Your skills define what you can do, and how good you are at it. Items have skill requirements for using and/or equipping them, nano programs have skill requirements for uploading and executing them, and many actions demand a certain rank in a specific skill or two to have any chance of succeeding.

The Skill Window

Open the skill window by left-clicking the “Skills” button on the left-hand menu, or pressing u on the keyboard. This window contains a skill category list on the left, skills in the chosen category to the right, and an information box on top. Left-click on a category to bring up a list of skills in it.

The information box on top contains a message area, your current number of Improvement Points and Reset Points, and a button for resetting skills. We won’t be dealing with resetting skills in this guide. The message area contains your name, your title (see Experience and levels ) and your profession.

To increase your skills you use Improvement Points (IPs). You gain extra IPs every time you gain a level, and can store them for as long as you like. While experimenting is encouraged when you learn the game, you don’t want to spend IPs in too many skills on a character that you plan on playing for a long time.

The cost of increasing a skill depends on your profession. Some skills fall more naturally to an Agent than an Engineer, and vice versa. Also, for each rank you buy in a skill, the next rank will be more expensive. You can check the rank and cost of a skill by holding shift and left-clicking it in the Skill Window.

Abilities

Abilities are skills that are dependant on your breed. There are six base abilities - Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence, Sense and Psychic, and two secondary abilities - Body Development and Nano Pool. Base abilities have their starting values and IP cost determined by your breed. Secondary abilities have their IP cost determined by your profession, but the gain from increasing them depends on the breed.

The Atrox breed gains more health for each rank in the Body Development skill than other breeds, but also gains less increase in nano pool for each rank in the Nano Pool skill. The nanomage breed is directly opposite of the Atrox on this, while Solitus and Opifex have average gain from both skills.

Base abilities affect other skills in two ways: 1. They give a skill bonus. E.g. every few ranks of Stamina increase Body Development with one rank. 2. They limit the skill rank. E.g. if you never increase your Stamina, you won’t be able to increase your Body Development above a certain rank.

Improving skills

Each skill (and ability) is listed with its name, current ranks, and a colored bar. The color of the bar reflects the cost of the skill for your profession - green is cheap, dark blue is expensive. But note that you don’t need every green skill, and you often have to increase at least some of the dark blue ones. For more detailed cost, check the info about the skill (shift + left-click).

The size of the colored bar indicates how much you increase the skill before reaching the hard limit (the “cap”) for it. The limit for base abilities increases every level, while the limit for other skills increases each time you gain a new title.

To improve a skill, left-click the half-circle button to the right of the skill’s name and current rank. The rank will increase, and IPs will be deducted from your total. No changes are complete until you click the “accept” button at the bottom of the Skill Window, and you can decrease a skill by left-clicking the half-circle button to the left of it. You can’t decrease a skill below it’s previously accepted value. Undo any changes by clicking the “cancel” button.

If a skill won’t increase when you click the button to do so, the text in the message area (in the information box) will change briefly to explain why. You’ll notice that skills can only be increased by a certain amount (three to five ranks) per level. Increasing your skill the maximum allowed amount each level is called “maxing” the skill.

Recommended skills

Until level 15, it’s recommended that you max (increase as much as possible) all abilities, base and secondary. The base abilities will give some extra bonuses on all other skills, which is quite significant on the first levels. Body Development should always be maxed, and higher Nano Pool come in handy later on if not on these levels.

You should max your First Aid and Treatment skills (in the “Nano & Aiding” category), to be able to use as good medical equipment as possible. Also max your Evade Close Combat skill under the “Speed” category to avoid being hit too much. If you start on Rubi-Ka, also max your Dodge Ranged skill in the same category.

The skills listed as “AtkSkills” when you open the Information Window for your weapon(s) should also be maxed, as well as the skill for any special attack(s) the weapon is capable of. You can find these skills in the “Melee” or “Ranged” categories. A Martial Artist should max the Martial Arts and Brawl skills, found in the “Body” category.

Skills needed for nano programs should be increased just enough to meet the requirements of the programs, unless the programs are used for damaging enemies. Only Nano Technicians, Meta-Physicists, Bureaucrats and Doctors start with damage programs. A Doctor should focus on healing, while the other three should max Matter Creation (under the “Nano & Aiding” categoiry). Note that Nano Technicians, Meta-Physicists and Bureaucrats can perform well in battle by using only their nano programs, and you might want to leave their weapon skills alone and save the IPs for later. It can be a bit more challenging though.

To attack faster, increase the initiative skill associated with your means of attacking; Physical Initiative for martial arts, Melee Initiative for close-combat weapons, Ranged Initiative for firearms, and Nano-Casting Initiative for nano programs. The effect might not be very noticeable, but you’ll appreciate it when you win the combat while barely being alive.

An Adventurer should max all eight abilities, Evade Close Combat, First Aid and Treatment. As you find or buy new nano programs, increase the skills required just enough to use them.

If you use pistols, max the Pistols and Fling Shot skills in the “Ranged” category, and the Ranged Initiative skill in the “Speed” category. If preferring swords, max 1-Handed Edged and Fast Attack in the “Melee” category, and Melee Initiative in the “Speed” category.

Make sure to do this every level until level 15. When you’ve played a bit, you’ll see how much IPs you spend, and what effect it has, and can play around a little more. This is just for making sure you’ll do well in the beginning.