Improving Skills and Abilities. When you begin playing a new character, you have an initial allotment of improvement points (IP) to increase your skills and abilities. Every time you advance one level, you will receive more IP to distribute. How much IP you gain depends on your level. For instance, at level 2 you get 4,000 IP, and on level 50 you get 20,000. There are 200 levels to reach in Anarchy Online. Use your IP wisely. It is recommended that you focus on the skills and abilities that are most suitable for your breed and profession - your breed defines the cost of increasing your abilities, while your profession defines the cost of increasing your skills - and for the weapons and nano programs you have equipped. To see what skills and abilities your equipment requires, SHIFT + left-click the weapon, armour, Implant, or nano program that you wish to use. The requirements for each item will be listed in its Information window. Most items and nano programs have such skill requirements. For example, you need a value of 8 in your treatment skill to use a quality level 1 treatment laboratory; this means you have to use your IP to increase that skill to 8 before you can use the item. You should focus initially on increasing the cheapest skills - the skills with a green bar - before increasing the more expensive skills - represented by a gradually darker blue bar. To distribute IP, left-click the SKL button on your status bar (or press the "U" key on your keyboard). The skills and abilities window will then appear. In the top section you find your name, title, current level, and profession. To the right of this information, you will see your available IP pool. This is the amount of IP you can now distribute. The various buttons ranged down the left side of the screen represent the different categories of abilities and skills that you can improve. Left-click a button to open a category: the skills or abilities in that category will appear on the right side. SHIFT + left-click a skill or ability to learn more about that particular skill or ability. The skills and abilities with a green bar require less IP to increase; similarly, the ones with a blue, darker bar require more IP to increase. To use your IP for a specific skill, left-click the bracket to the right of the skill - this will increase your proficiency in that skill. Similarly, left-clicking the left bracket will remove IP from the skill, though only the IP that you have not yet committed. Once you commit to a change (by clicking the ACCEPT button, at the bottom), you cannot regret it. Click CANCEL to discard your changes. One last thing: don't forget to increase your body development ability as this defines your maximum health (i.e. how many hit-points you have in total)! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Windows Interface > Gameplay Commands Main Index