Core Keeper Skill Leveling Guide: Fastest Ways to Level Every Skill

XP needed to level each skill (Lv.25, 50, 75, 100)

Cumulative totals from Lv.0. For skills that give 1 XP per action, the number is simply how many times you need to do it.

You get 1 talent point every 5 levels, plus 5 extra at Lv.100 (25 per skill). You cannot take every talent, so decide which ones you need (recommended skill builds).

Leveling Mining, Running, Crafting, Gardening, Fishing and Cooking

Mining: hit walls over and over

• 1 XP per hit that deals 12 or more damage to a minable wall. 59,978 hits to Lv.100.
• Digging the ground or blowing up walls with bombs gives nothing. The Great Wall, Obsidian Blocks and Silicate Blocks give nothing either.
• A sledgehammer gives only 1 per swing no matter how many tiles it hits. The shell of the gives nothing.
• The Stormbringer lets you repeat mining attacks without repairs (wall durability).

Running: walk while exploring

• About 1 XP per tile walked. About 500,000 tiles to Lv.100.
• Vehicles, riding animals, dodging and conveyor belts give nothing. Movement speed gear and food help you progress faster.

Crafting: keep crafting with renewable materials

• 1 XP per material used (materials with a value of 0 in the data do not count). Recipes with no counted materials give 2. 29,995 to Lv.100.
• Recipes that make several items at once still give XP per craft. Talents that reduce material cost also reduce XP.
• An easy method: keep crafting Wood Bridge (1 wood each) from automatically collected wood (wood automation).

Gardening: harvest a big farm all at once

• 1 XP per fully grown crop harvested. Mushrooms do not count. Golden crops still give 1. 5,990 harvests to Lv.100.
• With a 240-tile farm, 25 full harvests get you to Lv.100. Use area-harvest hoes and sprinklers (farm automation).

Fishing: fish in large numbers at an easy spot nearby

• 1 XP per catch with a fishing rod (fish or item, any rarity). 1,494 catches to Lv.100.
• Having double the fishing value the spot requires gives the shortest wait. More than that does not help, so you can level it close to home without a top-tier rod.
• Fish schools bite quickly and always give a fish. Catching fish with a Grenade counts as 1 no matter how many fish you get. Fishing Nets give no XP.

Cooking: line up cooking pots and take food out by hand

• 1 XP each time you take a dish out by hand. Taking it out with a Robot Arm gives nothing. Bonus extra dishes do not count.
• 5,000 dishes to Lv.100 (10,000 ingredients). Set up several Cooking Pots and use the crops you already grow.

Leveling Melee, Ranged, Magic, Summoning, Explosives and Vitality

Melee, Ranged and Magic

• Each hit gives 2.5 × attack interval (seconds): 1 for a 0.4 s weapon, 2 for a 0.8 s weapon. That is about 2.5 per second either way.
• A melee swing counts once no matter how many enemies it hits. It still counts when damage is blocked or reduced to 0. Projectiles must deal at least 1 damage to count.
• Training Dummies and burn damage give no XP.
• 18,007 to Lv.100: about 2 hours of nonstop hitting, about 2 h 40 min if you hit 3/4 of the time, and about 4 hours at half the time (estimates).
• For melee, use a low-damage weapon so the target lasts longer; an unbreakable weapon (such as the Stormbringer) never stops for repairs. For magic, bring mana recovery.

Summoning

1 XP per minion attack. It depends on how many minions you have and how often they attack, so summon the maximum number and fight where they can reach the target. 59,662 to Lv.100.

Explosives

XP is gained each time explosion damage hits an enemy. 2,006 to Lv.100. Find a target you can hit repeatedly and keep a supply of bombs or mana.

Vitality

XP is gained when you kill an enemy, based on its max health (up to 1,000 each). About 5 million to Lv.100. Kills by burn damage give nothing, so land the final blow yourself. Unlike hit-based skills, the faster you kill, the faster it rises.

Best targets for leveling combat skills

Leveling several skills together

1. Start with useful work: walk to where you need to go, craft the gear and building materials you need, and harvest ingredients for cooking.
2. Chain Gardening and Cooking: harvesting a 240-tile farm 42 times and cooking everything takes both Gardening and Cooking to Lv.100 (assuming 1 crop per tile and 2 ingredients per dish).
3. Craft with renewable materials: build a wood farm and save your metal for gear that moves you forward.
4. Separate hitting practice from killing practice: level Melee etc. on durable targets and Vitality on enemies you can kill quickly.
5. Prepare before eating buff food: have repairs, ammo and mana recovery nearby first.

XP needed for each level is calculated from the skill curves in the game's program (Core Keeper 1.3.0.6); 100 is the maximum level for every skill. How much XP each action gives, what gives no XP and the target tips are from the Core Keeper Wiki (Fandom) page "Guides/Skill experience" (CC BY-SA 3.0); we have not confirmed them in the game files. Times are estimates, not measurements.