Skills and Perks:
Skills and perks are obtained by doing things in the world or spending your skill points. Skills/perks can either be 1 skill point or 10 skill points at a time. I've start by noting down my top ten skills/perks that i think are best for upgrading first, along with some graphs to show you the benefits of upgrading them. Apologies for my graphs, i hate spreadsheets.
Top ten:
1. Miner 69'er - is a perk that increases your block damage and decreases your stamina degradation when hitting blocks while using Mining Tools. I'd say this is one of the most important perks you can upgrade from the start, as having to stop every so often to regain stamina can get very annoying but you will need to have your mining tools to a certain level before you can upgrade this. Below is a graph of the increase when you upgrade.
2. Mining Tools - This is one of the skills in the game, you can improve you mining tools by either using tools to collect resources or you can spend skill points on them. You also need to increase this to certain levels to be able to upgrade minor 69'er. Below is a graph of the multiples per level.
3. The Survivor - Slows your metabolism so you don't need to eat as often and gain more wellness from everything you do!
4. Run Forest Run - Running uses 10% less Stamina per rank. Very important to rank this up.
5. The Camel - Slows you thirst so you don't have to drink as much. If you can find a water source straight away, you could hold off this for a little while but you will be drinking quite regularly.
6. Sexual Tyranosaurus - is a perk that increases your stamina gain with each level it is increased. A very useful perk in the early game, as there is a lot of running around to do, especially at night evading zombies. It works very well with the Run Forest Run perk for exploring and not having to stop to regain stamina so often. Each leveling up you do gives you an extra 20% in stamina gain.
7. Scavenging - Each skill point spent on this will increase your chance of finding good loot. I'd mix this in whilst upgrading the other main perks.
8. Steel Smithing - This perk gives your character the ability to craft various steel items. This is a seriously important perk, steel tools are way better than anything else you'll use.
9. Athletics - Upgrading this means a slower drain of Stamina and an increase in the duration the survivor can hold his breath.
10. Health Nut - This will increase your minimum and maximum wellness. Your athletics must be up to a certain level to upgrade this.
There are others that can be useful, but for when you're first starting off, these to me are the most important.