Alrighty,
A quick tour of profession levels and the impact of unlocks on that profession level. For this I will use Prospector Profession since it is related to your initial post.
A number of VUs ago the profession level cap was raised from lvl 100 to lvl 200 along with it the previous cap on skills was raised from 10k points (Master) to 20k points (Entropia Master)
lvl 200 in a profession = 20,000 points;
Though this 20,000 points is made up of several % percentage contributions from skills associated with that profession.
Now lets look at Prospecting ...
Probably a bad example as not all unlocks have been resolved as to the exact contributions made. (5% missing, mostly like the last unlock contribution or is unknown at this stage as to what it pertains to)
Ok so when you do activities in
EU you add to the skill pools associated with those activies. In the case of prospecting when you drop a bomb you add the above percentage contribution to the associated skill pools which you do not see straight off the bat (yet are recorded by the system, it is a 4 decimal place number
)
Upon reaching a certain value in what could be termed the skill cache for these skills, it is then reflected onto your screen in green text that you have made a skill up, this value is then transferred over to your static record of which you can visually see by pressing the U key to bring up the page with all your skills and their current point values along with any partial contibution towards the next whole point in the form of a graphical green colour bar.
Though when you first start out, using the above example of prospecting, you would not have yet unlocked due to being new ...
Code:
Serendipity 2%
Calypso Grnd As' 8%
Mineral Sense 6%
And the last missing 5% unlock or unresolved contribution :)
So when you drop a bomb you will add a point contribution to everything except the above mentioned, they will stay at 1 until unlocked.
Now in the calculation of your profession level, your profession level is based on the percentage contribution of each skill of upto a possible 20k points associated with that profession making up 100% of the required maximum 20,000 points that will bring you to the lvl 200 profession cap.
Anyway, moving along. When you do finally reach the level to unlock the new skill, you will find whola suddenly your profession level is levelling a little more quickly again depending upon the value of the % contribution of the unlock.
So first you may reach level 30 in one of your firearm / ME attack / melee skills and unlock Serendipity which has a 2% contribution. (I know it is small) Now each time you drop a bomb with your finder you make a 2% contribution in skill towards the new skill Serendipity (Also look at all the other professions that also contribute to it, it levels very quickly) and then you may next open up CGA, 8% contribution each bomb you drop.
On the other side, your profession level is now calculating the 2% of your serendipity towards the 20k points total need for a profession lvl of 200 (400 points max if you have serendipty at 20k skill points) along with CGA 8% (1600 points max if you have CGA at 20k skill points). Previously these were at 1 on the skill points side so had no effect on the profession level prior to the unlock.
So all in all, when you do Unlock a new skill associated with a profession, then you by default start contributing towards the skill points associated with that unlock from all professions that use that skill. Along with your profession level now reflecting progress in that new unlocked skill/ability hence giving you a profession levelling boost.
Now without giving a definative answer on exactly what CGA & Mineral sense does exactly as no one really knows spot on for sure. The Coders & Mathematical modelling architects at
MA have written Algorithms to apply (Usually multiple algorithms to determine more than one function's outcome upon another) that can use either or both the profession level associated to the activity being done along with a specific skill point values to determine such things as success rate in using the tool your using, if you hit a resource or not, the depth of your find and if there are multiple resources in the diametre of where you have dropped the bomb (depending on how you think the system may spawn resources) which one to allocated to you as a find first ...
just to use another example here as to not put any ideas in your head as to how it may or may not work (Many theories out there), if there are really no resources set and pre-determined (either stored in a huge memory array or in a SQL lookup database) instead allocated to you there and then *grins*. A resource lookup with associate difficulty levels for each resource may be done then from this the algorithms may then use your skill , profession level along with the details of the finder you are using and your associated ability to use that finder to determine what resource you get; upon doing other functions that may include serendepity as to how fortunate you are included to get a rarer resource or increase search depth success, claim size dependant upon your spend rate and how much ped you have saved up in your loot profile along with the possiblity of a database lookup of previous finds made within the search radius of your drop in the last
x hr timeframe as well as your own active session & past
x hr drop position hit/miss record as a cross reference to ensure movement to a new location is required once any attempt has been made there by yourself and/or finds have been made by others upto
x depth greater than what you are able to achieve upon your attempt at that location ... etc etc (The list of possibilities go on)
So there you have it. Unlocks firstly give a small boost to the levelling of your profession level, they also once unlocked will have points contributed to them of which when it comes to the algorithms used that you will have a better success in the outcome calculation with a higher value of 1 being used.
Also a lot of unlocks have an effect on other professions in
EU as well and their outcome calculations that undergo transaction processing in whatever activity you are under-taking. *grins*
Hope that helps.
Please don't listen to fools who tell you that
EU is not a skill based platform.
EU is one gigantic dynamically living mathematical model running many algorithms along with AIs to produce varied outcomes.
(The most intelligent model, from a discovery aspect I have seen to date)
Many skill point values (even for those not unlocked with a value of 1) and profession level value may be used to determine the outcome result within the algorithm being used in the transaction under-going processing from the activity to which you are performing.
~ Sparkz
PS. Also note that attributes are also at a rated value of 20,000 points, though for aesthetical reasons and to give it meaning setting them aside from skill points, attribute values are displayed divided by 20. Hence the max attribute size displayed is 1000. This is why in the % contributions you will see intelligence*20, agility*20, psyche*20 and strength*20 in the contribution tables.