What are the skill LEVELS and how to level them
- Dying and Permadeath.
- Body Skills (Strength, Dexterity, Stealth and Conditioning).
- Dismantling.
- Weapons Skills (Blunt, Firearms and Blades).
- Skills (Trade, Mech/Eng etc).
- Traits/Attributes & Profession Bonuses.
- Levelling Skills.
- Notes

Dying and Permadeath
When the Character dies, a small amount of Skill level is lost from a random skill and they respawn at the last Spawn Point set or at a random Trader..
When the Character dies with the “PermaDeath” game setting on, ALL Skill levels gained and ALL Technology Tree unlocks are lost!!

The “Skill” page also shows your total number of Zombie kills.
Body Skills
Strength
(STR)
Effects basic Melee Damage and Defence.
SKILL LEVEL | DAMAGE | DEFENCE |
0 | 10 | 5 |
1 | 13 | 6 |
2 | 20 | 10 |
3 | 30 | 15 |
4 | 43 | 21 |
5 | 60 | 30 |
Activities for Leveling: Chopping Wood, Mining Ore.
Dexterity
(DEX)
Tip- Wearing any type of Footwear will significantly increase Movement Speed over being barefoot.
Effects amount collected when Dismantling and Movement Speed.
SKILL LEVEL | SPEED |
0 | 90 |
1 | 91 |
2 | 94 |
3 | 98 |
4 | 103 |
5 | 110 |
Activities for Leveling: Chopping Wood, Mining Ore.
Note: Dismantling does not give experience the DEX skill.
Stealth
Effects Zombie Visual Detection. The higher the stealth level, the lower the probability of Zombies discovering players.
Activities for Leveling: Moving whilst Crouching.
Conditioning
(CON)
Effects Health and Stamina.
SKILL LEVEL | HEALTH | MAX STAMINA |
0 | 100 | 100 |
1 | 102 | 102 |
2 | 106 | 106 |
3 | 112 | 112 |
4 | 120 | 120 |
5 | 130 | 130 |
Activities for Leveling: Running and Active gameplay.
Dismantling
Dismantling is equipping any knife, then RMB on an item in the Characters Inventory and selecting “Dismantle” to hopefully gain some materials back.
Update 0.0.86: Test was performed with near perfect condition items but lower conditioned items may return nothing when dismantled.
EC= Electronic Component
Dismantling in update 0.0.86 using an Iron dagger
Tip- Other clothes can give other types of Fabrics (Cotton, Fur etc).

