Life skills

The skills

Each gather uses one of the 5 gathers a gathering spot holds, and all four gathering skills share one 30-second cooldown.

Gathering trips

A trip is the slow way to gather: a short real-time game in the Activity. On Discord, the gathering screen's trip button opens it. A trip uses 3 of the spot's gathers, the same as 3 quick ones, and always brings back 3 gathers' worth. Each game has a score bar with 3 stars, and every star adds one more gather, for up to 6 in all. A bad run never pays less than the quick way. Each extra gather rolls the same table, rare finds and eggs included.

• Mining: the claw. A claw swings over the shaft. Tap to drop it, and it reels in whatever it grabs. A gem is worth 6 and comes up fast, big ore is worth 8 but reels in slowly, and a rock is worth 1 and wastes time. A powder crate blows up everything near it. You have 22 seconds.
• Fishing: the fight. Pick a fish's shadow, then hold to reel and let go to ease off, keeping the marker in the green. Too much tension snaps the line, and too little lets the fish throw the hook. Stars come from how long you held the green, and a fish earns at most as many stars as its size: one for a small fish, three for a big one.
• Woodcutting: the tree. Tap left or right to chop from that side. The tree drops one log each chop. Don't stand under a branch, and don't chop so a branch comes down on your side. Every chop tops up the timer, which drains faster the longer you go. 70 chops fills the score bar.
• Herbalism: the forage dash. Things pop up in 12 patches and wilt fast. A herb is worth 1 and a golden bloom 5. Every 4 in a row raise your multiplier, up to ×4. Bonk a mole for 2 before it eats the herb next to it. Nightshade stings, and 3 stings end the run. You have 15 seconds.

A run can't pick up again once you leave it. End it from the gathering screen for the usual haul, or it ends itself after 10 minutes. Moving town or dying ends it too. Either way starts the shared cooldown.

Falling behind

Every find needs a skill level, and each city on the road asks a little more than the last. Each city also keeps the previous city's easiest find, so a skill that kept up with the last city can still gather in this one. Fall further behind and you have two ways back in.

Go back. The road back from town leads to the city before, with no boss at the end, and you gather wherever you stand. Later in a life the waystone can jump you there for gold. See Checkpoints.

Tools. A rod, pick, sickle or hatchet in your pack counts as extra levels for its skill when you gather. Finds it opens up count as orange, so they level the skill fast. Only the best tool for each skill counts. Tools are items, so they are lost on death.

Levelling

Skills run from 1 to 100. Each skill-up is worth 10 XP, and each level costs more than the last. Taking a skill from 1 to 100 takes about 757 skill-ups. Legacy tree nodes can raise the XP per skill-up.

Skill-up colours

Every recipe and gathering spot has a required level. The further your skill is above it, the less likely each attempt is to give a skill-up.