AfterWorld Survival Forum

Only been playing ~6 months, so there's a lot more that I don't know than I do. 
 
Chipped out my mining skills (geology, nature, geo propecting, landscape, etc) so I can keep on picking and raise the picking skills that also raise mining high enough to get past 82 freq and on to ores that are actually worth mining. My Geology was at 5 when I chipped out to go back to geology 3 and I've since added enough to geology that it would probably be ~7 if I put the chip back in (and it will probably be a lot more when the time actually comes to put the chips back in).  I notice on the wiki that geology skill only applies to picking and to no other skill. 
 
So, my question is: when the time comes to put the chips back in, what is the point of unblocking geology once 5 is completed? Since there is no advantage thatI I can see to spending sau on training geology to 6, 7 and however much higher my chips will potentially make possible, why spend the sau on doing so?
 
Geology 3 opens geo prospecting, 5 is already paid for with sau, but why go higher?

Geology and Knowledge give you the ability to identify ores and alloys.
There's many levels to the ores: NU stones, Sar stones, yellow scanner ores, green and red scanner ores. I believe every frequency is a separate "ore class".
It's not known what skill (or their combination) exactly contributes how much to this ability.


U can test i yoursef however, ask around if anybody has some gold to show you in the trade window (no need to actually trade anything). Alternatively, you can try to look it up on the market. If there's some gold up for sale, see if the actual ore itself is displayed as "Gold" (with the corresponding icon), or simply as "Unknown ore".

I'm not sure if i understood correctly, but Firstly, if you are just keeping your skill at a level by chipping out, and you dont think you need that skill, then that skill SNIs that you are creating becomes a source of income for you because it is probable that someone may buy it for awd on the market. Secondly, you should never let your skills be blocked if you have a choice. Either 1, chip out, or 2, unblock. Either one, to continue making the skill, and also blocked skills effect your sau gains. If you have blocked skills in a "profession" then using that profession, you will get less sau than if they were unblocked.

I'm not sure if i understood correctly, but Firstly, if you are just keeping your skill at a level by chipping out, and you dont think you need that skill, then that skill SNIs that you are creating becomes a source of income for you because it is probable that someone may buy it for awd on the market. Secondly, you should never let your skills be blocked if you have a choice. Either 1, chip out, or 2, unblock. Either one, to continue making the skill, and also blocked skills effect your sau gains. If you have blocked skills in a "profession" then using that profession, you will get less sau than if they were unblocked.

I didn't think the geology SNIs were worth anything simply because anyone and everyone can get to lev 3 (to unlock geo prospecting) easily themselves. But thank you for confirming something I suspected but was never sure about.  When I was still fighting slugroaches to get the first few levels of avoids I noticed that sau gain rate seemed to drop off when I had blocked skills (a little with 1 blocked, more with 2 blocked and a lot when I had 3 blocked - I was trying to be efficient about making the runs to sar and was waiting till I had 3 to do before I went there).
 
I guess there is also the point that the fifth entity makes about being to identify ores with higher geology levels, so I guess there is value to raising the skill beyond the level 5 I already unlocked when I insert the SNIs back in.
 
BTW, can anyone tell me exactly which picking skills raise scanning/mining also.  I've been guessing that geo prospecting, landscape interpretation, general tools and nature do. Am I correct? Are there any others that contribute significantly?

BTW, can anyone tell me exactly which picking skills raise scanning/mining also.  I've been guessing that geo prospecting, landscape interpretation, general tools and nature do. Am I correct? Are there any others that contribute significantly?

A rough guide can be found here: http://jaws.99k.org/
or you can search the forum where there are full lists.

Hmmm. The Jaws.99k.org link event horizon posted seems to indicate that geology affects metal and mineral mining, not just picking. Can anyone confirm that that they got geology skill from mining?

Zwarkinator's version is very accurate but it only reflects the existing professions, ug mining doesn't have it.
Jane's (EventHorizon) version has UG mining and it reports Geology - unlike any other research i've seen before.
Suppose the difference is in methodology - all ug mining related tests i've seen so far simply logged the skillgains while ug mining ("what comes out has to go in"-logic). Jane might have used a different method thou, i.e. chipping in/out and recording the changes in scanner efficiency, maybe? If so, that would explain a different result.

I put in a Helpdesk ticket about the skills just after the last update, which has had no response for 2 months.

It's secret information, players need tp explore AWS world theirselves.
While UG mining, you gain Landscape Comprehension, but never Geology.