your party complete at level 15, with these followers:

Virgil - Electrician and Explosives Expert
Jayna Stiles - Medicine and Therapeutics
Magnus - Smith and Machinist
Vollinger - Chemist and Gunsmith

Your player character will focus on whatever skills you desire (magick is a bad idea, of course) and will also build found schematics as needed, since followers cannot build these.

You need three tools that you can download from House of Lords:

Drog's Follower Editor: As soon as you acquire a follower use this editor to turn off their auto-leveling scheme, so you can level them up yourself.

Arcanum Edit 1.8: You only need this once, to remove Virgil's spell ability and set his tech/magick meter to zero before you start giving him technology skills. You might let him keep his magic heal for while since it is useful at the beginning of the game.

Datbuilder (or other file extractor): You'll need to extract Virgil's dlg file (01324Virgil.dlg) from arcanum3.dat and put it in Arcanum/data/dlg. Then edit it with notepad to add this line:

{[line number]}{What sort of things can you make, Virgil?}{}{5}{wa 0}{}{su}

[line number] depends on where you want to put it. I put it at {390} to replace a low-intelligence dialogue option, since my player character won't be stupid. There might be better options; this is quick and dirty. The step is necessary or Virgil will not be able to use technological disciplines because you can't tell him to make things.

- You'll have to be able to have four followers, of course. You can easily have Expert Persuasion by level 15. "Charlatan's Protege" is a good background to choose.
- Your player character does not need tech disciplines, but he'll need lots of manuals to build found schematics.
- You don't need to build all of your followers to 18 intelligence. When you level them up you can boost their IN with potions and therapeutics. When this wears off they won't be able to use the higher disciplines they've learned, so just pump them up by putting manuals in their inventory when you need them to build something.
- You'll need a big base to organize your tremendous amounts of parts and gear. There's an obvious one in Tarant that's easily obtained.
- You'll need lots of money to finance your technological ambitions. Apart from loot and fees, you can make lots of money selling your tech products. Once Virgil learns Explosive Grenades you're set for life. Haggle Expert is a good idea, but not essential.
- By the time you recruit Jayna (level 6 is ideal) you'll need to be +10 on your tech meter. You need to be good when you recruit Magnus, and you need to be level 15 to recruit Vollinger.

With this you will be able to obtain every tech item in the game, and experiment with them as you will.

FYI (and minor spoiler):

Instead of hacking Virgil, you could also just recruit Sebastian in the Boil, once you're strong enough to enter that most dangerous part of Tarant. You can do it around level 15 with a well-equipped party, though the game recommends you wait until you're at least level 25.

You say that like it's a bad thing. You say that like it's a bad thing, too. ;)

I had a favorite way of getting rid of Virgil permanently when I didn't want him. It involved a stick of dynamite and a steam engine, and it never failed once. No more long stammering monologues about his unhappy childhood.

Seriously, though, people complain about how useless their followers are, especially tossers like Geoffery T-A. By level 20 my high tech followers are almost too useful - most of the stuff we meet perishes in a hail of gunfire before my player character can even use a weapon.

You could give your followers Tranquilizer Guns. Then you can walk around with a normal dagger and stab all your enemies to death as they lie helpless.

You, sir, are an evil genius. I salute you . . . from way way waaaaay over here.

Heh, thanks. Somebody over on the Terra Arcanum boards came up with that one though. I'm sure the original post is still up if you're willing to seek it out. I'm not.

The best part is that almost everything in the game is vulnerable to tranquilizers, even undead and other things that should really be immune.

Tranquilizers are indeed excellent and I usually have the NPCs equip at least one. They are not so good with Tesla Guns, unfortunately, unless you want them to shoot each other.

This is almost worth doing, just to see for myself.