Knowledge Skills Guide

In the Resident Evil universe multiple types of creature exist, as do companies, as do secrets, and opponents. Naturally, knowing about all of them is hardly possible for most beings, and knowing about most of them is a difficult task as well, most characters start knowing very little about the B.O.W.s or their enemies. In order to reflect this existence or absence of knowledge, the Knowledge Skills System (KSS) has been devised.

Knowledge Skills encompass only knowledge that is not common and is valuable and important to the forum. Thus there is no Knowledge Skill for social skills, weapons, etc. because they're assumed to be known as common knowledge and knowledge of how to plant a garden is not important to the forum and also absent. Only secret knowledge is used in this system, and only with the appropriate Knowledge Skill can a being effectively combat opponents.

Of course, you can still fight something you know nothing about, load anything full of bullets and it'll die eventually, you just won't be able to do it efficiently. This brings us to the first category of Knowledge Skills, enemy knowledge. Lets use a common example of an old model Tyrant, an enormous 'zombie' with an exposed heart. Without knowing about a Tyrant, you don't know exactly where its weak or too much about it except that it looks like it needs to be shot dead. Having a general knowledge of Tyrants will let you know that all old-model Tyrants are vulnerable if shot in their exposed hearts.

Thus there are two types of enemy knowledge, general and specific. General knowledge covers a whole field, and provides knowledge of very basic things about it (ex. Knowledge: B.O.W. lets you identify a B.O.W. and know that its created through viral mutation or parasite infection, but specifics about individual creatures is beyond your scope.) Specific knowledge represents a more intimate knowledge of the exact thing you'r fighting (ex. Knowledge: Tyrant (Nemesis) would inform you that the Nemesis line is one of the rarest B.O.W.'s that Umbrella can dispatch and that it has virtually no weaknesses short of complete bodily destruction.) So while general knowledge is probably better for its versatility, its mostly useless to dispatch foes efficiently, while specific knowledge sacrifices the broader area of effects.

Enemy knowledge is obtained by obtaining research papers on the subject, researching the creature yourself, encountering it multiple times (after being in five or more posts with a creature you may make a request to have the enemy knowledge added to your character. The Staff will add it to your character only if the five chosen posts demonstrate learning of the creature's strengths, weaknesses, and specifics. Naturally this won't be a common thing since most encounters won't enable this sort of gathering of information.)

Enemy knowledge cannot be transferred, as in, someone with experience cannot teach someone without out due to the overall difficulty of simply grasping a concept as complex as the different sorts of creature's in existence. There is a method through which this can be done however. If someone with the proper knowledge accompanies someone without that knowledge, and they encounter the creature type or specific creature, then a post can be expended to inform them about the imminent threat and give them that Knowledge Skill. This only functions due to the visual aid that is so convenient for the education process and cannot be otherwise replicated both for the sake of balance (there'd be little point in the system if you could be easily educated by a senior about everything) and for the sake of maintaining forum theme (Resident Evil has always been about not knowing, knowledge being the thing sought after, not the thing you have.)

This reaches into the real of meta-game and godmodding. If your character lacks the appropriate knowledge skill, then they lack the appropriate knowledge, and 'luck' cannot be used as an excuse. If you don't know about an Anubis then you have no knowledge of the fact that all its limbs, despite appearances, are incredibly dense and you're more likely to assume its weak and scrawny, hardly worth ammunition. In this department, your posts will be watched closely, and all metagaming will be corrected as soon as its noticed. Logic may be able to get you to a certain point, but utter chance or, for lack of a better word, bullshit, that gets you to know something about an enemy is not acceptable.

The second type of Knowledge Skill is that of secret information, usually about one of the organizations that exist. This type of information is expressed in four different levels, increasing in value as they go up in level and becoming less common as they go up as well. Every member of an organization has access to Level 1 Knowledge, only the top tier has access to Level 4. Each level covers a certain degree of information, described below:

Level 1: Knowledge of exterior appearances, what an organization does on the outside, if applicable. The location of public facilities such as an Umbrella Supply Store which sells the standard Umbrella goods. Knowledge of the chairmen, board members, and other public figures. Generally this level covers all public knowledge.

