What skills on the 5th slot are next to useless in your opinion?

[Jo]

I've just had a outsider survivor turning up at my community asking to join so checked his 5th skill and he does hairdressing. lol What use is a hairdresser in a post-apocalyptic world unless you want to look hot for the zombies?

Any other 5th perks that you have found pretty lame on survivors?

[jamesglen7]

These are the expendables. You'll regret recruiting them and the cost to retrain them isn't worth it. They're in the game, in my opinion, to waste your time & resources. Potential recruits also have hidden traits you will discover like the free prize in Cracker Jacks.

Wildcard recruits pay off when you can wait to assign their skill but you delay the benefits they provide. These folks can't be assigned a specialty like Fishing or Hygiene.

I've launched communities with sub-standard recruits having useless skills. You think you'll get a break from Undead Labs but reality will quickly sink in.

[Protectron]

Most of them are useless.

The best ones are those that don't have a 5th skill, since it makes it that much easier to plan ahead when recruiting.

Lichenology, Hygiene, Scrum Certification are the ones I start with every time. Not because they make the start better; rather the opposite (except Hygiene), the start is worse. They make the ending better, though, since I would want these in three of the 12 survivors, but that would entail waiting possibly weeks on end for the Rare Skills Trader to sell me their skillbooks (a rare visit, and they don't always carry the ones I want).

* Both paths of Chemistry are good and among the 12, always.
* Since more stamina is always better, Cooking > Nutrition is good. Morale can be had in other ways.
* Computers > Programming unlocks Drone Strikes, which are great. Electronics unlocks C4, which is nice but not really a Plague Heart killer I use very often.
* Medicine > Pathology is slightly more useful than Surgery because I never buy healing - after all it passively heals for free over time.
* Mechanics > Automechanics helps with fuel consumption, repairs and the occasional upgrade kit, and in some bases I build the auto shop for even more fuel economy.
* Utilities > Plumbing to build Hydroponics, which suits the Lichenologist really well. A total of 7,5 Food in a small facility, quick to build as well. The Plumber provides more Stamina, which is better than Electricty's bonus.
* Craftsmanship > Metalworking, just to build the Forge and make 2 Coffee Can Maces. I may or may not keep them afterwards.
* Rounding off the dozen with Recycling, to offset Materials upkeep on some bases.

The rest are useless-ish with this setup. Agriculture is +1,5 Food with a Hydroponics facility, compared to a Lichenologist, so that's not worth it in my book. I'd rather not use a Large facility slot just for +1,5 Food per day (or lose -2 Meds per day with an Agriculture expert instead). If you like C4, go with an Electronics expert instead of the Metalworker. If you don't mind spending lots of Influence upgrading Materials outposts or building a Staging Area, the Recycler can be anything you want.

Fishing is okay in Normal or Green, but only pays for himself on Lethal. Not worth it. Driving is nice on that character, but I use every character in turn for everything, so not really that useful. Sewing lets you bring more stuff with you, but this is not a big deal - I rarely use consumables.

The rest is just, uhm why?

Edit: of course, Red Talon 5th skills tend to be good.

[Jo]

Thanks for the long reply. lol

My first community of 12 people are:

Medicine/Pathologist
Medicine/Surgery
Gardener/Agriculture
Gardener/Herbalist
Computers/Electronics
Mechanics/Automechanics
Mechanics/Engineering
Chemistry/Munitions
Utilities/Electricity
Cooking/Cuisine
Craftmanship/Construction
Fishing (I took this guy on actually because of his very high health)

Probably overkill on the agriculture combined with fishing but it means I don't need a Food outpost anymore and can always have spare food ready for enclaves when they ask for it

I'm assuming some of the quirkier 5th skills may affect their dialogue, I don't know really, I'm still a bit new to this game! But yes I avoid the ones that seem merely "decorative" and contribute nothing really essential to the community.

[Protectron]

Yeah I use Pharmacology to produce lots of Strong Painkillers in the Infirmary, with a Pill Press and a Still 2 to make more Ethanol. This is really good for the economy; once you can start mass-producing them, Influence is no longer scarce.

By getting a Salvage Station and having saved up a whole bunch of melee weapons that I don't want to keep (the common ones), I scrap them all at once and then go to 2000+ Parts. After that, Parts is no longer a scarcity.

The thing is, these are both strategies that you learn by testing new ways of doing things, learning by experience. To me, that's what brings me back to the game these days.

One other thing that experience has taught me is that just finishing Legacies is just a small part of the what the game has to offer. Nowadays I ignore them and rather jump from map to map maxing out my community and collecting rare items. Once all 12 are maxed-out and I have all the rare weapons, I just stop and go create a new community from scratch. I don't use Boons anymore either.

Food for thought.

Edit: of course, going for the Legacies until you have unlocked all 4 at Lethal level is a common sense thing to do first. Just saying that speedrunning the game this way with fully loaded Legacy characters and Boons active etc. is not all this game has to offer.

[Jo]

Yes, when I first had that option to put survivors in a Legacy pool, I just wasn't ready to end that community yet, even though I had about 6 favorite survivors who would DEFINITELY be useful in a new community on a different playthrough. Also a few of my survivors were relatively new recruits/citizens and I hadn't had a chance to level up their skills or even play their individual quests. You just end up with a few "fighter" players who are your go-to when it comes to the doing critical missions or clearing plague hearts.

It's funny, at first I was so noob I was still learning the game mechanics, working out what was going on and had a few deaths on the first two attempts playing the game (which actually put me off the game as I'm not a fan of permadeath, lol), but I perservered as you do learn from experience of playing and also watching Youtube guides. And now I can really see the replayability of this game.