Strategies for building up survivors?

[Panpiper]

I like the idea of being able to take with me when I go to the next map, a few truly excellent survivors that that do multiple tasks well. Has anyone found any tricks that aid in this other than just train them all up to level five in all schools? Some perks are great synergies like having McGyver/genius/fighter, but getting those perks seems to be much more a matter of luck than strategy.

Are there any perk combinations that are especially desirable? Are there any tricks for increasing the likelihood of such perks?

[Woolfe]

Except for your character, they lose all skills except the one they are currently specialised in.

Which is bloody annoying.

[Panpiper]

Except for your character, they lose all skills except the one they are currently specialised in.

Which is bloody annoying.

That IS annoying, big time. Are there any config settings we can tweak to fix this?

[TheBrickMan]

The best way to keep searching for different "backstories" in survivors is to get a piece of equipment that has a relatively generic perk attached to it (Think of Walter's Go Bag, which gives First Aid, which is virtually useless on an engineer character) and have that equipped to your selected survivor beforehand.

Afterward, simply make sure you save before starting any attempts at the backstory; if you don't like the options presented, then reload and go to the next day; there'll be a different selection to choose from.

[Panpiper]

The best way to keep searching for different "backstories" in survivors is to get a piece of equipment that has a relatively generic perk attached to it (Think of Walter's Go Bag, which gives First Aid, which is virtually useless on an engineer character) and have that equipped to your selected survivor beforehand.

Afterward, simply make sure you save before starting any attempts at the backstory; if you don't like the options presented, then reload and go to the next day; there'll be a different selection to choose from.

I tried using a baseball bat this way (gives the recreation perk). There was no change in potential perks from day to day.

[s3k]

There seem to be diffrent tiers of perks or values assigned to perks.
Once I reloaded the same save a lot of times to look at what perks my survivors get:(dont fix me on this I've lost the notes on my inspection)

tier 1 (low value): Artist, Firearms Training, Good Cook, Bookworm
tier 2: Redecorator, Melee Training, Hoarder, First Aid
tier 3 (high value): Tools Expert, Hand To Hand, Green Thumb
Perks like Fearless Reclaim seem to be something like 4 or 5 (highest value Ive seen),

The Faction perks (former blabla increases sway..) seem to be less valuable than (5 training related) perks like Fearless Reclaim, Commander, MacGyver, Scrapper
Special Perks like Stinky, Brave or Loner (which are not awarded for training in a skill, but by career, more on that below) seem to offer a lower value for stuff like Fearless Reclaim to appear more often.
Other Special Perks (I'm calling everything out of the 5 training fields "Special Perks"), that are beneficial (like Half Rations, Friendly etc.) seem to have a value between tier 1 and 2
Awesome Special Perks (like Superman, Ninja) seem to have a similar value to the tier 4 (tier 5) training related perks

concluding:
-if a survivor has low value perks like Artist and Stinky he is more likely to get higher level perks like Fearless Reclaim.
-if a survivor would (look at the perk options and reload a save before you looked to see this) get the option to choose Fearless Reclaim (he is a builder with low value perks) and you train him to be something diffrent, like a fighter he gets the perk of the other training (here: Commander)
-Special Perks are only obtainable from the careers, while every of the training groups has 4 perks assigned to it (like: Good Cook, Hoarder, Green Thumb, Scrapper)
-there are perks to increase a training stat by 3 (Fighter, Resourceful, Genius, Handyman, Born Leader), which have a higher value as well (undetermined, but above or equal to 3), not sure how they are triggered (somehow has to do with careers)
-some careers have 3 and some have 4 perks (one of the 4 being a high value special perk only showing up, when the value of 2 taken perks is low enough (always as the last perk))
-it is impossible to get more than one of the super-perks like tier 4 (tier 5) training-perks or awesome special perks.
-some careers seem to have a higher cap for the total value of perks you could get, meaning they are unable to obtain super-perks

A list of all perks and their corresponding Id's can be found on a post in the general discussion about the game on Steam called "Perk Debugs?":
https://steamcommunity.com/app/257170/d ... 839584070/

Ok stumbled upon this, which explains it better: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2005

[PuzzleMage]

One way to build up skills quickly in the early game is watch for missions that are nearly complete and put everyone who's the relevant color on that tile for the last tick of the mission.

You get a little bit of experience as you do a mission, but most of it when the mission is completed. If you have builders working on three different missions, when one mission is nearly complete, put all your builders (and your main character) there, they will all get experience in building. Only the green guys can get experience at building, so you don't need to throw everyone there, but it's a good way to get your guys up to speed quickly. Spread them back around once that mission is done, and they'll have lost very little time.