[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Apr-15-01 AT 01:26AM (GMT)[p]I believe the figures Justisaur quoted are very misleading. I found books to be extremely helpful throughout a lot of the game. For the record, books give you +15 normally, and +22 (maybe +23?) when you have comprehension skill. This is for skills that are below 100 and untagged. I gave Stitch the comprehension skill as his first perk, and proceded to make him into my "universal soldier". (Ugh - what a terrible movie that was.) If the skill is tagged, double that figure. Once you're over 100, half the figure (so you're back to 15 for tagged skills). I believe it starts costing 3 points per increase for skills about 125, and at some point it changes to 4 and so on. But right now, Stitch has at least 125 in traps, first aid, science, repair, and outdoors, all without spending a single point in any of those skills. Pilot is also at about 75, although it's not very useful.
My thought, though, comprehension is a must and at least one character should take it very early and start reading all the books. Make sure this is a character you want to keep for the whole game, though, since once you start reading books with a person, you'll never want to get rid of them.
As to the number of books:
The traps books didn't come quite soon enough to help out really early, since there are a bunch of mines on mission 3, I think. But after a little bit, you'll be high enough at traps that it's no longer much of a concern. All told, I think I encountered at least 4 traps books.
Small guns are nice now and then, but not too common. You'll probably have most of your characters at 125 or more in small guns anyway. I think I've encountered about 4 small guns books.
First aid aren't too bad. I've probably had at least 5 or 6 of them, and Stitch is now at something like 150 first aid skill. He almost seems to heal better with first aid kits than with doctor kits (although doctor is necessary to remove bandaged).
There were at least 4 piloting books, and since my pilot person is over 100, I started giving them to Stitch after a bit. Like I said, though, Piloting is pretty useless.
Science books are really plentiful. I've probably had at least 8 or 9 of these, possibly more. Science isn't a very useful skill, but once the patch is out it should help lots with the robots.
Repair books are also pretty common, since Stitch became my repair person very early even without tagging the skill. His repair is at 145 or so, without ever tagging it or spending extra points, so there must be over 10 repair books.
I've probably had more than 5 Outdoorsman books, since Stitch became my outdoorsman and is over 100. Again, I didn't need to spend any points on this skill.
So unlike Justisaur, I found the perk to be really handy. If I were playing from the beginning, I'd give the perk to someone that was relatively low in Intelligence, though. Stitch is gaining 23 points per level (he might have a perk that gives him an extra 5), so he really didn't need the help. Some of the dumber characters only get 13 per level and could have really used some help from the books. Just my two cents....
Addendum: I neglected to mention that I'm now on the 18th mission and have been VERY thorough in searching through every area. I'm pretty sure I have killed every baddie on every previous mission, and I have probably found every stache of equipment as well (shelves, pots, etc).
