What skills do you choose?

[Basuko]

I did not know before that you get another skill with lvl 10 and have now taken Gatherer. Is it hard to get to hardwood later in the game?

What do you think would be useful for the others?

[Caprontos]

The better grather skills are double item chance and always gold star imo..

You get 12 hardwood a day later which is plenty to do anything you want just takes a few days...

[Basuko]

Thanks, i thought i am stucked.
What about the other skills?

I have taken for farming tiller and will choose Artisan later.
For Mining my first skill ist Geologist and will later choose Excavator.
Fishing ist worst thats why i will go with Trapper but im unclear with the second skill.
In Combat i pick Scout an go on with Desperado.

Any suggestions?

[Hextravert]

First of all, perks in general and the Foraging skill tree in particular don't matter that much.

But because Hardwood can neither be bought nor crafted, I would pick Lumberjack.

Even Hardwood Fences decay — and there's absolutely nothing special about foragables.

Originally posted by Jak0mo:

I did not know before that you get another skill with lvl 10 and have now taken Gatherer. Is it hard to get to hardwood later in the game?

What do you think would be useful for the others?

[Elegant Caveman]

I've written a guide about this. Perhaps it will help.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=640103954

[Caprontos]

Fishing is tricky.. Because fishing has two good skills.. Double treasure is good for obvious reasons (sell price for fish is pointless imo late game).. An trapper you can pick no trash in crab pots which is good if you don't want trash (And trash is pretty useless late game - but so are the drops)..

I think double treasure is better personally, because crab pots suck to begin with.. but in a co-op situation I'd want someone to have no trash crab pots just because..

Artisan is the best farmer perk(make any crop in to wine = 2x base crop price + 50% more money - Honestly its kinda broken imo).. Excavator is the best Mining perk (gedoes are really useful)..

Idk about combat.. I think its just a prefernce thing - if your not getting hit much may as well go for crit though I guess..

[Hextravert]

I don't like minigames so I chose Trapper followed by Luremaster.

Trash is desirable if you own Recycling Machines; especially when you're an Artisan.

Because Soggy Newspaper can be turned into Cloth — which sells for approximately 500g.

Originally posted by Jak0mo:

Thanks, i thought i am stucked.
What about the other skills?

I have taken for farming tiller and will choose Artisan later.
For Mining my first skill ist Geologist and will later choose Excavator.
Fishing ist worst thats why i will go with Trapper but im unclear with the second skill.
In Combat i pick Scout an go on with Desperado.

Any suggestions?

[Saint Landwalker]

• Farming = Tiller > Artisan
  
  I really, really want ranching to be a viable route in this game. One day, I might even say "Screw it, I'm going full-blown livestock for this one, damn the torpedoes." But that is not this day. Artisan's +50% value is just crazysauce good (Edit: And it applies to animal-derived artisan goods, too, like milk and cheese). This morning I sold two Crystal Fruit wine bottles... for 1,350g. Two of them. And I didn't even have to grow any crops to do it.
  
  
• Mining = Miner > Prospector
  
  Gems are nice, but believe me, in the late game, you're going to want that +1 Iridium Ore per deposit so hard. I'm also finding that coal is one of my biggest limiting factors for crafting, both in terms of metal bars and in terms of preserves jars.
  
  
• Foraging = Gatherer > Botanist
  
  I could see a case being made for Forester > Lumberjack for the extra hardwood, but you can get 12 hardwood a day without even trying. Foraged items are (usually) nothing to get excited about, but it's a nice little perk. Gold-star grapes, spice berries, and crystal fruits are good inputs for kegs to make wine when you don't have anything else to throw in there. (Blackberries and Salmonfruit are borderline worthless, though).
  
  
• Fishing = Fisher > Pirate I guess?
  
  Eh. On this one, I could go pretty much any direction except Fisher > Angler. I honestly probably wouldn't go Trapper > Mariner either, because that trash isn't trash, it's wood or refined quartz or coal waiting to happen.
  
