Skill books and reading

Build 42 has 120 skill books: 24 skills with five volumes each. A book raises the XP you earn while your level is inside its range. It never hands out XP on its own.

• The multiplier builds as you read: every 10% of the book adds 10% of its maximum. Volume I only beats x1 at around 40% read (one source), so finish books before training.
• You can start a volume one level below its range. A book that is too advanced will not open, and one below your level does nothing.
• Books are not used up. Your reading progress is saved on the character.
• You need light to read.

"Levels 1 to 2" means Volume I helps you earn levels 1 and 2, so read it at level 0.

Books exist for: Agriculture, Aiming, Animal Care, Blacksmithing, Butchering, Carpentry, Carving, Cooking, Electrical, First Aid, Fishing, Foraging, Glassmaking, Knapping, Long Blade, Maintenance, Masonry, Mechanics, Pottery, Reloading, Tailoring, Tracking, Trapping and Welding.

Going by that list, the fitness and most combat skills (Fitness, Strength, Sprinting, Lightfooted, Nimble, Sneaking, Axe, the blunt skills, Short Blade and Spear) appear to have no books. We could not confirm that from a second source, so treat it as likely rather than certain.

Illiterate gives 10 points in Build 42 (8 in Build 41). It blocks skill books and recipe magazines, and in Build 42 also writing notes, annotating maps, reading annotated maps and reading food labels. Illiterate characters can still look at comics, catalogues, photos and most survivalist schematics, which are mostly diagrams.

Magazines teach specific recipes once, permanently. Counts vary by what you include: pzfans lists 84 magazines; Bamboo Gaming lists 149 recipe sources once seed packets and schematics are counted. A few that matter early:

• How to Use Generators: connecting generators.
• Wilderness Survival: the Herbalist recipe for foraging medicine.
• Small Game Hunting, The Hunter, Wildlife Preserve: the trap recipes.
• Laines Auto Manuals: vehicle repair by class (mechanics).
• Welder Monthly: metal walls and crates (welding).

Build 42 also teaches many recipes automatically when you reach set skill levels, and adds schematics in survivalist safehouses.

These values come from one site (one source). Leisure reading stays in your inventory, but the same item will not help again until a cooldown passes: the sandbox "Literature Cooldown Days" is 45 on Apocalypse, 30 on Outbreak and 90 on Rising and Extinction (game files). Build 42 added around 1,500 uniquely titled books and magazines, readable newspapers, town pamphlets and business flyers that mark places on your map.

Opinion Keep a shelf of different comics at base. Rotating titles beats the cooldown, and a happy survivor levels faster.