What are your preferred skills to put your points into early on that have the biggest impact?
Feel free to break it down by play style: stealth, fighting, exploring, etc.
The jetpack it a whole new world. Being able to pick locks is kina a must too. Persuasion is definitely one you’ll want to invest in if you want to just talk people into doing whatever you want shy of shooting themselves in the face.
I wish there were a fast sit down stand up perk or a dock and board perk
Whichever perks you like, try to go broad, rather than deep, into any skill group. Not only is each perk level gated by its own skill test, but many skill benefits (like ship building) are level gated. And the best perks in each skill group require multiple levels of perk investment in previous skill group tiers. If you choose a selection of lower level perks from each group, you are always making progress on something, and never waiting for a single perk to be available.
I think the persuasion skill is really useful through out the gameplay, espacially at the beginning. you can gain time and save ammo. Security and wealth were useful to have. A point in boost pack is fun too. I did not invest in exploring or crafting since I didn’t engage much in them. Later, investing in pure DPS was profitable too (ballisitc/energy, pistol/rifle, etc). If ship building is your thing, piloting and ship design later on is also nice.
Persuasion will always come in useful. I still have no idea what I’m supposed to choose. I fail the majority of my persuasion choices.
Consumables can be handy if you know a big persuasion is coming. I just check how many “points” it takes too convince the npc and don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’ve done a quest line pretty early on that unlock me the manipulation skill early. It gives you an additionnal choice sometimes with safe-ish big points. There’s also a skill to unlock the choice to bribe I think. didn’t invest in it (i want money!) but it is still a possibility.
I’ve leaned heavily into the ship piloting and building part of the tree. Who doesn’t want to build and pilot a big ass battlecruiser? Also, JETPACKS!
When I kept losing dog fights early on I couldn’t figure out why. THEN I invested a couple of points in the tech/ship area and it was a game changer.
Also, I want to make a big ass battle cruiser too, but I don’t have enough skill points to build it yet.
Yeah you it takes a while to get to the point where you can pilot class C and advance the shipbuilding tree.