Dexterity Skill Level | Fire Axe | Log | Shoulder Light Brown | Shoulder Light Green | Shoulder Light Orange | T-shirt |
0 | 0 Steel | 1 Stick | 1 EC | 1 EC+ 1 Plastic | 1 EC+ 1 Plastic | 4 Cloth |
1 | 0 Steel | 1 Stick | 1 EC | 1 EC+ 1 Plastic | 1 EC+ 1 Plastic | 4 Cloth |
2 | 1 Steel | 1 Stick | 2 EC+ 1 Plastic | 2 EC+ 1 Plastic | 2 EC+ 2 Plastic | 5 Cloth |
3 | 1 Steel | 1 Stick | 2 EC+ 1 Plastic | 2 EC+ 1 Plastic | 2 EC+ 2 Plastic | 6 Cloth |
4 | 1 Steel | 2 Stick | 3 EC+ 1 Plastic | 3 EC+ 2 Plastic | 3 EC+ 3 Plastic | 7 Cloth |
5 | 1 Steel | 2 Stick | 3 EC+ 1 Plastic | 3 EC+ 2 Plastic | 3 EC+ 3 Plastic | 9 Cloth |
Below is the results of dismantling Tools found whilst looting less the Knives. The numbers are the amount of Ingots received (Iron or Steel).
Item | Dexterity Skill Level | |||||
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
Iron Hammer | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Sledgehammer (Iron) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
Iron Sword | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
Iron Spear | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Iron Axe | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Iron Pickaxe | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Crowbar (Iron) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Steel Hammer | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Steel Sledgehammer | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
Steel Machete | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
Steel Spear | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Steel Axe | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Steel Pickaxe | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Steel Crowbar | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Iron Dagger used (0.0.8.6) |
weapon Skills
Blunt weapons
Effects the Damage of the corresponding weapon and includes Axes and Pickaxe.
Activities for Leveling: Chopping Wood, Mining Ore and using weapons of that type.
Firearms
Effects the Recoil and Hand shaking when using Firearms.
Activities for Leveling: Using Firearms with the large weapons (SAW, Gatling Gun) giving the most EXP.
blades
Effects the Damage of the corresponding weapon.
Activities for Leveling: Stabbing, Slashing and using weapons of that type.
Weapon Crafting
Although it is under Weapons, it is a skill that can be taught by Traders or leveled by Book reading of which the previous ones are leveled mostly by gameplay.
Activities for Leveling: Crafting items and Learning
Skills
The game contains a number of “Trade” skills which either can improve your skill in using something , allowing you to unlock various items to craft or to unlock things in the Technology Tree.
- Weapon Manufacturing = Which Weapons or Traps you can craft.
- Tailoring = Which clothing items you can craft. and what you can repair.
- Engineering = Which items you can craft or build. Base construction and demolition gives EXP as does crafting.
- Electrical = Which items you can craft or build.
- Mechanical= Which items you can or build or craft.
- Agriculture = Which Agriculture items you can craft/grow. EXP is gained when crops are planted or harvested and finish crafting Fertilisers in Bench.
- Cooking = Which cooking items you can make with a skill of 3+ making higher quality dishes.
- Metallurgy = Which metal items you can smelt or work with.
- Medicine = Which medicine items you can craft or build.
Trait/Attributes Bonuses
- “Tailoring” gives +2 to Tailoring level. (Could be taken to solve this issue).
- “Marksman” gives +25% experience to Firearms.
- “Chef” gives +2 to Cooking.
- “Amateur Mechanic” gives +1 to Engineering and +1 to Mechanical.
- “Baseball Player” gives +2 to Blunt Weapons.
- “Butcher” gives +2 to Blades.
- “Fast” gives +5 to Movement Speed.
- “Body Builder” gives +6 to Damage. (Tooltip says +3)
- “Strong” gives +5 to Defence.
- “Hunter” gives +2 to Firearms.
Profession Bonuses
- Police Officer gives +25% experience to Firearms.
- Farmer gives +3 to Agriculture with +20% experience.
- Sumo Wrestler gives +1 to Conditioning and +1 Strength.
- Doctor gives +1 to Medicine.
- Engineer gives +1 to Engineering and +30% experience.
- Porter gives Conditioning +1.
level by crafting
Certain Workbenches and Crafting Stations will give experience towards certain skills if you stay in the UI whilst the item is being constructed. This is not the primary method to gain levels but can help if options are limited. Crafting in character yields no experience, only in a Workbench or Crafting Table UI.
Cooking recipes can be found here.
Basic items that can be crafted to gain the relevant Experience | ||||
Weapon Crafting | Building Hammer | Stone Pickaxe | Stone Knife | Wooden Spear |
Tailoring* | Cloth Bag | Sun Hat | Clothes or Bags | |
Engineering | Building Structures | Demolishing Structures | ||
Electrical* | Large Fuel Bottle | Fuel Barrel | ||
Mechanical | Stone Arrow | Plank | Simple Parts | |
Agriculture | Fish Bait | Fishing Line | ||
Cooking | Cook any foods (including making Dirty Water potable) even if it results in a Failed Recipe | |||
Metallurgy | Smelting Nuggets | Bricks | Charcoal | |
Medicine* | Medical Plaster | Gauze |
*The only way to get the Skill from Level 0-1 currently is through reading Books or being taught by Trader.
Top tip- Craft Arrows whilst in Crafting Table UI for fastest Mechanical leveling!
Skill Leveling Guide video >
@313veegaming.com
learning by Reading books
Books can found by looting or finding the right Trader depending on which map. Best locations are top story of Police Stations, Houses, Hospitals and Industrial POI’s. Books need to be read in Order, starting with 1 then 2 etc.
Learning skills will reduce your Mood by 15-25 pts each time you “read” a book depending on the skill level.
Remember to carry cigarettes, Beer?Wine/Cider, Magazines or St John’s Wort to regain Mood.

The trait “Genius” gives an extra 30% when using books to learn skills.
Book Traders



learning by trader
It is covered here in full.
Mood will lower whilst being taught skills so bring along items to regain it IE- Cigarettes, Medicines or Wine etc.
Update 0.0.86 introduced Looted items (except Weapon Mods) having reduced “Condition” so things might be a valuable as they were.
Amount of Relationship needed per learning instance | Skill Level | ||
20 | 20 | 20 | 1 |
40 | 40 | 40 | 2 |
60 | 60 | – | 3 |
80 | 80 | – | 4 |
100 | 100 | – | 5 |
So looking at the above table, if you barter enough items to get 100% relationship with the Trader, then you should be able to learn the whole of Skill Level One and a 1/3 of Level 2 (20+20+20+40=100).
Notes
Using Clothing Repair Kits , a Tailoring Skill of:
- 1 is required to be able to repair Basic Clothing.
- 2 is required to be able to repair Military Clothes.
- 3 is required to be able to repair Large bags.
- 4 is required to be able to repair Military bags.
- 5 is required to be able to repair Hiking bags.