This is a quick guide to give you ideas of what and how to level skills. This is by no means the only way to play. Please take these recommendations as ideas and not guidelines.

Combat edit

Melee edit

Fight stuff

Ranged edit

Fight stuff

Technomancy edit

Cattle prod until tech guns with energy cell ammo (buyable in Ody)

Health edit

Fight stuff

Defence edit

Fight stuff

Karma edit

Sacrifice items of value (base item value = xp) to the chest near JC in east Frontier

At the top of skills (press 3) menu, you can allocate your combat XP! By default it splits to style/health/defense equally, I highly recommend moving to 3-0-0 for tech and ranged.
Fight stuff - There are TONS of monsters and methods to level combat, it really depends on your other goals. Raiders into nomads is common!

Gathering edit

Mining
Level Material Location
1-5 Tin East of NW
6-10 Copper East of NW
11-20 Bronze East of NW
21-30 Zinc      North of Chery
31-40 Iron West of Rust

Fishing edit

1-10 Bait fishing south of NW bank

11-15 Trap fishing NW of NW

15-30 Bait fishing carp & bream south of Chery

30+ 🦀 in east cald forever

Hunting edit

1-5 or 1-10 Bunny

5+ Turkeys between Bayou and Ody (bis location for feathers so optional method train as long as u need)

10-20 Coyote South of NW or North of Cald

20-30 Deer South of Ody

30-40 Boar south-east of Bayou

Harvesting edit

1 - Aloe, Cotton, Poppy are all lvl 1 and useful for diff things. Any of these till 10.

10-20 Linen East of Cald

21-30 Hemp in Ody

31-40

Survival edit

1-10 Pine trees

1+ Panning - you CAN pan and sell it to jewelcrafters but then you'll be missing wood, up to you

11-20 Oak in Rust

21-30 Hickory somewhere

30+ Willow forever

Agriculture edit

1+ Berry seeds from ground spawn in SW of starter island

You don't need the "reqs" of agri plants, but it improves harvesting chance.  Killing/pp farmers or nomads gives seeds

Currently, I recommend just using berries/wheat/beets until 15ish and then spam coffee forever.

3 spots in NW

6 spots in Higgins

5 spots (1 hidden) in Salado

3 spots in Ody

Crafting edit

Smithing edit

Smith the things you mined

East of NW

Cooking edit

Cook the food you fished (with burn rates, you must overfish each tier 10-20%)

Many, but Chery is best

Tinkering edit

Many methods, but bullets are most economical

SE starter island, S frontier

Jewelcrafting edit

Only level if you're aware it's a huge money sink, just buy things from JC players otherwise.  Sand/clay till coral rings until 23 where you spam copper rings.

East frontier

Tailoring edit

Spin and loom the plants from harvesting

West frontier for both, spin only in rust

Woodworking edit

Arrow shafts from the logs you cut are best

Bayou

Leather working edit

Craft skins into any armour pieces from hunting

Salado

Mixology edit

1-8 use poppy or w/e else, 8-24 energy cell + water both buyable in ody/sal, or thieve in sal for vials. 24 is coffee forever!

Salado

Other edit

Movement edit

move around

Bounty edit

bounty board in frontier and then sal, combat way faster

Robbery edit

1-12 settlers and then follow stalls, pickpocketing is terrible right now. 12-24 meat and 24-48 bar stall