If you are a specialist or have a specific weapon goal (say to max a mm or imk2), this advice makes even more sense, but think of it like this: you minimize your time spent to total HP gained in the long term if you make sure every HP skill is unlocked in a profession before you do any related profession. Any time you are shooting BLP pistol when your higher/goal profession is laser sniper, you are missing out on commando gains that you would get if you did that same activity after unlocking commando through your main profession. And make no mistake, commando gains are the goal for hp. It is a much better contributor than all the other skills.
However, this represents an extremely disciplined and focused approach and isn’t practical for many. I try to stick to my main hunting profession but every now and then i do go out and use a low melee weapon for Strength and hp. When i do so, i am missing out on Commando gains. On the other hand, it is giving me some variety and more immediate gains in health through Melee Combat skill and the contribution from Strength.
That said, doing completely unrelated professions like mining doesn’t impact this much. Sure there are a few shared General skills (Serendipity etc.) but not so important to the pro level.
I am not sure about the math, but am guessing the reason that Space and Treasure related skills don’t show higher is because the Markup of them makes them cost prohibitive to chip in, but would still be good for natural gains.
Yeah that’s right. A different way to use the chipping optimizer if you are looking for guidance in activity rather than chips to consume is to set the markup for all the skills to the same value. Then, it will level the playing field while still handling the level to tt skill volume calculations.
Because i’m usually trying to evaluate the effectiveness of an activity rather than optimizing a chipping endeavor (well, always), i made the progress calculator tool (see this thread for the introduction, and this post for instructions (and here’s another from a different user if mine’s too opaque :D). It’s not as slick or user friendly as the chipping calculator, but it does calculations for you about the effectiveness of a given activity that you can’t easily do yourself (because levels aren’t linear as most people know by now). The granularity on the estimated repeat times isn’t fine. Take it as an approximation rather than an exact number, but one based on extrapolation of your gains between the two snapshots using the skill curves of all the relevant skills.
Edit: Here’s an example
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/gallery/files/3/8/6/7/feffox_event_progress_to_commando_-_laser_sniper_hit.gif
[size=2]An example of using the progress calculator to report on my progress toward Commando ( http://esi.coolinc.info/progress.cgi ) with a snapshot from before and after the feffox event[/size]
You can use it for health too. I’d need 139 Feffox events to reach 200 hp. :laugh: … except that after ~10 of them, i’d unlock Commando and have 1000s of levels of commando after 139 Feffox events, which is more than a dozen HP (1 per 250 iirc). So i’d have 200 long before then because of that unlock.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/gallery/files/3/8/6/7/progress_health_during_feffox_mission.gif
[size=2]An example of using the progress calculator to report on my progress toward 200 hp ( http://esi.coolinc.info/progress.cgi ) with a snapshot from before and after the feffox event[/size]