by Cookie » Sun Feb 07, 2010 6:57 am
It depends on your current level and the type of stuff that interests you.
First, reset your beliefs towards maximum peaceful and keep resetting them as often as you can. When you reset anything it also resets change. The combination of maximum change and maximum peaceful will give you a learning rate of 360% as opposed to the 100% you started with. Later in the game you may want to reset these back but when brand new this is the first thing to do before you even pick your first branch.
Second, work with the best q materials you can find. For example if there is a q8 birch tree and two q10 birch trees and a q17 birch tree, make kuksas with the q17 tree. Over time the points you get are significantly higher than if you went to the q8 tree just because it is two steps closer to your hearth fire. Of course all trees are q10 unless some player planted them, so don't be surprised if q10 trees are all you can find. But water, clay and soil all have variable q that can range far above q10. It is well worth knowing the q of the natural resources around you.
If you are in the earliest few minutes of the game making kuksa probably has a slight lp edge gain over making baskets or fires.
Once you have pottery and have found open water, making teapots is a fast way to grind q. This is where knowing the best place for higher q clay will pay off. Pottery and fishing go hand in hand. Make pots until you are too tired to do any more, then throw your line in the water without coming out and fish until your stamina is restored. Cook and eat the fish to restore your hunger and then back into the water again.
Once you have hearth magic, making dreamcatchers gives you good lp. You do not actually have to complete the dreamcatcher. You can partially build one with only two sticks and get the lp from that. It is recommended that you destroy all those partially built dream catchers to avoid creating a wasteland of junk.
If you work towards high nature and have good farming skills there is a ton of lp to be gained in farming. When you harvest, plough and replant, and grind the wheat seeds to make flour you earn a whole bunch. When you switch hats and make dough you get more, and if you have onions and chantrelles, and you convert that raw dough into a piroshki you get even more. The more you work at farming and increase your seed q, the more lp it gives you. An 8 x 8 square of q100 wheat has a huge ton of lp.
If you have basic mechanics you can build looms. Again you can do this with only branches. This gives a lot of lp and makes a mess of partially built looms. Please destroy to avoid wrecking the landscape.
Once you have a pair of boots and some leather pants and some very basic combat skills killing ants is a good way to gain lp. Best of all is when you can find two ant hills close together. Don't raid the hills. Just attack the ant swarms one by one. If you only find one you have to wait until the new swarms come out. With two (or even three!) you get to keep bashing away, covering the ground with blood and getting lots of lp for each swarm you kill. Raid when all the ants from the hill are dead and you are ready to leave.
Once you have some hunting skills, hunting bigger animals is good lp. The sling is the best weapon for a beginner. Start with foxes and go up to boars next. Don't try herd animals yet, as they help each other which means a lot more low lp work for you to fence them out. Eventually you work up to killing bears, still with a sling. A lvl X bear killed solo is a tidy little sum of lp. Skin and butcher and collect all the bones. You don't have to keep them if you don't have space, but it's worth grabbing the lp while you are standing there.
Do everything you can. When walking pick anything you find, even if you have to drop it. If you spend an hour wandering in the woods looking for prey to kill and don't find anything, if you picked all the mushrooms, blueberries and taproots you saw you will have earned something for your trouble and have some spare food.