  
• Combat = I don't even know
  
  Personally, I'm currently going Scout with an eye towards Desperado, planning to stack critical and try for instant kills. I haven't reached Combat 10 yet, though, so I have no idea if this is even reasonably plausible. The other option I could see is going Fighter > Brute. More damage = Kill things faster so they can't kill you. +25 HP from Defender isn't worth much, maybe one hit from a monster in the skull mines. Wouldn't you rather just kill them sooner so they can't hit you in the first place?

[Saint Landwalker]

After reading Elegant Caveman's guide, I now feel silly about picking Miner > Prospector.

But I have to ask: What makes coal so easy to get? How common is getting Iridium from Omni or Magma Geodes? Common enough to override getting +1 Iridium per Vein?

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by landwalker04:

After reading Elegant Caveman's guide, I now feel silly about picking Miner > Prospector.

But I have to ask: What makes coal so easy to get? How common is getting Iridium from Omni or Magma Geodes? Common enough to override getting +1 Iridium per Vein?

Well, Miner's not such a terrible choice, but I still think that Prospector is one of the worst professions. Consider AverageJack's comment:

I only disagree with one thing in this guide. I think blacksmith is better than excavator for the long game. You only really need a certain amount of iridium before you start selling it, and monster drops in skull mine are more reliable than getting it from geodes. Also, without the excavator proffession you still find around 8-16 omni geodes per trip.

He makes some interesting points. I haven't updated the guide (or answered the comments) yet, but I was gonna do that later today. It appears I was overly-harsh on Miner, though that's mostly because I don't like the level 10 professions.

As for coal, it can be farmed on floors ~40-80 of the first mine from those black bouncy fuzzy things (I forget the name), or you can buy it, or you can make it in the charcoal kiln (20 wood = 1 coal). Without even looking for coal, I have way more than I have ore. I'd have a bit less if I had taken Miner, but I think I'd still have considerably more than I need overall.

In terms of profits, I don't know how much iridium bars sell for, or how common iridium ends up being. Would profits ultimately be better with Miner > Blacksmith than Geologist > Excavator? Maybe? I don't know.

I don't have access to the skull mine yet, so I was basing myself on what I've read in the forums, which is basically that iridium nodes are really rare. Don't forget that Miner's +1 only applies to actual nodes, not other sources. From what I've read, iridium in the skull mine seems to come more from monster drops than nodes, which is what I was basing this on. But maybe nodes aren't that rare, and I was wrong.

Once you've crafted everything you might want to craft, selling bars can be a good source of income, and a 25% bonus is certainly nice.

AverageJack mentions the long game, though I don't know how long he means by that..

My gut tells me that double gems and double geodes is a better bet, but I could be wrong.

Getting iridium from geodes isn't common, but it adds up. Though, of course, it also depends on how often you get geodes...

How often do you mine regular rocks? Probably not a lot, I'd guess. Double geode chance is better/worse depending on how much chance you give yourself to get those geodes.

I think most people (myself included) just go for the nodes and only break regular rocks when they're in the way or they're looking for the stairs.

Every time I break a rock and find a geode, though, I tell myself "I should break more rocks!". Then I quickly forget to do that. >.>

The guide's not meant to be Absolute Objective Truth or anything, just my opinion based on a mix of personal experience (which is limited, in some cases) and what I've read (in the forum and the wiki).

I'm terrible at updating stuff, but I do intend to tweak it as I learn more.

TL;DR

Don't feel bad, I was probably too harsh about Miner (though I do maintain my position that Prospector's one of the worst professions).

Miner is probably the "safer" option, whereas the Geologist path is more luck-dependent.

From what I've read, iridium nodes were talked about like they were incredibly rare. Within that context, Miner didn't seem like a good pick. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, though, and if they're not that rare, Miner's better than I initially thought.