A few questions from a new player

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

What are the most efficient ways (or actually any viable way) to level mechanics, electrics, carpentry and metalwork?

This game is a blast but it can be pretty hard to manage at first with so many mechanics, and I wanted to be more time efficient and get a head-start because I found out the hard way that after awhile... there's no power.

[Riktor87]

For mechanics i'll strip parts off cars even if i'm not going to use them "usually throw everything in the trunk"

electronics, go around and dismantle tv's radios, wall clocks etc.

carpentry, find an axe and saw, cut and saw logs from trees.

metalworking, I level by dismantling fences and metal doors / chairs.

Edit: Also the skill bonuses in trait selection / character creation aren't explained well. As in you take handy and get +1 carpentry and a 75% exp gain, that's actually additive, so you get the base +75% more exp or in a simpler term 100% of the actions awarded exp for the skill "such as say dismantling a bed gives 100xp base, with no initial skill you get 25% of that ex so 25xp, but having the +75% gain from one point in a skill awards the full 100xp" so if you want to level skills quicker, it can be worth it to get at least one point in it, or you could spend a bit more time grinding the levels.

Edit edit: Also theres a series of shows in the first week? 10 days? when you start, assuming it's an initial infection type start that play on the television that gives free exp in the specific skill of the show, such as woodcraft at noon "the first show can get you to almost level 2 in one shot if you've found the carpentry book / start with handy. There's also shows for fishing, farming, cooking, trapping, all on life and living.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Life_and_Living_TV

[dustbiter]

You can get by just fine without any levels in the four skills you mentioned.

You don't actually need electrical skill. It affects hot wiring but it's not hard to find a decent car with key on default apocalypse so odds are you'll never need to hot wire.

Mechanics, level one is easy to get and useful for changing tires, two is needed for hot wiring which you likely never need to use. Odds are you'll find a decent working car with key that works fine without needing a fix. I put some fuel into a red condition van at the crossroads near Muldraugh, managed to start it and drove it to Rosewood, and I continued to use it in Rosewood while I found more vehicles with keys there.

You can get by without carpentry skill, but it's easy to pick up a few levels quickly with the books and dismantling furniture. It's convenient but not necessary to have a few carpentry skill levels to help with spear condition when crafting. I've survived many games without ever using metalworking.

[BanDHMO]

Mechanics: there's a cap of how much XP you can get at a time, so you can't just uninstall/reinstall the same part all day to farm XP. What I do is drag/drive a couple of beat up cars to near my safehouse, and then uninstall/reinstall a few of the parts once or twice when I have some time to kill. Over time and with books, it adds up.

Carpentry: you can save your good axes by using a stone axe to practice. All you need is ripped sheets made from zombie clothes, and then branches and chipped stones can be found in the forest itself. Basically infinite axes this way.

[Armagenesis]

For mechanics, find a totalled car (one where everything is red) and install/uninstall every part you can. Even if you fail, you will still get EXP from trying to install/uninstall a part. So, you can rinse and repeat until you level up enough. After a certain level, you can do the install/uninstall on every single part once per day to level the skill up.

For Electrical, disassembling digital watches, TVs, radios, and repairing generators are the fastest way that I know of. But unless you want to have battery powered table lamps, you don't need to level the skill beyond level 1 or 2. So it shouldn't be too difficult.

For Metalworking, disassembling bathtubs give the highest EXP with least propane cost so far AFAIK. So gather all the water from those tubs and then disassemble them.

For Carpentry, aside from chopping and sawing trees, you can also make spears from the planks as well. You can also use those spears as weapons, so two birds with one stone.

You don't need to power level them, by the way. Just level them up as you go through the game, You can still get by without any of these skills. Combat skills are far more important because you need to get them zeds off your lawn eventually.

[caydemlebahtiyar]

mod name AutoMechanics, don't bother with metalwork early game(or even never) and for carpentry just watch the woodcraft show if you miss life and living there are vhs woodcraft instead of disassembling everything

[westrud]

Just to add to what has been said already:

Mechanics only gives experience for each part once per day. I try to find a relatively safe parking lot with several car in it and just make a round of the cars once a day removing and replacing the parts and mechanics levels pretty quick.

For electronics I collect every watch I find on zombies because they are light weight. The most useful thing electronics does is making repairs to the generator more effective, although after you have leveled your electronics skill you will have enough scrap electronics laying around this doesn't matter much anymore. You can also wire lamps with a battery to provide a light source at a certain level, six I think.

For carpentry sawing logs seems to have had the XP gain nerfed significantly, building will level it pretty quick though. Best to watch the TV and get those levels if you can.

Metalworking is hard to start out leveling, you will need to dismantle stuff and probably build metal floors. Once you reach level four you can cut the large sheets into small sheets and weld the small sheets together into large sheets. You will lose some materials and it will take a bit of propane, but it is the fastest way I have found to level it. With a high metalworking and high mechanics skill you can fully repair car trunks and car gas tanks, which is very useful for people playing the long game.

[Pherdnut]

Mechanics - Look for the 3 Car Zone videos at video stores. With mechanic 1 and 2 books pre-read, you can skip to level 4 without repairing a thing. At level 4 you can install/uninstall a lot more stuff without risk of breaking things so you can even use cars that are keepers to train on without risking damage. If you happen to have safe access to a ton of cars, you can skip the lower-level stuff in favor of the higher-level because it gives more XP, but I usually just do everything that runs no risk of damage.

Carpentry - At noon every day for the first 6-7 days you get Woodcraft on Life & Learning. If you manage to read books ahead of most shows you should be able to get to level 4-5 if you don't have fast learner or a bonus to carpentry to start. Then I look for video tape versions of the same show, but don't go nuts trying to find every last one. You can watch them all once for more bonus XP. Then I disassemble Wardrobes and Large beds until I get to level 7. You can build everything at that point so I level the rest of the way just using the skills as-needed.

Electronics - In the early game, collect every electric watch, headset, ear buds, portable game, etc. Then when you get a chance to read Electricity 1, disassemble it all. Then disassemble TVs, radios (tons to pull out of cars while also training mechanics), wall clocks and especially desktop computers if you happen to be somewhere with offices. I only target level 3 for being able to move ovens, and save the gadget stuff for when I'm completely settled in with other skills.

Metalworking - Look for traffic jams full of burnt out car wrecks like the ones South of Muldraugh or East of West Point. Bring extra propane because it takes a lot but it levels Metalworking FAST. I think I usually target Level 3ish for car part repair at first. Metalwork crafting isn't really that great compared to wood, although the boxes can store more, I think. Barriers are only a marginal improvement.

There are other regular life/learning shows until the TV station shuts off. At 6am every day is the cook show. at 18:00 is an outdoors show. Episodes teach fishing, farming, fishing, nothing (about campfires), foraging, trapping, foraging, carpentry. I try to get book read for foraging and trapping for foraging and trapping, especially trapping since getting to level 2 lets you trap rabbits with box traps right away. Video taps for all the L&L shows can be found and watched one more time. Repeats on TV can also be rewatched (the last two cook shows are the first two episodes repeated). I usually don't get a chance to hit any of the cooking shows with book readiness.

[skunkmonkey]

Don't forget that at noon the life and living channel on TV usually has carpentry. That's only for the first week though. You can also pick up the VHS tapes from the video store to learn a few skill points of carpentry.