Skills and Abilities Guide in Survival: Fountain of Youth

In Survival: Fountain of Youth, your character has Survival Abilities and Skills that can be improved as you progress through the game. Proper and timely improvement of abilities and skills can significantly accelerate your progress. In this brief guide, I’ll explain how Survival Abilities and Skills work in Survival: Fountain of Youth and how you can earn Perk Points.

How to earn Perk Points

Perk Points are required to enhance Survival Abilities. To unlock each subsequent perk in the same chain, you need more points: 1-2-3 and so on. At the time of writing this guide, you can earn perk points in three ways.

1. Complete “Survival Tasks”. The “Survival Tasks” tab is located between the “Survival Abilities” and “Skills” tabs. The Survival Tasks themselves involve crafting some item. The player has access to 19 tasks, for which you can earn 19 Perk Points.
   
2. Explore Chronicles (only the first exploration counts). Chronicles can be found in each region. They are marked on the map with a special eagle icon. To find Chronicles, you must map the terrain. For this, it is recommended to climb the Cartographer Tree, as the game mechanics are set up so that the higher the character is, the larger area they can map at once. Each explored Chronicle will bring you 1 Perk Point.
   
3. Earn additional Perk Points thanks to the “Learning – Rank II” skill (Every 5th completed survival task gives 1 perk point). Since there are only 19 tasks in total, you can earn up to 3 additional Perk Points.
   

Perk Points are NOT awarded for improving Skills.

Which Survival Abilities should a beginner level up?

1. First and foremost, you need to level up “Learning – Rank II“, as this perk will allow you to earn 3 additional Perk Points by completing Survival Tasks.
2. Next, it would be wise to level up “Concentration – Rank I“. This will give you the “Concentration” skill (hotkey V), which will highlight Points of Interest, useful items, and even your arrows while active.
3. After this, I would recommend leveling up “Thirst Control – Rank II“. Water in Survival: Fountain of Youth is scarce in the early stages of the game.
4. The rest of the perks can be leveled in any order, but I would focus on “Resist Diseases“, “Hunger Control“, and “Better Sleep“.

Skills and their Improvement

The game provides 16 skills, each of which can be developed up to level 10.

1. Crafting. Reduces crafting duration and the chance of injury while crafting. It increases the durability of crafted items. From Crafting skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Reduced Crafted item Weight by 30%” and “Reduced Crafting requirements for identical resources by one“. To level up Crafting fast, you need to actively craft items.
2. Fire Starting. Provides an additional chance of successful ignition and reduces the chance of injury during ignition. Also, it gives a chance to save tinder during ignition. From Fire Starting skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Unlocks Wood Chips Recipe“, “Ignition is possible without firestarter“. To level up Fire Starting fast, you should light a fire, extinguish it, and then light it again.
3. Cooking. Increases cooked food nutrition and reduces the chance of injury while cooking. Also, it increases the storage time of cooked food. From Cooking skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Cooked food does not cause food poisoning“, “Unlocks Smokehouse recipe“. To level up Cooking fast, you need to actively cook food.
4. Skinning. Reduces skinning duration and the chance of injury while skinning. Gives a chance to find extra resources in animal carcasses. From Skinning skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Tools don’t lose durability while skinning“, “Additional unique resources in animal carcasses“. To level up Skinning fast, you should hunt animals and process their carcasses. Animals respawn over time and reappear in their places.
5. Throwing. Increases aiming speed when throwing and damage from throwing. Reduces stamina drain when throwing. From Throwing skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “50% chance weapon takes no damage when throwing“, “Can aim while moving“. To level up Throwing fast, you should throw throwable weapons (like a spear) at animals.
6. Shooting. Increases aiming speed when shooting and damage from shooting. Reduces stamina drain when shooting. From Shooting skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “50% chance ammo takes no damage when shooting“, “Can aim while moving“. To level up Shooting fast, you should hunt animals with ranged weapons (like a bow).
7. Strength. Increases max carry weight and damage in melee combat. Reduces stamina drain during melee combat. From Strength skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Can carry items while sprinting” (this refers to items that the character carries on the shoulder: logs, animal carcasses, etc.), “Can carry up to 3 Logs at once” (on the shoulder). To level up Strength fast, you should run while being “Overloaded” (fill your inventory with heavy items).
8. Athletics. Reduces stamina drain. Increases stamina recovery speed and sprinting speed. From Athletics skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “50% reduced fall damage and injury“, “Increased Stamina bar by 50%“. To level up Athletics fast, you simply need to run a lot on sprint (Shift).
9. Swimming. Reduces Stamina drain when swimming. Increases max oxygen and swimming speed. From Swimming skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Can sprint while swimming” (the character will swim faster while you hold Shift), “Unlocks static swimming mode to restore stamina“. To level up Swimming fast, you need to swim a lot.
10. Drying. Increases dried food storage time and dried food nutrition. Reduces drying duration. From Drying skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Dried food doesn’t cause Food Poisoning“, “Drying food doesn’t require Salt“. To level up Drying fast, you should build as many Skin Dryers and Food Dehydrators as possible and use them to dry food and animal skins.
11. Mapping. Reduces mapping duration and increases mapping radius. Gives a chance to double the mapping radius. From Mapping skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Unlocks Mapping Tower recipe“, “Can map at night and in any weather conditions“. You can level up Mapping fast by repeatedly mapping the same area. For this, you need to create as many Mapping Charcoals as possible using a Campfire.
12. Sailing. Increases sailing speed and reduces damage to the vessel while sailing. Gives a chance to save a repair toolkit. From Sailing skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Duration of fast travel is reduced by 50%“, “Ship container capacity increased by 100“. To level up Sailing fast, you need to actively engage in seafaring, riding your boat.
13. Fishing. Increases bite and catch chances. Gives a chance to keep the bait while fishing. From Fishing skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Unlocks Leaf Bait recipe“, “Can sense large fish“. To level up Fishing fast, you simply need to fish a lot at the nearest Fishing Spot.
14. Repairing. Reduces repair duration and max durability penalty. Also reduces the chance of injury while repairing. From Repairing skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Reduced repair duration also applies to vessel repair“, “Reduced max durability penalty also applies to raft repair“. You can level up Repairing fast if you damage your boat by intentionally crashing into rocks, and then repair it with a Primitive Ship Repair Kit. It’s important to remember that with each repair, any item, including boats, loses some of its maximum durability.
15. Medicine. Increases Medicine effect and effect duration. Also reduces medical item crafting duration. From Medicine skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Living Water cures diseases“, “Unlocks Antiseptic recipe“. To level up Medicine fast, you need to actively craft medicines.
16. Gathering. Reduces gathering and mining duration, as well as the chance of injury while gathering. Gives a chance to find extra resources while gathering or mining. From Gathering skill books, you can get the following bonuses: “Reduced mining energy drain by 50%“, “Chance to find Resin while gathering“. To level up Gathering fast, you need to actively gather resources and mine ores.

Additionally, you can speed up the development of all skills by 10% if you level up the “Learning – Rank I” perk.

What skills should a beginner develop?

You should start purposefully developing skills after building a camp and accumulating at least minimal food and water supplies. Remember that loads in the game accelerate the exhaustion of the character: he will want to drink, eat, and sleep faster.

Based on my gaming experience, I would start with Skinning, Gathering, Athletics, and Strength. When you have a good supply of water and food, you can start developing other useful skills: Mapping, Fire Starting, Cooking, Medicine, Swimming, Sailing, and others.

It is not worth leveling up Fishing, as underwater hunting with a harpoon is incomparably more effective.