Skills and Easy Leveling Guide.

[Axz]

Some of this is likely to change in the future as some aspects seem a little too easy / hard.
If you know anything that would be usefull to others, I have got something wrong or have missed something either PM me or just post it here and I will update this thread with any usefull information as and when I have the time.

*<Skill Name>* = There's an easy way to level this with another skill that I will go into further in the last post.

Movement:

1) Sprint - As easy as it is tedious, sprint to level it (very slowly).

Leveling sprint makes you sprint faster, it does not let you sprint for longer.

2) *<Lightfooted>* - Even though it says lightfooted is leveled by "Walking or running near zombies without being detected", sneaking seems to level it too. Simply sneak around zombies to level lightfooted and sneak at the same time, the more zombies near you the faster they level.

Leveling lightfooted reduces noise made by running and walking, although it MAY reduce sneaking noise as sneaking seems to level it too, if so then this is likely a bug and will be fixed in the future.

3) Nimble - This one seems bugged, it says you level it by sneaking, climbing through windows and over fences, however I tried repeatedly climbing through windows and over fences and appeared to get very little and sometimes no XP . It doesn't gain XP by sneaking at anywhere near the rate of lightfooted and sneak, both my lightfooted and sneak are within 100 XP of each other at 3.5 / 5 but my nimble is only just 2 / 5. So sneaking does appear to level it, but at a far slower rate than lightfooted or sneak.

Leveling nimble lets you move while sneaking faster, climb through / over obsticles faster and reduces visabilty loss while aiming.

4) *<Sneaking>* - As easy as it sounds, sneaking while around zombies will level sneak and lightfooted at the same time, the more zombies near you the faster it will level.

Leveling sneak will reduce overall detectability while sneaking (apart from your smell presummable).

[Axz]

Combat:

1) Blunt - Any sucessfull hit with a blunt weapon will grant you one whole experience point...... Yea. I get the impression the XP gains will be altered slightly in the future as level 5 alone would take (presummable) 10,900 sucessfull hits to level, you'd run out of zombies before you maxed that, perhaps a killing blow / one hit kill should grant slightly more. But for the meantime all I can say is keep batting skulls, that's all you can do.

Leveling blunt raises your "Proficency" with blunt weapons, I don't know exactly what that means but I can only assume it lets you swing your weapon faster, lowers accuracy penalty when panicing, increase chances of dealing higher damage per attack, reduces stamina drain per swing and possible lowering the rate the item loses durabilty. If anyone knows exactly what changes with "Proficency" let me know please.

2) Blade - Same as blunt, just keep splitting wigs.

Leveling blade gives the same bonuses as blunt, only with bladed weapons.

3) *<Aiming>* - It says killing a zombie with a gun will level this, however not all kills seem to count, quickly aiming then killing a zombie doesn't seem to work sometimes, yet when you fire into a group at random and kill 3+ zombies in one shot without aiming it does seem to count. It seems bugged and you only gain 1 XP per kill (when it works), however killing multipal zombies with one shot appears to give a multiplier gaining more than 1 XP per kill.

Leveling aiming will increase accuracy when firing guns.

4) Reloading - Another easy one that will be altered in the future, you gain 1 XP for every shell you load and everytime you reload your pistol, remember when leveling reloading that the more you panic the slower you reload. Again level 5 alone, 10,900, no way near enough ammo', you know the drill. Although reloading a pistol that is missing 1 bullet grants the same XP as reloading a empty pistol, so reloading after every pistol bullet will help maximise reloading level / XP.

Leveling reloading lets you reload faster. (Who saw that coming?)

[Axz]

Crafting:

(Read skill multiplier books whenever possible, without the XP mutiplier below methods will take a lot longer, 16 times longer on level 5 alone to be exact, so it is well worth picking them up if you can.)

1) *<Carpentry>* - Everytime you build something or saw logs you gain XP, although the XP gain doesn't seem very balanced, at later levels depending on what resorces you have it can be easier to simply saw logs to level rather than build stuff that you will have to destroy later anyway as when you level carpentry your structers gain durability making everything proir to level 5 ultimatly redundant.

Leveling carpentry lets you build new things and increases the durability / aesthetics / variety of anything you build.

2) *<Cooking>* - Everytime you open a can, cook some food or prepair some food (e.g. bowl of water + dry noodles) you gain a fair chunk of XP, if you cook regularly this will level itself fairly quickly through the early levels, if not check out the easy way in the last post.

Leveling cooking increases the hunger reduction value of prepaired food / cooked food.

3) Farming - You only gain XP when you harvest the plants, if using the skill mutiplier books you can max' farming in 2 - 3 large batches alone.

Leveling farming increases your crops starting health and gives you more info' about any individual plants status (health, water levels, growing stage, etc, etc). It also MAY slighty reduce the chance of a plant contracting an illness, but confirmation on that would be nice.

[Axz]

Survivalist:

1) Fishing - You will gain XP no matter what happens as a result of your cast, if the line breaks, the fish gets away or you catch a pair of socks / shoes you will always get XP.
Obviously it will be a lower amount of XP than it would have been if you caught a big pike, but you will always gain XP no matter what happens, all you can do is keep on fishing. The skill books help hugely with level 4 and 5.

Leveling fishing slightly reduces fishing times, chance to break the line / lose the fish / bait / tackle and increases your chance to catch larger fish.

2) Trapping - "Thank you Steam user! But the info' you're looking for is in another castle!" Trapping doesn't work for me at all, everytime I try to bait a trap I just walk off in a random direction and keep going. So, yea......Sorry.

