Skill Training Guide

[caethan]

One of the things I've been working on more lately is more consistent skill training, so I thought I'd write up a bit about how to train up skills and how difficult they are.  The general rule is that you can gain at most three percentage points every day, and the day rolls over at about 8:00 AM.  Skills with more stars next to them will be easier to train up, depending on your stats and the stats that help with that skill.

Craft & Lore skills

Agriculture - Train up through planting seeds.  Affects the yields of grown plants.  Difficult to deliberately skill train.
Building - Train up through building things.  Affects the speed of building.  Difficult to deliberately skill train.
Cookery - Train through cooking more difficult recipes.  Roasting meat won't do much, more complex recipes are more likely to train.  Somewhat useful; will affect the trade value of cooked food.
Herblore - Keep unknown plants, mushrooms, and berries in your inventory and use herblore on them every hour or so.  Trains pretty rapidly with a few items to train with.  Useful for identifying edible and medicinal plants.
Fishing - Train through fishing with a tool, pole, or nets.  Difficult to deliberately skill train, but net fishing is probably most effective.
Hideworking - Training with small game is most effective, since they tan faster and each hide gives you the same number of possible skill ups regardless of side.  Very useful for getting higher quality clothing and cords.
Timbercraft - Training with board making is most effective.  Not hugely useful, but affects the speed of timberwork and quality of boards.
Physician - Train by treating minor injuries.  Climbing trees is a reasonable way to get minor but not threatening injuries.  Frostbites from running naked in the winter work OK too.  Can now treat animals and companions as well, which might be a less dangerous way to train it.
Trapping - Can be trained by resetting traps repeatedly.  Very useful for those who want to trap; increases the chance of game entering the trap.
Tracking - Train by following a game trail and repeatedly using the tracking skill to check the direction of the tracks.  Quite useful for active hunting.
Weatherlore - I have literally never seen this skill increase, and I use it every morning.
Carpentry - Train by making crafted goods like shortbows or paddles.  Difficult to train, but quite useful for higher quality items.

Physical skills
Skiing - Just ski.  During the winter I ski around checking trap lines to train this.  Quite useful for winter travel.
Stealth - Walk around in stealth mode.  Seems to train faster when there are animals nearby.  Useful for active hunting and combat.
Climbing - Climbing fences or small cliffs trains this safely and quickly.  Useful at very high skills for climbing trees safely for better views.
Swimming - Swim along the shoreline in the summer.  Trains fairly quickly.  Not commonly used, but can save your life in some situations.

Combat skills
Difficult to train up safely.  Throwing or shooting weapons will train, but often takes hundreds of throws to get a skillup.  Dodge, unarmed, and shield are very difficult to train.

Any other suggestions?  I generally spend time on actively training herblore, skiing, stealth, climbing, club, trapping, and tracking. 

[MrMotorhead]

I think timbercraft helps your survivor make staves as well, but its very hard to make a fine staff, which can be made into a fine javelin.  I have not managed to do this yet, I've only found fine staves in villages.  I'm hoping that this will be possible once my survivor's skill gets to 85% or 90%.

For tracking I saw a great tip somewhere, the key is to use the skill on tiles where you do not see tracks but suspect they might exist.

One way to skill up weapon skills is by using a low power attack to finish off an animal.  For example using a javelin with a blunt attack to dispatch an unconscious elk.  This typically takes many hits and so seems to be a good way to gain a skill point.  Maybe holding onto a crude weapon for this purpose would let you get more swings in. 

[GiTiB]

As MrMotorhead said I think Tracking levelup when you discover new tracks, so you should stand on a tile without tracks near some discovered tracks and try to discover new ones. It is one of the easiest skill to train so no need to invest points in it.

[mlangsdorf]

I think Carpentry is the skill for making staffs, not Timbercraft. Either way, with skill in the 50+ range and a fine hand axe, about half the staffs you make are fine. I've had survivors with masterwork hand axes and masterwork broad knives make masterwork staffs, but not regularly: about 1 in 5, I'd guess.

Fine javelins don't seem to be noticeably better than average javelins in my experience.

[MrMotorhead]

You may be correct about carpentry, I was basing my statement from the wiki page, which may be outdated: http://www.unrealworld.fi/wiki/index.php?title=Staff

However fine javelins seem incredible to me:

Code: [Select]

(A80000):29hb:[!@]{04B20673}     | You encounter an animal. You think it's a Bear...
(143270):29hb:[#]{04B20673}      | Zooming in ...
(000000):29hb:[T]{04B20673}      | There is pine mire here and you encounter something.
(143270):29hb:[#]{04B20673}      | You see big female bear there.
(000000):29hb:[C]{04B20673}      | Cujo withdraws from your way.
(000000):29hb:[S]{04B20673}      | Sarge withdraws from your way.
(000000):29hb:[D]{04B20673}      | Dasher withdraws from your way.
(000000):29hb:[S]{04B20673}      | Sarge barks in alarm.
(000000):29hb:[S]{04B20673}      | Sarge withdraws from your way.
(143270):29hb:[#]{04B20673}      | You see dog called Sarge (leashed) here.
(AB5700):29hb:[+]{04B20673}      | You swing your arm back preparing to throw the fine javelin.
(143270):29hb:[#]{04B20673}      | Aiming Zone: Head
(000000):29hb:[Y]{04B20673}      | You try to throw your javelin at the female bear.
(000000):29hb:[Y]{04B20673}      | You execute a steady throw and the javelin flies straight at the female bear.
(000000):29hb:[T]{04B20673}      | The javelin pierces its neck!
(000000):29hb:[T]{04B20673}      | The female bear falls prone.
(3C5A98):29hb:[:]{04B20673}      | The female bear seems to have fallen unconscious.
(000000):29hb:[Y]{04B20673}      | You hear a creature barking in alarm in the north-west.

