Etiquette and Empathy above everything else, especially early. First impressions are ridiculously important, I want to have at least 70 Etiquette by Turn 34 for reasons, and it’s very useful in between. I often have runs with all of Interaction and Emotion at 75 or higher.
I usually get at least Student Piloting and Operations, as it opens up a lot of options. If I want to push for Top Gun, I go up to Expert Operations. I can usually fit in a turn of Big Guns lessons while rotating through Negative on the wheel.
I usually push Intrusion to 50. There are only one or two turns of lessons I ever spend without a study bonus per run, and Intrusion 50 is important enough to be one of them.
Defensively, Reflexes, Endurance, and Contortion tend to be picked up early. Tumbling gets raised to 30 very early, often on turn 1 to stay efficient. Strength eventually gets picked up so Reflexes can be trained higher. I like to flex 30 into Chain when I have the space, to keep the right hand side of the mood wheel open. It’s not completely useless outside of this, but I do feel a little sad.
I completely ignore non-Big Guns Gunnery unless I have a very specific need. Similarly for all of Domination and Environment. Engineering and Arts also get outright skipped surprisingly often.
Intrigue 100 is fun, but there are plenty of social actions to spare, and four days is a lot. I wonder what it would be like if your cabinet bureaucrat’s bonus was “you always get the staying-put action bonus” rather than a stacking +1.