Skills

Skills give players special or improved abilities. Some require that you learn other skills first, and a few are available only to a certain class or side. Skills are bought with experience points (XP).

Learning an initial skill costs 100 XP. After that, each learned skill costs 25 XP more than the previous one. Hence the formula for a skill's XP cost is 100 + 25 * (your level). (Your character's level, which you can see in your profile, is the number of skills you have learned.)

It costs 10,000 XP to buy all 25 skills for settlers, villagers, soldiers, and warriors. Buying all 23 skills for everyone else requires a total of 8,625 XP.

Generic skills

• Basic Language - Understand the smaller words of foreign languages
  • Advanced Language - Better understanding of foreign languages
    • Expert Language - Full comprehension of foreign languages

• Close Quarter Combat - Gain 10% to hit with melee attacks (e.g., 20% to 30% with a machete)
  • Advanced Close Quarter Combat - Gain 15% to hit with melee attacks (e.g., 30% to 45% with a machete)

• Body Building - Increases melee damage (+1 damage; e.g., 2 to 3 with a machete)
  • Stamina - Increases max HP by 20

• Sixth Sense - Sense presence of and hear spirits

• Ghostly Whisper - Allows spirits to speak (1 AP)
  • Haunting Scream - Attract other spirits and scare nearby living players (1 AP; does 1 damage)
    • Shocking Shriek - Scare nearby living players (2 AP; ??% chance to do 1-3 damage)
      • Banshee Wail - Frighten nearby living players (?? AP; ??% chance to do 4 damage)

• Exploration - Helps you remember some of the places you've been
  Enables the "Map" button, which gives you a large-scale map of places you've visited while alive and haven't forgotten.
  • Cartography - Stops you forgetting anywhere you've visited
    Note that map information is rarely forgotten and that meta-gamers can use the Shartak overlay.
  • Trekking - Faster movement through most of Shartak
    Makes movement through jungles, villages, grasslands, and beaches costs 0.5 AP instead of 1 AP.
  • Swimming - Faster movement through water
    Makes movement through water cost 1 AP instead of 2; deep water costs 2 AP to move through instead of 3.

• Basic Tracking - With some difficulty, you can track animals and people. (2 AP; e.g., "wild boar went south")
  See Tracking for more information.
  • Advanced Tracking - You can track animals and people who were here recently. (1.5 AP; often gives 3-6 most recent tracks)
    • Expert Tracking - You can track animals and people who were here several days ago. (1 AP?)

• Clan Leadership - Allows you to start your own clan or help lead one.

• Triage - Be able to tell who is most injured
  • Natural Medicine - Heal 10 HP (gain 10 XP) with healing herbs (natives only)
  • First Aid - Heal 10 HP (gain 10 XP) with first-aid kit (outsiders only)

• Native Knowledge - Outsiders gain basic native knowledge (outsiders only)
  Allows outsiders to use and recognize items such as blowpipes (and poison darts) and healing herbs (which normal outsiders see as "dried herbs") and to tell the difference between tasty and poison berries (which normal outsiders can only do by eating them).

• Outsider Knowledge - Natives gain basic outsider knowledge (natives only)
  Allows natives to use and recognize items such as rifles (and bullets), first aid kits, and GPS units.

Settler/villager skills

• Animal Affinity - Lessens the chance of animals attacking (settlers and villagers only)
• Scavenging - Improves search odds by an unknown amount in certain (unknown) areas (settlers and villagers only)

Soldier skills

• Firearms Training - Gain 20% on firearms attacks (20% to 40%; soldiers only)
  • Advanced Firearms Training - Gain 20% on firearms attacks (40% to 60%; soldiers only)

Warrior skills

• Blowpipe Training - Gain 20% on blowpipe accuracy (20% to 40%; warriors only)
  • Advanced Blowpipe Training - Gain another 20% on blowpipe accuracy (40% to 60%; warriors only)