Skills

Skills are a numerical representation of your character's ability to perform specific tasks.

There are two main ways to increase your skills: reading skill books and using skill points that you earn every level.

All of your skills have a cap, i.e., a limit on how high they can go. In most cases, you can overcome that limit via the Learning skill.

Some of the skills apply passively and some can be used directly. The table below lists the active skills' associated action point costs as well as the base cap of each skill.

Some support perks require a specific skill level before they can be acquired. For example, Educated requires Science ≥ 100%.

Equipping tools allows you to temporarily boost some of your skills.

Skill Default cap AP cost Small Guns 300 — Big Guns 300 — Energy Weapons 300 — Close Combat 300 — Throwing 300 — Learning 200 — First Aid 200 5 Doctor 200 5 Sneak 300 5 Robbery 200 5 Engineering 200 5 Traps 150 5 Science 200 5 Repair 200 5 Speech 300 — Barter 150 — Crafting 200 — Outdoorsman 200 —

Increasing the level of your skills requires skill points. Skills increase in fixed +1% steps The SP cost for each step is based on the skill's current level. You cannot purchase partial increases; the full cost must be paid upfront The split table below shows exactly what each +1% will cost at any given level: Current skill level SP cost per +1% 1–150% 1 151–175% 2 176–200% 3 201–225% 4 226–250% 5 251–275% 6 276–300% 7 301–325% 8 326–350% 9 351–375% 10 376–400% 15 401–425% 20 426–450% 25 451–475% 30 476–500% 40 501–525% 50 526–550% 100 551–575% 200 576–600% 400 601–625% 800 626–650% 1,600 ≥651% 3,200

Small Guns

Small Guns (SG) is a combat skill that determines your ability to handle:

• Assault Rifles
• Damage Pistols
• Explosive Small Guns
• Fast Pistols
• Range Pistols
• Shotguns
• SMGs
• Sniper Rifles
• Support Rifles

The higher your Small Guns skill, the higher your chance to hit with the listed weapon types and the less condition they lose every time you fire them.

Big Guns

Big Guns (BG) is a combat skill that determines your ability to handle:

• Flamers
• Heavy Sniper Rifles
• Machine Guns
• Miniguns
• Rocket Launchers

The higher your Big Guns skill, the higher your chance to hit with the listed weapon types and the less condition they lose every time you fire them.

Energy Weapons

Energy Weapons (EW) is a combat skill that determines your ability to handle:

• Electric Weapons
• Fire Weapons
• Laser Weapons
• Plasma Weapons

The higher your Energy Weapons skill, the higher your chance to hit with the listed weapon types and the less condition they lose every time you fire them.

Close Combat

Close Combat (CC) is a combat skill that determines your ability to handle:

• Clubs
• Damage Knives
• Fast Knives
• Hammers
• Punch Weapons
• Spears
• Various stackable objects that aren't really weapons but can be used to perform melee attacks, such as Uranium Ore or Shovel

The higher your Close Combat skill, the higher your chance to hit with the listed weapon types and the less condition they lose every time you use them.

Throwing

Throwing is a combat skill that determines your ability to handle grenades and any other objects that can be thrown (rocks, spears, etc.)

The higher your Throwing skill, the more accurate are your throws. This includes hex throwing, i.e., throwing an item in your active slot to a specific hex using the tilde (~) key.

Note that your Throwing range (the distance that you're able to reach with your throws) depends on your Strength rather than the Throwing skill.

Learning

Learning is a meta skill that allows you to increase the cap of other skills.

Reading a skill book with the Learning skill maxed out will increase the cap of the book's corresponding skill by a flat 10% and reset the Learning skill back to 0%. The process can be repeated until the skill cap reaches 1000%. The cap of the Learning skill remains unchanged.

Chemistry Journals can be used to conveniently max out your Learning skill with a single click using your available skill points.

When Learning increases the cap of a skill, it does not automatically fill it; this needs to be done separately and costs the usual amount of skill points. There is one exception to this: the Alien class; when using the Learning skill to boost Crafting, Alien's increased cap is filled immediately without requiring additional skill points (e.g., 250%/250% goes to 260%/260% rather than 250%/260%).

Learning has a default cap of 200%, which requires 273 skill points to max out. Characters with the Bloody Mess trait have their Learning cap reduced to 180%, lowering the SP requirement to 213 per use.

Learning cannot be used to increase your Sneak skill; the only exception to this is the Scout class.

First Aid

First Aid (FA) is a utility skill that allows you to restore hit points. It works on any target except Cyborgs.

You use it by pressing its corresponding button ("5" by default), mousing over your desired target, and then left-clicking. First Aid costs 5 APs to use unless you have a First Aid Kit or Field Medic First Aid Kit in your active slot, in which case the cost is reduced to 3.

First Aid has a base cooldown of 245 seconds; each point invested into it (up to 200%) reduces it by 1. If you have the Medic perk, the reduced value is then divided by 4. Paramedics have that cooldown set to 3 seconds regardless of their skill level.