[davidor]

I think I'll just dump some data here, feel free to add more!

Carpentry ***
242 poor boards -> poor paddles 0%-> 25%
500 inferior boards -> 453/47 inferior/poor paddles 25% -> 40%
71 inferior boards -> 71 inferior paddles 40% -> 42%
293 decent boards -> 218/75 decent/inferior paddles 42% -> 50%
303 decent boards -> 286/07 decent/inferior paddles 50% -> 55%
51 fine boards + decent cords -> 32/14/5 fine/decent/rough shortbows 55% -> 60%
125 fine boards + decent cords -> 88/32/5 fine/decent/rough shortbows 60% -> 70%
66 fine boards + decent cords -> 49/14/3 fine/decent/rough shortbows 70% -> 71%
217 fine boards + fine cords -> 171/40/6 fine/decent/rough shortbows 71% -> 80%
243 fine boards + fine cords -> 210/25/8 fine/decent/rough shortbows 80% -> 89%


Timbercraft ***
110 trees -> trunks -> 89/702/596/571/242 perfect/.../poor boards 0% -> 82%
57 trees -> trunks -> 147/637/284/72 perfect/.../inferior boards 82% -> 100%

Weatherlore ***
~Seedtime(May) -> Pearl(Feb) ~10 a day(once each hour) 90% -> 100%

Timbercraft ***
128 logs -> 343/1732/374/111 perfect/.../inferior boards 65% -> 100%

[Iago.Hach]

The best way to train some skills is modding the diy_ files..

I like to create some little personal mods like this(don't know if its worth posting in mods):

.Spear combat training. "Spruce twig" [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance]  *SPEAR*    /150/ |2|
{[NEARBY_TILE:birch]}               +'A birch nearby'
{Staff} #0.2#
[NAME:Broken twigs]

This way you train skills like you train carpentry and others.
Use *SKILL* and |2| so you get best results,
and then put some time and effort like [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance] and /150/ so it looks like a training and not an exploit.


Herblore - Keep unknown plants:  This works wonders, especially when you are at a strange area far from your culture 

[koteko]

The weapon training trick is awesome, never thought of that! It's a great parallel to training ranged weapons, now.

I would probably not use |2| to avoid maxing it too quickly, but very cool recipe nonetheless

[davidor]

The best way to train some skills is modding the diy_ files..

I like to create some little personal mods like this(don't know if its worth posting in mods):

.Spear combat training. "Spruce twig" [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance]  *SPEAR*    /150/ |2|
{[NEARBY_TILE:birch]}               +'A birch nearby'
{Staff} #0.2#
[NAME:Broken twigs]

This way you train skills like you train carpentry and others.
Use *SKILL* and |2| so you get best results,
and then put some time and effort like [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance] and /150/ so it looks like a training and not an exploit.


Herblore - Keep unknown plants:  This works wonders, especially when you are at a strange area far from your culture 

Combat training mod by Privateer
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=1222.0

You can also train herblore with known plants, again skill check cool down time is one hour, the only difference between known and unknown plants is just the examine time.

[Iago.Hach]

The best way to train some skills is modding the diy_ files..

I like to create some little personal mods like this(don't know if its worth posting in mods):

.Spear combat training. "Spruce twig" [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance]  *SPEAR*    /150/ |2|
{[NEARBY_TILE:birch]}               +'A birch nearby'
{Staff} #0.2#
[NAME:Broken twigs]

This way you train skills like you train carpentry and others.
Use *SKILL* and |2| so you get best results,
and then put some time and effort like [effort:3]  [phys:hands,one-armed,stance] and /150/ so it looks like a training and not an exploit.


Herblore - Keep unknown plants:  This works wonders, especially when you are at a strange area far from your culture 

Combat training mod by Privateer
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=1222.0

You can also train herblore with known plants, again skill check cool down time is one hour, the only difference between known and unknown plants is just the examine time.

Sorry if it sounds like copying, but actually I saw this example of minimods in the old forums, In a topic just like this one. Now I can't find that one exactly..

This mod by Privateer I didn't like that much because you need a lot more rituals to get the actual training :/

I just thought that combat training is more straight forward like hitting trees  lol 

But the idea of rituals to get buffs is really nice, like the Shaman mod with herblore and others

[MigrantWorker]

Training dodge is possible, and I had good results with the following approach:

First, run down a stag, elk, or njerpez until they are breathless, or trap a bear and stone it to within an inch of its life.
Second, stand in their way and wait for them to try to attack you, then dodge the attack.
Third, repeat point 2 up to several hundred times...

Even in their weakened state, your training partners will land an occasional hit on you. Wear fur and leather armor for added protection and repairability.

As an added bonus, breathless njerpez would eventually let their weapons drop out of their hands, and you can pick them up for free. In this way you may even be able to come back another day for more training with a now unarmed partner. In theory you can do this sort of repeated training with a trapped bear, but in practice a barely alive bear would eventually either die after you throw one stone too many at it, or injure you so much that you can no longer dodge reliably.

Downsides are that you can still be unlucky and receive a disabling/fatal wound, and you cannot schedule this type of training - you just have to take the opportunity as and when it presents itself. Also, it is difficult to run anything down with a slow character.

[Shadowdweller]

Timbercraft is used for staves.  The skill fortunately trains fairly easily over the long run, but a skill % that is too low can make early game hunting with javelins fairly unpleasant since you need decent quality staves (or good quality tools) for decent javelins.  Rough and especially crude javelins are MUCH harder to hit and/or kill things with than decent ones.

[shorun]

training weatherlore is easy.just use it every once or so. it's slow, but does incease.

i raised it 3 points in an ingame year by using it once every day. just before sleeping.