I wrote this up for my allegiance members real quick and I decided that it may be useful to the AC2 community at large, so I thought I'd post it here!
General overview:
Butchering: This is used when butchering corpses. Nearly all corpses should be butchered. There is no reason not to have this skill. Your butchery skill divided by 3 is the level knife you can use (rounded down). The higher the skill, the higher your chance of getting a crit. The higher the tool skill, the more you get each time.
The components you get from this are required to craft weapons and armor above level 10. They can usually be sold for a decent amount in the consignment vendors.
Surverying: This is used in conjunction with the various mining skills. Increasing this increases the yield of all of your mining skills.
Mining: This functions much the same as butchering. Increasing it allows you to get higher level tools (which increase the yield), as well as increase your crit chance.
Weapon/Armor crafting: These are used to craft specific types of weapons and armors for various races. I always focus on the race that I am so I can make my own gear. Crafted gear is very good but time consuming to make.
Tools: This is used to craft the various tools need to gather resources (butchering, mining) as well as to create weapons/armor. Tools are not required by any of the professions except butchering. They will however increase your yield rate (mining/butchering) or increase your skill level.
Spellbinding: This skill is awesome... but only at higher levels. Using spellbinding, you are able to rip spells off of items and place them onto other items, both loot and crafted. So if you find a terrible weapon with an awesome spell on it, you can pull it off that weapon and put it on your own (provided you have enchantment slots available)! Works on armor too.
Refining: Really high level of weapons and armor need special materials that have to be refined from base materials. For example, some items may need steel, but if you look at the mining list Steel doesn't exist. Instead you have to refine Iron and Silver together to get it (or whatever, I'm doing this from memory).
How to know what to pick:
1) Get butchering. Even if you have no intention of doing any crafting, you are just letting those corpses go to waste if you don't butcher them. Those resources can be sold for money. Your skills improve as you use them, so unless butchering is your only skill, do not bother spending too much CXP to increase it.
2) Choose a primary profession (Spellbinding, Refining, Tools or Weapons/Armor). I often choose one that is of personal use to myself. That way I can craft myself new gear whenever I need it.
3) Choose 1 mining skill. To figure out which one you should focus on, look at the recipes in your primary profession. What do they use the most of (Pro Tip: Look at the low level 'Practice Recipes). Whatever the low levels use the most of, pick that skill. You will likely, at some point, have to select a second mining skill to support yourself.
What to do next:
Get a level 1 tool for mining and butchering. If there are no allegiance members able to do this for you, you can craft starter ones underneath Tools->Starter. These are not as good as normal tools, but they at least allow you start working.
Go out mining. Generate a map using Survery and go get those minerals! Rinse and Repeat. Once you have amassed a fair amount of materials (for a beginner, a few hundred is probably 'a fair amount'), head to a crafting shop and start working on the practice recipes for your primary profession. This will generate stuff you can sell for cash and generate some free CXP to use.
Early on, I tend to spend all my free CXP to bump up my primary crafting skill. The reason for this is that will generate the most free CXP for you. Once it get's high enough you can choose what you want to do with it. You can pick up a second profession (maybe for an alt?) or as suggested in the comments below, start bumping up your refining.
Disclaimer: I am writing this not logged in and it's been a real long time since I looked at how Spellbinding and Refining work. Double check before choosing those as your primary profession if you are unfamiliar with crafting in general.
Lost-Company is working on a new AC2 fan site (AC2 Vault is quite dated with some incorrect information) and we will be able to include full tables of the CXP cost for all skills and the exact numbers on how much each point in mining/butchering/surveying effect what you get. Hopefully in time we'll have a crafting skill calculator up, but a normal skill calculator comes first.
General overview:
Butchering: This is used when butchering corpses. Nearly all corpses should be butchered. There is no reason not to have this skill. Your butchery skill divided by 3 is the level knife you can use (rounded down). The higher the skill, the higher your chance of getting a crit. The higher the tool skill, the more you get each time.
The components you get from this are required to craft weapons and armor above level 10. They can usually be sold for a decent amount in the consignment vendors.
Surverying: This is used in conjunction with the various mining skills. Increasing this increases the yield of all of your mining skills.
Mining: This functions much the same as butchering. Increasing it allows you to get higher level tools (which increase the yield), as well as increase your crit chance.
Weapon/Armor crafting: These are used to craft specific types of weapons and armors for various races. I always focus on the race that I am so I can make my own gear. Crafted gear is very good but time consuming to make.
Tools: This is used to craft the various tools need to gather resources (butchering, mining) as well as to create weapons/armor. Tools are not required by any of the professions except butchering. They will however increase your yield rate (mining/butchering) or increase your skill level.
Spellbinding: This skill is awesome... but only at higher levels. Using spellbinding, you are able to rip spells off of items and place them onto other items, both loot and crafted. So if you find a terrible weapon with an awesome spell on it, you can pull it off that weapon and put it on your own (provided you have enchantment slots available)! Works on armor too.
Refining: Really high level of weapons and armor need special materials that have to be refined from base materials. For example, some items may need steel, but if you look at the mining list Steel doesn't exist. Instead you have to refine Iron and Silver together to get it (or whatever, I'm doing this from memory).
How to know what to pick:
1) Get butchering. Even if you have no intention of doing any crafting, you are just letting those corpses go to waste if you don't butcher them. Those resources can be sold for money. Your skills improve as you use them, so unless butchering is your only skill, do not bother spending too much CXP to increase it.
2) Choose a primary profession (Spellbinding, Refining, Tools or Weapons/Armor). I often choose one that is of personal use to myself. That way I can craft myself new gear whenever I need it.
3) Choose 1 mining skill. To figure out which one you should focus on, look at the recipes in your primary profession. What do they use the most of (Pro Tip: Look at the low level 'Practice Recipes). Whatever the low levels use the most of, pick that skill. You will likely, at some point, have to select a second mining skill to support yourself.
What to do next:
Get a level 1 tool for mining and butchering. If there are no allegiance members able to do this for you, you can craft starter ones underneath Tools->Starter. These are not as good as normal tools, but they at least allow you start working.
Go out mining. Generate a map using Survery and go get those minerals! Rinse and Repeat. Once you have amassed a fair amount of materials (for a beginner, a few hundred is probably 'a fair amount'), head to a crafting shop and start working on the practice recipes for your primary profession. This will generate stuff you can sell for cash and generate some free CXP to use.
Early on, I tend to spend all my free CXP to bump up my primary crafting skill. The reason for this is that will generate the most free CXP for you. Once it get's high enough you can choose what you want to do with it. You can pick up a second profession (maybe for an alt?) or as suggested in the comments below, start bumping up your refining.
Disclaimer: I am writing this not logged in and it's been a real long time since I looked at how Spellbinding and Refining work. Double check before choosing those as your primary profession if you are unfamiliar with crafting in general.
Lost-Company is working on a new AC2 fan site (AC2 Vault is quite dated with some incorrect information) and we will be able to include full tables of the CXP cost for all skills and the exact numbers on how much each point in mining/butchering/surveying effect what you get. Hopefully in time we'll have a crafting skill calculator up, but a normal skill calculator comes first.