In AO we can differentiate between abilities and skills. Abilities being str, agi, sta, int, psy and sen (not body dev and nano pool although they are listed under the 'abilities' category), and skills being all the rest. This difference is important because it determines how the value for a skill/ability is calculated.
Abilities are 100% based on breed, they have nothing to do with profession. For an overview, go look at your local AO-site and see the breed chart.
Skills are a.) based on a percentage dependency on abilities (pistol is based 60% on agi and 40% on sense) and b.) based on profession in that profession determines the 'ratio' for that skill (more on 'ratio' later).
As said, abilities are solely based on breed. For a solitus that would mean a value of 6 in every abilty at the start.
Raising abilities will cost more IP for each following point. The 'ratio' by which the cost to raise an ability 1 point goes up is determined as follows: ipcost_of_the_last_raise_of_1_point + ipcost_of_the_first_raise_of_1_point/5. (The cost of the first raise of 1 point is (as far as known) determined by the developers of AO).
Example for a solitus:
So far so good, no problems here since ability scores are not influenced by the value of other abilites or skills. For skills however this is not the case, raising an ability by 1 point will not only add 1 point to the value of the ability (doh) but will possibly also add a 'free' point to one or more dependant skills (more on that below).
Abilities effect skill in the following manner: a 100% dependant skill will get an extra point for every 4 points that it's related ability rises. Note that the 1st point in every ability does not count and that values are rounded (0.5 is rounded down). All skills have a base value of 5. So seeing body dev is 100% dependant on sta, the starting value for body dev of a solitus would be: 5 + ((sta_value - 1)/4) = 5 + ((6-1)/4) = 5 + 1.2 = 6.2 = 6 The body dev value of a starting atrox would be: 5 + ((sta_value - 1)/4) = 5 + ((10-1)/4) = 5 + 2.25 = 7.25 = 7
Again for the solitus, if you would never raise body dev but would raise sta from 6 to 37, your body dev would get a value of 14 ---> (5 + ((37-1)/4) = 5 + 9 = 14
Note that profession does not have anything to do with these values yet.
Skills that depend on more then one ability are weighed based on the percantage they depend on that ability (a 'free' point in pistol would be based 60% on agi and 40% on sen).
Skill starting values are based on breed (a base of 5 points for each skill + the free points based on abilities). The cost to first raise a skill is based on profession.
Similar to raising abilities, the cost to raise a skill will increase with every point. The 'ratio' for raising a skill is determined as follows: ipcost_of_the_last_raise_of_1_point + ipcost_of_the_first_raise_of_1_point/5. The cost of the first raise of 1 point is again (as far as known) determined by the developers of AO). All similar to the cost of raising abilities.
Example for an adventurer with no extra points in the abilities that pistol skill depends on (agi and sen, both at a value of 6):
Example for an adventurer with no extra points in the abilities that rifle skill depends on (agi and sen, both at a value of 6)
Now add 'free points' to the equasion (sp?). As explaned a 100% dependant skill will get 1 free point for every 4 points its parent ability is above the value of 1. These 'free points' do not count in determining the ipcost to raise that skill 1 point.
Example:
Depending on the cost of the first raise, there is a maximum that an ability or skill can be raised per level.
If the cost of the first raise is:
As far as known the IP-points gained per level are as follows:
Does your brain hurt yet ? Mine does.
I hope that in, spite of my not so perfect english sometimes, people are able to better understand the principles of the ip point distribution system after reading this.
Although the system as described above may be a bit more subtle here and there, I am pretty convinced that this is how it works, please post any comments and flaws you may notice.