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Skills

Overview

What are skills?

Skills are basically how good you are a certain thing. The higher a skill, the better you are at it. Someone with a skill of 100 in Repair can repair a weapon or armour to full condition, while someone with only a skill of 50 can only repair it half way. Similarly, weapon skills improved damage and accuracy, Medicine increases the effectiveness of Stimpaks, Rad-X and RadAway, and Sneaking improves, well, sneaking

How do I increase a skill?

Unlike other Bethesda games, like Skyrim, skills do not increase with use. Instead, every time you level up you unlock a certain amount of skill points to spend on your skills. The amount of points you get is 10 + your Intelligence level. A perk can be got at level 4, Education, that gives you 3 extra skill points every level. This is almost a mandatory perk to get. There also many perks that you can get to increase a skill, varying from 5 to 15 points for level of the perk
Another way to level up skills is with Skill Books. There are 25 skill books for each skill in the game, each one improving the skill by 1 point. There is, however, a perk called "Comprehension, unlocked at level 4 that gives you two points for each book, and I highly recommend it. Some clothing types can also increase (or decrease) skills
Your base skill for each skill depends on the corresponding S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute, and is found by:
2+(Attribute x 2)+(luck/2)
Each skill also has a Bobblehead, which raises the skill by 10 points

The Skills

Barter

Big Guns

Energy Weapons

Explosives

Lockpick

Medicine

Melee Weapons

Repair

Science

Small Guns

Sneak

Speech

Unarmed

What they do

Barter

As the name implies, this is the skill of buying and selling at as good a price as you can. With a low barter, you can be forced to spend outrageous amounts of caps on small things, and your fully repair Gatling Laser will barely pay for an Assault Rifle. A good barter is not a necessity, but it can be very handy.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Charisma
Skill Book: Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor

Big Guns

Miniguns are hard to control, and it's very difficult to hit an enemy from afar with a missile launcher. This is where the this skill comes in. As with all combat skills, increasing this skill boosts accuracy and increases damage.
Weapons covered: Minigun, Flamer, Gatling Laser, Missile Launcher, Fat Man
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Endurance
Skill Book: U.S. Army: 30 Handy Flamethrower Recipies

Energy Weapons

Be it Laser or Plasma, they're the weapons of the future, and the average person isn't capable of handling these very well. Increased Energy skill improves your ability to literally disintigrate enemies.
Weapons covered: Pretty much everything "Plasma" or "Laser", including Alien Technology. Excludes grenades and the Gatling Laser.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Perception
Skill Book: Nikola Tesla and you

Explosives

Things that go boom make bigger booms. Need any more be said? Also helps disarming enemy traps.
Weapons covered: Grenade and mines
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Perception
Skill Book: Duck and Cover

Lockpicking

A great way to get free things, or avoid a troublesome fight. Higher levels are required to even attempt more difficult locks.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Perception
Skill Book: Tumblers Today

Medicine

Makes you more like your Dear Ol' Dad. Makes you better with medical stuff like Stimpaks, RadAway and Rad-X.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Intelligence
Skill Book: D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine

Melee Weapons

You wouldn't really think hitting people with things would take a lot of skill, but there you go. Increases in melee skill make you swing harder and faster.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Strength
Skill Book: Grognak the Barbarian

Repair

A broken weapon is useless, and damaged one doesn't do much. Increasing your skill allows you to increase your weapon condition. Weapons can only be repaired with other weapons. Also increases the starting condition of all created weapons.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Intelligence
Skill Book: Deans Electronics

Science

A lot like Lockpicking, except with computers. Often used to hack turrets, or gain access to information
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Intelligence
Skill Book: Big Book of Science

Small Guns

Quite possibly one of the most important skills. This is the skill associated with all conventional firearms, which make up the majority of all weapons
Weapons covered: Anything that fires bullets, including Pistols, Shotguns and Rifles of all kinds
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Agility
Skill Book: Guns and Bullets

Sneak

Sneaking is a great way to get the upper hand in combat, or avoid it altogether. Hitting an enemy while undetected will always be a critical hit, and do some fierce damage.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Agility
Skill Book: Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual

Speech

A silver tongue can get you out of prickly situations, or through some locked doors. A lot of additional rewards for quests are got via Speech challenges, and it will often cut down time spent trying to get something.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Charisma
Skill Book: Lying, Congressional Style (Also, one copy of Paradise Lost, got in Underworld)

Unarmed

The simple act of punching your enemy bareknuckle, or with special melee weapons, like Brass Knuckles
S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute: Endurance
Skill Book: Pugilism Illustrated