The base amount of hit points restored when you use First Aid depends on three factors: your skill level, the outcome of a random roll that decides whether your healing attempt is a failure or a success, and whether or not your character has the Healer and Medic level perks. When a character uses First Aid, the game first rolls a number between 0 and 450 (or 0 and 250 if you have Living Anatomy). If your First Aid skill (uncapped) is lower than that roll, you fail; otherwise, you succeed. Success means you restore an amount of hit points that is no less than half your skill and no more than your full skill value (capped at 200). The Medic perk adds 15–30 to the maximum of this range, and the Healer perk adds 50–100 more. Failure means that both the base heal and the level perk bonuses are halved.

Base HP restored on FA success/failure

First Aid	No perks	Medic only	Healer only	Medic + Healer
50%	S: 25–50 F: 12–25	S: 25–80 F: 12–40	S: 25–150 F: 12–75	S: 25–180 F: 12–90
100%	S: 50–100 F: 25–50	S: 50–130 F: 25–65	S: 50–200 F: 25–100	S: 50–230 F: 25–115
150%	S: 75–150 F: 37–75	S: 75–180 F: 37–90	S: 75–250 F: 37–125	S: 75–280 F: 37–140
200%	S: 100–200 F: 50–100	S: 100–230 F: 50–115	S: 100–300 F: 50–150	S: 100–330 F: 50–165

Once the base amount of HP to be restored has been calculated, several other modifiers can come into play. Soldiers suffer a -1 penalty to the amount of restored hit points whereas Priests' healing is doubled. War Event stats MED and C.MED increase FA healing by 25% each. Paramedics get a -3 penalty for each point of Perception. Having an active battle timer caps the amount of hit points that you can restore at 150 (plus the Medic bonus, plus the Healer bonus, multiplied by 2 if you're a Priest). Poisoned targets are healed for half the normal amount. Paramedics restore twice the normal amount of HP when healing NPCs. The patient's healing received is used as a multiplier that applies to all incoming heals, FA healing included.

Doctor

Doctor is a utility skill that allows you to heal crippled limbs, cleanse Bleed stacks, and remove negative action points from any target other than Cyborgs.

You use it by pressing its corresponding button ("6" by default), mousing over your desired target, and then left-clicking. Doctor costs 5 APs to use unless you have a Doctor's Bag or Paramedics Bag in your active slot, in which case the cost is reduced to 3.

Doctor has a base cooldown of 350 seconds; each point invested into it reduces it by 1. If the target has one or more Bleed stacks, the base cooldown increases by 100 seconds. If you have the Medic perk, the cooldown is then divided by 2. Paramedics have that cooldown set to 3 seconds regardless of their skill level or whether or not the target is bleeding.

Engineering

Engineering is a utility skill that lets you build and remove objects. It also improves the integrity of your armor.

• Every 50 points of Engineering count as one point of Luck in the formula used to calculate your armor's per-hit condition loss; see Condition#Armor for details.
  • Bonus Luck (armor perk) grants up to +400 Engineering for condition loss calculation (or up to +900 if you're a Hubologist).

• Building objects (such as base decorations) "reserves" 1% of the Engineering skill. For example, if your Engineering skill is at 150%, you can build 150 objects.
  • Mechanic Patch (armor perk) grants up to +200 Engineering skill for object building (or up to +800 if you're a Hubologist).
  • You can delete the objects you've built by using the Engineering skill on them (press "S" to open your skilldex, select Engineering, then click the object you wish to delete).
  • When you build sandbags or turrets, your Engineering skill boosts their health pool: sandbags spawn with anywhere between 1 + Engineering and 10 x Engineering hit points, and your turrets will get 1 bonus hit point for every 20 points of Engineering you have.

• Unlike most other skills, your base Engineering skill cap can only be increased by up to 200% via Learning (for a total of 400% + Intelligence%).
• Placing a Hammer or a Super Wrench in your active slot will provide a flat +50% and +100% bonus to your Engineering skill respectively. If you have the Quartermaster perk synergy, you'll get double the bonus without needing to hold anything in your active slot.

• Using Engineering on an item in your inventory will protect it from dropping when you use the "drop all" feature (CTRL+D by default).

Speech

Speech is a passive utility skill that increases your party points and helps you with some dialogue checks.

Taking the Good Natured trait increases your Speech cap by 100%, allowing you to reach a maximum of 600% Speech via Learning.

Every 2% of Speech grants 1 party point.

Each 1% of Speech reduces Clone's cloning cooldown by 1 second.

Some quests, such as Water Merchant Contracts, include checks against your Speech.

Barter

Barter is a passive utility skill that determines your ability to haggle with NPC merchants.

• Barter is one of the main factors affecting the prices NPC traders charge when selling to you and pay when buying from you.
  • Buy price (what you pay) = Base value x (1.75 - 0.001 x Barter - 0.1 if your Wastelander reputation > 300)
  • Sell price (what you receive) = Base value x (0.1 + 0.003 x Barter + 0.01 x your # of Trader ranks)
    • The sell-price multiplier is capped at 0.35 for stackable items and 0.2 for crafted items. Miscellaneous items have their final sell price divided by 10.
• Barter ≥ 150% sets the cost of rerolling to 10,000 caps.
• Barter and Gambling were merged in season 4; the exact mechanics related to Gambling remain a mystery, but the general belief is that investing in Barter improves the odds of winning at slot machines and Russian roulette (~rr).