So how important are the P.I.R.A.T.E.S. skills really? I was unable to find definitive answers to how exactly these starting attributes impact your character, so I'm hoping to get some clarification on the details. I've restarted my game several times now to remake my character and want to share my thought on it. Before you read on, let me state up front: this is just my thinking based on my limited time playing and what I've been able to tell - I could be wrong and if so, please correct me - all of the following is just my belief, don't take it as fact! 
First, what I know to be true: the way you set your starting attributes (capabilities) determines the levels of you starting skills. This we can all agree on, and the correlation between attributes and skills is already nicely illustrated in the pinned topic by Luke159 here.
It seems to me that the correlation between attributes and skills really only affects how fast those skills progress. However, 4 or the 7 attributes have more impact than the other 3. These are Power, Reaction, Talent and Endurance. Why is this? Because in addition to the correlation to skills, these attributes have additional (more important) impact on your character development. here's how I prioritized my stats in the last restart and why:
Talent: 10 - The absolute most important stat of them all. This stat determines how quickly you get perks and how quickly you level.
Reaction: 9 - Determines your starting energy max. Since there are potions for health (and not energy), and you're pretty useless in a fight without energy, I rank this as 2nd most important.
Power: 7 - Determines your starting max health (HP) and also your max carry weight.
Endurance: 7 - Determines how much additional health (HP) you gain at every rank up.
This leaves the minimum points (3 each) for the remaining attributes (playing the vanilla CoAS as Peter Blood, I don't know if it's different for mods or other characters) This means skills that rely on success, authority and insight will be harder to level up and take longer to develop, but ultimately you'll wind up with a much more powerful character.
Also, I noticed that the perks "Dynamo" and "Tree of life" are NOT retro-active. (Dynamo adds 1 point to max energy every time you rank up, and tree of life does the same for health) What this means is that in order for these perks to be of most value you should try to get them as fast as possible at the lowest level possible. They each have pre-requisites that must be chosen before them as well, making it even more complicated. Since you can rank up from making progress with either personal skills or ship skills, this means it is important to level ONLY personal skills at first, until you have both of these perks, before you develop ship skills at all. The earliest I was able to get Dynamo was still at level 4, and level 8 for Tree of life. (again, I'm prioritizing energy over health, but I suppose you could get ToL first, and the levels would come out a bit differently) I also did a few naval runs to get some starting cash and capture a ship to use so I wouldn't have penalties, so I suppose it might be possible to get them slightly sooner if you were more strict than I.
So feedback? Does this seem accurate or am I missing something?
First, what I know to be true: the way you set your starting attributes (capabilities) determines the levels of you starting skills. This we can all agree on, and the correlation between attributes and skills is already nicely illustrated in the pinned topic by Luke159 here.
It seems to me that the correlation between attributes and skills really only affects how fast those skills progress. However, 4 or the 7 attributes have more impact than the other 3. These are Power, Reaction, Talent and Endurance. Why is this? Because in addition to the correlation to skills, these attributes have additional (more important) impact on your character development. here's how I prioritized my stats in the last restart and why:
Talent: 10 - The absolute most important stat of them all. This stat determines how quickly you get perks and how quickly you level.
Reaction: 9 - Determines your starting energy max. Since there are potions for health (and not energy), and you're pretty useless in a fight without energy, I rank this as 2nd most important.
Power: 7 - Determines your starting max health (HP) and also your max carry weight.
Endurance: 7 - Determines how much additional health (HP) you gain at every rank up.
This leaves the minimum points (3 each) for the remaining attributes (playing the vanilla CoAS as Peter Blood, I don't know if it's different for mods or other characters) This means skills that rely on success, authority and insight will be harder to level up and take longer to develop, but ultimately you'll wind up with a much more powerful character.
Also, I noticed that the perks "Dynamo" and "Tree of life" are NOT retro-active. (Dynamo adds 1 point to max energy every time you rank up, and tree of life does the same for health) What this means is that in order for these perks to be of most value you should try to get them as fast as possible at the lowest level possible. They each have pre-requisites that must be chosen before them as well, making it even more complicated. Since you can rank up from making progress with either personal skills or ship skills, this means it is important to level ONLY personal skills at first, until you have both of these perks, before you develop ship skills at all. The earliest I was able to get Dynamo was still at level 4, and level 8 for Tree of life. (again, I'm prioritizing energy over health, but I suppose you could get ToL first, and the levels would come out a bit differently) I also did a few naval runs to get some starting cash and capture a ship to use so I wouldn't have penalties, so I suppose it might be possible to get them slightly sooner if you were more strict than I.
So feedback? Does this seem accurate or am I missing something?
