Where do you recommend that we put our skill points?

[Vortex]

Originally posted by Longinus:
Put a lot into offense and defense, and if you so desire.. negotiating.

I didn't bother to put much into repairs since I just use the emergency shields when I'm low.

You don't fight Xiati very often then. I just bearly survived a simultaneous encounter with two Xiati battleships, two cruisers, and two destroyers, followed whilst my shields were only at 40% a Xiati carrier and its crusier escort.
I have shield regen 11 (three regenerators plus my skill of 1.2), Armour regen 0.8, and hull 2.5. When I started the encounter I had 16 shield capacitors and 10 emergency armour. When I finished it I had none and was down 2 fighters as well.

Spread your points out between offense,defense, shield repair, armour repair, hull repair. The first three are the most important.
In the early stages of the game Negotiation is important but after the first campaign you'll be making more money than you need from salvage so the price you get becomes pretty meaningless. I usually raise my negotion to 2. So on levels 1 through five put 1 point into each of offense, defense, shield repair, armour repair, negotiation.