New person seeking tips.

[EuchreJack]

Who needs codebreaking when I have the universal key?
Aka Glitterpistol.

I find Science to only be useful if I'm going for robot building.  Sure, it has other uses, but nothing worth the skill slot, which are rare these days.

Intimidation is far better than just a conversation skill: You can scare enemy mecha pilots into ejecting with intimidation, which means more mechas!  Extra mechas can be sold, given to lancemates, cannibalized for parts, or saved for the inevitable mecha destruction.  But you really do not need to dump many points into it: An intimidation of two will occasionally get you mechas from pilots whose machines are nearly destroyed.  More points gets them to bail out sooner and more likely.

[Snakers]

Robot building? Is that something neat to do?

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, robot building is fun.  But it is easy to run out of money, as robots require stuff to build.  In GH2, robots require armor, power cells/packs, weapons, shields, and/or personal-scale computers (such as the datapad, the visor, or the armband).  None of it is cheap, especially if you want to build a good robot.

As far as just winning the game, robotics would probably just make the beginning-mid game harder.