Level 2: Knowledge of the lower class members and workers, work schedules, payment, inter-company gossip, public level research, and company stock standings. Some personal information about the higher ups, such as hobbies or habits, does not encompass work schedules or other critical information. Can pass as an employee for up to a week (real time) before suspicion arises.

Level 3: Knowledge of some of the more popular secret projects, ability to pass off as a basic employee using current gossip and a knowledge of names and faces within the company. Intimate information about all low class workers, information on researchers, and intimate knowledge about the higher-up's daily lives. Can pass as an employee for up to three weeks (Real time) before suspicion arises.

Level 4: Knowledge of the company's projects as they occur, intimate knowledge of the research team and the ability to pass as a researcher for one week (real time) before suspicion arises, can pass as an employee for as long as desired so long as nothing suspicious occurs, and knowledge of the involvement of all the higher-ups and how far they are involved.

With all of that above, bear in mind this all just what is known, conclusively proving such things is much more difficult and can attract attention very easily. Infiltrating a company always poses a great risk, and attempting to run off with data or evidence to convict them is an even greater risk, as every organization has their own measures in place to prevent these things, most especially Umbrella, The Organization, and Tricell.

Obtaining this kind of knowledge, beyond what your ranking in your own organization which provides you with a level of knowledge of your own and other organizations, you must take higher level information from someone who possesses it. This is, needless to say, difficult an requires bribery, threats, torture, or other similar things in order to successfully obtain. Obtaining this type of knowledge will be watched very strictly.

As with specific creature knowledge, you can also obtain specific person knowledge, through similar methods that must come from those who are close to them or the person themselves. With this personal knowledge it becomes easier to manipulate them or sabotage an opposing organization, so obtaining specific knowledge is desirable in most missions. Briefing can also provide this kind of information.

Each individual character is able to start with 1 Knowledge Skill per point of Intellect, and further gains in Intellect provide similar gains. This is a meager amount, however, compared with how many types of knowledge are available so the other methods discussed above are used to obtain further information. A being cannot have more Knowledge Skills than 2x its Intellect amount.

Below is a list of the most common Knowledge Skills, since specifics exist for every enemy and every character that exists, they are not all listed.

- Knowledge: STARS, Level 1
- Knowledge: STARS, Level 2
- Knowledge: STARS, Level 3
- Knowledge: STARS, Level 4
- Knowledge: Government, Level 1
- Knowledge: Government, Level 2
- Knowledge: Government, Level 3
- Knowledge: Government, Level 4
- Knowledge: Umbrella, Level 1
- Knowledge: Umbrella, Level 2
- Knowledge: Umbrella, Level 3
- Knowledge: Umbrella, Level 4
- Knowledge: Organization, Level 1
- Knowledge: Organization, Level 2
- Knowledge: Organization, Level 3
- Knowledge: Organization, Level 4
- Knowledge: Tricell, Level 1
- Knowledge: Tricell, Level 2
- Knowledge: Tricell, Level 3
- Knowledge: Tricell, Level 4
- Knowledge: T-Virus
- Knowledge: T-Veronica
- Knowledge: T-Cameron
- Knowledge: Progenitor
- Knowledge: G-Virus
- Knowledge: TG-Virus
- Knowledge: X-Virus
- Knowledge: Ancient Virus
- Knowledge: Plagas
- Knowledge: Control Plagas
- Knowledge: Plagas Type 2
- Knowledge: Infected, Common
- Knowledge: Crimson Heads
- Knowledge: Lickers
- Knowledge: Tyrants
- Knowledge: Hunters
- Knowledge: Umbrella B.O.W.
- Knowledge: Tricell B.O.W.
- Knowledge: Organization B.O.W.