[Axz]

Easy Leveling:

(Be carefull trying 1 with low sneak / lightfooted, I did this with gracefull so take extra care if you don't have that.)

1) Lightfooted + sneak + aiming - Golden rule: KEEP LOOKING BEHIND YOU, if it's been 5 sec's since you last looked behind you that's 17 sec's too long. Take a shotgun and a shed-load of shells, walk into a part of town you know has a lot of zombies, get close enough to fire a shell to get thier attention and lure them all over but still be able to sneak away without being seen.

They will all group up where you were when you fired the shell and all you have to do is sneak near them. Even with a small - medium sized group you can get at least 10 XP every sec', as time passes they will spread out, eventually one will see you and come for you, lure it away and shoot the zombies that have seen you, sneak away, they will group up where you shoot the zombie that had seen you, sneak around them, rince and repeat.

When you are happy with the XP you have gotten fire another shell at them to get thier attention and when they are relativley grouped up just blow them away with the shotgun. There is not enough ammo' (and probably not enough zombies) to max' your skill in aiming so getting group kills with your shells whenver possible will help you maximise your aiming XP / level gaining easily 4-5 kills per shell. As you level sneak and lightfooted you will be able to do this with larger groups gaining much more XP, just remember to be carefull as panicing gives a hefty reloading penalty, all the XP in the world won't help you if you're dead.

2) Carpentry - The easiest and most usefull one of them all, get 4 plants, a hammer and a butt-load of nails. Find a safe spot where zombies can't get in and barricade a door / window 4 times then unbarricade the door / window, rince and repeat.

3) Cooking + Fishing - Sounds obvious I know, but currently there are a few things that are not quite right in-game, like for example; the fact that you can put 20+ 1 meter long fish into a single oven, or that all fish no matter the spieces or size takes the exact same time to cook. Cooking a single item currently gives too much XP, I got through level 5 of cooking in 1 in-game day. Go fishing early on the mourning (yay!) with a boot-load of worms, spend the whole day fishing, bring all the fish back, put them all in the oven and turn it on, when they are cooked (if you used to skill book) that will get you the 10,900 XP needed to max' level 5 in one day.

4) Skill books - I can't stress enough how much they will help, so much so they will probable have thier effectivness reduced. At level 5 when you need 10,900 they times your XP gain by 16 and at level 4 you need 7300 they times it by 12 turning a huge grind into a quick and easy task. The multiplier also applies to your main XP, from reading every book and doing the above I have max'ed cooking, fishing, carpentry and farming, have done about half of all the other skills and have 38 skill points in the bank.

[Axz]

I have also just added a screenshot to my library showing how the zombies group around where you fired the shell (the dead zombie).

If Krotchy gives you any trouble while looking at my library just kick him in his..... Well....

[Foolish Bastion]

Really awesome guide,thank you!

[Skyhigh]

Nice info thanks :)

[The_Black_Knight]

My advice is find all the skill books you can early, stash them, and read them daily.
Your carpentry, cook, fishing, and farming skills will not move much after level 3 without them.
In fact if you read the books as early as possible most skills will be maxed to level 3 minimum before you pass 30 days of survival. That means finding book stores and raiding urban houses.

[Foolish Bastion]

Nice.

[=M$= Oroberus]

For carpentry it may be useful to chop some trees, saw the logs but don't build anything below lvl 3 (barricading windows and doors is fine, just like building crates). So you'll raise carpentry but don't have to deal with those ♥♥♥♥♥♥ broken wooden walls that looks like some mentally challenged guy that has lost both hands tried to build them.

[Foolish Bastion]

引用自 Lyric：

For carpentry it may be useful to chop some trees, saw the logs but don't build anything below lvl 3 (barricading windows and doors is fine, just like building crates). So you'll raise carpentry but don't have to deal with those ♥♥♥♥♥♥ broken wooden walls that looks like some mentally challenged guy that has lost both hands tried to build them.

I do that sometimes, other times I rush some of the walls and the early ones look like mentally challenged people made them. Good advice.

[RalphRoberts]

引用自 Gomer Pyle：

引用自 Lyric：

For carpentry it may be useful to chop some trees, saw the logs but don't build anything below lvl 3 (barricading windows and doors is fine, just like building crates). So you'll raise carpentry but don't have to deal with those ♥♥♥♥♥♥ broken wooden walls that looks like some mentally challenged guy that has lost both hands tried to build them.

I do that sometimes, other times I rush some of the walls and the early ones look like mentally challenged people made them. Good advice.

I simply tear down the old ones and rebuild when I get to a higher level.

[Foolish Bastion]

引用自 RalphRoberts：

引用自 Gomer Pyle：

I do that sometimes, other times I rush some of the walls and the early ones look like mentally challenged people made them. Good advice.

I simply tear down the old ones and rebuild when I get to a higher level.

Usually I'm to lazy to do that and don't want to waste nails,but that would be an easy solution.

[RalphRoberts]

引用自 Gomer Pyle：

引用自 RalphRoberts：

I simply tear down the old ones and rebuild when I get to a higher level.

Usually I'm to lazy to do that and don't want to waste nails,but that would be an easy solution.

Well I play with loot on Common and zombies on high, so nails aren't usually a problem. Getting to the point where I can actually use the nails in peace however, is not so easy.

[Foolish Bastion]

引用自 RalphRoberts：

引用自 Gomer Pyle：

Usually I'm to lazy to do that and don't want to waste nails,but that would be an easy solution.

Well I play with loot on Common and zombies on high, so nails aren't usually a problem. Getting to the point where I can actually use the nails in peace however, is not so easy.

Cool beans!